Jay Jennings

Author of CARRY THE ROCK, editor of CHARLES PORTIS: COLLECTED WORKS from Former editor at @oxfordamerican. Opining all mine.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

Some news: My screenplay adapted from Kate Kruimink's historical novel A Treacherous Country has won the top prize at the Byron Bay Film Festival in Australia. I'm gobsmacked. https://t.co/PPCiaojgM5

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@truhtnac @WhatHoARat Hmmm. Maybe that’s why I’m not seeing some posts. Diabolical algorithm.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@truhtnac @WhatHoARat Same. The For You feed seems to be For Musk. I never look at it.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@JayDeeWriting It's also on Kanopy!

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@SethLargo I could see this coming from you, though I thought he might take all five spots.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@cjsarett @nyrbclassics Yes, I went cover-to-cover in that one.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

Five of my favorite American novels probably on nobody else’s list.

Jim the Boy, by Tony Earley
Dance Real Slow, by Michael Grant Jaffe
The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth McKenzie
Preparations for the Ascent, by Gilbert Rogin
Morte d’Urban, by J.F. Powers

[The Book Land @the_book_land]

I'm seeing a lot of people sharing 5 American authors they admire. What about 5 American novels?

My choices would perhaps be:

- Moby-Dick (Melville)
- East of Eden (Steinbeck)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
- The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
- The House of the Seven Gables (Hawthorne)
- The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)

Yes, I can count, but I couldn't leave Faulkner out of the list.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@JayDeeWriting I’ve been up for an hour and it’s not actively bad yet!

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

I did No Mow May and I’m down with Slow Mow Summer…

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

No Mow May is ending. What you do in June matters more than what you did in May.

A month-long pause helps a little, but most native bees don't even emerge until June, July, or August. If you mow on June 1 like nothing happened, the May benefit goes with the grass clippings.

The University of Minnesota Bee Lab recommends "Slow Mow Summer," which is closer to what the research actually supports.

If you need to mow, try to only every two weeks instead of every week. The Lerman study found that lawns mowed every 1-2 weeks supported nearly as many bee species as lawns mowed every 3 weeks, and they stayed neighbor-friendly.

Raise your mower deck to 3-4 inches. Taller grass shades the soil, holds moisture, shelters insects, and lets low-growing native flowers (violets, self-heal, native asters) actually bloom.

Leave a patch unmowed, somewhere out of the way. Ground-nesting native bees, queen bumble bees, fireflies, and overwintering moths all use undisturbed grass and leaf litter.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@dford927 A very solid list! Haven’t read The Round House yet, but I’m reading Night Watchman now.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@cjsarett I have not yet read Wheat That Springeth Green but his short stories are also excellent. And his daughter, the critic Katherine Powers, is a longtime Portis champion.

[Jeff Weiss @Passionweiss]

Never a bad time to watch Pharoah Sanders performing "Kazuko" in an abandoned tunnel in the Marin Headlands circa 1982.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

To add to the Odyssey conversation, I offer this volume from my late mother, a Greek major at @randolphcollege. A page marked with “me” for recitation and inside the cover a written exchange with one of her classmates: “Did she take roll?” “No.” “I’m sleepy.”

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@HamiltonCain @malmesburyman I'd probably add Invisible Man, Home / Gilead, Mason & Dixon, and Herzog.

[Hamilton Cain @HamiltonCain]

@malmesburyman Toni Morrison's Beloved, Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo, anything by Charles Portis but start with True Grit.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@UT_CSCM So happy to see this new award established after PEN dropped their sports book prize some years ago. Tough year! I’ve read both @bySLPrice and @SethWickersham and they are excellent finalists. Much more to be read now. Congratulations to all.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@SethLargo @AnaKrivolapova @Steve_Sailer Hard to go wrong with following chronological order: Norwood for an appetizer, then the stone-cold classic True Grit. Next, take a road trip with Dog of the South, followed by the crazy detour of Masters of Atlantis, and prepare for the apocalypse with Gringos.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@DKThomp Are “Dad” audiobooks also tanking? I listen to a lot nonfiction for free on the Libby app when I’m doing “Dad” yard work or “Dad” driving or “Dad” laundry.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@cjsarett So true.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

I’m generally opposed to ranking novels but I will say that any top 100 list that doesn’t include True Grit is suspect.

[Jay Jennings @JayJenni]

@cjsarett Nailed it.