My friend East Texas Red recommended Larry McMurtry’s 1985 novel, Lonesome Dove to me, and mailed me his copy. I just finished it this evening. It’s a beast of a book, 842 pages, but all written in very readable prose. At some point while reading… Read More
Sometimes I enjoy reading books I might not ordinarily read, or books which I stumble on. Tuffy P brought home a few well used novels recently. She knows I enjoy an occasional spy novel so she included some books by well-known spy novelist John Le… Read More
Unearthed (with the subtitle: Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden) is a memoir by a writer who lives in Toronto, named Alexandra Risen. Tuffy P recently bought me a copy of this book at the Toronto Botanical Gardens. It interested me right… Read More
I don’t have any kind of plan as to the books I read. I come to them or they come to me in all kinds of different ways. I like it that way. I read Yeshiva Girl by Rachel Mankowitz because I’ve followed Rachel’s blog,… Read More
I wouldn’t know anything about Lee Israel’s curious life of crime, nor her book about it, had it not been for the movie trailers I’ve seen for the film of the same name, starring comic actor Melissa McCarthy in what has been touted as her… Read More
I just read Tommy James’ 2010 autobiography, Me, the Mob and the Music. You remember Tommy James, right? Lots of big hits. Hanky Panky. Crimson and Clover. Mony Mony. Catchy pop tunes. They don’t really interest me much, but his story is fascinating. Tommy James… Read More
How do you choose a novel to read? Sometimes I do it with great purpose. I’m working my way through the works of a particular writer, or somebody I know says hey have you read such and such by so and so and I pick… Read More
Over the weekend, I gobbled up Robin Sloan’s new novel, Sourdough. The narrator is a woman who creates program code for robot arms. She orders soup and sandwiches daily from a restaurant with no address, and when the owners, who come from an exotic and… Read More
I just finished reading an excellent novel called Running, written by Cara Hoffman. The novel is set in Athens in the 80s where Bridey and a couple she befriends, Milo and Jasper (all in their late teens), are sharing a room in a shitty hotel… Read More
I found this book on somebody’s list of best books so far this year. It’s the story of two brothers, prohibition-era gangsters in a NE American city. One of the brothers meets up with a bootlegger/gangster/fixer in Montreal while running Canadian booze south. This guy… Read More
27th Street 