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Chit-Chat
I just put up “Query for Down to a Sunless Sea” under Pages. It has served me well, for some reason. Perhaps my credits, after all these years, are substantial. In any case it is working. Rip off the structure for your own purposes. Received a new review at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com. Jane’s introduction has been helpful; I detected some time back that when you send out a book for review throw in as much pr material as you can. The reviewers are so jammed with tasks that phrases or mini-paragraphs help them get the Zeistgeist of the book and the review…
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Query Letter for Down to a Sunless Sea
Dear Editor: I am querying you as to a possible review of Down to a Sunless Sea. This short story collection presents a variety of styles, providing a different reading experience — poetic, journalistic, nostalgic, wrlyly humorous and even macabre. “Herbie” was listed in Martha Foley’s The Best American Short Stories of 1974. I was in good company that year — Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and I.B. Singer, among others. Nine of these stories have been published in the “little” magazines over the years, the most recent in 2007 in France, La Fenetre. The range is wide, yet the…
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More Mindlit
I just completed several paragraphs when the computer ate it up; so I’ll try again. Man and his Gods by Homer Smith (1952), a medical doctor, and with a preface by Einstein, is a masterful take on the fables we believe in, our religions. Piece by piece he demolishes the fanasty shards they are constructed with. He is calmer than Christopher Hitchens’ god (not a typo) is not Great. Although Hitchens is savage when it comes to Mother Teresa (charlatan), and can make you laugh out loud, Smith demolishes religion in orderly fashion. In fact, I used the book’s title…
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My Days of Reading Are Over
I am of a mind and time of life when reading no longer counts as much. No, I am not counting on my personal literary treasure trove to last forever, drawing upon old memories of fabulous words and remarkable pages. I find it more intensely meaningful to grasp my life from moment to moment free of the written word, other people’s smarts. Living is not to be learned from books. Living has to be lived and learned from second to second. Memory is not living; recall is just a mnemonic device. I struggle to put away books and to go long…