It has come to my attention that almost no one is voting on my film noir poll. Normally I’d consider this a personal affront and ample cause for a profanity-laced rant on how nobody cares anymore, nobody. But my wife Tess has pointed out it’s probably because I didn’t include her personal favorite neo-noir: […]
Let us consider the best of the worst
Yesterday, in search of inspiration for my own writing, I reread one of the best and bleakest books of 2005: Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. There are many things to praise about this book, including the haunting title drawn from the Yeats poem “Sailing to Byzantium.” But as crime fiction, one of […]
The dog days, and "August Heat"
It’s a slow day in the blogosphere, so let’s go to the mail bag. Wait a second … I don’t have a mail bag. I suppose that means it’s time to pull something out of the air. Or my ass. Here in Wichita, we are in the middle of a string of 100-degree days, […]
Read any good cell phones lately?
As a disciple of the written word, I found this New York Times piece interesting: All about the joys of reading books on your freaking cell phone. I love this quote from trend-setting New Jersey lawyer Paul Biba: “Once you get use to having books with you, you get used to reading in places […]
James Ellroy unleashed — and unfinished
As long as I’m on the subject of the few books I never finished, a few words about James Ellroy’s The Cold Six Thousand, published in 2001 as the sequel to American Tabloid. I tried to read it a few years ago, and have never since seen a book quite like it. Here’s an […]
An abrupt U-turn off "Damnation Street"
I don’t know; maybe I’m really not such an aficionado of crime fiction. Occasionally, a well-reviewed book just hits me the wrong way, and I toss it aside about 40 pages in. Such is the case with “Damnation Street” by Andrew Klavan. I picked it up at the library a couple of days ago, […]
A tip of the hat to my Scottish brethren
Here is one of the reasons I think Scotland might be a fun place to visit (as long as I don’t set myself alight or otherwise create the impression that I’m a terrorist). Although the headline is something short of poetry — it’s one of those situations where a long count actually works against […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- …
- 122
- Next Page »