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Recent Posts
- On Randall K. Wilson’s “A Place Called Yellowstone”: Award-Winning History of Yellowstone National Park
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- More Alone than “Alone”: On Adam Shoalts’s “Vanished Beyond the Map: The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell” (2025)
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- “The Wiggle Room”: A Short Story
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Tag Archives: Book Reviewing
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 Being in the Center of Everything, With a Nod to the Master, Vladimir Nabokov
So I’ve just returned to my home in State College, Pennsylvania, a name that must rank high on a list of Least Imaginative Monikers, but it does have an odd distinction: It’s (more or less) exactly in the center of … Continue reading
Posted in Art, books/film, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Photography, The Bird Saviors, The West, Vladimir Nabokov
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Encounter With a Lawman in Kent Haruf's Fiction Country: Hats Off to Sheriff Ken Putnam
So I’ve just driven 900+ miles to reach the (shopping mall) mecca that is St. Louis, Missouri, and leaving Colorado I was tooling along at the wheel of my ultracool Subaru Forester (well, let’s say it’s nicely functional, which isn’t … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, Cormac McCarthy, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Coen Brothers, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Kent Haruf, The West
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Goodbye, Colorado, With a Great Horned Owl Sendoff
So it’s not exactly Phillip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus, but yesterday, after a summer of writing/backpacking/river-rafting, I had to leave my beloved Colorado home to head back East, and it was a hectic packing morning. I was rushing about, filling bags … Continue reading
Posted in Birding, books/film, The West
Tagged Birding, Book Reviewing, Good Fiction, Owls, The Bird Saviors, The West, Wildlife photos
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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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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 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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On Reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code": Is It Really as Bad as They Say?
So in The Writer’s World (imagine an alternate universe of eggheads, wannabes, dreamers, drinkers, and too-often-self-obsessed thinkers) Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) has a reputation about on par with Ed Wood movies or, for a more … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, writing
Tagged Book Reviewing, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, The Da Vinci Code
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