Tuesday's Literary Briefing

Home, Stinky Home

Day 33 of the Gulf Coast oil spill and it’s still a horrible mess. We may not have been old enough to process the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters, but we do remember the panic and remorse brought upon by the Exxon Valdez spill. How’s that saying go? Oh yeah, history repeats itself. Anyway, our home city is located in a similarly ecologically rich system with miles and miles and acres and acres of wetlands that serve as a filter and wildlife habitat. The sulfuric smell of plough mud might stink to some, but to us, it is a welcomed aroma. Reading can’t erase this from our minds, but we’ll try. Roddy Doyle completes his Henry Smart trilogy. Paul Guest gives us his memoir of life as a quadriplegic. On the topic of historical events, Norman Stone has a history of the Cold War and the formation of NATO. Slant Magazine has a review of Welcome. We finish up with an excerpt from Sloane Crosley’s new book, How Did You Get This Number. All of us, let’s build wind farms. — Andrew Geer