The Breakers is a rather low-key episode in Marcia Muller’s long-running Sharon McCone series. In general there are two types of long-running series: those where the characters remain static and familiar, and those where the characters change and develop. Sharon… Read More ›
Kristen Lepionka grew up mostly in a public library and could often be found in the adult mystery section well before she was out of middle school… She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her partner and two cats. That’s what the… Read More ›
Passport to Murder; Death by Committee; The Black Hour. My imagined Final Jeopardy clue says “This is is what all three titles have in common.” … … OK, enough suspense: the answer is “What are three titles of recent academic… Read More ›
Your president just called CNN “the enemy of the people.” This, of course, is far from the first time that he has referred to the press by this phrase. (Marvin Kalb just published an entire book on the subject, straightforwardly… Read More ›
Finally I’ve finished reading the third book of the Magicians trilogy: The Magician’s Land. (Earlier I reviewed the first two books, The Magicians and The Magician King, so it’s time to complete the picture.) The question — whether overt or… Read More ›
How old is she? From Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop (1946):
The Magician King is the sequel to The Magicians, which I reviewed on September 1. As the second book in Lev Grossman’s trilogy, it follows closely after book #1 and appropriately leaves the reader hanging, waiting for #3. Darker and more mature than The… Read More ›
Is Odell Academy supposed to be Phillips Exeter Academy? All signs point to that, but there’s no direct evidence. Odell is the site of Michele Campbell’s new novel, She Was the Quiet One, a title that develops new meanings as you continue… Read More ›
You need the subtitle. The full name of the book is Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution, which gives you a pretty good picture of the subject of the book. As I grew up in the ’60s, I was… Read More ›
Culture. Literature. Memoirs…. Are they all based on Folklore and Mythology? A classmate of mine majored in that field — or should I say it was his “field of concentration” rather than “majored”? I always thought it was surprisingly specific as a… Read More ›
“A penny for your thoughts.” Does anyone say that anymore? Probably not. Part of being retired is that I get to do more sitting and thinking than usual. (“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits,” to quote… Read More ›
No, not the television show, which I’ve never seen. Just the eponymous novel it’s based on. And no, I haven’t yet read the two subsequent novels in Lev Grossman’s trilogy, so there’s nothing about either of them here either. You’ll… Read More ›
I’m not quite sure how I feel about Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated. Comparisons with Hillbilly Elegy, which I did not like, are inevitable. The stories are actually quite different, as are the attitudes of the narrators. I had referred to J.D. Vance (author of… Read More ›
You’ll notice something strange in this screen shot: the Hitchhiker’s trilogy apparently consists of five books, not three. But of course that’s part of the shtick. What are we supposed to call it? The Hitchhiker’s pentalogy? Nah, the generic word is… Read More ›
“It’s a man, it’s a bird…” OK, stop right there. You know what this is about. But maybe you don’t. The beginning of this thorough biography of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of Superman, does indeed focus on their… Read More ›
This certainly sounds like an exciting exhibit! Here’s a brief description: Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores Tolkien’s amazing legacy from his genius as an artist, poet, linguist, and author to his academic career and private life. The exhibition takes you on… Read More ›
Oddly, I had never read James Gunn’s work of literary criticism, titled Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction, before this week. I say “oddly” because Asimov had absolutely been one of my favorite science fiction authors ever since I was,… Read More ›
What a strange (and disturbing) book! It’s one of those novels that grip my attention and refuse to let go — so I feel compelled to read to the end — and yet I certainly can’t say that I enjoyed… Read More ›
Continuing with the gaming theme that played a major role in Player by Proxy, Ready Player One, and The Chalk Artist, now we need to talk about Felicia Day’s amusing and engaging memoir, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost). As you know… Read More ›
Flashback to two months ago: apparently I was the only living person who hadn’t yet heard of Ernest Cline’s Ready, Player One. Now everyone has heard of it, since Spielberg’s film adaptation has just opened. As I’m not going to be seeing… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 