A Cluster of All-Purpose Book News: February 11, 2019

Quote of the Post: “Maybe everybody in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” – John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men.” And he never even read a Facebook post. It’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, so put down your protractor and pick up one of these books. Sidney Sheldon, who…

continue reading

Books Are Horrifying

At least, I wish more were. In trying to decide what to write about for the latest Slushpile, I pored over Best Of lists (still going strong on the cusp of February!), Top 10s, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine picks, and the picks of those whom Reese Witherspoon picked for Hello Sunshine. I am all for…

continue reading

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

In my mind, no writer and illustrator were better paired than Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell. Go ahead, ask a Gen X’er: “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” and its sequels were more terrifying than “Nightmare on Elm Street” or even some of the creepiest “Little House on the Prairie” episodes. (You’ll have to…

continue reading

Blind Faith: A Murder That Didn’t Add Up

Back when Rolling Stone was in magazine form, c. 1988, I bought a copy because it had Guns N? Roses on the cover. Oh God, I loved them. But aside from interviews with Slash and Axl and probably talk of that ?November Rain? song, there was also an excerpt of an upcoming book “Blind Faith”…

continue reading

Kristen Roupenian Is Not Cat Person

As an apt follow-up to both my previous post about a writing career’s sure path to poverty, as well an earlier post about how an unknown writer’s first short story in the New Yorker led to a seven-figure deal with an S&S imprint, comes “What It Felt Like When ‘Cat Person’ Went Viral,” by Kristen…

continue reading