Subscribe:
RSS feed
journalism, criticism, ephemera, excreta
The Humbling
Philip Roth’s new novel has only been out a couple weeks now, but I knew I had to read it right away. It was a quick, breezy read—a tiny novella, like Indignation in its almost aggravating brevity—that only clocks in at 140 pages. And those are small pages with absurdly large type. To get to […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Downtown Owl
October 8, 2009
Klosterman’s non-fiction is great, as so many of his fans know, but he has stuck with the same authorial voice for his first attempt at a novel, and it doesn’t really work. It doesn’t work, but still the novel manages to entertain. It grabs you, though you never get sucked in enough to ignore the […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
The Abstinence Teacher
December 26, 2008
I’m not quite sure what went wrong for author Tom Perrotta this time around. I happen to have really liked the two books I read by him before this one. Joe College was heartfelt, funny, and pretty deep for a story ostensibly about such lighthearted fare as college social life. And Little Children—I say this […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Entourage
November 29, 2008
Like every other American man (an exaggeration, sure, but most of the guys I know), I have loved this show. I was pulled in by the chummy male cameraderie, the hot girls, the zingy one-liners, and of course by Jeremy Piven, who carries the entire program on his back. (Kevin Connolly is fantastic as well, […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
The White Tiger
November 29, 2008
When Aravind Adiga’s novel The White Tiger nabbed the Booker earlier this year, I knew I had to read it right away. The book was compared to Invisible Man and Native Son, two towering works of racial/cultural tension that I enjoyed (more the Ellison). Plus, it was getting rave reviews. But it was also stirring […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Indignation
November 29, 2008
Philip Roth is almost perfect (there’s just the problem of the ending) in his pacing of this enthralling little story. And although it’s very short, and bitterly angry in tone, it’s instantly one of my top three Roth titles. For what it’s worth, these are the other Roth novels I’ve read, in order: The Human […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
When authors intrude: Chuck Palahniuk and J.K. Rowling
September 1, 2008
I recently read Chuck Palahniuk’s second novel, Survivor. Although I didn’t think it was as fabulous as friends had promised, I did enjoy it, and I think I’m ready to admit that I would have loved it more if I had read it before I read so many of his other books. As I’ve mentioned […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Titlepage.tv
August 15, 2008
I discovered titlepage.tv thanks to Ben Chambers of The King’s English. He commented with a link to titlepage’s second episode, which contains an interview with Sloane Crosley (among three other new writers). I felt compelled to go back today and watch not just Crosley’s section, but the entire hour-long episode. I had never heard of […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Then We Came to the End vs. Personal Days
August 10, 2008
When I was in Dublin, I discovered (on the bestseller shelf at Hodges Figgis) the debut novel by Joshua Ferris, an office drone who apparently decided to write a book about his hilarious (but often distressing) workplace experiences. I went home and read the Times review, which was extremely positive. Then I went back and […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Be Kind Rewind
August 7, 2008
This is a tough one to review. It’s charming, original, and fun. Coming from any other place, this would be a fabulous movie. However, it’s not just from anyone—it’s Michel Gondry. His resume is so good that I simply couldn’t help having high expectations. And the movie didn’t meet those expectations. My biggest criticism of […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
The Dark Knight
July 30, 2008
The praise for this movie was enormous enough to make me pretty skeptical. To my friends who constantly nagged me to see it, I would say things like, “But don’t you think it’s just hyped because Ledger died? I know that’s not politically correct, but come on… if he hadn’t died there wouldn’t have been […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Divisadero
July 25, 2008
I was not excited to read this book. It was chosen as the new selection for our book club at my office (a book club I started) and I had never read anything by Michael Ondaatje before. I saw the film version of The English Patient and was not entertained. I also asked my mom […]
Posted in: DBR Blog
Recent Comments
 | Missy on Sifl and Olly |
| Missy on Sifl and Olly |
 | A Q&A with Danie… on Salman Rushdie in 2008 |
 | myleyes on Survivor |
 | Mark on Sifl and Olly |
Daniel B. Roberts 
October 18, 2009
0