Deadwood, the novel by Pete Dexter, was published in 1986, long before the unresolved television spectacle of the same name. Both deal with the same couple years in the strange wild west muddy world driven by greed for gold, and both deal with many of… Read More
Lowside of the Road is an unauthorized biography of Tom Waits by Barney Hoskyns, published in 2009. I’m going to come clean and say upfront that I haven’t read many biographies I really loved and I don’t read that many biographies period. I really liked… Read More
Some time ago when I started reading the Wallander novels by Henning Mankell, I hadn’t realized there was a popular fiction genre known as Nordic Noir, featuring a host of messed up detectives. I haven’t read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson… Read More
I finished reading this book last night and posted the following review this morning on goodreads. The Accident is one of those plot-driven mystery-thriller type books, a variation on the whodunnit. I should make a note on ratings here as I’m fairly new to goodreads.… Read More
I just read Miss O’Dell – My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and the Women They Loved. For a music-lover of my generation, it’s a page turner, or at least it was for me, because I… Read More
I just finished reading the rollercoaster ride that is Life, the autobiography of Keith Richards, written with James Fox. I’ve never been a big Rolling Stones fan. I like their catchy melodies and they used to do a good job covering Chicago blues, but really… Read More
I found this posted over at the Presurfer, a place where you never know what you’re going to find. It’s a literature map. Type in an author and you get a moving cloud of related authors. I wish the list in its database was more… Read More
I started reading a highly acclaimed novel before Christmas, called Blackstrap Hawco. It’s reported to be an epic masterwork about Newfoundland’s working class. For whatever reason, this book has not been drawing me in. I leave it alone for days at a time, pick it… Read More
As long as I can remember I’ve liked books. I don’t just mean that I like to read – I do like to read – but I mean I like books. What marvellous objects they are, physical containers for whole worlds. I like the physicality,… Read More
It was announced the other day that Toronto Mayor Miller is writing a book, to be published by Cormorant Books. He plans to tell stories of ordinary Torontonians he encountered during his term as Mayor. The book is to be called Witness to a City:… Read More
27th Street 