author: Daniel B. Smith

name: Steev

average rating: 3.23

book published: 2012

rating: 4

read at: 2015/11/21

date added: 2015/11/21

shelves: spirit-self, own-it, memoir

review:

author: Karl Taro Greenfeld

name: Steev

average rating: 3.20

book published: 1995

rating: 5

read at: 2015/10/17

date added: 2015/10/18

shelves: novels, fun, children, own-it, gentrification

review:
Excellent. Lots of stuff about parenthood, marriage, class, gentrification, and more. Some of it is wise, some bitingly satirical. Makes me definitely want to read more of Greenfeld's work.

author: David Lipsky

name: Steev

average rating: 3.24

book published: 1996

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2015/09/29

shelves: art, fun, novels, own-it, spirit-self

review:

author: Eric Bennett

name: Steev

average rating: 3.60

book published: 2015

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2015/09/16

shelves: novels, wishlist, art, fun, memoir, own-it, politics

review:

author: Jerry Stahl

name: Steev

average rating: 4.62

book published: 2015

rating: 4

read at: 2015/07/31

date added: 2015/07/31

shelves: children, fun, spirit-self, memoir, own-it

review:
For a lot of this book, I would reluctantly have to categorize Stahl's writing as basically "trying too hard." Occasionally he has a moment of real cleverness, or of real profundity. But too often he edges past those points and over the cliff of ham-fisted awkwardness.
I think if I wasn't myself a parent, and for that matter a quasi-OG Dad myself, I would only give this book 3, or even 2, stars. But there's enough stuff that resonates and is a smart take on things I've been living too, for it to be worth wading past the dumb bits. I think maybe Stahl's been in the Hollywood TV writing world for too long, or something. His writing here often feels like Groucho Marx trying to be Charles Bukowski - or maybe vice versa. I have felt for years like I would like to someday read his celebrated memoir "Permanent Midnight", but if it's the same level of craft as this, I might not get around to that.

Still, there are some great gems. He adequately conveys some of the experience of being a creative, "edgy", but aging, guy who finds himself, amazingly, a new father. If you don't care about the aging part, I think Neal Pollack's "Alternadad" is a better read. But Jerry Stahl has clearly been through the shit and come out the other side.

author: Marc Maron

name: Steev

average rating: 3.74

book published: 2013

rating: 0

read at:

date added: 2015/07/23

shelves: memoir, own-it, fun

review:

author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.60

book published: 2015

rating: 5

read at: 2015/07/16

date added: 2015/07/16

shelves: politics, own-it

review:

author: Mykle Hansen

name: Steev

average rating: 3.65

book published: 2014

rating: 5

read at: 2015/06/08

date added: 2015/06/08

shelves: novels, after-the-fall, fun, own-it

review:

author: Sarah Manguso

name: Steev

average rating: 4.13

book published: 2015

rating: 5

read at: 2015/05/22

date added: 2015/05/22

shelves: memoir, spirit-self, own-it

review:

author: prole.info

name: Steev

average rating: 3.86

book published: 2011

rating: 5

read at: 2015/02/10

date added: 2015/02/24

shelves: politics, gentrification, own-it

review:
Excellent. Essentially a marxist analysis of the housing and construction industries, but a modern one. Includes an erudite chapter on Soviet Russia and why it wasn't really communism but was in fact just another form of state capitalism.

In addition to the smart writing, the graphics are brilliant. Some of them I feel like blowing up into poster size and wheatpasting around town.