"A black man was running from four whites while several more black men chased them.  The ground tremored under their big boots....

It was a busy book week for me. A couple even came in my mailbox, in time for Mailbox Monday . Even more exciting for my book-consuming wa...

Up in the Old Hotel is a compilation of essays and short stories that Joseph Mitchell wrote for The New Yorker from the 1930s to the 1960...

First: the July issue of the Internet Review of Books is up now in time to impart some summer reading inspiration.  There are ten non-fict...

"The temperature hit ninety degrees the day she arrived." -- Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. I've always half...

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks about "hot reading."  Specifically: Well, folks, I don’t know about wh...

Fer-de-Lance is Rex Stout's first Nero Wolfe mystery and everything it is cracked up to be. I am torn between being appalled at myse...

"Suddenly the power came on, the dim lights in the hall and my couchette revealing a world of dirt.  My mattress was so stained it l...

There is only one book on my Mailbox Monday list, but I really like it. I spent a big hunk of Saturday afternoon flipping through it. On...

"He carried his girl tied to his front, the trapsack on his back, the rifle balanced like a yoke along his shoulders." -- A Su...

Here is a guest review from a lady lawyer friend of mine who is also busy raising three young boys. Thanks Heather! I just finished read...

"Outside of Pul-I-Khumri, the bus shuddered to a halt on the dusty roadside and couldn't be restarted." -- Lunatic Expre...

Angler Management: The Day I Died While Fly Fishing and Other Essays by Jack Ohman . Angler Management is cartoonist Jack Ohman’s firs...

From a list of reasons why 93-year-old Mr. Flood is "irreconcilable" to death: "Third, he is a diet theorist -- he calls ...

It looked like I was going to have an empty mailbox this holiday weekend. But then I ran across an estate sale late yesterday afternoon -- ...

There was no reason why I shouldn't have been sent for the beer that day, for the last ends of the Fairmont National Bank case had bee...

Summer is finally here in Portland, so it is time for my quarterly, three-part, progress assessment. The first part addressed the book li...

"The English woman was still looking at me when I entered the hallway. Perusing me in a fashion as if I was not there to see her sta...

I only got one new book last week, and it did not come in the mail. I found it at a garage sale. So I have another very short list for Mail...

Probably no cookbook maven inspires the love/hate reaction that Martha Stewart does.  I don't think I am alone in this. I have at leas...

"I thought I'd been to Africa." -- from the Prologue to Small Island by Andrea Levy. I've been hearing very good t...

Summer is finally here in Portland, so it is time for my quarterly, three-part, progress assessment. The first part addressed the book lis...