by Admin | Jul 29, 2011 | Likes to Read
You’d think from this list that I was a big fan of historical novels, but mostly I’m not. They have to be terrific. Thomas Flanagan wrote three, all set in Ireland, and they’re better than terrific; they’re Literature. The Year of the French is...
by Admin | Jul 29, 2011 | Likes to Read
Well, I’ve just broken my own word, because I’m happy to say that Jeff Shaara is very much alive. But how to mention The Killer Angels, his father’s wonderful novel of Gettysburg, without citing the son who bookended that work with Gods and...
by Admin | Jul 29, 2011 | Likes to Read
Ross was a good friend, and I miss him. I wrote about him in a piece I did for Mystery Scene, and supplied an introduction for a reissue of http://tinyurl.com/5rbvw8n, so let me only that I find his work—under his own name and as Oliver Bleeck—wonderfully entertaining...
by Admin | Jul 29, 2011 | Likes to Read
If I have a favorite writer, he’s it. I’ve re-read virtually everything of O’Hara’s, some books many times, and have never lost the feeling that he captures American lives better than anyone else. It’s fashionable to praise his short...
by Admin | Jul 29, 2011 | Likes to Read
Evan was a role model for me years before I ever heard the term. That he eventually became a good friend was a source of enormous satisfaction to me. Sometimes the intimacy of friendship can keep the fiction from working, but that certainly didn’t happen here. I...
by LB | Jul 14, 2011 | Commentary, For Writers
A couple of months ago I downloaded a 99¢ novel by John Locke. I’d become aware of him as a dominant presence on the Kindle bestseller list and figured I ought to see what all the fuss was about. I don’t remember which book it was, and I don’t see why it should...
