ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

BOOK REVIEWS

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: “First Dream” by Billy Collins

    Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over a 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on June 28th, 2011. Billy Collins’ popularity and financial success make him one of those poets it is hard to ignore. The quality of his poetry makes him impossible to forget. Collins’ poem “The First Dream” is… Read more

  • BOOK REVIEW: The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins

    Wilkie Collins (01/08/1824 – 09/23/1889) is best known for his detective novels, The Woman in White and The Moonstone. He is often credited with establishing the ground rules of the modern detective story and police procedural. Both The Woman in White and The Moonstone are doorstoppers—huge and unwieldy at times. The Haunted Hotel, on the other hand, is a more manageable size and adds… Read more

  • SOME THOUGHTS ON ANOTHER RE-READ OF TREASURE ISLAND

    Each time I reread an old favorite, I start with the idea of focusing on some different aspect of the story or a writing technique than I have in the past. Last week, during my annual re-reading of Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece, Treasure Island, I wanted to specifically focus on something that I have noticed before but never spent much time exploring: specifically… Read more

  • Spring on the Big Two-Hearted River

    Every spring for more than 45 years now, I re-read The Big Two-Hearted River. It is, to my mind, the best story about fishing ever written. It is also one of the five best short stories I have ever read. In the early 1980s my friend Bob and I camped and fished the Escanaba River in… Read more

  • RE-READING: War of the Worlds

    During February, I re-read the H.G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds. In March, I will be re-reading Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River.” The latter is a story I have re-read every spring now for more than 45 years. I have come to believe that one of the many reasons I re-read books is that returning to them… Read more

  • A Thaw and Re-Reading

    Here in the North Country, we had a few days of 50-degree weather, but yesterday it snowed again. Those few days of warmth, though, were a foretaste of the feast to come. We are told that ICE is drawing down its numbers here in Minnesota, but reports on the ground remain unclear as to whether… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “Who Killed Zebedee?” by Wilkie Collins

    Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) is an English novelist best known for his two novels: The Lady in White and Moonstone. Both novels are credited with establishing the ground rules of modern Detective Stories. For aficionados of Detective Fiction, like me, both are essential reading. While Lady in White and Moonstone are very long novels, “Who Killed Zebedee?”… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “Three is a Lucky Number” by Margery Allingham

    Margery Allingham (May 1904 – June 1966) was an English novelist and considered alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh to be one of the “Queens of Crime.” She is probably best known for a series of stories featuring Albert Campion. These include:: Over the years, I have read a number of her Campion stories… Read more

  • POETRY BOOK REVIEW: 1855 Edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

    If I were ever to teach a class to aspiring American poets, I would have one required text: the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Hemingway famously wrote in The Green Hills of Africa that all modern American fiction comes from one book, Huckleberry Finn. A similar thing can be said for Walt Whitman and the 1855 edition of Leaves… Read more

  • MORE Thoreau QUOTES

    It is the unflagging beauty of the writing, day after day, that confirms [Thoreau’s Journals] greatness among writers’ journals. ~ Alfred Kazin   I have posted here before that I read and reread Thoreau’s journals the same way I read and reread W.B. Yeats and a few other poets For grounding.. Thoreau’s Journals read like prose poetry. It… Read more