ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

BOOK REVIEWS

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “The Wife of Kenite” by Agatha Christie

    I have a stereotype of Agatha Christie based on the very few Hercule Poirot novels and short stories I have read thus far. The stereotype is that she writes classic Cozy Mysteries. Cozy Mysteries are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is usually an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place… Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: Edgar Rice Burroughs

    “Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 years for various blogs. This was first posted on February 2, 2012. I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ~ Groucho Marx I must confess that I am a bad television… Read more

  • The Loyal Friend

    I love books and reading. And I love collecting quotes. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes about reading and books. I hope you find a few you like and maybe a few for your own collection. Quotes on Books and Reading I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Waiting

    He roamed around the apartment after breakfast. He hadn’t eaten heavily because he was afraid it wouldn’t stay down. He drank a small glass of orange juice and a cup of hot coffee. He washed the glass, the cup, and the saucer, and then began waiting for Babs to return. (cf. McBain, Ed. So Nude,… Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Eagleton on Marx

    In our own time, as Marx predicted, inequalities of wealth have dramatically deepened. The income of a single Mexican billionaire today is equivalent to the earnings of the poorest seventeen million of his compatriots.            * * * * * * * * * *  Why do we continue to indulge… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Homburg

    Saturday noon he was moved in. He ate lunch out of his newly stocked double-door refrigerator, enjoying the manufacture of a jelly omelet and coffee black as his Homburg. (cf. Cox, William R.Make My Coffin Strong: A William R. Cox Hardboiled Mystery. Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Visitors

    Jo-Anne had started pouring the coffee when the doorbell rang. After four in the morning, it would be either the milkman or cops. I was not betting on Louis Pasteur’s boy. We all deserted the kitchen for the front door. “Police Medical Examiner,” the stocky man with rimless glasses and a doctor’s satchel told us.… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Language

    Just like that he laughed. “You’re a cocky little punk.” “You’re the first guy who ever called me little, friend.” He laughed again. “Come on inside and have some coffee and keep your language where it belongs. I got all kinds of visitors today.” (cf. Spillane, Mickey. The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume II.) Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: On the Western

    “Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 years for various blogs. This was first posted on June 24, 2011. As a literary and film art form, the Western’s time has passed. And yet… there remains a small number of dedicated western fans who remain loyal to this most American of all art… Read more

  • Thoreau on Trees & Water

    This past winter besides reading short stories and mysteries, I re-read Thoreau with an eye to arriving this spring in a different place: poetically, philosophically, and ontologically. Ontology is a word I hear seldom in my work-a-day world (read that never), where once it was such a prevalent word in all my worlds: work, academic, and reading.… Read more