THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME by Donald Ray Pollock – A Review

So yeah, with a title like that you shouldn’t be surprised when finding that it’s a gritty, grimy, nasty, corrupt, vulgar tale of a story that thoroughly explores the deep dark levels of depravity to which our inhumane human-ness is capable of descending…

I’ve been got…

For years my barely read first novel INSIDE THE SKIN (formerly The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor) had been pegged at 15 meager but oh so appreciated and loved Amazon reader reviews… about However, as of today there are now only 7. I mean, c’mon… Thanks Amazon. Sigh… #itainteasythiswritinggig

There’s a story here somewhere…


This abandoned car is oh, I don’t know, maybe a half mile or so from my humble yet lovely abode and it’s been parked right there for as long as I’ve lived in my said humble yet lovely abode, which has been oh, I don’t know, maybe eighteen years or so.

Every time I pass the beautiful, wabi-sabi of a relic on one of my walks, I always think to myself, I bet there’s a heck of story to go along with that thing…

And I also always tell myself that one of these days Ima gonna write my own story about it.

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Goodreads, Goodreads… Wherefore Art Thou Goodreads?

You know, I’ve tried and I’ve tried…

I really have!

I have tried and I have tried to maintain a loving relationship with Goodreads.

I’ve done everything it’s asked me to do.

I’ve set up both a user and an Author account…

I’ve added all my books, both the ones I’ve written and (most of) the ones I’ve read…

I’ve sent out friend requests to other users who seem to have like literary tastes as I…

I’ve friended those who’ve requested the same of me…

But after nearly a decade of trying to find meaning and purpose in my relationship with Goodreads, all it’s ever shown me has been indifference and insurmountable complexities.

It and I just have never been able to click.

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Two Learnings from My Recent Rememborizing Efforts: One cool; One cautionary

As I discussed in my last post, I’ve embarked on an effort to memorize stuff that interests me. I’m finding that the more I memorize stuff, the easier is to memorize and retain new stuff.

So as I just finished up memorizing the poem Invictus, I decided to go large and take on the grandest, and perhaps greatest, of all letters penned on behalf of these United States, The Declaration of Independence.

Yeah, maybe I am getting a little cocky/in over my head taking on such a significant body of work — significant as in packed with meaning, and, especially, significant as in packed with a lot of words. One-thousand, four-hundred and fifty-eight of them to be exact.

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