Annual #tellastory day and Pop’s birthday, and so another pop tale. I wrote a few years ago about the emergence of the banjo for Pop, and more recently I had a chance to look back at old photo albums so I was able to narrow down its arrival in my life. This photo is from Christmas 1970,... Continue Reading →
Lightning Strikes the Silence, by Iona Whishaw. Pub 2024
Book 11 in the Lane Winslow series continues the excellent and engaging stories we’ve come to enjoy, with its usual cast of delightful characters. It’s hard to believe that barely three years has passed since Lane first arrived in King’s Cove, as so much has happened to her and around her. It is June 1948,... Continue Reading →
Knife, by Salman Rushdie. Pub 2024
I have only ever read one Salman Rushdie before – East, West, published in 1994. I don’t recall much about it, other than where and when I bought it – in 1994, in London. My copy is autographed by the author, something I thought extraordinary since he was still very much in hiding at that... Continue Reading →
The Order of Time, by Carlo Rovelli. Pub 2017. Translation by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell, 2018.
I heard about this book on a podcast sometime in the past year. While on a bus one time, the person sitting next to me was reading it, and when asked how it was, said, “It’s good but some parts are tough.” I agree with that assessment, but ultimately I found the push through the... Continue Reading →
Trio, by William Boyd. Pub 2021
There was much praise and hype about this book in the past few years, and after my enjoyment of Any Human Heart, and a few of Boyd's other novels read as audiobooks (Solo, Love is Blind, Sweet Caress, Restless), I bought this one last year and got around to it now. Briefly, the story follows a... Continue Reading →
World of Trouble, by Ben H. Winters. Pub 2014
This is the third and final part of the Last Policeman series, and we pick-up almost immediately after the end of part 2. SPOILER: Hank, along with a fellow member of Police House (the retreat in the country where a group of police have set-up for the end of the world), set out to find... Continue Reading →
Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout. Pub 2019
I feel like I’m playing catch-up on the Elizabeth Strout oeuvre, and that I’m way behind the rest of the world in recognizing the considerable talent of this author. I first read her best known work, Olive Kitteridge, just last year, and am glad that was somewhat fresh in my mind for this book. We... Continue Reading →
All My Friends are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman. Pub 2003. Tenth anniversary edition, Pub 2013.
I picked this book up last year as a possible Christmas present for my cousin's son. It came up in a book search as one of those, "other customers also bought..." suggestions when I was picking something else for him, and the idea sounded interesting. As I was heading up to visit the family for the weekend,... Continue Reading →
Countdown City, by Ben H. Winters. Pub 2013
This is the second part of the Last Policeman series, and we pick-up a few months after where we left off in book 1. Hank Palace is no longer officially a policeman, as the force continues to downsize the superfluous elements like investigation and missing persons and beef-up the more hardcore elements of riot squads... Continue Reading →
Maus, by Art Spiegelman. Published between 1973-1991. The Complete Maus, pub 2003.
I hadn't had any interest in this until recently. My prior experience with graphic novels was less than engaging, and the glimpses I'd had of this one did not make it appealing - dark and violent, with animals in clothes. However, in 2022, a school board in Tennessee decided to ban the book (the day... Continue Reading →
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