There’s something particularly appealing to me about reading (in this case listening to, ably read by Lewis Arlt) a novel by a female: great characterization. It’s sadly lacking in a lot of science fiction, where the male author is much more interested in technology, or space exploration, or things having to do with the warp […]
After more than a year of anticipation, I’ve just finished Whitney Scharer’s The Age of Light. Perhaps I should say I’ve just finished devouring it, because it was an utterly engrossing read in every respect. Reading Scharer’s prose is like tasting gourmet food. If you’d like a little background illumination, please read this Fictional Café […]
We live in a world overpopulated not only with people but with books. I’ve heard there are currently about a million books published each year. This plethora of storytelling is diffuse: hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, ebook, audio – what we once called books on tape. The one constant among these formats or versions […]
I recently took an author friend of mine from California on a tour of Concord, Massachusetts, including a visit to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s house, “Wayside.” (How could I not? He’s the namesake of the central character in my trilogy, Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers.) As we left, I gazed, not for the first time, upon the stone outside […]
I was offered this ebook, “Delilah,” to review by Hidden Gems. It’s actually the length of a short story and is a very smart way to introduce a continuing character. The author, Niki Danforth, is a good writer and presents a short case, perhaps too easily solved, but she proves adept at presenting her private […]
Something a little different this week: I just finished posting a review of this documentary film on IMDB. Film is nearly as dear to me as books, and this is my first IMDB review. So I’d like to share it with you. “Scotch: A Golden Dram” is on Amazon streaming and other streaming venues, and […]
The morning after I finished the last pages of this oddly titled novel about some missing papers belonging to President Abraham Lincoln, I made myself coffee and sat down with the day’s New York Times and guess what I saw? An article about the discovery of a Lincoln Bible that no one has ever known […]