tobyreads – Page 5 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

#tobyreads: Trauma, Daily Routine, and Decisive Observations

May 9, 2014 No Comments

Reading the first few pages of Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State, the reader might get a certain set of expectations; its narrator, Mireille, begins to recount the moment in which she was kidnapped from outside of her family’s home in Haiti. Her voice in these passages is lucid, controlled; that it’s at a remove, that it’s being told from an unspecified moment in the future, offers the prospect of rescue, the idea that her abduction will be a temporary condition.

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#tobyreads: Impressions of Culture, Delivered With Style

May 2, 2014 No Comments

Reading the right book–or essay, or story, or interview–can help point you in the direction of other notable work, either through deft writing about the work of another writer or through an acknowledged influence or homage. It might go without saying that, after reading What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, Lynne Tillman’s new collection of nonfiction, my to-read list increased exponentially. As did, come to think of it, my to-reread list.

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#tobyreads: Harrowing Stories, Powerfully Told

April 25, 2014 No Comments

The three books up for discussion this week are all, to one extent or another, abrasive. These are not always pleasant reads: whether recounting actual events or delving into the world of fiction, there are scenes to be found that can only be described as harrowing. Sean Madigan Hoen first landed on my radar over a decade ago, when I was editing a zine and reviewing a whole lot of hardcore records. His band at the time, Thoughts of Ionesco, […]

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#tobyreads: Impressively Disorienting Works From Hopkinson, VanderMeer, and Brubaker

April 18, 2014 No Comments

Lately, I’ve been craving good science fiction. This isn’t an impulse born from discontent or dissatisfaction: I’ve also been reading a lot of good science fiction. Maybe it’s due to having heard Warren Ellis speak last week; Ellis’s work often inspires me to seek out interesting speculative fiction and reminds me of the ways that our world can evoke the uncanny.

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#tobyreads: Prophets and Radicals, Uneasily Rendered

April 4, 2014 No Comments

So I went to see Noah last weekend, and left with deeply mixed feelings. On the up side, some of the images and scenes in it are among the most jarring and searing in director Darren Aronofsky’s filmography. (Yes, this includes the demonic refrigerator in Requiem for a Dream.) More problematic was the gulf between the film’s aspirations towards psychological realism in the midst of an ages-old story that, in its broad outlines, isn’t intended as a vessel for nuanced character studies. And […]

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#tobyreads: The Unreal is Here

March 28, 2014 No Comments

Well, I tried. Given that the folks at Flavorwire are prompting the reading and re-reading of a number of Shirley Jackson novels, I figured I’d delve into a few myself, beginning with The Haunting of Hill House. Said novel fell into the category of books I’d been meaning to read for ages but hadn’t; after reading the first 50-odd pages of the used copy I’d bought earlier in the month, I could see why. Jackson’s command of mood and atmosphere was […]

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#tobyreads: Journeys into Technique, Journeys into the Weird

March 21, 2014 No Comments

So I read MFA vs. NYC this week. I’d encountered a couple of the essays in it earlier–some in the pages of N+1; others at readings or excerpted elsewhere. And as collections of work go, it comes highly recommended: it’s an accurate summation of the debates around writing and the studying of it as you’re likely to find. Though looking to it for defined answers might be more difficult: the anthology offers up a host of points of view, each of which […]

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#tobyreads: Looming Tomes and History’s Weight

March 14, 2014 No Comments

When I was in Portland earlier this month, I was told that I needed to read Justin Hocking’s memoir The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld. The recommendation came from Michael Heald, who knows a thing or two about good nonfiction; I was in the midst of talking about various anxieties and frustrations relative to life in New York, writing, and other things, and he suggested that Hocking’s memoir would be a useful thing to read. I’m tempted to say that he’s right. […]