Author Archives: Daniel (@MKNN)

Reading Well: Cecilia Valdés by Cirilo Villaverde

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Hailed as perhaps the first great Cuba novel, Cecilia Valdés was first published in full 1882, when Cirilo Villaverde (then living in exile in New York City) returned to a story he had begun some forty years prior. There is … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The River by Peter Heller

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Reading Well’s very first entry was Peter Heller‘s The Painter. Four and a half years and many write-ups later, we find Heller’s The River (2019). The novel traces two college friends as they kayak and camp along a river in … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I thoroughly loved Marlon James‘ A Brief History of Seven Killings, and when Black Leopard Red Wolf (2019) began generating next-Game-of-Thrones type buzz, I became quite intrigued. Luckily, the buzz is both justified and not. Or, more accurately, the buzz … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Importance of Being Iceland by Eileen Myles

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

A loosely structured collection of essays, The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009) by Eileen Myles offers a small window into a particular moment; specifically the New York art scene of the 1990s and early 2000s. In … Continue reading →

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Reading Graphically: Two by Tillie Walden

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I mentioned two short works by Tillie Walden in a Reading Graphically post. Her two longer graphic novels deserve some attention, too. First, there is Spinning (2017), which tells of her time as a competitive youth figure skater, first in … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I usually really react well to J.M. Coetzee’s work (see Disgrace). Elizabeth Costello (2003) is a very strange novel. There are two dominant modes in the book: one is a series of lectures given by the eponymous lead character; the … Continue reading →

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Reading Graphically: 5 Graphic Novels

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

{so, yeah … many months have passed. We’ll be catching up over the next few weeks.} Another interlude … Pierre Paquet and Tony Sandoval‘s A Glance Backward (2015) is a translation of Paquet’s original work in French, telling a fantastical … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Oyinkan Braithwaite‘s debut novel, My Sister, The Serial Killer (2018) is a rollicking ride, the arc of which is described quite well by its title. Set in contemporary Lagos, the strength of the novel is the relationship between the two … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

This massive collection encompasses The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdom (2011), and The Kingdom of Gods (2014). A shorter novella, The Awakened Kingdom (2014) is tossed in for good effect. Having been really pleasantly surprised by N.K. Jemisin’s … Continue reading →

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WWC2019: The Final

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I’ve been oddly reticent about writing up a preview of this one. I suspect it’s because I will be rooting for the Orange, without thinking they have much of a chance at all against the USA. Soccer analytics still feels … Continue reading →

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