A comfort book is just as the name suggests: a personally significant piece of literature, typically fiction, that brings a person solace and allows for an escape from reality.
Finding Time to Read for Fun
As I’ve gotten older, busier, and generally more stressed, I’ve noticed something sad about myself: I seldom read for fun anymore. When I was a growing up in the truly riveting hubbub of Morro Bay, California I would make a conscious effort to sit myself down and read a gosh darn novel or even just … Continue reading Finding Time to Read for Fun
Reading Murakami
There is something that happens almost every time I finish a Haruki Murakami story—something that I now feel I have the precedent to call The Murakami Effect. A quick google search has alerted me of the fact that this term has been used countless times before, but it’s fine. Murakami can have multiple effects. I … Continue reading Reading Murakami
The Purity of Imperfection
On a humid September evening, in the astonishingly not-well-air-conditioned children’s section of a cozy San Francisco bookstore, I sat beside my girlfriend in a crowd of unabashedly pretentious literary folk, eagerly awaiting the arrival of my favorite author, Jonathan Franzen, who was to read from his new novel, Purity. But here’s the thing: As he … Continue reading The Purity of Imperfection
How to Pretend to Have Read Books Without Really Trying
Like most college students—and like all who wear lens-less glasses—I entered freshmen year entirely assured I was uniquely well-read. My first year taught me three important things (in addition to imparting on me the wisdom that lens-less glasses picked me out as uniquely unlikeable): First, my taste in books was not unique (however at the … Continue reading How to Pretend to Have Read Books Without Really Trying
On Reading What You Want To and What You Don’t
I often find myself wondering why I’ve come to enjoy the things that I do. The literature that I prefer to consume occasionally has acknowledgeable intellectual or literary merit, but more often than not, it is not “capital L” literature. It’s very lowercase L. It probably has elves in it. Or spaceships. And I’m not … Continue reading On Reading What You Want To and What You Don’t
Essay: Sci-Fi and the Trick to World Building in Creative Fiction
Sci-Fi. An abbreviation that has the power to invoke utter joy or disgust given the beholder of the topic. I personally used to be one of the blind that discredited this genre as gimmicky and meritless. Though I appreciated the concepts and imagination, I never considered anything even faintly classified as science fiction to be … Continue reading Essay: Sci-Fi and the Trick to World Building in Creative Fiction
Artwork: Whose woods these are I think I know…
While it’s easy to forget stories, their details, characters, and perhaps even the imagery so painstakingly created for the page, it’s unnervingly difficult to forget the impression it leaves upon you. Cold, slippery, and often creeping into your thoughts long after the story itself has been filed away and stored in memory, old emotions from … Continue reading Artwork: Whose woods these are I think I know…
Artwork: Lana Turner Has Collapsed
This charcoal and ink drawing was inspired by Frank O’Hara’s poem, “Lana Turner Has Collapsed.” I had always loved the poem, and was inspired to draw this image when my English GSI this semester said O’Hara was one of her favorite poets. This poem had always haunted me, especially as someone who grew up in … Continue reading Artwork: Lana Turner Has Collapsed
On the Intellectual Merits of Genre Fiction
We all know genre fiction. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are the most well-known examples, but most any fantasy (Eragon, A Song of Ice and Fire) or science fiction (Ender’s Game, Dune) counts. These kinds of stories, while many are popular, are rarely if ever touted in academia, and often lack credibility in … Continue reading On the Intellectual Merits of Genre Fiction
BERKELEY FICTION REVIEW 