essayist, critic, & storyteller
Bland Fanatics (Pankaj Mishra) A collection of essays criticizing the political and historical illusions of Anglo-American neo-imperialists. Mishra has a talent for stirring up heated opposition that more or less confirms his observations. He’s been threatened with lawsuits and publicly insulted by such recipients of his scrutiny as Neil Ferguson, Jordan Peterson, and Salman Rushdie.… Continue reading What I Read, February 2021
I had such optimistic plans for January! I would wean my 2020-addled consciousness further off the news cycle, dive into some big writing projects, get back to serious reading. Well, a certain notorious week early in the month shattered those plans like a kid with a stick shattering the first delicate icicles of winter. That… Continue reading What I Read, January 2021
The “serious writer” is a concept that haunts the literary world. Even the kindest and least judgmental literary types I know, in unguarded moments of frankness, will express their views on the nature of the serious writer. Our favorite outspoken critics do it all the time in caustic terms. Why “serious”? The word crops up,… Continue reading Originality and the Serious Writer
I read fewer books than usual this month, because I felt compelled to chew my way (before the new year) through hundreds of pages of accumulated unread issues of the magazines I subscribe to — the NYRB, LRB, Raritan, Foreign Affairs, NLR, Artforum, Bookforum, Asimov’s, and F&SF. I really let them pile up over the… Continue reading What I Read, December 2020
2021 (Story) [As R.H. Cloake] The Fear of Missing Out. Asimov’s Science Fiction. January 1, 2021. (Essay) Rank and File. Real Life Magazine. January 4, 2021. (Interview) [As R.H. Cloake] From Earth to the Stars. January 20, 2021. (Book Review) On Selina Hastings’ Sybille Bedford: A Life. On the Seawall. February 14, 2021. 2020… Continue reading Bibliography
The following glossary explains the true and secret functions and unintended revelations of certain common cliches used by book reviewers when they are describing books. It is lovingly compiled, since I am in fact a reviewer. I am no doubt guilty of most of these transgressions at one time or another. Every single one of… Continue reading On the Cliches of the Critics
Robert Minto is an essayist, book critic, and (under the pen name R.H. Cloake) writer of speculative fiction. In 2017, he participated in the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop; and in 2018, he earned a PhD in philosophy from Boston College. Robert’s work has appeared in numerous magazines from The Los Angeles Review of Books to… Continue reading