Tag: Books

  • Strange News!

    As everyone is no doubt aware, I have another novel coming out on May 3, called Strange News. The book is starting to appear at various online retailers for pre-orders now. It is available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book; if you don’t see it in your format yet, check back later. It’ll get there.

    About the book: I should tell you that Strange News is a Fantasy, which is a genre that I haven’t attempted before (except in short stories).

    This is not what the publishers call “High” fantasy. Nobody has a sword, or rides a horse to work. They don’t communicate via crystal balls or bowls of sparkly magic water. People in my book have cellphones and they take the bus. They have jobs, they have pets, they live in houses and apartments, not Hobbit-holes or castles. There are no elves, no orcs, no wizards with long beards and posh British accents. There’s just an ordinary guy with bad knees and a weakness for sweets who stumbles into something wild.

    Something that changes his world forever.

    Click here to see a list of available retailers, and a schedule of in-person events!

  • Truth and lies.

    • My copy is somewhat more up to date than this one.

    I was poking around among the bookshelves a day or so ago, looking for something to entertain me as the first cool weather of the season settles in, when I spotted my rather tattered Penguin Classics copy of the Histories of Herodotus.

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  • The shape of words.

    • William Tyndale, c. 1490 – 1536.

    Anyone who knows me may be surprised to learn that I own three Bibles (the Revised Standard, the New English, and the King James), as well as the Book of Mormon, the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, the Apocrypha, and an English translation of the Qur’an. I know the difference between an Apostle and an Epistle, I can list the twelve sons of Jacob*, and I can whip out a quote from the four Gospels for just about any occasion.

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  • Bam. Pow. Kablooie.

    • How to spot the bad guys? Great vocabulary. Terrible fashion sense.

    Anguish. Antagonist. Annihilate. Adept.

    What do all these words have in common?

    Venerable. Veritable. Volcanic. Variable.

    I’ll give you a hint: I had learned to use all of them in a sentence by the time I reached the third grade.

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  • On Aging

    From “Mathios Paschalis among the Roses”, by George Seferis:

    Her aunt was a poor old body, — veins in relief,
    Many wrinkles about her ears, a nose about to die;
    Yet her words always full of wisdom.
    One day I saw her touching Antigone’s breast,
    Like a child stealing an apple

    Will I perhaps meet the old woman as I keep descending?
    When I left she said to me “Who knows when we shall meet again?”
    Then I read of her death in some old newspapers
    And of Antigone’s wedding and the wedding of Antigone’s daughter
    Without an end of the steps or of my tobacco
    Which imparts to me the taste of a haunted ship
    With a mermaid crucified, when still beautiful, to the wheel.

    (Excerpted from “George Seferis: Poems”, translated from the Greek by Rex Warner, Nonpareil Books, 1960)

  • The View from the Tower

    • “The Tower of Babel” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563) — We used to think it was a good idea to understand each other.

    I often read novels by Latin-American authors in the original Spanish.

    I know, I know: at least part of the reason for doing it is just to be able to make statements like that — we all carve out these nuggets of self-esteem where we can find them — but the fact remains that some stars really do shine brighter in the universes that gave them birth.

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  • Colonel Mustard, in the Library…

    • Holmes never actually said “Elementary, my dear Watson,” but Basil Rathbone made us wish he had.

    One-hundred seventy-one years ago, Edgar Allen Poe published his “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. A genre was born, and I, for one, am thankful. I do love a good detective story, now and then.

    Poe’s investigator was an individual named Dupin, a “gentleman” in the most traditional sense of the word, a man of independent means who did not have to work for a living, but who could amuse himself however he chose: in this case, by investigating a sensational murder that he and his companion had been following in the press.

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  • The Sun Finally Sets on Britannica

    • So round, so firm, so fully packed.

    Encyclopedia Britannica, I’m going to miss you.

    I’ll never forget those long, hot afternoons of my adolescence, huddled with you in the college library, dripping sweat onto overdue term papers, struggling to find words that could compare to yours (but stopping before things got out of hand and I lost a letter grade due to plagiarism.)  World Book, Encyclopedia Americana, they just didn’t compare. They didn’t have the heft, the smooth pages bound so seductively in leather and gold, the splashes of tropical color in the sections on Argentina, on Birds, on Cheese. Studying without you has never been the same.

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  • Transylvania, Arkansas

    • A few days in Fort Lauderdale would have made all the difference.

    There’s something jarring about looking around on a beautiful Spring day and seeing teenagers roaming the sunlit streets in Goth gear. Even after all this time, the black clothes, eyeliner, and prison-white skin all seem better suited to overcast skies and dim, windowless indoor spaces than balmy breezes and tulips. I have no particular issue with the look — I was in high school in the 1970’s, so I have much to answer for myself, as far as teen fashion goes — but I wonder if many of these kids realize where the whole thing started.

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  • Family Hour

    • Tragedy, my ass. Armageddon’s what it was.

    In the interest of broadening my horizons, I’ve spent Oscar month away from movies and reading classic plays, instead. I’m not sure that the experience has been enlightening.

    Today I wrapped up with “The Duchess of Malfi”, by English playwright John Webster (written circa 1613). I’m not quite sure what to think. During the course of the play we experience:

    • Four stranglings (the Duchess, her servant, and her two youngest children);
    • Four fatal stabbings (the Duchess’ two brothers, her lover, and her murderer);
    • One case of lycanthrophy (the Duchess’ brother);
    • One poisoning, the result of kissing a specially treated Bible (the mistress of the Duchess’ non-werewolf brother, a Cardinal);
    • A waxwork representation of the Duchess’ lover and children, posed as though murdered (used to torment the Duchess, by her brother);
    • A entire palace full of madmen (also brought there to torment the Duchess, again by her brother); and
    • One ghost.
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