I recently finished Ted Chiang's sci-fi short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others, an engaging, smart, and varied set of stories that stretch and contract and circle back on themselves in surprising ways. I have always enjoyed science fiction, but I can...
A short history lesson: poker began to be televised in the late 1990s. What was once a card game played in casinos and at family card tables was now a television sensation. Thanks to the “hole cam”, viewers at home could see each player’s hand and watch as master card...
It's early days in 2021, but in March it will have been a year since we first went into lockdown due to COVID-19. And if this winter has shown us anything so far it's that, even with a vaccine, we have a ways to go before we can return to what used to be considered...
John le Carre, the master of espionage fiction, died this past weekend. A former MI5 and MI6 spy for Britain, his novels showed the solitary, cynical, morally ambiguous (and/or dubious) struggles spies and government officials operate in. I haven't read any of his...
I've only ever seen New York City through a glowing screen. Movies, news broadcasts, TV shows, photographs of the Empire State Building, or just from interviews with New Yorkers who are seemingly never shy about talking about how great their city is. It's almost as if...
I know we normally talk about books on this blog, but the book I was going to write about this week is not widely available at the moment, so instead I'm going to talk about a movie which inspired a book (eventually a series) I enjoy. Rashomon, winner of the Academy...
If you have decided to read this post, I’m going to you assume you either really like Ulysses and want to read me gush about how wonderful and unique and smart it is, or you don’t like Ulysses and want to read me verbally tear it to pieces for being overrated, obtuse...
It's been a little over two months since the death of George Floyd, and the demands for justice and systematic change has not abated. These events have led to a flood of articles online with lists of anti-racist books and resources for people to use to educate...
It's hard to describe how strange and wonderful Samanta Schweblin's Mouthful of Birds is. I feel like I can't do these stories justice, but I am going to try: If you are looking for something to stretch your imagination and launch you into the weird this summer (a...
The weather appears to have finally (finally!) turned here in Cleveland. Soon, we will be seeing more flowers blooming and leaves growing on trees, and enjoying warm breezes passing through our windows. But as you go for your walks or get going on your spring cleaning...