This one will probably end up on my bookshelf
Books from politicians, and from those who are a part of their aspirations and achievements, are common enough … but not many of them find their way onto my shelves.
This one might … [Read more →]
Entries Tagged as 'books & writing'
On crime & thrillers: Conspirata – crime, conspiracy and political intrigue in ancient Rome
Conspirata opens like many crime thrillers. There is the discovery of a dead body.
But Conspirata (Simon & Schuster) is different than most crime thrillers, as the dead body in this novel is a slave who was murdered more than 2,000 years ago, and the person called to investigate is Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman.
Exaggeration Nation: Nincompoops
The good folks at the Illinois Humanities Council pass along this collection of the best author-vs-author insults in history. Below, I offer metacommentary.
1. Mark Twain on Jane Austen:
Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
Yet the words “every time” suggest otherwise. Just how often do you read this book you claim to despise, Mr. Clemens?
Lisa reads: Heresy by S. J. Parris
These days, we talk about Banned Book Week and we talk about censorship in school libraries, but in the 1500’s, they were serious about censorship. Get caught reading something on the Vatican’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books) and your prize was an appointment with the local Inquisitor. Based on the true story of Giordano Bruno — an Italian monk, excommunicated and on the run from the Inquisition — Heresy casts Bruno in the role of investigator, helping to solve a series of grisly murders while spying for Queen Elizabeth. [Read more →]
Lisa reads: The Book of Matthew by Thomas White
The prologue will give you nightmares. (Do you know what sort of sound human vertebrae make when they give way under pressure?) Other sections of the book made me want to cover my eyes and read through my fingers. The killer in Thomas White’s The Book of Matthew would give Hannibal Lecter a run for his money. This is not a book for readers with weak stomachs or those prone to nightmares. Not a lot of outright gore — I’ve certainly read bloodier books — but the sort of enlightened cruelty that makes you double-check the locks before turning in for the night. Not that locks would save you. [Read more →]
Taking pleasure in others’ failure
In March 1894 Jules Renard wrote in his journal that “in order to be truly successful it is necessary, first, that one get there oneself, next, that others do not.” In May, he refined this thought a bit: “It is not enough to be happy: it is also necessary that others not be.”
Both quotes bring to mind one attributed to Gore Vidal: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” [Read more →]
An Interview with Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Jean-Philippe Toussaint is coming to America. The Belgian author of Television, Camera, and The Bathroom has had his work translated into more than twenty languages, and he has recently won the prestigious Prix Decembre in France. Known for a spare style often referred to as “infinitesimal,” Christopher Byrd in the The New York Times describes “Toussaint’s truncations [as] an admirable rebellion against a world that’s submerged in too much information and too little beauty.” A more detailed appreciation of Toussaint’s writing recently appeared in The London Review of Books, and his forthcoming Self-Portrait Abroad will be available from Dalkey Archive in May, 2010. And he’s funny. [Read more →]
On crime & thrillers: Fire lovers and fire monsters
“Always keep the hose’s stream of water between the fire and you,” I recall my Navy fire instructor telling me so many years ago.
If you let the flames get around you, I learned, they’ll reach out and hit you like a boxer’s jab. That’s what happened to me when I was an 18-year-old sailor attending the U.S. Navy Fire Fighting School in San Diego.
Lisa reads: The Survivor’s Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood
True or False:
1. The safest seats on an airplane are at the back.
2. If you fall into a frozen lake, you have only 3 minutes to escape the water.
3. In prisoner-of-war camps in Vietnam, optimists lived longer than anyone else.
Who lives and who dies in a crisis? Do you have what it takes to be one of the passengers who walks out of the jungle after a plane crash or who keeps their cool and remembers how to work a compass when you get lost in the woods? And if you don’t (or can’t) can you learn? There are lots of books on survival tips and I have read more than a few of them. The Survivor’s Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood takes familiar territory and still turns it into a very interesting read.
Lisa reads: 212 by Alafair Burke
I really, really hate the phrase “ripped from the headlines.” It ought to be on one of those lists of cliches than can never ever be used again in print. But open a newspaper or click on a news website and you are likely to see a story similar to Megan Gunther’s situation in 212 by Alafair Burke. Megan finds herself the subject of some particularly nasty posts on a college gossip site. The anonymous poster is familiar with Megan’s schedule — he (or she) knows when Megan is at home, when she goes to spin class, when she has her chemistry lab. She’s a little freaked out; who wouldn’t be? The police are no help — there are no threats, so their hands are tied. But when Megan turns up dead, her roommate critically wounded, someone finally decides to take things seriously. [Read more →]
On crime & thrillers: killers, cops and crime reporters – a Q & A with crime writer Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly is a best-selling crime novelist whose series of crime thrillers about Harry Bosch, a troubled but dedicated LAPD detective, is very popular with crime and thriller readers.
I spoke to Michael Connelly about his latest novel, Nine Dragons, and his previous novel, The Scarecrow. We also discussed the Internet, crime novels, crime, Clint Eastwood, and the current state of journalism.
Below is my interview with him:
Lady GaGaAARGGHH
A month or so back via my connections in the nefarious literary underground I was offered a pre-publication copy of the first Lady Gaga biography, Behind the Fame by Emily Herbert. Not the kind of thing I usually read I must admit, but that’s why I wanted to read it, because there was no reason to read it. Follow me? [Read more →]
Lisa reads: Fromms: How Julius Fromm’s Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis
Julius Fromm was born in Russia in 1883; when he was 10 years old, his parents left Russia for Berlin. At the time, Berlin offered the hope of more economic opportunity and a better life. Fromm grew up feeling like a German, and a patriotic one at that. It all came to crushing end when Hitler came to power, because Fromm and his family — patriotic though they might be — were Jews.
Fromms: How Julius Fromm’s Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis by Gotz Aly and Michael Sontheimer is a detailed account of how Julius Fromm built a condom empire during the sexually permissive-period after World War I. His name became synonymous with condoms in Europe, much the way Kleenex or Xerox became household names. But his wealth and status could not protect him or his family when the Nazis came to power. [Read more →]
What is the job of a film critic? Well, Kevin Smith and James Cameron just want them to promote their films
First of all, check this out: Movie ticket prices are going up.
Many movie theaters across the country plan to raise ticket prices this weekend, particularly for premium-priced 3D tickets, The Wall Street Journal reported today (Thursday). It noted that 3D IMAX tickets in Boston for How to Train Your Dragon will rise to $14.50 versus $11.50, the price charged last weekend in the same theaters for Alice in Wonderland. Ticket prices for the 2D version of the movie will rise 3 to 4 percent.
Wow. That is a big jump. Three bucks for 3-D tickets. I’m not much of a mathematician, but that is at least, um, a 20% increase. This is coming at a time when movie studios are increasing their 3-D movie output. Warner Bros, for instance, is releasing all of its “tentpole” releases in 3-D. [Read more →]
Fan Boy says: Hooray for Sex Dungeon for Sale
If you’re like me, the time you spend on the toilet is sacred. You read. You think. You live a separate life in those five- to fifty-minute sojourns away from the public’s prying eyes. My favorite activity is reading, which is why I always keep the current issue of Poets and Writers as well as a short story collection next to the porcelain throne. My most recent conquest was Sex Dungeon for Sale by Patrick Wensink. [Read more →]
Just Fantastic: Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is in its fourth edition (but fifth incarnation) since 1974. I’ve played three incarnations: 2nd, 3.5, and 4th. I’ve got to say that the fourth edition does one thing very well.
For anyone unfamiliar, a table top role-playing game (RPG), like D&D, uses a pen, character sheet(s), a series of books, and a set of dice. The set of dice consists of: 1 four-sided, 1 six-sided, 2 ten-sided, 1 twelve-sided, and 1 twenty-sided die. Dice are also abbreviated “D” as in D20 for a twenty-sided die. You might laugh at this now, but one day you’ll be in a comic shop on the wrong side of the tracks and knowing what a D20 is might help you make a saving throw against a band of asthmatic angry nerds. [Read more →]
Lisa reads: The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbo
There’s a heatwave in Oslo. Anyone who can’t get out of the city is sweltering in the heat. There are lines at the open-air pool, the city streets are deserted…and there is a killer on the loose.
Police investigations are apparently much the same the world over, as I didn’t find a lot of procedural confusion in Jo Nesbo’s The Devil’s Star. It’s good, gritty detective fiction — just the way I like it. Harry Hole is a police inspector who is on his way down and out. His drinking problem has started to take its toll: he’s lost his girlfriend and he’s about to lose his job, but he may be the only person who can solve this string of killings. [Read more →]
On crime & thrillers: Wiseguys, goodfellas and godfathers — the portrayal of gangsters in fact and fiction
I watched the first season of Wiseguy on DVD this past week.
I enjoyed the TV crime drama during its original run from 1987 to 1990. Produced by television veterans Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo, the program was about an undercover FBI agent, Vinnie Terranova, played by actor Ken Wahl.
Send in the clones
Now that spring is upon us, and the trees are beginning to leaf out and grow, my life has become a lot more hectic. Such is the row a forester has to hoe, but I’m busy planting trees, measuring trees, I’ve got three logging operations running at the moment, so on and so forth. I’ve been reading my usual three or four books a week. I’ve been keeping up-to-date on political movements, health care reform, cap-n-tax, the TEA Parties, you know, all the headlines that fill our days.
However, I find that I want to write about something and I can’t think up a topic. [Read more →]
Lisa reads: Horns by Joe Hill
Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache…and a pair of horns growing from his temples.
It’s a great beginning to a promising story: part thriller, part horror, part treatise on the nature of the devil. While Horns occasionally gets bogged down in reminiscence, it’s still an extremely entertaining read.
A year ago, Ig’s girlfriend Merrin was raped and murdered. Ig was the prime suspect — an alibi like “I was passed out in my car parked behind an abandoned Dunkin Donuts” is not very convincing — and although he was never charged, he was also never cleared. There is a cloud of suspicion hanging over him already, and growing horns is not going to make him look innocent. [Read more →]
