Got my galley of Leigh Gallagher’s THE END OF SUBURBS (Due out Aug 1st) - I want to believe.  Meanwhile, check out my take on Moses Gates’ Hidden Cities. Up today at NextCity.
05.16.13 /14:04
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Kevin Allison
RISK!: Live From Philadelphia 2
Risk!prayerchristianityj.d. salingerbooksLiteraturePhilokaliafranny and zooeypodcastKevin AllisonstorytellingPhiladelphiaLibrary
05.06.13 /12:55/2 plays/♥ 1
My #doodles from the #writers reading tonight, at Fiction Addiction. Readers get their faces projected, gigantically, on a wall outside. Woah. #drawing #books #literature #fiction (at 2A)
04.30.13 /23:01
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Portrait of a book that I intend to reread. On an episode of PRI and WNYC’s Studio360, Kurt Andersen talks about how he doesn’t reread books because he would rather read more books. Generally, I am with him on this, but I do award books my personal Nobel by re-reading some on rare occasions. This one will get on that list one day. A bestseller in the 90s, THE ALIENIST, by Caleb Carr, is a period thriller about a serial killer in Teddy Roosevelt’s New York City. It’s also about the dawn of psychology in policing. And there are rooftops. Dingy, Industrial Age rooftops. I want to get back on them one day, especially now that I live in the city the story is set in.
04.10.13 /10:10
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Writing about books for NextCity rocks, you guys. Here’s the two books I will cover after Thomas Dyja’s The Third Coast.
04.04.13 /13:54/♥ 1
previewbooksnextcitybookswritingThomas DyjaMoses GatesPete Jordan
Writers: you are hereby authorized to think a book sucks, even if every smart person you know likes it. You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to be a d-bag about it, but you can think it. Don’t feel like shit about thinking it, even if The New York Review of Books says that it saved civilization. You’re only going to offer something good and fresh and unique and important to the world if you follow your own internal drumbeat. And today’s critically acclaimed breakout novel is tomorrow’s garage sale passover. *mic drop* This photo stands in for a book I found empty and amateurish. No need to say which one, but I wanted to die trying to get through it. I kept reading the author’s oeuvre and I think I would have preferred to be waterboarded. This book will be studied in Universities for years to come. I say: oh well. You should say it (to yourself, anyway) when that’s what you want to say, too. #noshame #inyourgame
03.12.13 /09:07/♥ 1
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Man, I took this photo a million years ago. Or, like five years ago. Whatever. I was living in Philadelphia. It was a little after I had moved to Fairhill and bought my place. This was painted on some of those boards they nail to blighted buildings to keep crackheads out. Anyway, good advice. Who the fuck has time to read, though?  Especially writers. What? We can barely get ourselves to write anything and you want us to log time with other people’s writing, too? Give it a rest! In this episode of Writers Ask on BookFightPod, Mike and Tom really let writers who think too much of themselves to read have it. Damn.  So what I am saying is that you should read books because you are dumb. Well, you are dumb if you don’t read books. You are are also probably dumb if you spell “you are” as “u r,” but I don’t want to be absolutist about anything. 
03.04.13 /09:03
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This is my notebook making the happy face at the moment I figured out the crux of my next novel.
11.13.12 /14:28/♥ 2
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Zadie Smith's 4th novel focuses in on London

I’m excited to get a book review published under the Next American City logo. It’s an online magazine devoted to American urbanism. Good stuff.

Smith’s second book, The Autograph Man, was one of my all time favorite novels ever. I felt very lucky to get to see her new book early.

Will you be picking up her book?

BooksLondonZadie SmithPenguin BooksKilburnCamdenBrentFictionLiterature
09.04.12 /16:27/♥ 1
08.08.12 /14:13
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I think this was the first comic that I did a little off-panel TV closer comment. 
07.19.12 /10:14/♥ 1
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06.11.12 /10:16/♥ 12
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Canvas  by  andbamnan