Reading "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle," a novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Don't often read books in translation, but this book is special in a mysterious, metaphorical way, and it's hard for me to stay away from it. This is the first time I've read Murakami. Are you familiar with [...]
This is about Mike Tyson, but I'll start out with Charles Dickens. I am not a Dickens person -- at universities they're called Dickensians. In every Dickens novel too much crummy stuff mixes with the good stuff, for my taste. So I'm rereading Bleak House and keep begging Dickens to [...]
I'm reading "Winds of War" by Herman Wouk. It's about 1,000 pages and it's not as well-written as I'd like -- maybe, I'm a book snob. But I can't put it down. It's one of Wouk's WWII novels -- about the prelude to the war. I'm learning a lot and [...]
I don't usually read sports books and I almost never recommend them. I'm making an exception. Dan Brown, the elegant writer for the SJ Merc, just published a book about the 49ers with the long title I already wrote in the headline to this blog. It's a clever title and [...]
I can't get the death of Elmore Leonard out of my mind. So please bear with me. As you know, I had a highfalutin education in the English novel at Lafayette and Stanford, an education I love and cherish. I was taught only A-list writers: Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Charles [...]
I'm lounging around the house feeling crummy -- stuffed nose, a cough, the usual. When I feel crummy I read Elmore Leonard, a prose genius and a funny guy who cheers me up. So, I'm lying bed reading "Mr. Paradise" and I come across this bit. A crook hires a [...]
I'm reading Walter Mosley for the first time in my life. Don't know why it took so long. I just finished "Devil in a Blue Dress," and now I'm reading "Black Betty." These are both Easy Rawlins mysteries and I like them. My standard for mysteries these days is Elmore [...]
I am reading John Steinbeck's "East of Eden," one very big novel. Can you tell the class where the phrase "east of Eden" comes from? No prize offered, just an atta boy or an atta girl. Just finished "A Perfect Spy" by John Le Carre, one very great novel.
I have certain reading gaps which I am trying to address before it's too late. I never have read the Divine Comedy, for example, or Proust. And I haven't read all of Dickens even though my field, when I had a field, was the history of the English novel. So [...]
I am about to write my Sunday column on Buster Posey. Before I get started, here is the first paragraph of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. I've been thinking of old Joe lately, something I do from time to time. I give you this paragraph because I love the words: [...]
Lowell Cohn, retired columnist for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, covered sports for almost 40 years and never ran out of things to say.