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“It was salutory to remember, I told myself, that writers and other creative artists do not relish other people’s ideas. They usually have more than enough of their own, and well-meant suggestions only add to the burden of their already over-stocked minds.” Miss Read, Farewell to Fairacre (1993)
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My last 5 posts
- Farewell to Aotearoa May 28, 2020
- More from down under May 8, 2020
- Free-range April 30, 2020
- Creative thinking April 28, 2020
- More from NZ April 25, 2020
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Category Archives: Review
Bad Girls
E. Lockhart: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008), We Were Liars (2014), Genuine Fraud (2017) When Jane Austen created Emma Woodhouse, she noted that here was a character “whom no one but myself will much like”. Austen must have enjoyed making … Continue reading
Schools are still the same
Hundred Percent, Karen Romano Young (2016) Authors have gotten a lot of mileage out of the terrible years of schooling that kids must endure before adulthood swamps them with real life. Karen Roman Young adds to the stack with this … Continue reading
Posted in Humorous, Review, School setting, YA Lit
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Preview
Tag-team tweeting review of Watchmen starts today. What ho, Calmgrove? Who’s on first?
Posted in Graphic Novel, Review, Science fiction
Tagged Alan Moore, Calmgrove, Dave Gibbons
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Taking a Mulligan via the Space-Time Continuum
Review of Prologue, Greg Ahlgren Rating: 4.6 stars So many times I’ve wanted a do-over, a chance to reboot, knowing in advance exactly where things went wrong and therefore knowing exactly what to fix. This is what Paul deVere and … Continue reading
Challenge accepted
Over several days (start and end dates yet to be determined) Calmgrove and I will be “tag-team reviewing” Watchmen on Twitter. The first part of this challenge for me, however, is to figure out how to get the Twitter widget … Continue reading
Firebug in the Church Choir
You Got to Be Kidding! The Cultural Arsonist’s Satirical Reading of the Bible, Dr. Joe Wenke (2012) 3.8 stars I love satire. Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain are among my favorite authors. I used to read Punch religiously (Miles Kington’s … Continue reading
Sing, O Muse, of Gods and Monsters
Godhead, by Ken Mooney (2013) 4.5 stars Imagine what would happen in a mash-up of The X-Men, Percy Jackson, and Nicholas Flamel, with a dash of Homer just for the fun of it. Ken Mooney’s intelligent and action-packed adult novel … Continue reading
Space operetta in C Maj
The Ossilan Affair: A Captain Henri Duschelle Story, Steve K. Smy Rating: 4 stars Henri Duschelle reminds me of Buckaroo Bonzai (without the guitar chops) or the 1930s pulp hero, Doc Savage. Like Buckaroo and Doc, Duschelle is clever, honorable, … Continue reading
Two teens loose in NYC. What could go wrong?
Stella Bellarosa: Tales of an Aspiring Teenage Superhero, Julie Krantz Rating: 3 stars (out of 5) It’s the late 1960s, New York City, with its hipsters and beats and a trashy Times Square full of peep shows, perverts, and pickpockets … Continue reading
Kundera’s “graphomania”
My new venture — reviewing e-books for KindleBookReview.net — has left me with a virtual stack of books to read and review. On my e-shelf: 3 fantasy novels, 1 science fiction, 1 counter-historical, 1 anarchic romp through NYC, and a … Continue reading
