Green Eyes in the Amazon is a very timely book — almost too timely.  Fundamentalist religious groups are conspiring to control society and stifle scientific advances by any means necessary, including violence.  It is set in a hazy but not-too-distant future.  No more cellphones and SUVs, now we all have vidcoms and autopiloted cars.  Central America is a Dead Zone, university professors and students have to swear loyalty oaths and religion is on the rise.  In this contentious climate, a brilliant young biologist may have ushered in the next step in human evolution — but what will the religious zealots do to stop him? [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
1 Comment »

So what is it about science fiction that causes “literary” types to look down upon it? Like any genre, SF has its bad and good. No scratch that, like any writing, there is both bad and good. I’ve read plenty of unreadable “literary” fiction. But SF seems to get more derision than other forms of genre writing, perhaps unfairly. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing by Mark A. Rayner
3 Comments »

Andrei Chikatilo is not as well known as his fellow serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, and if the Soviets had their way, no one would have ever heard of him.

According to the Soviets, crime did not exist in their worker’s paradise. But as the dead bodies piled up, the killer who came to be known as The Rostov Ripper  was finally caught and convicted of brutally murdering 52 women and children between the years 1978 and 1990.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, on thrillers and crime by Paul Davis
1 Comment »

Halloween is a tricky time for comics in general. There are horror elements in plenty of titles. And plenty of horror concepts that don’t have elements of the genre; for example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer noticeably lacks a fear of the unknown. So I’m going to stick with something simple — ZOMBIES! Marvel has released several universe wide zombie titles in the last few years. And this column and my next will explore two of those titles. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, just fantastic by Steve Mazzeo
No Comments »

Vampires are all the rage these days.  True Blood on HBO, the Twilight series and movies, Being Human on BBC America has a vampire, even the recently (and sadly) departed Blood Ties on Lifetime (and the books by Tanya Huff) – those bloodsuckers are everywhere.  And for the modern woman who can’t resist a real bad boy, Diana Laurence has written How to Catch and Keep a Vampire: A Step-By-Step Guide to Loving the Bad and the Beautiful. This fun bit of fluff is billed as a modern-day dating guide for the gal who wants her very own vampire boyfriend.  It gives you all the inside info you need on where to meet a vamp, how to attract his attention, how to avoid a deadly dinner party…it even reveals The Secret of the Red Satin Ribbon.  Follow that advice at your own risk. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
No Comments »

 If you decide you’d like to upgrade your Kindle, Sony Reader, or other eReader to a nifty new model, I’ll purchase your old one from you for the full retail price you paid, including the sales tax. How cool is that? There are only a couple of paltry little provisos. Read on, and I’ll explain. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, environment & nature by Michael Antman
2 Comments »

The Brutal Telling is a first-rate detective novel.  The mystery is complex and well-plotted, while the beautiful Canadian scenery and charming characters breathe life into the story.  It is a look into the very darkest corners of the human heart, a reminder that we never truly know what another person is capable of, or what secrets they may keep.

The book starts with a story, told in the dead of night by a crackling fire.

“Chaos is coming, old son, and there’s no stopping it. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here.”

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
No Comments »

According to MediaBistro and The Washington Post, the FTC has issued new guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials.  Normally, this wouldn’t effect me in the least; however, these new guidelines could cost me — up to $11,000 in fines.

The new guidelines require that bloggers like me who review books online and receive free copies (generally referred to as ARCs or Advance Reader Copies) must disclose their “material connection” with the publisher, or be in violation. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing by Lisa Hura
7 Comments »

Sometimes, when a book is really good, you start counting the days until the sequel comes out as soon as you finish the last page. Back in April, I reviewed Patrick Carman’s Skeleton Creek and I immediately started clamoring for a sequel. The book ends with a real cliffhanger — it involves ghosts, a broken leg, a dead battery and a secret room — and I wanted to know what happened next!  In his follow-up novel, Ghost in the Machine, Carman continues the story of Ryan and Sarah and the Crossbones Society.

(Check out the trailer for Ghost in Machine here.)

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
No Comments »

I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic. I love this comic.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, just fantastic by Steve Mazzeo
No Comments »

I love a good adventure novel!  Exploring the Arctic, searching for the source of the Nile, exploring the Amazon basin, all from the comfort of your local library. Most of us will never in our lives go anywhere that is truly unexplored, but I have great respect for the men (and occasionally women) who were unafraid of the unknown.  In The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, author David Grann presents not only a great tale of adventure but also a great mystery: what happened to Colonel Percy Fawcett? [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
1 Comment »

My late father enjoyed the repeated telling of old, corny jokes to his children. I, in turn, often told the same old jokes to my children.

One of the old jokes was about an armed robber who confronted a man in an alley and said “Stick ’em down.”

“Don’t you mean stick ’em up?” the would-be-victim asked the robber.

“Don’t confuse me,” the robber said. “This is my first job.”

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, on thrillers and crime by Paul Davis
1 Comment »

In the Private Papers of Eastern Jewel, Maureen Lindley looks at the life of a notorious Chinese princess from a forgiving angle.  Eastern Jewel, also known as Yoshiko Kawashima, was considered quite scandalous in her day: a Chinese princess raised in Japan, a promiscuous young woman who wore men’s clothes, she drank and smoked opium, she spied for the Japanese and was eventually executed as a traitor.  Lindley suspects that she was not inherently evil, but a product of her very peculiar upbringing and headstrong temperment.  She paints a very compelling story. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
No Comments »

This is my first foray with Christopher Moore, unless you count repeatedly grabbing Lamb in bookstores reading two or three pages and then putting it down.  My issue with him has always been a matter of substance mixed with comedy. When I saw Fool and realized it was about Lear I compromised and bought the audio book. It was an excellent experience, and I’ll definitely listen to it a second time in a few years.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, fan boy says by Steve Mazzeo
3 Comments »

From Vladimir Lenin to Adolph Hitler, from Enver Hoxha to Saparmurat Turkmenbashi, many a tyrant has picked up the pen to share his thoughts with us, resulting in a peculiar category of books which for brevity’s sake I shall call Dic Lit. Of course just as all tyrants are individuals, so these tomes vary wildly in their content. Some are theoretical works, others spiritual manifestos, while still others are memoirs. Kim Jong Il of North Korea has even tried his hand at opera criticism.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, politics & government by Daniel Kalder
2 Comments »

Possibly Vertigo’s most popular title, Preacher, written by Garth Ennis, ran for five years (1995-2000), it had 75 issues in total and some of the highest acclaim from pop culture a comic could get. Volume 1 is almost all expositional. While interesting and exciting I found myself actively trying to get through it. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel because volume 2 is amazing.   [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, just fantastic by Steve Mazzeo
Comments Off on Just Fantastic: Preacher, vol. 1

It took a little convincing to get me to read this book.  I got an email about the book and they almost lost me with “as only a dog could tell it.”  A dog telling the story is almost always a recipe for disaster.  In this case, instead of disaster, there’s a pretty terrific story and a narrator with an interesting viewpoint (and one heck of a vocabulary for a terrier). [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
1 Comment »

There was an interesting article on CNN.com the other day (“interesting” in the sense of discouraging, scary, and unintentionally funny) titled “The Future of Libraries, With or Without Books,” about how librarians, in the same spirit as a 54-year-old woman getting a nose piercing and tramp stamp to keep up with “the kids,” have wholeheartedly and uncritically embraced the digital revolution, and, in the process, are dumping the “shushing ladies, dank smell and endless shelves of books.”

Are you one of those dwindling band of benighted bibliophiles that labors under the naive misconception that “endless shelves of books” are what libraries are all about?  Shush.  Today’s library contains “hipster staffers who blog (and) chat on Twitter.”

Wow.  Blogging.  That’s some cool new technology that all the teens are doing, isn’t it?
[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, technology by Michael Antman
24 Comments »

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I like this poet.
And so should you. [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, fan boy says by Steve Mazzeo
2 Comments »

I’ve been a student of crime since I was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia in the early 1960’s. As a teenager I read crime fiction and thrillers and that led to my closely following crime stories in newspapers and magazines. I also read books about true crime and crime history.

I began covering crime as a crime reporter and columnist for the South Philadelphia weekly papers some years ago and I later moved my crime column to other newspapers and finally to the Internet.

And after all of these years, I’m still interested in the crime beat. Crime stories are dramatic, tragic and funny. They are the stuff of thrillers.

[Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, on thrillers and crime by Paul Davis
2 Comments »