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Short & Sweet |
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By bryce on
1/22/2009 9:33 AM
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Most people have circumstances, when reading a long form of entertainment like a novel or non-fiction book is rendered problematic for lack of time. You are so busy that you only get to read in bed right before you fall asleep, managing about ten pages a night. A 400-page book takes about six weeks to read and when you come to the end you have forgotten how the darn thing started.
Why not try short stories?
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Slam Dunk |
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By bryce on
1/12/2009 1:08 PM
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To paraphrase something I’ve said in these pages before, Connelly is the poster child for a writer of popular fiction as a writer of good literature. I put him in the same company as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
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No Room at the Ink |
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By bryce on
12/29/2008 7:24 PM
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Through the course of the year I get 26 opportunities to write about books in these pages. As a result, there are quite a few books I would like to write about but don’t have the chance because there, literally, isn’t any room. So, I’ve picked the four most interesting in the hopes that you would find them as fascinating as I did.
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Bigger than U.S. Steel |
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By bryce on
12/12/2008 9:49 AM
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The fascinating story of how the mob got there is the subject of Havana Nocturne by T. J. English. It’s got everything you what or need in a book except the comfortable chair, a fireplace, and a good German beer. If you can supply some or all of those then you have yourself one enjoyable read.
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The Unspeakable |
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By bryce on
12/2/2008 2:37 PM
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This book brings together the incontrovertible facts of the JFK assassination with the mystical thought of a Catholic monk named Thomas Merton. Merton gave form to the idea that the “unspeakable” is the existence of evil in the world, an evil that drives people to commit acts in the real world and that this evil is not esoteric or philosophical but a force in the world.
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Eaters of the Dead |
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By bryce on
11/14/2008 1:37 PM
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In the afterword of the book, Mr. Crichton gives us a look into how this book was born. He was attending a lecture of a friend on boring works of literature. His friend mentioned Beowulf as an example. Mr. Crichton took exception, claiming that Beowulf was quite interesting and could be even more so if treated slightly differently. What resulted from that little tete a tete was Eaters of the Dead.
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Winter Reading Recommendations from Christopher Moore to Frank Zappa |
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By bryce on
11/4/2008 2:13 PM
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Soon, when you get home from work, it will be dark. Life turns inside as the days get shorter, clocks are turned back, and the weather gets colder. It’s the time of year I haunt the bargain bins and the dollar stores to look for inexpensive books. It’s also the only time of year I buy paperbacks. Here are some suggestions as you are lounging in your recliner next to the fireplace while the wind blows the snow sideways.
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In Praise of Flann O'Brien |
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By bryce on
10/23/2008 2:21 PM
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Counting the issue you are holding or reading online, there have been 67 issues of 365ink. I have written about books for 64 of them. Since the beginning I’ve tried to find a good reason to write about Flann O’Brien, and it’s taken me 63 issues to realize that Flann O’Brien’s writing is all the reason I need.
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Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency |
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By bryce on
10/4/2008 10:11 AM
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Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, by Barton Gellman, is almost guaranteed to start a fistfight. People who don’t like Dick Cheney will find that their worst nightmares aren’t as bad as they think and that the things we didn’t know about Cheney’s activities make their worst nightmares look like a Rainbow Brite movie. The people who like Dick Cheney, a quickly shrinking minority, will find that this book is so well-researched and the attestations so solid that they won’t be able to explain it away as a pack of lies invented by the vast left wing, liberal, media elite, commie, un-American, hippie … well … you know.
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Daniel Silva Rules |
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By bryce on
9/18/2008 8:58 AM
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Daniel Silva has written eight novels in the Gabriel Allon series, each one better than the one before it. His latest is called Moscow Rules and it finds Allon in very strange territory.
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Cats! |
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By bryce on
9/3/2008 11:22 AM
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Yep, this has something to do with the musical by the melodiously challenged Andrew Lloyd Webber.
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