Month: June 2011

  • Another place, another time

    Steve Wishnevsky takes a look at a first novel that intrigues him as much for the history it offers as for the story it tells. By Stephen Wishnevsky LOISAIDA. By Dan Chodorkoff. Fomite. 348 pages. $14.95. This is an interesting first novel, a bit stiff perhaps, but a valuable look at an erased piece of…

  • Goodbye, and thanks for the series

    Bob Moyer says this about this review: “I had the privilege to hear Robert B. Parker read from his excellent baseball novel Double Play.  Afterward, he answered questions in his gruff but somehow gracious way – until someone asked him about his ‘research’ on the times, Jackie Robinson, etc.  Parker interrupted him and said, ‘Wait…

  • A two-handed review

    Our roving contributing editor, Paul O’Connor, has interrupted his travels to review a novel set during World War II. Since his travels took him to Oregon when the author was there, he also was able to hear Jeff Shaara discuss his writing. By Paul T. O’Connor THE FINAL STORM. By Jeff Shaara. Ballantine Books. 446…

  • A labor of love

    Anne Barnhill, a poet and novelist who often reviews books for this blog and in other forums, offers this note to readers: In more than 20 years of reviewing books, I have tried to maintain a certain objectivity.  I may review books of acquaintances, but I do not let those ties cloud my interpretation of…

  • Have some bread and a good story

    Out of some probably silly literary snobbery, I tend to shy away from the sub-genre of novel about groups of women. I know there are some fine ones. Lee Smith’s The Last Girls, about a reunion of four college suite mates on a riverboat trip down the Mississippi, is a wonderful book. I read that…

  • A real American baseball hero

    Paul O’Connor, Briar Patch Books contributing editor, is on the road this summer. He’s had a little time to read and reflect on the national pastime, his own particular passion for the St. Louis Cardinals, the greatest Cardinal of them all – and life in America. By Paul T. O’Connor STAN MUSIAL: AN AMERICAN LIFE.…