Author Archives: kara

About kara

We know our letters just fine, and we know our numbers to a certain point, but books were always the realm of four-eyed poindexters with bowler hats and cravats. That’s why it pleases us so that America’s proud illiterates are finally stepping up and pushing back against the crushing tide of education that threatens to swallow us all into its gaping maw of checked facts. Champions of the Ignorantiat will not like it here.

Fake Bookstore

Posted on February 15, 2012 by kara

Argosy Book Shop, in Vertigo. When Scottie and the wonderful, fabulous, incomparable Midge go snooping for information, like a couple of teenage sleuths, on the beauteous and mysterious Carlotta Valdes, they wind up at the fictional Argosy Book Shop. It’s … Continue reading →

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Charles Dickens, 200

Posted on February 7, 2012 by kara

  It’s the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. I don’t know which of his 20+ novels is my favorite. When I think about it, I am overwhelmed. Maybe it’s Bleak House, … Continue reading →

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Posted on January 23, 2012 by kara

I just read: Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship by Emily Rapp via The Rumpus

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Captains Courageous

Posted on January 19, 2012 by kara

In the novel Lord Jim, a rusty old ship carrying 800 Muslim pilgrims across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, to the promise of salvation, the reward of eternal life, collides with a ‘floating derelict” during a “silent black squall. Terror … Continue reading →

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Posted on January 11, 2012 by kara

I have really slacked off updating this blog. It’s not that  haven’t been reading, I have. In September I sentenced myself to 6 months of self-imposed poverty. I’ve been reading about poverty. I have suffered through; the Catholic orders run … Continue reading →

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The Ghost of Christmas Presents

Posted on December 23, 2011 by kara

As a kid, “Christmas Present” was my favorite of all the Scrooge ghosts, because I thought – of course – that he was “the ghost of Christmas Presents“. And a ghost of Christmas Presents had to be the best of all … Continue reading →

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On the Nightstand

Posted on December 17, 2011 by kara

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Posted on December 16, 2011 by kara

I think Hitch explained the entire frreaking cosmos with this: “My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. … Continue reading →

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RIP

Posted on December 15, 2011 by kara

Bored to Death. originally posted August 15, 2010 There are plenty of reasons to dislike this guy. He is obnoxious. He hates Mother Theresa (“friend of poverty, enemy of the poor, fundamentalist fanatic”) and Bill Clinton (“wasted eight years of … Continue reading →

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On the Nightstand

Posted on November 27, 2011 by kara

Out of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson by Eric A. Shelman, Stephan Lazoritz

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