ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

BOOK REVIEWS

  • Why We Love Books

    Sometimes it is easy to forget why we fell in love with books to begin with. This is especially true I think of those of us who were English Majors in college. Honing your ability to analyze books and styles, it becomes all too easy to take your eye off the ball. Ultimately we first… Read more

  • On the Art of the Book Cover

    Some of my earliest and fondest “book-memories” are of the kind of paperback books my father and uncles used to read. The kind of books I would find on tables and shelves in various bunkhouses or in the”office” (trailer) at the city dump where my Uncle Carl used to work: westerns and detective fiction… cheap… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Shot

    Flack went into his desk again, took out a fifth of bourbon, and poured some into his coffee. He grinned. “Wanna cheer yours up a little?” “No thanks.” I got up, “I’ll keep in touch, Julian.” Flack’s grin disappeared. “Don’t call me Julian. And watch your step. I got enough trouble without having you turn… Read more

  • Coping With The Madness

    To cope with the Madness that is Trump, I am reviving a few well-worn strategies again these days. And gravitating to some new ones. First, as I did during is first term, I no longer listen to or watch the news in any form. I will only read the news in my morning StarTribune. The… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “As I Lay Dead” by Fletcher Flora

    I have mentioned here before that Noir and Hardboiled fiction are my guilty pleasures. The tough, cynical protagonists, the fast-paced, action oriented plots, the tone, the dialog, and the style all appeal to me in a way that no other fiction really does. Manhunt first appeared in 1952. According to information Here is some information… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “The Cat” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

    My pursuit of short stories available in the Public Domain has led me to discover a number of very fine 19th Century writers that I did not previously know. One of those writers is Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. I have now read a number of her short stories and will no doubt be reviewing more… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Technique

    The coffee maker was almost ready to bubble. I turned the flame low and watched the water rise. It hung a little at the bottom of the glass tube. I turned the flame up just enough to get it over the hump and then turned it low again quickly. I stirred the coffee and covered… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “XINGU” BY EDITH WHARTON

    Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. (cf. Wharton, Edith. Xingu.) I continue to balance out my reading of Noir, Hardboiled,… Read more

  • BOOK REVIEW: Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes

    At first blush, the marriage between Ovid, that most latin of poets, and Ted Hughes would seem as unlikely a match as any you could imagine. Not in ability, of course, but in language and temperament. Hughes as a poet has always seemed to me one of the most earthy, physical, and Anglo-Saxon of all… Read more

  • Hardboiled Can of Coffee

    “Feel like breakfast?” he asked. “I could do things to a can of black coffee,” Steve admitted. “All right. But you’ll have to gulp it. Judge Denvir is waiting to get a crack at you, and the longer you keep him waiting, the tougher it’ll be for you.” (Hammett, Dashiell. Nightmare Town: Stories) Read more