A Cineaste’s Bookshelf
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REVIEW: The Heads of Ceberus
Francis Stevens published her first story in 1904. She was just 17 years old. Like the teenage Mary Shelley and Frankenstein before her, she changed how speculative fiction would be written afterwards, but for some reason Stevens is not a household name. Hopefully, that is about to change. Read More »
Books for November
Remember, remember... November feels like the start of the slow turn to the close of the year. Everything outside gets browner and crunchier. There's the quiet dying of the light. It happens subtly, then all at once. It also gives us a moment to sit with the quiet, find a small corner, wrap up in a blanket, and read by lamplight.Read More »
REVIEW: Death at the Sign of a Rook
Brodie's inner monologue is always cranky, sharp, and amusing, and this book is no different. He remains the reluctant hero, by dint of being the one who shows up, not because he has any magnificent altruism.Read More »
REVIEW: Typhoid Mary
Mary Mallon was a carrier of the deadly disease, infected dozens of people (many of whom died) and once she was diagnosed all she had to do was not prepare food to save lives. It seems simple. So why didn't she?Read More »
From Russia, with disquiet
Two new and very different books tackle the same complicated and largely inscrutable Russian history. One makes the ghosts of Russian past very real, and the other explores the demons haunting a Soviet escapee.Read More »
REVIEW: What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust
There is nothing better than embarking on a new adventure with Flavia de Luce. I too enjoy riding my bike to an old cemetery while solving a crime. I just need a manor house in the English countryside. But luckily we can drop in and visit Flavia anytime.Read More »
REVIEW: The Examiner
It's all well and good until the students become more interested in their own agendas than the coursework. When a corporate client with a sketchy past "hires" the the team for a launch party a crosscurrent of morals turns into a whirlpool of chaos.Read More »
REVIEW: The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia
The strength of the novel is in Francesca's voice. Her memories of the hardscrabble town clawing to the side of a mountain are vibrant. The characters were drawn with a sharp, dark charcoal pencil -- impressionistic in style but specific and bold.Read More »
REVIEW: She Left
It's a better than average thriller, with a smart protagonist and a cracking mystery. There are psychological complications, a dusting of clues, well-drawn characters and a quickly moving plot. Read More »
REVIEW: The Murders in Great Diddling
Every once in awhile you read a book you wish you had written. This is one of them. Great Diddling lies somewhere in the English countryside between the Father Brown tv series, the headquarters of the Thursday Murder Club, and Cabot Cove.Read More »
REVIEW: Wordhunter
When the mayor's daughter disappears, the local police ask for Maggie's help in analyzing the notes left by the abductor. Her professor, and law enforcement, think she can offer insights they are missing. She acts as an unofficial profiler considering the perpetrator's vocabulary and choice of phrasing.Read More »
REVIEW: Swimming Pretty
Swimming Pretty is not just a book about what we now know as synchronized swimming. It follows the throughline of women earning the right to be swimmers at all -- recreationally and competitively.Read More »
Spend July between the pages of a bookREVIEW: The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers
As a baby, Clayton was left on the front steps of a retirement home. He grew up among the Fellowship for Puzzlemakers, a group of enigmatologists, codebreakers, and crossword setters who share a reclaimed country estate. Now he has to uncover his origin to secure his future, and that of the Fellowship.Read More »
REVIEW: Bunyan and Henry
Mark Cecil has deftly reframed the hallowed figures of Paul Bunyan and John Henry in this book. The legendary men are forced to go toe to toe with the capitalistic greed of an expanding America. They remain heroes in this retelling but their foes now include amorphous ideals as well as bad guys.Read More »