Alex M. Pruteanu

Buy Now
• ISBN 9781937865160
• 308 Pages •6 x 9"
• $14.95
The Empire That Once Was America
03/29/2012
I’m a huge fan of dystopian/apocalyptic novels, mainly because — if crafted by good authors — they unravel an elegantly-weaved prescience into a gloomy and fast-approaching future we’ve recklessly created ourselves for ourselves. Think of Bradbury, Atwood, Gibson, Orwell, and of course Huxley’s Brave New World. In short, I am a fan of the Folly…
• Book: The Sky Conducting
• Author: Michael J. Seidlinger
• Publisher: Civil Coping Mechanisms
• Genre: Fiction, Novel
Buy Now
• ISBN 9780679739791
• 368 Pages •5 x 8"
• $15.95
Water and History Everywhere!
03/16/2012
There have been exactly two books I’ve read in my life that have made me decide to stop writing for good, knowing full well I could never achieve the mastery of their respective novelists. Before you go and ostracize me for indolence or lack of perseverance, know that the feeling of discomfiture is always temporary.…
• Book: Waterland
• Author: Graham Swift
• Publisher: Vintage / Anchor
• Genre: Fiction, Novel
Buy Now
• ISBN 9780393340051
• 411 Pages •7.5 x 9"
• $25.00
On and Off . . . The Road to Somewhere
02/06/2012
I’ve been driving legally since I was 15. Back in those Iron Age days, a mere learner’s permit was all that was required to haul my indolent arse to a minimum wage ($3.10/hr.) gig at the local multiplex. Since then, I figure I’ve easily slapped on over half a million miles on the myriad vehicles…
• Book: The Road to Somewhere
• Author: James A. Reeves
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
• Genre: Essays, Geographic Non-fiction, Literary Non-fiction, Photography
Buy Now
• ISBN 9780465030507
• 224 Pages •5.6 x 7.8"
• $15.95
Why Hitchens Matters (To Me)
12/16/2011
I met Christopher Hitchens sometime in the fall of 1994. I was on the crew of what was soon to become the relentlessly obnoxious monster that is Hardball with Chris Matthews, now still piercing its way into your afternoons on MSNBC. At that time I was the audio guy, and I had to clip Hitch’s…
• Book: Why Orwell Matters
• Author: Christopher Hitchens
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Genre: Essays
Buy Now
• ISBN 9780679737612
• 384 Pages •5.3 x 8"
• $17.00
On Writing and Jazz
12/05/2011
Quite often I re-visit books I’ve enjoyed as a younger man to make sure they “hold up,” and almost every time, on each subsequent pass, I discover new levels of emotion elicited by the works. They hold up, all right. Re-reading Charles Mingus’s mercurial, non-linear autobiography Beneath the Underdog has once again left me melancholic for…
• Book: Beneath the Underdog
• Author: Charles Mingus
• Publisher: Vintage / Anchor
• Genre: Literary Non-fiction, Memoir
Buy Now
• ISBN 9781610191012
• 209 Pages •5 x 8"
• $14.00
Carry-on Baggage
11/16/2011
Freight I Found: If you hang around for long enough and don’t destroy yourself properly with gallons of gin or various other poisons or inhalants, you get lucky and come across those good bits that Hansel and Gretel left behind in that scary forest. A few weeks ago on my run through the woods I…
• Book: Freight
• Author: Mel Bosworth
• Publisher: Folded Word
• Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Fiction, Fragmented Narratives, Novels
Buy Now
• ISBN 9781564782113
• 248 Pages •5.5 x 8.5"
• $12.95
Reading this novel, you get the feeling this is what Ozzy Osbourne might have documented as “going off the rails in a Crazy Train,” had Sharon advised him to go to University and get an English Literature degree.
10/06/2011
One of the most famous Kōans goes something like: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Before you get all worked up and run to the Zen section of your newly-purchased IKEA bookshelf (dare I say, that is one handsome bibliopegy!), relax: Bart Simpson has already figured it out. But now dig this: what…
• Book: Wittgenstein’s Mistress
• Author: David Markson
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Genre: Fiction, Novels, Poetry