Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, March 30, 2020, 7:45 p.m. When I read Don Quixote, I found it astonishing to learn that the art of comedy had not notably advanced in over four centuries. Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte takes Miguel de Cervantes forward and adds levels that would not have been structurally feasible in 1616, when the …
Category: Books
A Tale of Women Destined to Be Ahead of their Time
Clinton, South Carolina, November 6, 2019, 9:56 p.m. I’ve read my share of books about World War II. I’ve read tales of combat and espionage, not to mention bios of Roosevelt, Churchill, and MacArthur. I try to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. I didn’t know a lot about the Eastern Front of Europe, …
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Taking Ball Four a Second Time
Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, October 13, 2019, 12:19 p.m. Let me begin with two reasons why this book review should be better. I like to write a review when the book is fresh in my mind. I like to finish the last page and start a review. The hectic nature of my life these days …
A Celebration of The Celebrant
Clinton, South Carolina, Monday, July 4, 2019, 8:29 p.m. So many words are insufficient. I’ve never liked to say that I “covered” something, such as, oh, stock car racing for 20 years. Sometimes I say it or tweet it, but I try not to write it. I’ve never liked the notion that I “pull” for …
Ultimately Worth the Reluctance
Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 12:36 p.m. It’s rather a miracle that I even read The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland. From time to time, I get to pick a free download from a list, and it’s possible I thought Rebekah Crane’s novel had something to do with President Grover Cleveland, the only …
Making Sense of Pat Conroy
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, March 28, 2019, 11:56 a.m. It took a long time to read My Exaggerated Life, the oral biography by Pat Conroy as told to Katherine Clark. It’s based on hundreds of conversations between the two. Conroy approved of it, though it wasn’t published until after he died of cancer on March …
An Historical Novel of Wartime Intrigue, Rendered Skillfully
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, December 25, 2018 I’m quite ashamed of myself. Ordinarily, I would have devoured The Torch Betrayal, by Glenn Dyer, in a couple weeks. It was a casualty of the increasingly frenetic pace of my life over the past months. I’ve been out and about, writing stories about local affairs, editing news …
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Serenity in Name Only
Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, June 14, 2008, 10:59 a.m. Shelby Alexander barely lets the reader take a breath in this opening salvo of Craig A. Hart’s series of thrillers. Serenity is not to be confused with the noun. It’s the name of the town in northern Michigan that, based on the hero’s experience, is hardly …
The Right Stuff of the Vanities
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 3:38 p.m. For many years, I thought The Right Stuff was the best non-fiction book I ever read. Now I consider it neck and neck with William Prochnau’s Once Upon a Distant War. When I wrote a novel about a pot-smoking songwriter fleeing the feds, I used The …
Guilty Pleasure in a Guilty Pleasure
Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, May 1, 2018, 1:25 p.m. Green Goes Forth. The protagonist and narrator is a guy named Joe Green. He grows “green,” which is one of many code words and synonyms for cannabis. No need to write a paragraph of them. The title is a double entendre. Appropriately, Green Goes Forth is …
Nightrider's Lament 