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Jumping the Rails: On ‘Slade House’ and Not on ‘The Sixth Extinction’
Posted on November 16, 2015 1 Comment
By Ryan Joe I decided to make like Colin Kaepernick’s career and jump the rails. Instead of reading this week Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction — which I’ve every intention of reading — I picked up David Mitchell’s Slade House. I grabbed Mitchell’s haunted house/Hansel and Gretel fairy tale at the behest of our friend Chandler, […]
Coming Home Again: On Books, Travel, Life, More Books, and the Green Bay Packers
Posted on November 13, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Rob Casper I feel like I need to write my fellow FBC folk an apology note. I did not mean to be absent; in fact, over the course of the first few weeks I realized how invaluable reading you and writing to you could be. But then my life overwhelmed me: five trips in […]
Funny as Hell: On Hyperbole and a Half
Posted on October 17, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Ryan Joe I was thrilled to read Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half because finally, finally, I found out where all those memes are coming from. Though I go through a lot of comics, I rarely do so online. It’s hard for me to read for pleasure through a screen. Of course, I use […]
My Life in Ruins and Whacky Childhoods: The Highlights Reel
Posted on October 13, 2015 3 Comments
By Yona Harvey 1. Cartoonist Allie Brosh and novelist Steven Millhauser immerse readers in the warped worlds of children. But after that, Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half and Millhauser’s Edwin Millhouse part ways. At no point does Brosh declare herself a precocious genius or claim to tell a genius tale. Quite the opposite: “I was […]
Unhealthy Attachments: On the 49ers, Piles of Bodies, and ‘Edwin Mullhouse’
Posted on October 12, 2015 6 Comments
By Ryan Joe I watched the final drive of the San Francisco 49ers game against the New York Giants. The one where the 49ers are winning until Eli Manning looking all slack-jawed flings a last-second touchdown. My mood is surprisingly dark right now. You know what else is surprisingly dark? Edwin Mullhouse by Steven Millhauser. […]
Embracing Your Tinfoil Hat: On the Levels of Reality in ‘Edwin Mulhouse’
Posted on October 11, 2015 5 Comments
By Dan Bjork It feels good to be back in fiction. Writing about poetry proved to be both easier and harder than I’d expected: it was much easier to find something to say, and then much harder to say it with any clarity. And last week’s non-fiction post was solely inspired by the voice in […]
The Crimes of the Biographer Jeffrey Cartwright: Conspiracy Theories and ‘Edwin Mullhouse’
Posted on October 9, 2015 1 Comment
By Adam Boretz After finishing Edwin Mullhouse, I initially thought I would write about Steven Millhauser’s amazing depictions of childhood – the games and comics and bike rides and adventures of two young boys in late-1940s and early-1950s Connecticut. However, the more I thought about the book, the more I became confused about – and […]
Book Extras: ‘Hyperbole and a Half’
Posted on October 7, 2015 Leave a Comment
If you just can’t get enough of Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half, check out these video interviews with Brosh from The New York Times, Amazon, Google, and AVideoMagazine. And be sure to check back later this week for FBC’s reactions to Edwin Mullhouse — and next week, when we’ll be sounding off on Hyperbole and […]
Book 5: Allie Brosh’s ‘Hyperbole and a Half’
Posted on October 5, 2015 2 Comments
This week, Football Book Club will be reading Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh, chatting about Steven Millhauser’s Edwin Mullhouse, and bemoaning life without the National Football League — as well as the shittiness of our respective teams. Including excerpts from Brosh’s web comic/blog of the same name and new […]
Book 4: Steven Millhauser’s ‘Edwin Mullhouse’
Posted on September 28, 2015 Leave a Comment
This week, Football Book Club will be reading Steven Millhauser’s Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright and talking about Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear — and the sadness of life without the NFL. Pulitzer Prize-winner Millhausuer’s debut novel operates as a biography of the late Mullhouse — the fictional […]
