tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4897781042208132202026-06-30T03:42:07.942-04:00Commentary-Essay-OpinionBookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.comBlogger296125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-60221383420849886632021-05-16T20:06:00.020-04:002023-03-07T12:20:22.310-05:00

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BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-62713136361799064892019-01-06T10:48:00.000-05:002019-01-06T10:48:14.841-05:00

Rhinoceros My head It's a head with still some hair My heart It's a heart with still some love My body Used, slowing, a rhinoceros Without a horn Approaching extinction My soul Is it still me for an hour? Existential crisis I've run that gamut before Just softening the blow Of a million Frazier left hooks That rhino armor will deflect Yet not erase My youth My life. © 2019 by

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-85010565583566030992018-12-02T12:02:00.000-05:002018-12-02T12:14:21.190-05:00

Published in 1930, Narcissus and Goldmund, was Hermann Hesse's tenth novel. Like much of his work before, it is a tale of the quest for meaning in one's life. Goldmund is a young student at a Catholic monastery, where he meets and befriends an influential teacher, Narcissus. After a sexual awakening, Goldmund leaves the monastery and his mentor, to wander the world in search of experience. The

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-9139044602762753162018-11-21T12:57:00.000-05:002018-11-21T13:01:23.131-05:00

Controller by Jesse Kellerman My rating: 2 of 5 stars I listened to the audio version of this. I have to say, the narrator completely diminishes the work by wildly overacting. He adds flourish were none should exist, often gets the inflection wrong, invents character voices that are cartoonish at best (Think Mrs. Bighead of Rocko's Modern Life). I'll need to go back and read this through to be

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-86599323524407875322018-10-28T17:33:00.000-04:002018-10-29T20:35:07.926-04:00

Mercy, Mercy Me Elliot Ackerman has turned his attention away from the Syrian civil conflict, the setting of his previous novel, Dark at the Crossing, and has focused instead on the horrific aftermath of war in his new slim volume, Waiting for Eden. A former decorated marine who has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, the author has written a kind of Johnny Got His Gun for the

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-700030421825340512018-09-09T15:48:00.002-04:002018-09-09T15:59:44.187-04:00

Elegy for a Dancer Amid the backdrop of the frozen hills of South Dakota, in the 1960s, there lived a family, typically American, struggling to survive, with dreams and aspirations to be fulfilled or forgotten. Thus the setting of Paula Saunders' first novel, The Distance Home. We are told it is an autobiographical work, based on the author's early life coming of age in a, both literally

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-85283344764463143492018-05-28T14:31:00.000-04:002018-05-28T16:23:42.373-04:00

&nbsp; Arbor Day What of the life of a tree? Will it live on to sing its epic ballad, vibratory, electric, never ceasing to deliver free food and shelter for itself and other species? Or will it be cut short by a race of highly evolved life forms who, in the thrall of rabid capitalism, will do anything to show a quarterly profit? This is one of the question raised by Richard Power's latest

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-2234360143472679922018-04-24T12:18:00.000-04:002018-04-24T12:20:15.735-04:00

The Temple Bar section of Dublin My wife and I&nbsp; have wanted to visit Ireland for a long time, so finally, one year after our 25th wedding anniversary, we've pulled the trigger on an 11 day tour in October. The plan is to fly to Dublin, rent a car, spend four days in very nice hotel outside the city, on Dublin Bay. We will make day trips to the city of Dublin as well as to other

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-41555111344479341862017-12-10T12:14:00.001-05:002018-05-10T15:23:36.401-04:00

We, The Doppelgängers Once a younger man fresh out of High School, working full time pulling data cable in New York City, I'd had a revelation. People were not as unique as I had once thought, rather they seemed to me now to run in subsets, were categorical, could be classified. There were a few individuals I had met in my teens that reminded me of characters I was then encountering in

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-72287731908463457712017-11-24T15:44:00.001-05:002017-11-28T17:29:02.417-05:00

Cover art of the Written World by Martin Puchner &nbsp; Let There Be Lit &nbsp; What do the actions of the Apollo 8 astronauts have to do with the influence of literature on human civilization? Well, according to Martin Puchner the author of the new reference work The Written World - How Literature Shaped Civilization, the first observers of the phenomenon called Earthrise responded in

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-20308209167915479162017-11-08T11:54:00.000-05:002017-11-20T09:02:26.181-05:00

Corny: "I haven't used real butter In years Only eat this fake crap now the Colorful plastic tub Slather it on the baked potatoes&nbsp; All you like Won't hurt you none" as a left eye&nbsp; Twitched some His gleaming mouth,&nbsp; greasy rictus&nbsp; His wife Jo either laughed&nbsp;&nbsp; Or sneezed The family mutt stared&nbsp; Up at me&nbsp; A faint growl hissing Bared

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-62978755582562168462017-10-15T16:12:00.001-04:002017-10-16T09:29:34.125-04:00

American cover art for The Shape of Bones* &nbsp; Bad Blood When Hermano was very young, say ten years old, he would ride his bicycle as fast as he could through the dangerous hilly streets of Esplanada, his Brazilian hometown. Once, after what had become a fairly typical occurrence: a painful and bloody wipe out on an unyielding macadam surface, Hermano wipes away the tears to spy an old

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-2707120049037306912017-09-14T17:22:00.000-04:002017-10-17T08:56:32.309-04:00

Homunculus&nbsp; &nbsp; Ago I watched a woman coax A fellow back from death. Sand clung to the drowned Man's shoulder, briny fluid Dripped from clustered hair Breath pushed lung to throat In that moment inelastic life Crashed back upon the dead like a shadow tsunami A curl of pale and bilious gas Fumed from chimney nostrils Solidified in black to wight A crowd appeared

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-51688371126080750082017-06-23T10:36:00.003-04:002018-09-14T11:42:23.007-04:00

Thanatophobia OK, so I came to this one kind of late, it was written way back in 1985 after all, quite a different world then, but I loved the spot-on irony and profuse dead-pan humor, the innocent sarcasm of DeLillo's beleaguered characters. I have always admired the author's diagnostic ability regarding American zeitgeist. Perhaps it budded here and bloomed with Underworld in 1997. The

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-28178663111800938152017-04-23T15:12:00.003-04:002017-05-31T13:32:48.463-04:00

On The Shelf: A new novel by Joshua Cohen The Book of Joshua (Cohen) There is a harsh comparison drawn between Israeli veterans and American veterans in Joshua Cohen's newest novel, Moving Kings; likewise a contrast of the divergent cultures of the allied powers. Of course with a main character named David King, it's also hard to miss the biblical metaphors throughout (his previous novel

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-23923885233622745722017-04-15T11:23:00.000-04:002017-04-15T14:43:15.017-04:00

Rachel Cusk &nbsp; Vicarious What happens when a novelist travels from Britain to Greece to teach a week-long summer course on writing? Not a whole hell of a lot, yet this is the breadth of Rachel Cusk's Outline, the first part of a prospective a trilogy of introspective novels. Fear not, there is a quite a lot packed in these pages. The narrator, Faye, is a very good listener and we are

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-90218584116819718802017-03-12T13:56:00.000-04:002017-04-11T12:07:26.943-04:00

Figure in the desert w/ boom box &nbsp; The Incredible Shrinking Man Everyone of a certain age has experienced it: an almost imperceptive loss of stature, that skosh contraction of size at first only you will notice. It is measurable although you may be loathe to measure it; the distance from heel to crown has declined. You've shrunk; perhaps not only in height but by analogy in

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-49922849916980129202017-02-28T14:25:00.000-05:002017-04-10T11:29:07.884-04:00

Does this happen to you?: Browsing through a list of new books you find find yourself discounting many of them solely on their titles. Banal, hackneyed, or trite phrases beg you to move on until some unique pairings of words or intriguing syllabic syntax draw you in, suddenly powerless under their spell. After all, titles are one's first impression of an author's work. With so many of

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-49595931025517004582016-12-04T16:22:00.002-05:002017-04-09T12:36:42.755-04:00

We strolled the broken sidewalks&nbsp; Of a little chilly lake town Caught between mountains Talking about art and money Smelling curiously of aged wood About who cared anymore for culture And stopped in to lunch at A corner cafe where two meals&nbsp; Cost us twenty because we were hungry I snapped a photo of the storybook Book store's curlicue gingerbread For a moment we were

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-47674033574427045312016-10-10T14:29:00.000-04:002017-04-11T11:58:46.390-04:00

r Sarah Vowell &nbsp;The Tittering Traveler Sarah Vowell is a refreshing voice in Non-Fiction, specifically History. She always strives for the alternate view, inserting herself smack in the middle of these, what I would call, extended essays, many of which unfold in untrodden territory.&nbsp; Her audio books feature her own quirky delivery I'd first admired on NPR radio. At times

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-20481606583867404782016-08-30T10:18:00.000-04:002016-09-01T16:03:36.204-04:00

&nbsp;At a Trump Rally The specter of these faces in the horde &nbsp; &nbsp; Snowflakes on an ice black creek © 2016 by Michael Jones

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-19798915286602140092016-08-29T12:05:00.001-04:002016-09-11T14:52:00.435-04:00

In lazy rhythym A supple umber leaf falls &nbsp;One's life passes by © 2016 by Michael Jones

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-74428448132439270492016-08-21T13:32:00.002-04:002017-04-11T12:01:48.748-04:00

Dutch novelist Herman Koch &nbsp;Meta Mystery Tour In the Dutch writer Herman Koch's latest novel in translation, Dear Mr. M, there is a character named Herman; a charismatic but troubled youth, budding filmmaker, Svengali. Is he meant to represent the author himself? Maybe we'll never know, perhaps it's not even relevant, but it adds another layer of mystery to the reader's understanding

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-75853796153322052602016-08-10T10:58:00.001-04:002016-08-12T16:46:43.907-04:00

Billionaire Trump pointing to his most volatile asset Anyone else get the feeling that Donald Trump subconsciously does not really want to be POTUS? He will avow that he is the best choice (at anything; he's the king of superlatives. He is the best, the biggest, he is a winner and everyone who disagrees with him is a loser, the worst, a complete disaster) but deep deep down, I don't think he

BookJoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18214339200223490181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489778104220813220.post-20337675101977938632016-06-22T13:09:00.000-04:002017-04-11T12:11:05.774-04:00

David Foster Wallace with man's best friend &nbsp; A Slightly Strange and Wonderfully Honest Voice We Will Never Hear Again David Foster Wallace must have been one strange and wonderful cat. I don't know for sure since I did not know him or even follow his career and personal life till only recently, but my impression of him through his writing and interviews tell me I'm right. He was a

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