The Trouble with Harry

Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors.  He is known for psychological thrillers and as a master of suspense classics such as Psycho, Rear Window, and The Birds.  The Trouble with Harry is a lesser-known work and one of Hitchcock’s few comedies.  The film starred Edmund Gwenn and John Forsythe (early in his career).  [...]

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Freaks and Geeks

Freaks and Geeks was a short-lived television series that ran on NBC from 1999-2000, with a mere 18 episodes.  The show introduced viewers to the Weirs, a typical American family—mom stays at home to raise the two kids, and dad owns a local sporting goods store.  The kids, Lindsay and Sam, are both teenagers attending [...]

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The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, by Kelly O’Connor McNees

Here is one of the few works of fiction that I have read recently and thoroughly enjoyed.  I finished the book in less than a week, which is an accomplishment for someone who has several books sitting on a side table half read.  I get bored easily.  What drew me to this work was the [...]

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Although I do not read a lot of fiction, I’ve discovered the joys of reading narrative nonfiction.  That is to say, stories of true events that read like a work of fiction.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is just that type of book.  The author has taken factual information and crafted a compelling story [...]

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I Will Teach You to be Rich, by Ramit Sethi

I have read a lot of books about personal finance over the past few years.  It’s a topic I felt I needed to learn more about, but I did this before the recent economic downturn. Last year I reviewed Ali Velshi’s book, Gimme My Money Back, which was written to address the causes of our financial collapse [...]

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The List: Underused Music CDs–Rock A-P

After five years of ordering the music here at WRL, I’m still amazed by the diversity in music fans. I buy all kinds of music, some of it weird and wonderful, some of it, despite critical raves, just weird, and our users give it a try. Very little of the CD collection doesn’t circulate. It’s [...]

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Kindness Goes Unpunished, by Craig Johnson

I don’t usually read westerns, but a few weeks ago I tried the first book in Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire mystery series. I raced through The Cold Dish, then read the second, Death Without Company, and just finished the third, Kindness Goes Unpunished. After I write this post, I’m going to start the fourth, Another [...]

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Here Comes the Garbage Barge! by Jonah Winter and Red Nose Studio

For Earth Day, I thought I’d share a really neat children’s book that illustrates the importance of the phrase “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Twenty-three years ago, in March 1987, the Mobro 4000 gained fame as The Garbage Barge when it took an embarrassing round-trip journey along the East and Gulf Coasts, trying to find a place [...]

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Rescue Ink: How Ten Guys Saved Countless Dogs and Cats, Twelve Horses, Five Pigs, One Duck, and a Few Turtles

Rescue Ink is a group of big, tough-looking, hugely-muscled and tattooed New York City motorcycle riders with a love of animals who use their intimidating looks to rescue pets from abusers. The members of Rescue Ink are not veterinarians. They are concerned citizens with lots of muscle and a huge passion for animals. Johnny O [...]

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Man on Wire (DVD) and To Reach the Clouds, by Philippe Petit (book)

Yesterday I wrote about Colum McCann’s novel Let the Great World Spin, in which many disparate events converge around Philippe Petit’s walk between the World Trade Center towers. It wasn’t until I read McCann’s novel that I stopped to think. “Oh. My. God. How could anyone have possibly walked on a wire between the two [...]

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Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann

In the summer of 1974, New York City was dirty and hot. I visited it a few times as a teen and saw prostitutes and graffiti for the first time. Sirens screamed all night and all day. Cops were everywhere. Yellow cabs dominated the traffic, car horns blared, brakes squealed. In his novel Let the [...]

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The List: Crimes Against the State

One of the most interesting takes on the crime novel is when the author sets the story in a tightly-controlled state. Here, the tension created when a crime is committed in a supposedly crime-less utopia adds to the fascination of the investigation. In totalitarian regimes, there is always a tendency to try to keep crimes [...]

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Blackout, by Connie Willis

So, let me tell you what I think about Connie Willis’s latest novel. Get comfortable, adjust your monitor’s brightness to its optimal setting, maybe get some snacks, because I have a LOT to say. You’re going to want to read every word of this post, and then re-read carefully from the beginning just in case [...]

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The Company Series, by Kage Baker

I wrote about the first book in this series two years ago, and now I’m back to browbeat encourage more readers to pursue the series to its end. My motives are completely charitable—the books are great fun—except where they are selfish—who can discuss the ending with me now that I’ve reached it? To recap: in the [...]

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The Death of the Necromancer, by Martha Wells

I know, I know. Death of the Necromancer sounds like a particular sort of sword-and-sorcery fantasy, part of a long series, all titled The [Noun] of the [Noun]. I can even picture a cover, with a wizard/mage in a pointy hat and windblown cloak shooting lightning out of his fingertips at another cloaked-and-hatted fellow, or [...]

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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin

Once there were three gods. Now there is only one who matters. Another is dead. The third, imprisoned in a mortal body, serves alongside his children as a slave, bound to obey the commands of the ruling family of Sky. In this ambitiously imagined debut fantasy, theology, like history, has been written by the victors. [...]

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Galileo’s Dream, by Kim Stanley Robinson

This is a compelling portrait of the brilliant, irascible Galileo Galilei, the 17th-century scientist who pioneered an investigative method based on observation and experimentation; invented medical, military, and scientific instruments; dropped stuff off the tower of Pisa; perfected the telescope; plotted lunar revolutions; mapped sunspots; and, sometime in his midlife, took up visiting the moons of Jupiter [...]

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The List: Fae central

Mythical creatures are very popular in fiction — you can’t walk past a bookshelf without seeing a vampire or werewolf sneering back at you from a cover.  If you look a wee bit closer, you’ll find faeries there as well — and that’s the topic of this week’s list.  Don’t think these YA books are [...]

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