Riverwords

For the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in WW2. I’ve read some non-fiction books on the OSS. I drive my wife crazy with World War II magazine purchases at the grocery story. Naturally, I sought out the best I could find in WW2 fiction.
I found it in Alan Furst. About a year ago, [...]

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Midnight’s Children is a rich and fascinating book. Rushdie channels dreamy visions of Kashmir and Mumbai, but his real masterpiece is the cast of characters — mostly the narrator’s family. In a variety of magical realist encounters, Rushdie manages not to let that fantasy unravel the dysfunctional, tragic and sometimes touching human dramas surrounding his [...]

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I’ve had sitting on my shelf for a couple years now an unread copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Much more recently, when Gentlemen of the Road caught my eye as another prospect, I was sold the minute I opened to the dedication. It said “To Michael Moorcock.” Moorcock’s a favorite author [...]

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I discovered Arturo Pérez-Reverte earlier this year with his endearing Spanish adventure novel, Captain Alatriste. My discovery started a chain that ended most recently with The Club Dumas. I now gather that Pérez-Reverte is a wildly successful author in Spain and elsewhere, and more recently finding success in the U.S. Of course, American editions are [...]

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No doubt like every other aspiring wordsmith, I read Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve never been much of a King reader — just a few short stories and The Gunslinger. Still, I appreciate his work and success.
His memoirs on writing amused me. They might even have inspired. It’s not much of a book to review [...]

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Last time I covered A Gentleman’s Game by Greg Rucka, an espionage thriller with a solid graphic novel pedigree from Rucka’s Queen & Country.
I also tore through Private Wars, the next novel in the Tara Chace series.
Here, Tara Chace is out of the service with a baby. This is serious business given the thriller ending of [...]

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Several months ago, I was flipping channels and watched coverage of a comic book convention on the G4 channel. One of the reporters shared her favorite pick of the convention with the show hosts in the studio. It was something called Queen & Country, a  hard-boiled modern espionage comic featuring female protagonist, Tara Chace.
The very [...]

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I strayed off the path of my reading list, but only by way of a country road.
A couple weeks ago I found No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy for sale at Half Price Books. I’d eyed it since picking up Blood Meridien and, later, The Road, which is on my reading list posted [...]

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I finished Cryptonomicon last night, the next block in my wall of reading for 2007. The 910 page whopper wrapped me up for a while. It’s a multi-viewpoint tale interweaving an amusing WWII conspiracy of Axis gold and Allied code breakers and operatives with their modern day descendants.
Author Neal Stephenson is verbose, and devilishly clever. [...]

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The Iowa weather’s turned cold again. We had wonderful weather, spring waking up the ground and the trees. Now, there are lazy fat flakes in the morning sky, just enough to remind me that April likes to tease.
I got used to the warmth, actually. Seven days in the Carribbean will do that, extreme sunburn or [...]

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