This review appeared in the November 10, 2005 issue of the Pittsburgh City Paper.
Until now I've hesitated to say anything about the two book reviews that I did get for Compressionism: The Pittsburgh Stories. I think it was because the reviews weren't as favorable as I wanted them to be. Well, maybe in the past two years I've matured as a person and a writer. The student newspaper at the University of Pittsburgh did a review and so did the Pittsburgh City Paper.
The Pittsburgh City Paper is one of those free weeklies that many cities have. They make money through selling advertisements. The larger the circulation of the paper the more money it can command. The PCP comes out every Wednesday and claims to have a large circulation. I blieve it. They've been around for years and it cost some real money for a business to advertise in the paper. You see it all over the city. Their Arts & Entertainment Editor, Bill O'Driscoll, was at a reading I gave along with two or three other writers. After the reading, as everyone stood around chatting, he kindly accepted my business card and agreed to do a review of the book if I sent him a copy. His review of Compressionism: The Pittsburgh Stories came out in the November 10, 2005 issue of the paper when I was still a fifty-something-year-old graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh.
If you would like to read the review just click on the link below, type in my name (Guy Hogan) in the search box in the upper right corner and hit go. Compressionism: The Pittsburgh Stories will come up. Click on that and read the review.
Congratulations!
But then again, why the critics have the need to drop names like Hemingway, Carver et all, are they afraid we will think less of them if they haven't read one of their books?
Criticizing a book should be on the merits of it content, phraseology, tema and resolution, not about what we think the author was thinking when he decided to write the piece.
Then, there's the Compressionism, that the critics really haven't a clue of what it is, and instead of ask the author about it, he dissect ita merits like a slauther-man trying to perform brain surgery.
The problem with some books reviews is that many critics miss the point and scare readers away from a "boring" book when the only bores are themselves.
My first rejection named the book tittle half wrong and the wrong content "after exhautively read it from perm to perm"
God bless the illiterates.
Georg
The Apple Tree Blossoms in The Fall, is the life journey of Carineh - a child, a teenager, a wife, a mother, but most of all a woman of purpose. From stories of her parents held-up by bandits; the white donkey gifted by Khomeini; her father's death f
Helios is an award winning novel about a brilliant inventor of new technology, a fallen CEO seeking redemption, and an idealistic youth who comes of age in corporate America.
But then again, why the critics have the need to drop names like Hemingway, Carver et all, are they afraid we will think less of them if they haven't read one of their books?
Criticizing a book should be on the merits of it content, phraseology, tema and resolution, not about what we think the author was thinking when he decided to write the piece.
Then, there's the Compressionism, that the critics really haven't a clue of what it is, and instead of ask the author about it, he dissect ita merits like a slauther-man trying to perform brain surgery.
The problem with some books reviews is that many critics miss the point and scare readers away from a "boring" book when the only bores are themselves.
My first rejection named the book tittle half wrong and the wrong content "after exhautively read it from perm to perm"
God bless the illiterates.
Georg