Category: Reading
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The Many Covers of RL Stine
RL Stine has the benefit of having written for both teens and young readers during an era of markedly good cover art. Few series have been as blessed by consistently fantastic artwork as Goosebumps, and Stine’s early work for Point Horror hit the market when garish, sleazy covers were still the norm for works of horror…
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Bentley Little’s The Store: An Underrated Masterpiece
I don’t know why I’ve avoided Bentley Little for so long. I read his novel The Walking when it came out, and half of The Town years ago, but neither novel caught my attention so much that I stuck with him. That says more about me though than it does about Little, because after finally coming around to reading The…
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How Stephen King’s Earliest Novels Shaped His Career
Juvenilia is a term used to define the works of a writer or artist that are produced while they are still young and before their skills have been wholly fine-tuned. For most writers, this work is rather embarrassing. It is all too easy to see the flawed characters, the hackneyed dialogue, the wandering plot of…
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How Michael Crichton Mined Classic Literature to Write Modern Science Fiction
Years after his death, Michael Crichton is still dominating American culture. Jurassic World shattered records at the box office upon its release, demonstrating that Crichton’s dinosaurs-run-amok brainchild still holds wide appeal. HBO’s remake of Crichton’s early film Westworld was met with great fanfare, both from critics and audiences. And in 2017, a newly-discovered Crichton manuscript will be…
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The Many Covers of Elmore Leonard
In the world of book covers, crime writers have all the fun. The nature of the genre, filled to the brim as it is with guns and busty women and murder and intrigue, provides ample material for gripping artwork and design. It doesn’t hurt that crime novels (and movies) have a long and distinguished history…
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2016 Year in Reading: 5 Books to Blow Your Damn Mind
At the end of every year I read a lot of book lists: what’s great, what sucked, what should have been better. Sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion that everyone got together and voted on the year’s best books before anyone wrote anything, given that certain titles seem to pop up over and over and…
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How Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles” Changed Science Fiction (and Literature)
What has this man from Illinois done, I ask myself when closing the pages of his book, that episodes from the conquest of another planet fill me with horror and loneliness? ~ Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges in the introduction to the Spanish-language translation of The Martian Chronicles. In 1950, precisely halfway through a century…
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7 Memoirs to Give Your Son As He Heads Into the World
The memoir is a unique genre of literature. Unlike its brother, the biography, it relies more heavily upon reflection than fact. And while biographies are most successful when they relate the adventures of truly epic lives, memoirs can be powerful even when they record the existence of the most humdrum individuals. All of us need…
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The Many Covers of John D. MacDonald
Recent years have seen the re-release of a vast number of novels by the great (and currently under-appreciated) John D. MacDonald. Most of these have been from MacDonald’s oft heralded Travis McGee series. Many of the new McGee covers are excellent. Sharp photography, compelling images, great use of color and mood. They certainly catch the eye,…
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Hemingway’s Library: The Books Papa Bought and Read
Inevitably, every writer is eventually asked what they like to read. Who are the favorite authors? The most beloved books? What would they suggest other writers read? It’s a fine opportunity to lie. Having spent a fair amount of my life around writers and English majors, I can attest to the desire to want to…
The Black Cat Moan 