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  • What do negative reader reviews of my favorite books say about me (or the stupid reviewers)?

    What do negative reader reviews of my favorite books say about me (or the stupid reviewers)?

    House of Leaves is easily one of the most impressive novels, both in terms of story and in terms of execution, that has ever been written, and likely, will ever be written. So when doo-doo heads like this mollyflower Amazon reviewer write things like:

    my immediate reaction is to dismiss this person as an impatient moron. However, when I then realize this person gave a glowing review to The Best of Mr. Bean DVD, I go from angry to compassionate. I mean, how could I hate someone with water on the brain?

    (all caps courtesy of mollyflower; he/she is damn serious about the perceived hilarity of Mr. Bean)

    Like House of Leaves, Blindness by Jose Saramago is simply an excellent piece of literature. It challenges, but also ensures a strong story with interesting characters, while delivering a unique writing style, something wholly unique to Saramago. However, if you only read this review

    you might not be willing to give the book the dedication it deserves. But I’m honest enough to entertain the idea that perhaps Geraldine Freeman, “Avid Reader” (quotes being more telling than Geraldine likely meant) and I simply won’t agree on everything. However, then I read this 5-star review

    I understand that more likely, Geraldine and I will never agree on anything. Using the powers of deduction, I can only assume she’s my exact opposite: quite racist, lover of deviled eggs, and unwilling to defend the first Limp Bizkit album in a barfight (3 Dollar Bill, Ya’ll is stellar!!!)

    Another Blindness hater:

    This reviewer actually admits that he/she did not read the book! They why the hell review it?

    Even more amazing, this reverto person goes on to hate anther amazing work of art, Regina Spektor’s Soviet Kitsch album, not for it’s musical contributions, but, get this, because the CD case is cardboard! Maybe my ears aren’t highly tuned enough to detect the acoustic shifts due to paper-based packaging. Or, more likely, reverto hates breakfast cereal, saltines, pancake mix, and facial tissues.

    If I met mollyflower, Geraldine, or reverto in a bar, we’d having nothing to talk about. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  • Horton Hears Domestic Violence in the Next Apartment and Doesn’t Call 911

    Horton Hears Domestic Violence in the Next Apartment and Doesn’t Call 911

    (part of my ongoing Unexpected Literary References series)

    In the Family Guy episode titled “Love Blactually” (Season 7, Episode 1, Aired Sep 28, 2008) Stewie picks up a copy of Horton Hears Domestic Violence in the Next Apartment and Doesn’t Call 911, an obvious riff of Dr. Suess’s Horton Hears a Who. Well, the title is a riff, anyway; Horton Hears a Who, content-wise, contains slightly less wife-beating.

    This isn’t the first time a Seth McFarlane cartoon has referenced Dr. Suess.

  • The Lit Pub says about As a Machine and Parts “This is what all great literature does.”

    The Lit Pub says about As a Machine and Parts “This is what all great literature does.”

    The Lit Pub just posted an amazing write of of As a Machine and Parts (thanks to Eddy Rathke for the kind, kind words). Here’s a bit:

    “Something I’ve always loved about Caleb’s writing is how visual and gripping his images are, and, here, he’s married his language to concrete visuals, pushing his storytelling past what I thought it could be.”

    Excited? Click over to Amazon (or anywhere else) to purchase a copy of As a Machine and Parts.

  • What’s your reading environment? (Video Blog Ep 016)

    What’s your reading environment? (Video Blog Ep 016)

    Over at LitReactor.com a thread has been started in which visitor post pictures of their reading environments. I figured, why not make a quick, impromptu episode of the The World’s First Author Video Blog, recorded where I do most of my reading. Also, I mention my newest burgeoning love, Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis, the close to finished Four Corners project, and the as-yet-unpublished new novel from Phil Jourdan.

  • Booked Podcast invites me to talk about Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters: Remix

    Booked Podcast invites me to talk about Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters: Remix

    The fine fellows at Booked Podcast, Robb Olson and Livius Nedin invited me over to discuss the reissue of Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters. Here’s a bit from the episode description:

    Booked reviews Invisible Monsters REMIX by Chuck Palahniuk, with special guest host Caleb J. Ross. It’s more of a book discussion than a review this episode, since this is not technically a new-new book, and there’s a good chance that lots of people listening will have already read it. So we talked a bit about the book, Palahniuk, and (of course) felching. As you do when you talk about Invisible Monsters.

    Click here to listen to the latest Booked Podcast episode, featuring Caleb J. Ross.

  • Currently writing Phil Jourdan and Pablo D’Stair

    Currently writing Phil Jourdan and Pablo D’Stair

    I don’t speak enough to my readers. I’ve learned this recently. Much of the content on this blog speaks to other writers (which are generally readers, for sure), but I need to change my game a bit, I think. With that in mind, I want to start writing a bit more about my in-progress projects.

    Pablo D'Stair caught by my camera in Chicago, ILI know, I know, writing about work that isn’t finished comes across as a bit masturbatory. I’ve often been annoyed by such posts. My goal here isn’t to be annoying, though. Rather, I want to give those who are interested a peek into my projects. The primary goal is to get people excited about my work. The secondary goal is to keep my current projects top-of-mind for me so that I keep my fingers to the keyboard as much as possible. Simply put, I’ve been feeling a bit unproductive lately and am looking for a way to stay motivated while possibly at the same time helping keep readers informed.

    So what’s in the hopper now? A collaboration with Pablo D’Stair with the working title of The Bettor Stories. The concept: two people at a bar make a bet: each chooses a victim for the other with the goal to get the victim to commit suicide. Whoever’s victim kills him/herself first wins. We’re in the early stages (I’ve barely started writing) but you can expect some really cool layout effects and perhaps some deep explorations of the difference between suicide and murder. This will be the first fiction collaboration ever between Pablo and myself. Long overdue, if you ask me.

    The idea for the collaboration actually came to me a couple of weeks ago during a bar conversation between myself and author/intelligencio Phil Jourdan. He asked me, hypothetically, when I look back on my life 50 years from now how would I determine whether or not I’ve lived a “good” life. I responded, jokingly, that if I could get someone to commit suicide because of my writing, then I’d have lived a good life. That got my mind spinning. When I approached Pablo with a project idea based on my response, he was cool enough to play along.

    Check back often to stay up to date on my progress.

  • Wordless Book Reviews – Mark Dunn, Adam Johnson, Steven Levy, Richard Grossman (Video Blog Ep 015)

    Wordless Book Reviews – Mark Dunn, Adam Johnson, Steven Levy, Richard Grossman (Video Blog Ep 015)

    First off, please forgive the video quality here. I was trying a new recording method, which obviously didn’t work that well.

    Here is another Wordless Book Reviews episode. Here I review four books using only sound effects and facial expressions. The books: Ella Minnow Pea: a Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn, Emporium: Stories by Adam Johnson, In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy, and The Book of Lazarus by Richard Grossman.

    Click the image above to watch the video review