When I introduced my daughter to the dystopian perils of Katniss Everdeen a couple years ago, I was warned. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, was tough stuff and filled with terrible situations and violence that may be too much for young readers like her. I have since spent my days hearing all about how [...]
Continue reading about Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Steven Pressfield gathered acclaim for his novel Gates of Fire (among other works). There, he tells the militaristic tale of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. In The Profession: A Thriller, Pressfield fasts forwards to the near future. It’s still a mess of oil, sand, Islam, and mass media. His twist is the evolution of warfare [...]
Continue reading about Book Review: The Profession: A Thriller by Steven Pressfield
Umberto Eco, famous for his medieval mystery The Name of the Rose and slightly less well known for occult classic Foucault’s Pendulum, managed to sneak in a different, remarkable book on my shelves. The Island of the Day Before is Eco’s thorough exploration of an age of exploration and of the baroque. He navigates among [...]
Continue reading about Book Review: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
Rumors of my demise … probably never happened. Nonetheless! New book reviews coming up, including: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco Purity of Blood by Arturo Perez-Reverte The Last Run by Greg Rucka That means I’ve read the books already, and need to write up my reviews. Oddly, I have about the [...]
Canada came home today. I sloshed my way to the airport in a four-inch downpour. And, there she was riding down the escalator, looking a little weary and very much happy to see me. We’re pitiful old high school sweethearts and wouldn’t know what to do without each other. We don’t often spend more than [...]
It’d D Day +2. One of my hobbies is WWII. I dabble rather than obsess, unlike some history buffs I’ve witnessed here and there. I’ve let the only magazine subscriptions I actually bother to pay for run out. That would be WWII magazine and World War II History magazine. And, I haven’t watched Saving Private [...]
I’m into genre fiction. You know the place — that quirky section of the book store lumped along back walls labeled science fiction, fantasy and horror. Nearby, usually, are those kissing cousins– mystery & thrillers, graphic novels, and even a faint trace of young adult. Right now I’m reading Purity of Blood, the second in [...]
I caught bits and pieces of BBC interview George R.R. Martin did about his work and the new show. I’m a fan of his books, so it was fun to sneak in a few minutes of the interview to see what he thought about the show and how he writes organically. Martin explained to the [...]
Continue reading about George R. R. Martin on the two types of writers
It was a season-ender in every sense of the word. Given the schizophrenic Iowa weather these last few weeks, I’d say winter finally ended, and summer turned up the heat. Spring? We don’t need no stinking spring! The kids soccer season is also finally here, which is cause for celebration all around. The kids now [...]
Getting down to business in a bleak economy
I’m a news junkie. Have been since I was a nerdy 80s kid watching the nightly news when things got exciting overseas. I remember spending the first part of my summer in ’89 watching Tiananmen Square unfold from my sweaty upstairs bedroom on the old Zenith. I really caught the bug in college as I [...]
Continue reading about Getting down to business in a bleak economy