Dr Cook has written some great medical thrillers, but you can safely give this one a pass I was shopping for some books in Barnes & Noble, where I’m not exposed to Amazon’s predatory marketing strategy of trying to fool or force me into a Kindle purchase, when I saw a red dust jacket with […]
Hemingway may have started it, but Chandler defined it. Then along came Lee Child. Jack Reacher. What’s not to like about Lee Child’s 26 novels about this iconic character? Sure, the most recent books pale a bit compared to the earlier works, but how long could we expect Child to keep this up? Writing, IMO, […]
Dear Family and Friends, I intentionally delayed posting last Saturday in order to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day, by way of sharing the post I made on Fictional Cafe today. I hope you enjoy the three distinctive perspectives on V-Day, presented by Wiam Najjar, Bob Pope, and The 2000 Man. (pssst: if you can […]
The Risks Authors Take, Part Deux, in which we discuss who’s having the most fun publishing books A pack of huskies willingly pull their master’s sled through the snow, knowing they must work as a team to manage the task, aware there is a lead dog that they pull behind. They need the lead dog, […]
Thoughts on the risks and rewards of writing novels I want to express a few more thoughts about Alasdair Gray’s novel, Lanark, which I reviewed here two weeks ago. Reflecting, I felt I was a wee bit abrasive, even dismissive, of a novel a fellow writer spent thirty years at work on. I spent twelve […]
Not what I expected. The Scots author-artist-alcoholic Alasdair Gray wrote his first novel Lanark (1981), subtitled “A Life in 4 Books,” over a period of thirty years, states its Wikipedia page. The book is also described here as a “cult classic.” Those words are hyperlinked to the eponymous Wiki page where, interestingly, novels are not […]
That’s all you get tonight, and that’s a good thing. Anything I really want to write about will easily take you over half an hour to read and – well, who knows if we’ll grow a degree or two closer or not for the sharing? I feel rather purpose-free these days, which often happens in […]