Book review: “Shaking Hands with Death” by Terry Pratchett
Shaking Hands with Death is a very small book, only 59 pages in length, and only 41 of those pages are the words of Terry Pratchett. The rest is taken [...]
Book review: “The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove” by Christopher Moore
“No! Bad dragon!” Molly, wielding a broadsword, has just saved two clueless church ladies from being eaten by Steve, a Sea Beast who, at the moment, looks like a mobile [...]
Book review: “Practical Demonkeeping” by Christopher Moore
Okay. Christopher Moore is funny. Silly. Delightfully loopy. Practical Demonkeeping is the story of a man- and woman-eating demon named Catch who descends on the town of Pine Cove with [...]
Book review: “Everything Explained That Is Explainable: On the Creation of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Celebrated Eleventh Edition, 1910-1911” by Denis Boyles
Pity the poor publisher. Knopf had a great manuscript on its hands from Denis Boyles, but how to market it? The solution was a book cover and title that were [...]
Book review: “Chicago: The Second City” by A.J. Liebling
A.J. Liebling, that caustic, sarcastic, witty New Yorker magazine writer, was no fan of Chicago as he made clear in his 1952 book Chicago: The Second City. Consider his sardonic [...]
Book review: “The Book of ‘Job’: A Biography” by Mark Larrimore
Job is one of the oddest books in the Bible — odd in a scary way, in an unsettling way, in a faith-shaking way. Job is a rich man who [...]
Book review: “Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed” by Charles B. Strozier with Wayne Soini
As 1840 drew to a close and during the first month of 1841, Abraham Lincoln was “crazy as a loon,” according to his law partner and biographer William Herndon. For [...]
Book review: “The Serpent of Venice” by Christopher Moore
The diminutive and aptly named Pocket — court jester of the late lamented (and demented) King Lear of Britain and then consort to the (alas) also late Cordelia, Queen of [...]
Book review: “How to Read the Bible” by Harvey Cox
In How to Read the Bible, influential Protestant theologian Harvey Cox tells about a Biblical scholar who was teaching a course in the books of Exodus and Joshua. The stories [...]
Book review: “Fool” by Christopher Moore
Pocket is a randy fool. That’s not a comment on his intelligence. It’s his job. Well, the fool part is. He’s a court jester. But not just any court jester. [...]