Tag Archives: novels

“The adverb is not your friend.”

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Stephen King’s 20 Rules For Writers 1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience. “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the … Continue reading →

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Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

An excerpt from If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino Translated by William Weaver So, then, you noticed in a newspaper that If on a winter’s night a traveler had appeared, the new book by Italo Calvino, who hadn’t published … Continue reading →

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Call For The Dead

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Last week, Viking announced that this year—which happens to be the 60th anniversary of the publication of John le Carré’s first novel, Call for the Dead—they will publish the late writer’s twenty-sixth, and likely last, novel, Silverview. Silverview will be … Continue reading →

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Belief and Technique by Jack Kerouac

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

 

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The Parable of the Author

Posted on September 7, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

I am not a big re-reader of books, but at the start of the pandemic I picked-up a copy of Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower. If you are not familiar with the novel, it was published in 1993, but was … Continue reading →

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Yes, it can happen here

Posted on September 3, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

There are a few memorable books that I read during my childhood that had profound influence on my social and political consciousness. Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here was one that I’ve never forgotten. The book was published during the rise … Continue reading →

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Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

This wonderful volume is the 1934 Limited Editions Club re-issue of Erewhon by the English Novelist Samuel Butler, with a special introduction by Aldous Huxley, and illustrated with 10 color lithographs and reproductions of 30 line drawings by American artist Rockwell Kent. The edition of … Continue reading →

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Every Man Dies Alone

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Brian D. Butler

Until ten years ago Hans Fallada was a forgotten German novelist who had a moderately successful career until the rise of the Nazis. When he died in a sanatorium in 1947, Fallada was struggling with a long term addiction to … Continue reading →

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Happy 200th Herman

Posted on June 19, 2019 by Brian D. Butler

With all of the hullabaloo about local literary star Walt Whitman’s 200th anniversary celebrations, I completely missed the fact that it is also the 200th birthday of Herman Melville. To celebrate the anniversary, Chronicle Books has published this splendid pop-up … Continue reading →

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Hope For All Of Us

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Brian D. Butler

The Bookseller has reported that Silence Under a Stone, by the 81-year-old Irish writer Norma MacMaster, has been shortlisted for the Society of Authors’ Awards. What is noteworthy is that it is also Norma’s debut novel. The book, which the Independent … Continue reading →

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