Category: REVIEWS

Revisiting Wraith: The Oblivion—Part 1: Overview

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This entry is part 1 of 12 in the series Revisiting Wraith the Oblivion

In 2017, I undertook the project of reading and reviewing all of my Wraith: The Oblivion RPG books. I dutifully read everything I had on hand and wrote up a series of blog posts about the books… and then, for some reason, I never posted them.  Stumbling onto those posts now, I am baffled that I did so much work but never published it, and figured I might as well go ahead and do it. That’s what this series is about. If you think the last thing the world needs is a discussion of the books released as part of …

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Reading in 2024

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This entry is part 9 of 9 in the series 2024-Reads

You can see what I read last year—well, most of it—in the header image. I count a total of approximately 48 books. (I don’t think I missed any, but I’m not counting the Dragon Masters books that I read to my son. I am counting the Judy Blume and Roald Dahl books, though, since I actually had fun reading them. Dragon Masters, I mostly just enjoy vicariously through my son’s reactions.)    For me, the standouts were:  Nonfiction, Biographical: This one’s a toss-up between Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, which I found a rather moving and troubling look at …

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November–December Reads

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This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series 2024-Reads

  Well, here’s the last installment of my 2024 reads. November was a hectic month, so I read less than I’d like—sick kid, couple of translation deadlines—but I still read a fair number of books. I’ll be posting an overview of my favorites from the year in a post in January 2025, but for now, I’ll just cover what I read in the past couple of months.  I read Roald Dahl‘s Fantastic Mr. Fox to my son. It’s a fun read, even if it does have its nasty moments. The (alcoholic!) rat in the Bean’s Secret Cider Cellar is a …

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TEFL Alice is Missing

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At the university where I work these days, one of the classes I teach every semester is Screen English. For the last three semesters, I’ve included the silent, text-based role-playing game Alice is Missing (from Hunter’s Entertainment) as one of our activities. Usually we play it toward the end of semester, when students are eager for something to break away from the familiarity of student-led discussion group exercises.  Despite a few challenges, it goes surprisingly well. The challenges include: 

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July-August Reads (2024)

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This entry is part 6 of 9 in the series 2024-Reads

July was something of a slow month for reading, since I was teaching as summer intensive course and working with my wife on a book-length translation project. That said, I did finish a few books I’d had on the go for a while, and launched into some new ones in August.  August wasn’t exactly slow, but I read less than I’d thought I might. 

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May–June Reads (2024)

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This entry is part 5 of 9 in the series 2024-Reads

This is the fourth in a series of posts about books I’ve read in 2024.  May was rough for reading, due to a crazy work schedule, a crazy translation schedule, and a heavy practice schedule, so I didn’t really get much reading done that month—or, rather, I finished relatively little in May, though I had several books on the go. Therefore, I’m posting about May and June together in a single entry here. 

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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Cantos LXXII and LXXIII (“The Fascist Cantos”)

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This entry is part 57 of 58 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

…. and, we’re back.  Years ago, I started a series of posts covering each poem in Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, one (or a few) at a time. I’m picking up that series now, since I have a little time again. (Who knew having a kid would make someone so busy?) The readings are probably still going to remain atypical, not so much for the reasons made clear in my first post in this series as because atypical is my general approach to the Cantos. II seem to have abandoned the fiction project that inspired this series, but I’d like to …

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