tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386566332024-03-28T09:38:24.247-05:00Book ChaseA seventeen-year-old book blog offering book reviews and news about authors, publishers, bookstores, and libraries. Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.comBlogger3682125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-35031776483821687592024-03-27T17:05:00.003-05:002024-03-27T17:05:51.710-05:00A Death in Denmark - Amulya Malladi That A Death in Denmark had so much potential going for it compared to what it actually delivers is what makes this book so disappointing to me. The basic premise of the novel is that an ex-Copenhagen policeman, as a personal favor to someone once close to him, agrees to look into the case of an Iraqi refugee who has been convicted of the murder of a prominent right-wing Danish Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-3037021666201270332024-03-25T05:00:00.002-05:002024-03-25T05:00:00.132-05:00What I'm Reading This Week (March 25, 2024) I'm not real sure where last week disappeared to so quickly, but it's already time to start another reading week. I finished two books last week (Sociopath and Again and Again) and made some good progress on a couple of others, but it sure doesn't feel that way. I'm almost done with The Storm We Made and have gotten to a couple of twists in this story of Japan's WWII occupation of Malaya Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-49229383442304510392024-03-24T11:19:00.002-05:002024-03-24T11:19:48.689-05:00Sociopath - Patric Gagne I've read dozens of memoirs over the last few years, but seldom has one surprised me quite as much as Patric Gagne's Sociopath. I initially wanted to read Sociopath because of my confusion (and as it turns out, my misunderstanding) of the difference between the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath." I had come to believe that the difference between the two was based on criminal activity - Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-9840351392435725082024-03-20T15:16:00.003-05:002024-03-20T15:16:42.780-05:00Day - Michael Cunningham I admire Michael Cunningham's writing, and I think that his covid-novel, Day, is very well written. As far as covid-novels go, Day is definitely one of the better ones I've read, but maybe the books are (as a group) starting to hit a little too close to home for me to continue seeking them out. We all lived through the Year from Hell that 2020 was, and I suspect that most of us suffered Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-34421532599616601092024-03-18T15:48:00.000-05:002024-03-18T15:48:25.987-05:00How to Build a Boat - Elaine Feeney (And a 2023 Booker Prize List Ranking Update) Elaine Feeney's How to Build a Boat was a 2023 Booker Prize nominee, and in my estimation it is one of the better ones nominated last year. How to Build a Boat does share one of the more common themes of the 2023 Booker novels in that its main character is somewhere deep on the autism spectrum, but I found it to be more optimistic and hopeful than All the Little Bird-Hearts, Study for Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-34460663648340263522024-03-17T17:27:00.002-05:002024-03-17T17:27:58.297-05:00What I'm Reading This Week (March 18, 2024) Despite continuing to succumb to so many distractions last week, I managed to finish three of the books I've been reading. One of them, The Case of the Empty Tin, is a book I'm very happy to finally have in my rear-view mirror; and another one, Day, did not work for me nearly as well as I'd hoped it would. Day turned out to be just OK for me, but I did really enjoy How to Solve Your Own Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-75183519985299797322024-03-14T22:30:00.001-05:002024-03-14T23:31:28.471-05:00The Case of the Empty Tin - Erle Stanley Gardner The Case of the Empty Tin is Erle Stanley Gardner's nineteenth Perry Mason novel, so you would think that by this point, having now had so much experience writing Mason and all the other recurring series characters, that the books would be consistently satisfying ones. Well, think again. This novel is actually so bad that I may never see Perry Mason, the character, in a positive Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-72130740318408579562024-03-12T05:00:00.009-05:002024-03-12T05:00:00.236-05:00How to Solve Your Own Murder - Kristen Perrin How to Solve Your Own Murder is a novel about an elderly woman who has been trying to prove since she was seventeen years old that someone is trying to kill her. A fortune teller told her so, and she believes it. And as it turns out, they were both right.In 1965 Frances Adams and her two best friends stopped by a carnival fortune teller's table on a lark, expecting that they would hear one Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-82654878214792876282024-03-11T05:00:00.001-05:002024-03-11T05:00:00.364-05:00What I'm Reading This Week (March 11, 2024) I had another of those hard-to-concentrate weeks last week that seem to be plaguing me more and more often these days. Seems like my mind was all over the place, with quick, but short, bursts of energy that pulled me in multiple directions all week long. As a result, my week didn't go at all as planned. I did finish a couple of books (Hitchcock's Blondes and How to Build a Boat) but never Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-63931609324615096462024-03-10T05:00:00.001-05:002024-03-10T05:00:00.258-05:00Hitchcock's Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director's Dark Obsession - Laurence Leamer Even casual viewers of Alfred Hitchcock movies have to be struck by how closely most of the lead actresses in those films resemble each other. Hitchcock's version of the ideal woman appeared over and over in his best movies, and he prided himself on being able to turn unknowns who met his physical standards into A-List movie stars. The problem was that Hitchcock wanted to control the Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-50654466457727081332024-03-08T05:00:00.001-06:002024-03-08T05:00:00.354-06:00Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird - Agustina Bazterrica I really enjoy short stories, and I probably read around 200 of them a year. Some are standalones culled from magazines, but most come from the half-dozen or so short story compilations that I read every year. I started reading short stories primarily as a way to "test drive" an author's prose style, but I've long since become a fan of the genre itself and the reading experience that can Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-52007384174019778682024-03-06T05:00:00.002-06:002024-03-20T15:53:51.048-05:00Killers of a Certain Age - Deanna RaybournDeanna Raybourn's series novels are not really a good match for my reading tastes, so Killers of a Certain Age, a 2022 standalone of Raybourn's, is my first exposure to her fiction. And as it turns out, I'm surprised at how much fun I had reading this wild story about four sixty-something ex-assassins who come out of retirement to prove that they can still kill with the best of them. There's so Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-90715131214712130872024-03-04T05:00:00.001-06:002024-03-04T05:00:00.243-06:00What I'm Reading This Week (March 4, 2024) I ended up finishing three books again last week, one I absolutely loved (Killers of a Certain Age), one I thought was above average (There There), and one that I found kind of appalling (Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird). I've also been really surprised by how much I'm enjoying the first half of Elaine Feeney's How to Build a Boat, another of the 2023 Booker Prize nominees. This week Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-7273992502291391762024-03-03T05:00:00.001-06:002024-03-03T05:00:00.246-06:00There There - Tommy Orange Tommy Orange's 2018 debut novel could hardly have any done better for him than it did. There There was a 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of that year's National Book Award. Not many first-time novelists can make that claim - but somehow, I just don't love this book.Orange has said that he was inspired to write There There because urban Native American communities, like his own Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-52999687852086665052024-03-01T05:00:00.000-06:002024-03-01T05:00:00.138-06:00American Spirits - Russell Banks The literary world suffered a great loss when author Russell Banks died of cancer in January 2023 at the age of eighty-two. Twice a Pulitzer Prize for fiction finalist, Banks came to be known as a novelist and short story writer whose work usually focused on the daily struggles and stresses of ordinary working people, those forever fated to remain on the outside looking in at others whose Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-22701259190779397532024-02-28T05:00:00.000-06:002024-02-28T05:00:00.140-06:00The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic - Daniel de Visé Those of us who tuned into NBC's Saturday Night back in the day just to get another dose of John Belushi's craziness (in my case, it was also to see Gilda Radner in action) should not have been surprised by John's sudden death or even the way that he died. But most of us still were. Daniel de Visé's The Blues Brothers, part dual-biography, part show business history, and part Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-4213790287196855502024-02-26T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-26T05:00:00.142-06:00What I'm Reading This Week (February 26, 2024) I finished three books last week, but the real highlight of the week for me was the way a fourth one so unexpectedly absorbed almost all the reading time I had left over. Finished up were Study for Obedience, The Blues Brothers, and American Spirits, three books with very little in common, and the one that grabbed me and wouldn't let go was Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age.I'm Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-4136599004135795042024-02-24T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-24T05:00:00.136-06:00Study for Obedience - Sarah Bernsetin (And a 2023 Booker Prize List Update) For reasons not entirely clear to me, Sarah Bernstein's Study for Obedience was included on the 2023 Booker Prize shortlist. The novel remains as much a puzzle to me today as it did when, expecting a quick read, I began the first of its 200-or-so pages. A quick read, this is not.The publisher compares Bernstein's style to that of Shirley Jackson, a writer I've often enjoyed reading, Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-5791046689547126502024-02-22T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-22T05:00:00.131-06:00Ex-Libris: 100 Books to Read and Reread - Michiko Kakutani Although Michiko Kakutani's Ex-Libris is subtitled 100 Books to Read and Reread, what Kakutani actually does here is divide the book into 100 sections, many of which include multiple books. One section, for instance, is titled "The Works of William Shakespeare" even though the author's work is only discussed in general terms with only one or two of the plays being specifically referenced atSam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-4109822259510306432024-02-20T05:00:00.002-06:002024-02-20T05:00:00.132-06:00Galway Confidential - Ken Bruen Galway Confidential is Ken Bruen's seventeenth Jack Taylor novel, but it is the first since A Galway Ephiphany was published during the catastrophic covid year of 2020. Appropriately enough, as this new glimpse into Jack's darkly chaotic world begins, Jack himself is just waking up from a coma of almost two year's duration. Jack wakes up into a world in which so much has changed that he canSam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-16882238835451423992024-02-19T05:00:00.002-06:002024-02-19T05:00:00.441-06:00What I'm Reading This Week (February 19, 2024) Despite this past Friday marking the start of the 2024 college baseball season (my favorite sports season of them all), I managed to complete three books I've been reading: Larry McMurtry: A Life, Ex-Libris: 100 Books to Read and Reread, and Galway Confidential. I've already reviewed the Larry McMurtry biography, and I hope to share my thoughts on the latter two books later on this week. I Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-79398769571852628332024-02-17T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-17T05:00:00.152-06:00Larry McMurtry: A Life - Tracy Daugherty "The bookshops are a form of ranching. Instead of herding cattle [booksellers] herd books. Writing is a form of herding, too; I herd words into little pargraphlike clusters."I first read Larry McMurtry back in 1971 after finding a battered, jacketless copy of Moving On on the clearance shelves of a used-book bookstore one day. Picking it up for a dollar, I didn't figure I had a lot to lose Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-35618249899103276162024-02-15T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-15T05:00:00.245-06:00Writing to Learn - William Zinsser William Zinsser's thirty-year-old Writing to Learn has fundamentally changed the way I read, and I only wish I'd found it sooner than I did. As it turns out, this is not so much a book on how to write well, as it is a book about why you should write more - and how big a difference developing that one habit can make in your life. For me, the primary takeaway from Writing to Learn Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-51509907208323948682024-02-13T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-13T05:00:00.255-06:00The Chatham School Affair - Thomas H. Cook Even in mid-December 2023, I had (probably) still not heard of Thomas H. Cook despite all the crime fiction the man has written over the last several decades. But by the end of the first week in February 2024, I had read three of Cook's books, and knew that I'd be reading more of them.It's a cliché to put it this way, but reading a Thomas H. Cook novel is very much like peeling an onion Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-77109849484614901812024-02-12T05:00:00.003-06:002024-02-18T16:15:31.924-06:00What I'm Reading This Week (February 12, 2024) My past reading week would best be described as one in which I made some steady progress while beginning a couple of new books that I'm finding it really difficult to pin down. I finished three books again, and seem to be pretty much settled into that pace (probably just jinxed that though): My Side of the River, The Chatham School Affair, and Writing to Learn. I will share my thoughts on Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com12