Category: Books

I have a new friend on Facebook who I think is an HP Lovecraft fan, so I’ll take this occasion to post my thoughts on the old gentleman from Providence.  I first became curious about Lovecraft while in High School, when I read a favorable description of his work in the New York Times Review… Continue reading HPL And I

It seems that Amazon.com can now officially read my mind, as it pops up uncannily accurate book suggestions for me whenever I visit the site.  I was really surprised to see this title staring back at me tonight when I was looking up a book.  I originally bought Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy back in the… Continue reading Return To Gormenghast?

It’s sad to see that the downtown Borders bookstore here in Louisville is closing, having fallen victim to the bankruptcy of the parent company.  I’ve previously written about the shrinkage of bookstores, but the end appears to be coming sooner than I expected.  Of course the root causes are easy to identify: alternative forms of… Continue reading Goodbye Borders

One of my favorites authors, Philip Jose Farmer, passed away this past February, at age 91. I still remember back to the 1960s sitting in the car after going out shopping with my parents in Jenkintown, PA, reading the first chapter of the first World of Tiers books, The Maker of Universes, in a green-covered… Continue reading Philip Jose Farmer

As noted in an earlier post, this was George MacDonald Fraser’s last book.  Fraser is best known for the wonderful Flashman novels, recounting the adventures of Victorian era swag Harry Flashman, who was, certainly not by his bidding, involved in nearly every conflict of the 19th century. Besides the Flashman novels, Fraser wrote several other… Continue reading The Reavers by George MacDonald Fraser

A continuous joy in my life since the early 1970s has been my anticipation of the next installment of the memoirs of that Victorian cad Harry Flashman, as related by George MacDonald Fraser. If you have read any of the Flashman books, you probably know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t read them, then… Continue reading Alas, No More Excerpts From The Flashman Papers (?)

Since moving to Louisville, Kentucky I have always wanted to visit the Edgar Rice Burroughs collection at the Ekstrom LIbrary on the campus of the University of Louisville. As my daughter Allison is a student there, and as I had a week off, we went together a couple of weeks ago. The collection is maintained… Continue reading Visit to the Edgar Rice Burroughs Collection in Louisville