This is kind of an unusual topic for me because, frankly, I like almost everything I read. It’s not that I have no standards, and naturally I like some books more than others. But there are different books that are right for different moods. Feeling emotionally fragile? Put down that Thomas Harris and pick up…
Are there more over-used figures in fiction than gangsters?. I think not. It’s just a shame so few of the depictions come anywhere near the truth. I have worked for many years in the U.K. with gang members. Now in the U.S. I am developing literary projects, in Virginia, for gang boys and girls. None of…
or A Good Nemesis is Hard to Find Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously thought about as much of writing new tales for his Great Detective as Scarlett O’Hara thought of farming her own vegetables. While necessary for continued survival, the task didn’t exactly thrill the gentleman, and by December of 1893, he had succumbed to…
More than two decades ago, I was watching a dreadful late-night cable movie. Its name, cast, and storyline escape me now—it was that bad. But I remember a single line of dialogue from the lead character, who was one of those hilariously indestructible action heroes: “Someone shot me, but I can still talk!” Indeed, he…
When Mel Gibson slaps his dislocated shoulder back into place in any of the Lethal Weapon films ad nauseum, I always cringe. I don’t cringe because it’s painful, which I assure you it would be. But because, reducing a dislocation that way, a real person would inevitably fracture the humerus, the long bone of the…
