reading – TERSE. Journal

From Pandemonium to Eden – Hieronymus Bosch by Jason Collins

Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch painter who researchers are still studying and learning new things about today. This is not surprising considering he is believed to be born somewhere between 1450 and 1456 in a Dutch city called s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Bosch’s art style is mostly oil paint on panels and focuses on aspects…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 167 by Annie Walton Doyle

Death Valley by Melissa Broder “I came to escape a feeling – an attempt that’s already going poorly, because unfortunately I’ve brought myself with me, and I see, as the pink light creeps out to infinity, that I am still the kind of person who makes another person’s coma about me.” There are certain authors…
Chouette: A Review by T.S. McNeil

Things are not always as they seem. What appears normal, even ordinary, can turn out to be a dream. Prose fiction is particularly tricky, particularly in terms of the narrative. The oddest things put in the most casual ways. Chouette by American author Claire Oshetsky is the strangest sort of weird. The one that comes…
13! by Alisson Madrigal

Kiara’s name is “Kiara Kariri.” Read this in my 6 y.o. voice. Fiamma is a title (one has a form to quickly announce, tell others, and also to pressure these into a utility for the larger whole of the territory-in-construction).It’s more like a role than an individual, implying a level of uniqueness. Initial development: ‘Finally,…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 161 by Annie Walton Doyle

Pure Color by Sheila Heti “What do humans go to art for, but to locate within themselves that inward-turning eye, which breathes significance into all of existence-for what is art but the act of infusing matter with the breath of God?” If you’ve ever read Sheila Heti before, the themes and questions of Pure Color…
The History of Rain: A Review By T.S. Mcneil

When is a war not a war, or when does a war really end? Can the impacts ever really be shaken off until every person who remembers it is dead? For Canadian novelist Stephens Gerard Malone, the answer is no, at least if his novel The History of Rain is anything to go by. Written…
Braving the Days: It Was Grace by Jordannah Elizabeth

It began, an hour ago, while I was doing everything I could not to think. I’ve been to the doctors, and when folks believed I slipped away, the psychiatrists said, you’re clairaudient. They were respectful enough to acknowledge it, so when I hear opinions, plans, love and complaints of others, I’m likely attuned. Tonight, I…
Final Spin: A Review By T.S. McNeil

There is nothing new under the sun, every story a take on an already established theme. Sometimes an excuse for the uncreative, this is mostly true. Combining sources and influences in a new way is where true originality comes, often reverse-engineering that which already exists, taking it down to brass tacks. One person who combines…
Braving the Days: And then there were five by Jordannah Elizabeth

I am the youngest of six of my father’s children. There was a balance that was so precise, it could cause one to think of divine alignment in precedence of considering coincidence; scientifically, there are minimal variables regarding the combination of genders (with respect to nonbinary and trans human beings). Therefore, numbers could minimize the…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 133 by Annie Walton Doyle

Is Mother Dead? By Vigdis Hjorth “Every mother in every childhood represents madness … your mother is and always will be the strangest person you will ever meet.” Is Mother Dead follows Johanna, a Norwegian artist who returns to Oslo for a high-profile retrospective of her work. And though her work has garnered her much…