The writer’s life: Hard days, lots of work, no money, too much silence. Nobody’s fault. You chose it.

A good writer refuses to be socialized. He insists on his own version of things, his own consciousness. And by doing so he draws the reader’s eye from its usual groove into a new way...

H. L Mencken’s Dictionary of the American Language supplies a long list of slang terms for being drunk, but the Irish are no slouches, either. They’re spannered, rat-arsed, cabbaged, and hammered; ruined, legless, scorched, and...