BOOK REVIEWS
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I stopped at the corner drugstore and had a fifth cup of coffee. Marge, the blonde waitress, glanced sharply at me. “You look shaky, Mr. Caldwell,” she said. “Anybody’d think you was plannin’ to rob the bank.” It was a standard gag. I grinned. “Got a headache, I guess.” I left there, went across to Read more
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I never got in this business, in cinema, to make horror movies. They arrived on my doorstep and I got typecast. Which was fine, I enjoy it, but I got into this business to make westerns. And the kind of westerns I used to see, they died. So that didn’t work out. John Carpenter Read more
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I placed the gun down on the table, went to the stove and poured myself a cup of coffee, returned to the table and sat down. My eyes remained fixed on the gun because there was something I had to remember about it. I’m not a gun fancier; I’ve had too much experience with them. Read more
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“Like a touch of bourbon—or some coffee?” “Coffee, please.” So we had what I had asked for, and chewed things around a while. Since he knew something about Fay’s background, I didn’t object when he started in—but some of it hurt. Her father had been a shack-town drunk and bootlegger and a few other things. Read more
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The review also had an immense though less calculable effect upon the sensibility of the author. Upon Keats the effect is notorious; also upon the sensitive Tennyson. Not only did he alter his poems at the reviewer’s bidding, but actually contemplated emigration; and was thrown, according to one biographer, into such despair by the hostility Read more
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Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on May 25, 2016 Summer has returned to the North Country with days of green and growing trees and grass. Mornings are filled with the songs of birds. At night, we go to sleep to a Read more
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He looked over at the light burning in the Coffee Shop and knew it would soon open for business. That gave him the idea. “What time does it open?” he asked. “At seven,” she said, following his glance. “What time is the coffee ready?” “About a quarter of.” She sighed. “Which means it’s almost time Read more
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“A crime disturbs the status quo; we readers get to enjoy the transgressive thrill, then observe approvingly as the detective, agent of social order, sets things right at the end. We finish our coca and tuck ourselves in, safe and sound….But what this theory fails to take into account is the next book, the next Read more
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“Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on March 23, 2020. There are good books and there are great books and there may be a book that is something still more: it is the book of your life. If you’re quite lucky, you Read more
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I woke the next morning, Friday, with about two hours’ total sleep during the preceding night. My stomach was jerky, and I nicked myself while shaving. I had a cup of coffee for breakfast. I walked around the block twice, waiting for the hardware store to open. Inside, I had the bank deposit prepared in Read more
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