Amara > Recent Status Updates

Found a copy at Goodwill today, already halfway through it. LOVE this one so far. Liane Moriarty is just so FUN to read!

Oh God I love this book so much. The pacing is superb and the writing is flawless. A joy to read.

My therapist lent me this book

I watched a Youtube vid with Danielewski saying you have to read 8 pages of one then 8 pages of the other? I tried this and it has a flow and the historical context makes sense but it's so boring. The poem is so out there I don't understand much. I'm trying. This is my third try with this book.

"A matter of measurements" is one of the funniest stories I have ever read. The fact that it's true and about two of the biggest celebrities of the twentieth century makes little difference.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are TOO god damn MUCH. So histrionic. So easily drunk. Paranoid. Hyperchondriacal. Jealous. Immature. True pieces of work.

"Wyndham Lewis had a face that reminded me of a frog, not a bullfrog but just any frog, and Paris was too big a puddle for him."
Hemingway's one of the great homophobic, racist, misogynists of all time. And this old white creep could WRITE.

"It was a very simple story and I had omitted the real end of it which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood."

"I was very impressed by them but I did not like their paintings. I did not understand them but they did not have any mystery, and when I understood them they meant nothing to me. I was sorry about this but there was nothing I could do about it."

"What one feels when [politicians] loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about." -David Foster Wallace, 2000

Bad Story #12, "Our court jesters will rescue the kingdom", is a call-out we need so badly right now.

"At each tee, a video of Trump greeted us, his lovely anus of a mouth extruding promotional syllables, his delicate hair panels radiating deserved self-love."

This book is so good and necessary. Steve Almond's "stories" can be accessible to most readers, he's a breeze to read even if you don't read much non-fiction. He's obviously a competent fiction writer too, and I certainly wish these "stories" were fiction.
I hope this book is read by as many Americans as possible. Please borrow it from me.