Book review: “Bury Your Dead” by Louise Penny
Sometimes, a mystery novel, if the writer is ambitious, will have two puzzles to be solved. It’s a complicated gambit for an author since it can leave the reader totally [...]
Book review: “Carpe Jugulum” by Terry Pratchett
Two witches — Nanny Ogg and Agnes Nitt — don’t like the family of oh-so-courteous vampires who have decided to visit the small nation of Lancre in a mountainous area [...]
Book review: “The Coast of Chicago” by Stuart Dybek
In winter night, the boy sits in the dark kitchen of the flat with his grandfather Dzia-Dzia. Upstairs, the pregnant girl Marcy is playing sad Chopin on her piano as [...]
Poem: Heron
Heron By Patrick T. Reardon . Great blue heron, white in high green, folds on self, forward falls toward water, clear space, wingspan wind-catch, rise in flight. . I am [...]
Essay: Nothing new about America’s cancel culture
The other day, I started reading Jane Austen’s delightfully droll and perceptive 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, and it’s gotten me thinking about the cancel culture. “Cancel culture” is a [...]
Book review: “Storm Front: Dresden Files” by Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher’s 2000 novel Storm Front, the first of the very successful series of Dresden Files novels — 17 so far with more on the horizon — is a rip-snorting, [...]
After reading “State of Relax” by Eileen Myles
After reading “State of Relax” by Eileen Myles By Patrick T. Reardon . "Cows kissing goats" — Bible-immersed — I see lions bedding with lambs. . Calliope of poem, lustful, [...]
Book review: “Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization” by Paul Kriwaczek
There is much that is surprising and interesting and fascinating in Paul Kriwaczek’s 2010 book Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. And much in Kriwaczek’s storytelling that is infuriating. [...]
Book review: “Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?” by Tom Holt
Actually, Beowulf isn’t a character in Tom Holt’s 1988 comic novel Who’s Afraid of Beowulf? (although that is, of course, a fun title). He’s not even mentioned until a few [...]
Book review: “Dread Companion” by Andre Norton
Andre Norton’s 1970 novel Dread Companion opens with Kilda c’ Rhyn detailing for the reader the mystery at the heart of her story. She was 16 when she landed on [...]