A friend once asked me to name the five funniest books I’ve ever read. I can’t remember them all now, but I know Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was on it. I remember reading “Las Vegas” in college, probably the optimum time for a first encounter with Thompson. I was completely [...]

On Tuesday afternoon, my editor at The Chronicle asked me to write a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, author of “Childhood’s End,” “Rendezvous With Rama” and more than 100 other volumes. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off in the time allotted, but I managed to deliver a 750-word essay the next day.
The piece [...]

In last Sunday’s Chronicle, I reviewed Toby Barlow’s “Sharp Teeth,” John Meaney’s “Bone Song” and “Kirby: King of Comics” by Mark Evanier.
The Kirby book is the unqualified success of the bunch. It’s a handsomely produced art book that also presents a heartfelt overview of the life of one of the 20th century’s most distinctive illustrators.
I [...]

In the wake of the Oscars and the multiple achievements of “No Country for Old Men,” I’ve been thinking about the Coen Brothers a lot lately. Especially about what good writers they are. They do all kinds of things with dialogue and structure and symbolism that really shouldn’t work, but because they’re really good literary [...]

I enjoyed Nick Mamatas’s gonzo YA novel “Under My Roof,” and I follow his Journal regularly. I’m also always fascinated by his tales of writers behaving badly after receiving a rejection from the magazine he edits, Clarkesworld.
Mamatas takes the time to respond personally to every submission, a rarity these days. His remarks might be pointed, [...]

Nobody will ever notice.
That has to be what someone like White House aide Tim Goeglein thinks, right? Nobody who reads the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, my hometown newspaper, will notice that my columns on education, Hoagy Carmichael and the operas of Gian Carlo Menotti have been lifted almost word-for-word out of published articles by other, uncredited [...]