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The LeVar Burton Reads podcast offers a wonderful audio version of Ray Bradbury's "The Great Wide World Over There." It's a lyrical tale of human relationships, letter writing and self-reliance, or the lack thereof. That sent me back to a text reading in my favorite paperback edition of "The Golden Apples of the Sun" with Bradbury on the cover. #bookstagram #reading #shortstories #speculativefiction #RayBradbury #LeVarBurton
pickwants.
“This thriller-cum-caper will keep readers eagerly turning the pages.”
– Publisher‘s Weekly
Amazon review: “Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse, like any good apocalyptic read, offers a healthy dose of humor to balance out the dread and violence often associated with the genre. This collection of short fiction also presents the other side to it, namely the attempt to find normalcy in life long after everything that was once taken for granted has been pulled from beneath our feet. Sound familiar?”
pickA wonderful cozy with more twists than a bolt of yarn. Second in the series. It builds slow, but it‘s worth the trip. The ending is fun and action-packed.
Featuring the Bumpus hounds and more.
A fun collection of holiday Wolfe mysteries including “Christmas Party.”
Spent some time in the Scottish Highlands recently, and it‘s brought me back to Kidnapped with fresh eyes and deeper understanding.
I‘ve been reading or re-reading a lot of Ellison stories since his death. This collection includes “Brillo,” the story that led to the “Future Cop” lawsuit in the ‘70s. Interesting tale.
“The motel slept in silence, all the guests probably busy counting stolen money or chopping up corpses in the bathtub.”
In the happy accident department, I think I got a signed copy from a used seller. I was just looking for a reading copy.
“He smiled, thinking that very soon she would cease being a kid and turn into a human being; and then all the rest of her days would be spent chasing the memory of what she had left behind.” - Night of Black Glass
RIP Harlan Ellison. From The Boulevard of Broken Dreams:
“There was an officer, an Oberstleutnant. Johan Hagen. He was in charge of the mass grave digging detail at Bergen-Belsen. ... He was hung in June of 1946. I was there. I saw him hang.”
Damon stared across at his old friend. Fenton was in his early sixties, almost bald now, and he had been sick. “Take it easy, Pat.”
“I just saw him walk past that window.”
pickA cool, brutal, funny and action-packed entry into the Harlem Detectives series. It‘s a twisted tale of a young mortician led into a world of crime and crisis as he tries to reunite with his love Imabelle, a femme fatale at the heart of a ring of crooks, con men and a trunk of gold ore. If there‘s a flaw it‘s that there‘s not quite enough of cops Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.
Paperbacks from Hell includes a brief history of the “women running from houses” era. I recently read A Touch of the Witch, a concise and fun little tale of a young woman journeying from NYC to her odd ancestral New England Home with her almost committed boyfriend. Soon she‘s wrangling with a mysterious young woman and a creepy uncle. Does she have special powers herself? Everything plays out over a couple of days with the danger mounting steadily
I have to give my cat, Oliver Littlechap, a little lap time in the mornings before I‘m allowed to work on my laptop. I‘ve taken to reading short stories while he lounges. The Snow Angel by Doug Allyn in this collection is a great police procedural mystery.
“He got a cup of coffee and two doughnuts for 30 cents and stood at the counter.” Anyone else run the numbers on money in old books to see where things would be today? Apparently in 1957, a buck was equal to $8.93 today. The character is trying to raise what would be almost $6000 today.
pickA character-rich tale that lulls at times but builds to an inevitable yet truly chilling conclusion. One of the best slow-burn ghost stories I‘ve read.
pickA real character-driven private eye tale, brutal and honest and without mercy.
