Reading Log

Feb 17, 2010 01:47AM

Thomas Cooper's Phantasmagoria is another very well done chapbook of flash fiction. His style tends toward the more surreal and magic realist modes and he does those very effectively.
4 out 5 stars.


Feb 19, 2010 01:30AM

Finished A Nest of Hooks by Lon Otto which consists of stories ranging in length from an average sized paragraph to one of almost novella length. The quality of the writing is very high. Otto shows great sensitivity to the subtlties of male/female relationships and the stories are expertly crafted structurally with a nice arc to the unfolding of events and often a particularly poignant or insightful ending. The 1978 publication date might account for what, for me, felt like a kind of old fashionedness to the realism on offer here but then, my reading has focused heavily on the newest crop of literary talent for quite some time now so that's not too surprising. Anyway, A Nest of Hooks is fine stuff.