These 3 Books Will Steal Your Innocence

Posted on by Cristian Mihai

When I first started reading at the age of fourteen, I kind of lacked a proper selective criteria when it came to books. I read what was popular, when I found a certain title appealing, what my parents kept in their bookshelf. I read certain books because everyone was reading them, because I thought it would make me smarter, a better writer, or a better person. I read books because their covers were beautiful.

And somehow I stumbled upon the kind of books that are not everyone’s cup of tea. They’re rather like a shot of whiskey. Erotic, controversial, the kind of books that you can’t read in public. But you can’t help it, so you must find a quiet place and read. Continue reading These 3 Books Will Steal Your Innocence

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Harsh Writer-on-Writer Insults

Posted on by Cristian Mihai

It is quite understandable that writers are the kind of people who can get creative when it comes to insulting another person. Given the nature of their job, they are proficient in both swearing and metaphors. But what happens when one of them decides to insult a fellow writer? Well, it just gives us something to smile about. Continue reading Harsh Writer-on-Writer Insults

TMM: Solitude

Posted on by Cristian Mihai

“Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile. Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again.” – Emil Cioran

It’s my honest belief that people aren’t built to be alone. Most people can’t stand silence. The world grows noisier and faster every day. We rarely stop and look around, we rarely try to spend time alone, to figure things out for ourselves.

“Why?” is the one question that makes us more human than any other, and we’ve stopped asking it. We don’t care.

But artists are different. Continue reading TMM: Solitude

Book Review: The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

Posted on by Cristian Mihai

I am a big fan of Latin American writers, especially G.G. Marquez and Julio Cortazar, but I have to admit to the fact that Adolfo Bioy Casares exerts a special influence on me. He lived his life under the shadow of Borges’ immense genius and was often overshadowed by the brilliant prose of a writer who can, with ease, be considered as the best writer never to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

But Casares, even though not as famous as his best friend, and most certainly not as brilliant, managed to grow in a different direction and forge a different style. He did all that, but he managed one more thing, for which I commend him greatly. He wrote this short novel.
Continue reading Book Review: The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

How to Become an Artist

Posted on by Cristian Mihai

It seems to me that we spend our childhood building our initial vision of the world. We do our best trying to answer as many questions as possible, and in our eagerness to understand everything around us, we name things and label them and we think that we’re absolutely certain that things are exactly how we see them.

And I also feel that we always return to this initial vision. Continue reading How to Become an Artist

George Orwell: Why I Write

Posted on by Cristian Mihai

“From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books. Continue reading George Orwell: Why I Write