Posted by bennardfajardo on March 11, 2016 · 2 Comments
Where I’m from, winter is finally on its last legs. Despite the romanticism that is often associated with winter, I have never been a fan of the season. Yes, the whiteness of snowfall can often captivate a man who thrives on cynicism but hours and hours of shoveling just to clear up a few square … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Alice Munro, Because She Never Asked, Books, Enrique Villa-Matas, Essential Reading, Everything and Nothing, Jorge Luis Borges, Runaway, Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl
Posted by bennardfajardo on May 5, 2015 · 2 Comments
I am in the process of writing a massive post about my book buys from the first four months of 2015 in order to compensate for the lack of BOOKLOVE posts this year and it’s going to be a tough thing to write since I am essentially going to record the book acquisitions of a deranged … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Alice Munro, Andrea Barrett, Books, Dear Life, Essential Reading, Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, Raymond Carver, Sherwood Anderson, Ship Fever, Short Stories, Will You Please Be Quiet Please, Winesburg Ohio
Posted by bennardfajardo on January 16, 2015 · 5 Comments
2015 has just passed its one-day mark and I already have a backlog. Three of them in fact because, for the last three months of 2014, I have failed to update my BOOKLOVE feature. Sure, there have been attempts to avoid the undesirable result of having a backlog but, alas, I have no excuse why … Continue reading →
Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with After Henry, Aharon Applefeld, Alice Munro, Augustus, Badenheim 1939, Barry Hannah, Book Love, Books, Complete Short Stories, Emily St. John Mandel, Family Furnishings: Selected Stories 1995-2014, Grace Paley, Graham Greene, Hawthorn & Child, Here, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, John King, John Reed, John Williams, Keith Ridgway, Long Last Happy: New and Selected Stories, Memed My Hawk, Muriel Spark, On Modern Latin American Fiction, Richard McGuire, Snowball's Chance, Station Eleven, The Collected Stories, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, True Confessions, Yashar Kemal
Posted by bennardfajardo on December 30, 2013 · 7 Comments
This is probably my last post for this year (unless the blogging gods send their blessings) and my 80th overall. A nice round number would be a nice way to end this year in blogging (although a nice round number + 1 would be arguably better). Anyway, 2013 is almost at an end and sometimes … Continue reading →
Filed under A Year in Reading, Books · Tagged with A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A Year In Reading, Alexander Pushkin, Alice Munro, Allen Ginsberg, Any Human Heart, Bill Willingham, Books, Chew, Dance of the Happy Shades, Dangerous Laughter, David Foster Wallace, David Mitchell, Elmer, F. Scott, Fables, Fatal Eggs, George Saunders, Gerry Alanguilan, Ghostwritten, Graham Greene, Guy Gavriel Kay, Howl and Other Poems, Hunger, Jason, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jessica Hagedorn, John Layman, John Williams, Jonathan Lethem, Jorge Luis Borges, Journey into the Past, Julian Barnes, Knut Hamsun, Labyrinths, Lolita, Lysley Tenorio, Manila Noir, Max Brooks, May Day, Michael Chabon, Mikhail Bulgakov, Milan Kundera, Monstress, Motherless Brooklyn, My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro, Neil Gaiman, Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents The Art of The Short Story, Pablo Neruda, Pastoralia, Paul Auster, Porcupine, Raymond Carver, Sandman, Short Cuts, Stefan Zweig, Steven Millhauser, Stoner, Tales of Belkin, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The End of the Affair, The Master and Margarita, The New York Trilogy, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Virgin Suicides, This is Water, Tigana, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Vladimir Nabokov, Who Do You Think You Are?, William Boyd, World War Z, Yiyun Li
Posted by bennardfajardo on December 23, 2013 · 4 Comments
Finishing my last short story collection this year, Alice Munro’s Who Do You Think You Are?, I can conclude that this is a good year for short fiction. Of the 68 books that I’ve read so far for 2013, 23 were short story collections or anthologies and that is not mentioning the various short stories … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Thoughts on Short Fiction · Tagged with Alice Munro, Books, Dave Eggers, Denis Johnson, Elmore Leonard, George Saunders, James Joyce, James Salter, JG Ballard, Jorge Luis Borges, Lorrie Moore, Lourd de Veyra, Lydia Davis, Lysley Tenorio, Miranda July, Raymond Carver, Steven Millhauser, TC Boyle, Thoughts on Short Fiction, Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner
Posted by bennardfajardo on December 4, 2013 · 6 Comments
Hello! December, the end of the year, is finally here and that means that I am in the last month of my reading for the year 2013. It has been a wonderful year of reading but that should be for a different post so, for now, let me recap the books I’ve read for November … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Alice Munro, Books, Doris Lessing, Essential Reading, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Eugenides, Paul Auster, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, The Golden Notebook, The Marriage Plot, Timbuktu, Who Do You Think You Are?
Posted by bennardfajardo on July 1, 2013 · 8 Comments
I have been going into a blogging rut lately because of various disturbances in my life (rewatching sitcoms, for example) that I felt that I should at least post a short feature to hopefully restart my article production especially reviews and whatnot. Yes, baby steps first. Anyway, I just remembered that we are already halfway … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Hooliganism · Tagged with Alice Munro, Any Human Heart, Books, Dance of the Happy Shades, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Hooliganism, Hunger, Jeffrey Eugenides, Knut Hamsun, Michael Chabon, Mikhail Bulgakov, Milan Kundera, Pablo Neruda, Paul Auster, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The End of the Affair, The Great Gatsby, The Master and Margarita, The New York Trilogy, The Queue, The Virgin Suicides, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Unbearable Lightness of Being, Vladimir Sorokin, William Boyd
Posted by bennardfajardo on June 1, 2013 · 6 Comments
It has become apparent lately that I now prefer short stories/fiction over novels. I have read more short fiction titles on the months of April and May than the previous year combined and I am currently reading two short story collections penned by Alice Munro and Donald Barthelme while my copies of Lolita and Atonement, books that I am … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Thoughts on Short Fiction · Tagged with Alice Munro, Books, Boys and Girls, Dance of the Happy Shades, Donald Barthelme, JG Ballard, Miss Mandible and Me, Short Stories, Sixty Stories, The Index, The Paris Review Book for Planes Trains Elevators and Waiting Rooms, Thoughts on Short Fiction
Posted by bennardfajardo on May 14, 2013 · 5 Comments
Okay, I interrupt the regular monthly programming of this feature for a special edition of Essential Reading. Usually, Essential Reading is a monthly thing but, since today is a special kind-of day, I think it’s necessary to circumvent the usual timeline of this feature and do a special thing. Tomorrow, I’ll be flying to the … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Alice Munro, Books, Dance of the Happy Shades, Donald Barthelme, Essential Reading, John Cheever, Short Story, Sixty Stories, The Paris Review, The Paris Review Book for Planes Trains Elevators and Waiting Rooms, The Stories of John Cheever
Posted by bennardfajardo on April 1, 2013 · 8 Comments
I just had to change the featured image and the name for this monthly feature since the former is so clunky and messy while the latter is kind of obscene. So, as per the suggestion of Rhena, I changed the look and the name of this feature. Anyway, enough with the idle chitchat and on … Continue reading →
Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with Alice Munro, Birds of America, Book Love, Books, Children Playing Before A Statue of Hercules, David Bezmozgis, David Sedaris, Denis Johnson, Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage, James Salter, Jesus' Son, Last Night, Loot and Other Stories, Lorrie Moore, Miranda July, Nadine Gordimer, Natasha, No One Belongs Here More Than You, Short Stories
The Book Hooligan 