Bill Chaisson (Author of Of a Feather)

Bill Chaisson is currently reading The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Bill Chaisson rated a book liked it A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nick Hornby is able, in A Long Way Down, to take a quite serious situation and make it funny. His four main characters—Martin, Jess, JJ, and Maureen—serve as first-person narrators in short alternating chapters and together they explain to the reader ...more
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Bill Chaisson rated a book it was ok The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I expected to like this book but for a number of reasons could not. The title The Genius of Birds would seem to want to be a play on "genius of place," that certain something that makes a place special. Unfortunately, no. Jennifer Ackerman means "gen ...more
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Bill Chaisson rated a book liked it Principal Products of Portugal (Prose Pieces) by Donald Hall	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In a 1995 afterword, Donald Hall calls his collection of criticism, Principal Products of Portugal, a miscellany. It is, but he groups topics together so that first we read mostly about historical subjects, then about literary ones (with a sculptor t ...more
Oct 15, 2026 08:03AM · like · see review
Bill Chaisson made a comment on Paul’s review of Go Tell It on the Mountain " ... and read The Fire Next Time. Whoa. "
Oct 14, 2026 06:32AM · see review
Bill Chaisson is currently reading The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Bill Chaisson rated a book liked it Principal Products of Portugal (Prose Pieces) by Donald Hall	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In a 1995 afterword, Donald Hall calls his collection of criticism, Principal Products of Portugal, a miscellany. It is, but he groups topics together so that first we read mostly about historical subjects, then about literary ones (with a sculptor t ...more
Oct 04, 2026 05:32AM · like · see review
Bill Chaisson made a comment on Vagabond of Letters, DLitt’s review of The History of White People " We all exist at the end of history, not in some sort of ongoing present. Therefore, no it is NOT the same for a white person to write a book called Th ...more "
Sep 29, 2026 11:32AM · see review
Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbes, #9) by Bill Watterson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Calvin is a curious kid. He is seems well versed in psychology and sociology and knows almost nothing about anything else. Well, he knows as much as the average second grader does, or whatever age he is supposed to be. I grew up on Dennis the Menace, ...more
Sep 28, 2026 05:55PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat by Bill Watterson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat by Bill Watterson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bill Chaisson is currently reading Principal Products of Portugal (Prose Pieces) by Donald Hall	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Sep 21, 2026 05:40PM · like

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The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
by Bill Bryson

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A Long Way Down
by Nick Hornby

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Nick Hornby is able, in A Long Way Down, to take a quite serious situation and make it funny. His four main characters—Martin, Jess, JJ, and Maureen—serve as first-person narrators in short alternating chapters and together they explain to the reader Nick Hornby is able, in A Long Way Down, to take a quite serious situation and make it funny. His four main characters—Martin, Jess, JJ, and Maureen—serve as first-person narrators in short alternating chapters and together they explain to the reader why they want to commit suicide and then, over the course of the ensuing 300 pages, why they will not. Hornby does not even bother to make you guess about the eventual outcome, as early on in each narrative he has each of them let you know they are telling you the reader this story as they look back on it.

In spite of the rather non-stop humor, Hornby presents some sober ruminations on life and what it means from the perspective of four people are who is thinking about ending theirs. Generally speaking, each of them as lost something that is valuable to them, and they don't think they can go on without it. This is least true of Maureen. Martin and JJ have lost fame. Jess has lost her sister. Maureen, on the other hand, has lost any semblance of a personal life because she has tied herself down to her extremely disabled son.

The central problem with the book, I suppose, is that none of the characters seems sufficiently depressed in the opening pages when we meet them on the roof of a 15-story tower block, a famous suicide spot in London, where they have all gone on New Year's Eve to do themselves in. Each of them is insufficiently prepared in one way or another to accomplish the deed, either emotionally or by literally lacking the tools to get through the high fence that surrounds the rooftop. Instead, it becomes apparent that these are four sad and lonely people who are not terribly introspective and therefore sort of lousy at dealing with their personal problems.

I am not a student of suicide and what sort of ideation leads to it. Hornby did not convince me that he was describing said ideation. Then again, perhaps I am missing his point and perhaps this is because the book is too funny most of the time. None of these people commit suicide , so Hornby seems instead to be exploring the inner lives of people who think they want to commit suicide but in fact never would, except perhaps by accident. It is said that most people are prison because they had one really bad day. It may be so for at least some of the people who commit suicide. In other words, this is a book about four people who are incredibly miserable and stand a good chance of remaining that way for many years unless bad luck intervenes.

Or unless they have the good luck to all end up on the top of the same tower block together. It is necessary for us to believe that these four people would, upon meeting one another in shared dire straits, decide to form what amounts to a support group. If you don't believe this premise, then the whole novel is not going to work for you. But then, that's a Nick Hornby book for you, innit? In About a Boy he makes you believe there is a man somewhere living an isolated (miserable) life of luxury sustained by the royalties of a single novelty song written by his father. Fine. But then he constructs a relationship between said man and an unhappy boy that is, let's admit, quite improbable. And yet in that book you really want it all to work out, so you buy it.

This is less the case in A Long Way Down. By spreading the misery among four characters, Hornby perhaps making it harder on the reader; you have sympathize or empathize with four different unlikable people instead of just one. It is asking a lot. In the end, Martin, Jess, and JJ all seem to lack humility more than anything else. They had lives that were in their way, non-stop parties and then circumstances ended that status quo and they decided they needed to kill themselves. Hmm. Maureen is a different animal, but she is so mild, naive, and passive that it is difficult to enter into her desperation.

What sustained my interest in this novel was how well it was written. I like Hornby's relaxed, talky prose because it is deceptively reflective. A Long Way Down really does include some thoughtful meditations on why life is difficult and why, in spite of it all, it is worth living. His recurring message is "focus on what you've got"and the recurring motif is that each of his characters take two steps toward this understanding and repeatedly take at least one step back because they are still stuck in the way of thinking that got them in such deep shit in the first place. Hornby is in his usual fine form (I have now read four of his novels), creating believable characters in less-than-believable but acceptable-because-absurd situations and has them tell the story using metaphors and achieving insights that you believe an ordinary person might come up with and deploy.

In the end I was, however, a bit frustrated with the title, thinking the definite article would have been more appropriate. It turns out that the short way down is to jump from the top of the tower block and the long way is too safely descend the winding stairwell to the ground floor. The indefinite article suggests that there are other ways to talk yourself out of commiting suicide beyond those discovered by Martin, Jess, JJ, and Maureen. But I found myself saying, "No there isn't. There's just the one: you choose to live." ...more

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The Genius of Birds
by Jennifer Ackerman

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I expected to like this book but for a number of reasons could not. The title The Genius of Birds would seem to want to be a play on "genius of place," that certain something that makes a place special. Unfortunately, no. Jennifer Ackerman means "gen I expected to like this book but for a number of reasons could not. The title The Genius of Birds would seem to want to be a play on "genius of place," that certain something that makes a place special. Unfortunately, no. Jennifer Ackerman means "genius" in the pedestrian sense of "high intelligence." She makes half-hearted efforts to avoid anthropomorphism by talking a bit about cognition versus intelligence, but this isn't really borne out in the body of the text. In practice, she constantly compares birds to people and even digresses into vignettes about human intelligence.

Ackerman doesn't seem to like birds in a way that I recognize. I've been a birdwatcher for 55 years and I accept birds as birds, and I don't much care if they are "smart" or "dumb." I find them fascinating precisely because they are entirely different from humans. Ackerman gives you the feeling that she is straight-up more impressed by and interested in smart birds because they are smart. This seems eerily reminiscent of the upper-middle class tendency to value people in white-collar professions over those in blue-collar professions, as if a middle management guy at a widget factory is automatically smarter than the foreman out on the floor.

I found the structure of the book to be choppy and repetitive. The chapters ostensibly address different aspects of "genius," but Ackerman can't seem to help throwing in off-topic stories. Furthermore, the chapters themselves seem comprised of half-told stories strung together without any development of the theme. She cites an army of bird researchers, but you are never given the opportunity to know any of them as people. John McPhee set a very high bar in this regard, but Elizabeth Kolbert is better at it than Ackerman.

I see that other books she has written seem to include a larger personal component. This may be her forte and she either didn't let herself enlarge on that aspect of the narrative in The Genius of Birds or she was told not to by an editor. Either way it seems like a mistake. In the little snippets of personal information that she shares, Ackerman comes across as an interesting person, but there is so little inserted here that it seems more of a bug than a feature.

The book deserves two stars because there is a lot of interesting information in here. It is just a little lost in a welter of repeated exposition and fragmentary personal injections. Given the number of researchers she cites and the number of different places she visits, this book took a lot of time and effort. Ackerman exerted so much effort that she wanted to include everything. It doesn't work. ...more

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Principal Products of Portugal by Donald Hall

Principal Products of Portugal (Prose Pieces)
by Donald Hall

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In a 1995 afterword, Donald Hall calls his collection of criticism, Principal Products of Portugal, a miscellany. It is, but he groups topics together so that first we read mostly about historical subjects, then about literary ones (with a sculptor t In a 1995 afterword, Donald Hall calls his collection of criticism, Principal Products of Portugal, a miscellany. It is, but he groups topics together so that first we read mostly about historical subjects, then about literary ones (with a sculptor thrown in at the end), far too many (for my taste) about sports, and then finishing up with history again. You have to have extremely catholic taste to enjoy every essay in this book.

The afterword is a bit of autobiography in which Hall is uncharacteristically humble; he is candid about his learning curve on the way to being a freelance writer in various contexts and genres. Although I majored in poetry writing, I was never much of a poet, so I moved very comfortably into writing freelance prose pieces and then working as a staff writer and editor. Donald Hall is, of course, an accomplished and well known former Poet Laureate, so the transition to writing for a popular audience in prose was a bit rough. Of course he aimed high, not hesitating to submit to the New Yorker and the Atlantic. He talks about writing differently for the New Yorker versus the likes of Yankee but frankly Hall’s voice is generally speaking his own throughout.

And you have to decide how much you like that voice, which is very mid-century male with liberal politics but pretty fusty cultural sensibilities. I have to say that I found his opinions about poetry to be uninteresting. But that is because he spends a lot of time attempting to convince us that poets like Andrew Marvell are still worth reading without establishing a line of descent that really explains Marvell’s influence. In fact, he can be a bit like this about baseball. “Pitching Forever” is an attempted panegyric about the beauty of the sport, but I was not won over. I already know that there is no clock in baseball and just don’t think of that as such a great thing and he never really lays out why it is.

As it happens, I work in the same small town where Hall and his wife, Jane Kenyon, lived after 1975. I do very much like how he writes about the culture of this region. He had been coming here since he was six weeks old and his mother’s family has deep roots here through both of her parents. Hall really respects this rural place, a rare quality in his particular demographic, which is to say 20th century suburbanites. He does not sentimentalize (much) and he certainly never makes fun. In other words, his most personal essays are the best ones here. That is not to say that the others are bad. His day with Henry Moore is really quite a lot of fun and made me want to read the whole book. His take on Henry Adams is affectionate, which is an accomplishment for such a dour, cold fish as Adams. His era of sports is older than mine, so his portrait of Carlton Fisk, for example, was of more interest than the one of Red Auerbach. Bob Cousy, however, really did come to life through Hall’s pen.

While this isn’t an essential collection, it includes so many different topics that there is probably something here for most readers. And that Hall felt comfortable (eventually) with writing about so many things is impressive. Among his contemporaries he has, for example, more range than Peter Matthiessen, or even John McPhee. ...more

Bill Chaisson made a comment on Paul’s review of Go Tell It on the Mountain

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

" ... and read The Fire Next Time. Whoa. "

Bill Chaisson is currently reading

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel van der Kolk

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Principal Products of Portugal (Prose Pieces)
by Donald Hall

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In a 1995 afterword, Donald Hall calls his collection of criticism, Principal Products of Portugal, a miscellany. It is, but he groups topics together so that first we read mostly about historical subjects, then about literary ones (with a sculptor t In a 1995 afterword, Donald Hall calls his collection of criticism, Principal Products of Portugal, a miscellany. It is, but he groups topics together so that first we read mostly about historical subjects, then about literary ones (with a sculptor thrown in at the end), far too many (for my taste) about sports, and then finishing up with history again. You have to have extremely catholic taste to enjoy every essay in this book.

The afterword is a bit of autobiography in which Hall is uncharacteristically humble; he is candid about his learning curve on the way to being a freelance writer in various contexts and genres. Although I majored in poetry writing, I was never much of a poet, so I moved very comfortably into writing freelance prose pieces and then working as a staff writer and editor. Donald Hall is, of course, an accomplished and well known former Poet Laureate, so the transition to writing for a popular audience in prose was a bit rough. Of course he aimed high, not hesitating to submit to the New Yorker and the Atlantic. He talks about writing differently for the New Yorker versus the likes of Yankee but frankly Hall’s voice is generally speaking his own throughout.

And you have to decide how much you like that voice, which is very mid-century male with liberal politics but pretty fusty cultural sensibilities. I have to say that I found his opinions about poetry to be uninteresting. But that is because he spends a lot of time attempting to convince us that poets like Andrew Marvell are still worth reading without establishing a line of descent that really explains Marvell’s influence. In fact, he can be a bit like this about baseball. “Pitching Forever” is an attempted panegyric about the beauty of the sport, but I was not won over. I already know that there is no clock in baseball and just don’t think of that as such a great thing and he never really lays out why it is.

As it happens, I work in the same small town where Hall and his wife, Jane Kenyon, lived after 1975. I do very much like how he writes about the culture of this region. He had been coming here since he was six weeks old and his mother’s family has deep roots here through both of her parents. Hall really respects this rural place, a rare quality in his particular demographic, which is to say 20th century suburbanites. He does not sentimentalize (much) and he certainly never makes fun. In other words, his most personal essays are the best ones here. That is not to say that the others are bad. His day with Henry Moore is really quite a lot of fun and made me want to read the whole book. His take on Henry Adams is affectionate, which is an accomplishment for such a dour, cold fish as Adams. His era of sports is older than mine, so his portrait of Carlton Fisk, for example, was of more interest than the one of Red Auerbach. Bob Cousy, however, really did come to life through Hall’s pen.

While this isn’t an essential collection, it includes so many different topics that there is probably something here for most readers. And that Hall felt comfortable (eventually) with writing about so many things is impressive. Among his contemporaries he has, for example, more range than Peter Matthiessen, or even John McPhee. ...more

Bill Chaisson made a comment on Vagabond of Letters, DLitt’s review of The History of White People

The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter

" We all exist at the end of history, not in some sort of ongoing present. Therefore, no it is NOT the same for a white person to write a book called Th ...more "

Bill Chaisson rated a book it was amazing

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat by Bill Watterson

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbes, #9)
by Bill Watterson

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Calvin is a curious kid. He is seems well versed in psychology and sociology and knows almost nothing about anything else. Well, he knows as much as the average second grader does, or whatever age he is supposed to be. I grew up on Dennis the Menace, Calvin is a curious kid. He is seems well versed in psychology and sociology and knows almost nothing about anything else. Well, he knows as much as the average second grader does, or whatever age he is supposed to be. I grew up on Dennis the Menace, but Calvin takes being disobedient to a positively surreal level. And his snowmen alone convey existential malaise that Dennis never approached.

Hobbes is a satisfying sidekick because he is allowed to have some of the good punchlines. He has a leavening effect on some of Calvin’s wilder plans. In this sense he asks as sort of a lazy conscience. Sometimes he just goes along with the mayhem and sometimes he suggests that maybe they should tap the brakes. Bill Watterson does not worry about niceties like whether or not Hobbes, a stuffed cat, could walk into a room while Calvin is watching TV. He is always a stuffed cat when we see him from anyone’s perspective other than Calvin and we are in Calvin’s head Hobbes can do anything. Perfect.

Calvin’s egomania is delightful. He does not hesitate to describe himself as “one of those rare individuals destined for true greatness.” He has absolute confidence that he will win any contest he enters, that all his schemes will succeed, and that whatever is important to him is just plain important. His relationships with his parents are sort of remarkable in that they seem to truly love him even though he is completely impossible not to mention destructive. But his mother in particular does get really mad at him sometimes, which brings a dose of reality to the proceedings.

Bill Watterson’s political philosophy is your basic mainstream center-left liberal stuff. But he does have his favorite shibboleths. On academia: “I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity … Academia, here I come.” Bad media: “I know more about the private lives of celebrities than I do about any governmental policy that will actually affect me.”

The art of Bill Watterson is astonishing. The lines are strong and economical, the layout is varied and even experimental. Some strips are just four normal panels, but they can consist of 1, 2 or 3 as well. The Sunday strips can be nearly non-linear as a Marvel comic, combinations of panoramas and floating boxes, or mixtures of boxed and unboxed panels or even just 16 straight boxed panels for old time’s sake. The outdoor landscapes are detailed for tight shots and expressionistic and full of white space for wider shots. After a scene is set in the first couple of panels, Watterson may then set the characters against blank white space for the rest of the strip, leaving you to fill it in yourself.

This is one of at least eight collections of strips. One of the strange things about Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes output was how uncannily good all of it was. You really can’t go wrong by reading any of these books. ...more

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Principal Products of Portugal (Prose Pieces)
by Donald Hall

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	Of a Feather: Volume I 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Bill’s Year In Books

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Bill Chaisson

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