Ben, Author at Common Reader

Some Pain, Some Gain

Science says that pain, done right, confers marked benefits. The trick, as in so many realms of life, is finding the right spot on the spectrum between what is chronic and what is manageable.

Science & Nature | Dispatches

This Sporting Life is Cinema’s Ultimate Portrait of Manhood

By Ben Fulton

Watching ‘This Sporting Life,’ the viewer marvels at how Machin keeps on “winning” at every turn yet still fails to find the elusive victory he craves.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

When I was little, I had a recurring nightmare. I would float to the laundry room, a small tiled room next to the kitchen, and open the door. Or try to. I would push the door handle down, throw my body against the wood but it would not budge, only wobble a bit as if something else pushed back. Then wind or an unseen hand would seize and suspend me in the air.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

The Ten Most Notable Science-Fiction Novels of the Past Ten Years

By Jason P. Vest

Given how busy we all are, particularly as the pandemic recedes, perhaps we should thank these lists (and their makers) for not wasting our time or abusing our goodwill, but instead helping us hack our way through that ever-growing thicket of anime, books, films, podcasts, manga, radio shows, stage plays, television series, video games, and the endless number of other cultural productions we feel honor-bound to track despite this impulse being a forever-frustrated wish that, to switch metaphors, cultural capital’s always-hungry maw ensures will never be satisfied.

Uncategorized | Essays

Newt the Cat

By John Griswold

None of us, including Newt’s owners, really knew how much he got around until he got us all talking about him. People said they had seen him in the night by headlight; he roamed far wider than we thought. One woman had taken him on a five-mile bike ride; Newt was equanimous as always, it seems. The comic surprise that lined the grief was that hundreds of us thought of him as our own.

Essays

Who’s Afraid of Lawrence Tierney?

By Gerald Early

Lawrence Tierney is a solid biography that describes in detail Tierney’s career as an actor, which are the best parts. The worst parts, where the book becomes a slog, are the endless episodes detailing Tierney’s drunken street and bar brawls.

Reviews

Being a Black Registered Nurse in St. Louis

By Gerald Early

Willis L. Drake was inspired by the example of his father to write Mary Ann Byas-Drake. He was doing what a good father and a good husband should do: Remember his wife and how she affected his life and, more importantly, what her life meant to him.

Reviews

How Amazon’s Catalogue Triggers Our Collective Memory

By Ben Fulton

Like vinyl LPs, analog culture has invaded the margins of all things digital in order to treat us all to a bit of nostalgia. Thumbing through ‘Unwrap Joy,’ I was flooded by a surge of memories involving print catalogues of seasons past.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Politics, Protests, and Prose

By Alethea Franklin

Politics behind the scenes remains a mystery to much of the public. I have always felt the inner workings of the political machine were shrouded in mystery. This summer, not only did I peek behind the curtain, but I became one of those cogs.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Why The Innocents Is the Halloween Movie You Need

By Ben Fulton

The seasonal drill of watching endless horror films is so familiar to Halloween lovers that it is a good idea to remind ourselves that horror films once aspired to tingle our spines, not lash our senses. To experience that vintage sense of unease we must return to the classics. Perhaps no other film makes that case better than director Jack Clayton’s 1961 masterpiece, ‘The Innocents.’

Arts & Letters | Dispatches