I love reading mysteries because a well written mystery delves deeply into the depths of the human heart and psyche. I’m in partial agreement with Beth O’Brien, who says: For me, the mystery books to read are personal. I want to know what happens to those directly affected. The family, the friends, the victims themselves. […]
5 Examples of Why I Like Mysteries Read More »
How Stephen King Made Pop Culture Weird If you’ve ever been to Austin, TX, you’ve seen the bumper stickers: “Keep Austin Weird.” Even my new hometown of Tacoma, WA, likes to call itself weird, as does Portland, OR, in the photo above. Lincoln Michel explains that these are not isolated occurrences: If you haven’t heard,
As Far As Your Brain Is Concerned, Audiobooks Are Not ‘Cheating’ I love audiobooks; they enable me to read while plodding along on the treadmill or doing chores around the house. I’ve always thought that listening to a book instead of reading it is not cheating as long as I listen to the unabridged version.
Fall is the time for “big books,” whatever the page length, and some of the top fiction authors from around the world have new works coming, including Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Rabih Alameddine, Emma Donoghue, Jonathan Safran Foer and Michael Chabon. Ann Patchett, owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee,
Rich season of fiction expected this fall Read More »
It’s time to report back on The Classics Spin #13, as explained in my post. Burns, Olive Ann. Cold Sassy Tree Dell, 1984; rpt. 1994 ISBN: 0–385–31258-X On July 5, 1906, Grandpa Blakeslee instructs his grandson, 14-year-old Will Tweedy, to summon relatives to a family meeting. Grandpa then informs the family that he intends to
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10 Best Whodunits I love a good mystery! Here mystery novelist John Verdon (his latest book is Wolf Lake, featuring NYPD homicide detective Dave Gurney) offers a list of “ten remarkable works, each of which has a special appeal to my whodunit mentality”: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles Hamlet by William Shakespeare The Hound of the
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Longlist of finalists for the 2016 First Novel Prize Source: 2016 First Novel Prize Longlist
2016 First Novel Prize Longlist Read More »
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. © 1959 This book was popular when I was in college back in the late 1960s. I never got around to reading it back then, and the same mass market paperback has been kicking around on my bookshelves ever since then. It won the 1961 Hugo
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Thriving at Age 70 and Beyond From Jane E. Brody, long-time health writer for the New York Times: A recently published book, “70 Candles! Women Thriving in Their 8th Decade,” inspired me to take a closer look at how I’m doing as I approach 75 and how I might make the most of the years
11/22/63 by Stephen King Recommended Jake Epping is a 35-year-old high school English teacher in the small town of Lisbon Falls, Maine. To earn some extra money, he also teaches English to adult GED students. The only other activity in his life is moping around and lamenting the recent divorce from his short-term alcoholic wife.
Books I Finished in April Read More »
