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Recent Posts
- On Randall K. Wilson’s “A Place Called Yellowstone”: Award-Winning History of Yellowstone National Park
- On Candice Millard’s “River of Doubt” and “River of the Gods”: Bugs, Snakes, and Disease Aplenty
- More Alone than “Alone”: On Adam Shoalts’s “Vanished Beyond the Map: The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell” (2025)
- Rachel McAdams film “Send Help” (2026) Makes Comic Gold Out of “Survivor” and “Alone” Audition Videos
- “The Wiggle Room”: A Short Story
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Category Archives: books
On Hanna Rosin's "The End of Men": The End of Men? Maybe Not, But Thanks for Asking
So I’ve been reading Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men (2012)—why? out of sheer obstinacy, no doubt—which is at turns annoying, blockheaded, fascinating, fun, and scary. And for all those responses, it must be doing something right. I would have … Continue reading
Review of Wilton Barnhardt's "Lookaway, Lookaway," Plus My Daugher as a Horse
So I feel like a bad blog Daddy now, neglecting my child for so long, though I’m not neglecting my real daughter, as the photo below will attest—or at least judged by the standard of taking cool pictures of her … Continue reading
"The Lousy Adult" Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You (If There's One Left: "Online Shopping, Anyone?")
So I’ve been neglecting this blog of late, working to finish a first draft of a new novel, one that involves a woman holding a teenage boy hostage, some experimental sex-drug studies, and other various mischief, but advance copies of … Continue reading
Posted in books, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, The Lousy Adult, The West
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Review of Bob Shacochis's "The Woman Who Lost Her Soul"
So my book review of Bob Shacochis’s The Woman Who Lost Her Soul appeared in the Dallas Morning News last Sunday, and can be found here. One thing remarkable about the book is that it’s quite long (720 pages), and … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film
Tagged Bob Shacochis, Book Reviewing, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction
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On Morris Collins's Knockout Debut Novel, "Horse Latitudes," and the Anxiety of Influence, Part 2
So in my review/comments about Kent Wascom’s debut novel The Blood of Heaven I mentioned how the press release hyped it as being similar to Cormac McCarthy, which it is, stylistically, but how I don’t think his feet should be … Continue reading
Posted in books, Uncategorized
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Morris Collins
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Guest Blog Post on Dan Bloom's "CliFi" Blog
So I have a guest blog post/interview on Dan Bloom’s “CliFi” blog today, here. As I mention in the post, I’m working on a novel set during a catastrophic wildfire, and there’s one going on right now west of where … Continue reading
Posted in Birding, books, Climate Change, The West
Tagged Climate Change, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West, Wildfires
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Review of Kent Wascom's "The Blood of Heaven," Plus a Mission Debrief
So my review of Kent Wascom’s impressive debut novel, The Blood of Heaven, appears today in the Dallas Morning News, here. It’s a rollicking book, and I have to say I keep thinking of that Hatfields & McCoys miniseries whenever … Continue reading
On "The Road," Choking on Smoke
So I’ve owned a house in southern Colorado for ten years, and during that time have seen our summer weather go up and down, some years wet and some years dry, only it always seems to be trending toward hotter … Continue reading
On Kent Haruf's "Benediction," Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" and the Colorado Fires, Again
So this post should be a candidate for some kind of parlor game like “Try to pinpoint the logical connection (though there may not be one)”: I finished Kent Haruf’s Benediction, which includes a scare at the end (I won’t … Continue reading
On Kent Haruf's new novel, "Benediction," and Anticipation for the Upcoming New Coen Brothers' Film, "Inside Llewyn Davis"
So Kent Haruf’s new novel, Benediction, came out last February, but I waited until I came to Colorado to buy it, because I know Kent. He lives near Salida, about fifty miles from where my summer (writing) home is, and … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, The West, Uncategorized
Tagged Book Reviewing, Coen Brothers, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Kent Haruf, The West
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