Jul 25, 2015 | On Books, Past Notes
THE RITUAL by Adam Nevill is an astonishingly well-written contemporary horror novel. It is my new favorite horror novel. The story is so solidly grounded in the reality of four friends lost in a Boreal forest, that by the time weird things start happening, you are...
Jul 7, 2015 | Past Notes, Reviews
“A considerable achievement… powerful and elegant… morally complex and challenging.” Wilderness of Mirrors is “about the events of 9-11 and the War on Terror, but of course it’s also generally about many other topics—religion, history, international politics, the...
Apr 28, 2015 | On Books, Past Notes
Ariana Franklin is the master of historical suspense, and I love what she did in MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH. My favorite part of the book is her mock-Chaucerian beginning, where she quickly sketches the different characters who are approaching Cambridge after their...
Jan 22, 2015 | Bookstores, On Books, Past Notes
February 21, 2014 by Thomas C. Frohlich Via 27-7 Wall Street Blog For the fourth straight year, Washington, D.C. is the most literate city in the United States, according to a recent study on literacy. The study, by Central Connecticut State University (CCSU),...
Jan 16, 2015 | On Books, Past Notes
Ariana Franklin is the master of historical suspense, and I love what she did in MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH. My favorite part of the book is her mock-Chaucerian beginning, where she quickly sketches the different characters who are approaching Cambridge after their...
Jan 16, 2015 | On Books, Past Notes
Morality Play, by Barry Unsworth, is a tight taut tale of a troupe of actors in 14th century England who enter a new village and find out about the murder of a local boy. In a twist unusual to their station in the culture and their tenuous place in life, they actually...
