by Mark O'Brien | Aug 18, 2016
Good news! We now have even more reasons to justify our conducting ourselves like idiots — linguistically lazy idiots at that — and to rationalize our utter disrespect for language and its precepts. That’s right. The editors at Inc., apparently tired of doing...
by Mark O'Brien | Jul 21, 2015
I came across a book review in The Financial Times over the past weekend in which the author, Julian Baggini, finding a common thread running through the three books he reviewed, wrote something arresting — something that directly contradicts the popular and...
by Mark O'Brien | Jun 24, 2015
I’ve added to my fledgling collection of books for children by authoring another one, entitled The One and Only Ben. It’s being illustrated by a multi-talented young woman, Shelley Shaw. The image above is the first illustration Shelley created for the book. In brief,...
by Mark O'Brien | Jun 17, 2015
For those who don’t know his work, Frederick Exley’s passing 23 years ago today will be as the great preponderance of the world’s myriad events — unknown, unseen, unremarked. For those of us who know and love his work, his passing marked the loss of...
by Mark O'Brien | May 4, 2015
Since I mentioned the summer of 1964 in a previous post, I offer this one about a more recent encounter prompted by my having read the news item below: WESTBROOK, CONN – The Westbrook Fire Marshall is trying to determine the cause of an early morning fire at 20 Cherry...
by Mark O'Brien | Apr 30, 2015
I don’t know if I’m your garden-variety hoarder. But I do tend to be a rather indiscriminate and prolific accumulator of thoughts. And I like to hang onto them until two or more present common threads in some form or fashion. In this instance, three of...
