The five Lisbon girls are impossibly beautiful angels, adored by the local boys, raised by an overbearing mother and a weak father in the affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in the summer of 1975. The historical context is important when reading the novel, and will explain some of the language and the attitudes. The premise of the book is very interesting, as is the perspective from which it's written: an unnamed neighbourhood boy, twenty years after the fact, recounting the events of…

Derek Sivers meets 30 people in Istanbul. One of them is a dear friend of mine. After a long break, Kyla Scanlon has a new book-length post out, about the American economy. There is a bone-chilling graph tucked in the middle of Part 4. It ends on a hopeful note. It’s good. Ted Gioia recommends seven Philip K. Dick novels. A ridiculously detailed history of Lemmings, the game. Surgeons behaving badly. Ada Palmer has a podcast. I miss The Elder Scrolls. Apparently, the new one is in production…

“Translation is a Political Act” When I wrote about Don Mee Choi’s newest book Freely Frayed (Wave Books) last month, I didn’t say much about her role as a translator. But my interest was piqued by what she wrote and I have been going down the proverbial rabbit hole ever since, reading several very recent books on the art of translation. I intend to write about them in the coming months. In the meantime, I want to go back to Choi and the topic of translation. In particular, I was struck by the…

I’ve been writing about science since the late 1980s. That’s long before the public got on to the World Wide Web, before smartphones and when Wi-Fi was still sci-fi, Before Google, Facebook, TwitteX, and Heaven forbid, TikTok and Snapchat. Before the Human Genome Project was even launched, before Dolly the sheep was cloned, and before CRISPR gene-editing first went snipping. Before the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, before we discovered a single exoplanet, before the Higgs boson was…

Monday means Fantasy with Friends time! All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about whether fantasy is about “real things”: Some people argue that fantasy isn’t worth reading because it’s not about real things. What is your response? Mostly, I think that if fantasy isn’t for you — if you can’t suspend disbelief, or you argue too much with basic premises, or can’t keep the worldbuilding straight, or whatever it is — then… don’t read it,…

Finished: Plato’s The Republic by Plato 📚. Plato sure doesn’t like creative-types! Talk about zero self-awareness. Though, I suppose “philosopher” wasn’t considered the same school as sculptors and poets back in the day.

My current publisher, which happens to share the same name and face as me, is a terrible marketer. Therefore, I’m at this time forced to remind you that I have books and guides I think you’ll enjoy and, perhaps, may even make your life better.

Introducing my new scientifically accurate authoritative list of age brackets. 0-20: Child 21-40: Young 41-60: Middle aged 61-80: Old 81+: Elderly Thank you for you attention to this matter.

At PulpFest 2026, we got the fourth and final volume of Donald Keyhoe‘s Devildog Squadron series, The Coils of the Cobra, from Age of Aces Books. This was his second series, started in 1931, the same month as Philip Strange. It lasted for 24 stories from 1931 to ’35 in Sky Birds, published by Magazine […]

I have been writing about witches for a very long time. Anyone who has followed this blog for more than a few weeks probably knows that. Between Advanced Witches & Warlocks, NIGHT SHIFT, and my Jackson, Illinois, setting, witches occupy a considerable amount of my creative time. They have been part of my gaming life for nearly forty years, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon.But why witches?It is a fair question, and one I have asked myself (and have been asked) more than once over…

The previous post began with a brief discussion of the 1997 one-shot Supergirl Plus #1, an over-sized book pairing the title character with Mary Marvel. Despite how unpleasant that particular book's subject matter was, reading it did remind me of DC's Plus line of books. These were a series of team-up books published in 1996 and 1997, each of which was a fairly substantial story (around the size of an annual) pairing the title character with another character, the logos on the cover making it…

I had the great gift of being interviewed by and having a discussion with a fellow poet, and an engaged audience, about the art and craft of writing poetry, and about revising, that wild, woolly activity. Although I acted like I had answers to the questions I was asked, I walked away, as always, questioning myself. Thinking, “Is that what I think?” Wondering, “I wonder what I meant when I wrote that…” and not entirely remembering. “Do I really believe what I just said?” (My book is called,…

From the ongoing publishing sensation Dungeon Crawler Carl: “Let’s get the Hell out of here,” I said. I plotted out a quick escape, leading us into unknown territory. * Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others. Awarded the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize (judged by Alexandra Kleeman), Adam O’Fallon Price’s Objects of Desire offers stories of unforgettable characters at dark crossroads in their…

London is the greatest show on Earth, for never have so many human characters been gathered together at one place. Here, in a day, you see the world. Laurie Lee (1914-1997)

We’re looking at recaps from the Jealous Patrons Book Club’s read of Tyra Banks’s Modelland. We read this in 2023, so some references to current events might not be as current anymore. [Ed. After several delays due to health issues, I began this recap by asking if the universe could give me a “small break.”] A small break like the sequel to Modelland coming out even though it’s been over a decade since the last one? Look, I’m waiting on The Winds of Winter, I can wait on Modelland 2. You know…

They easily found Hand and Knife’s temple. The Child was waiting outside. The other five spoke against the sixth Child demanding that she give aid. Her secrets were hers, no magic be shared. They only wanted a cure. Hand and Knife declared she cared not for woes brought by others to her home. She thought to offer hospitality but now her mind had been changed. She said, “Leave this place! Go back to your homes! Deal with your diseases there.” The Children shouted, “This disease is yours You…

2026 is another year of short stories. In this weekly series, I track my short story writing, from idea and draft to submission. This is for the week of Oct 12 – Oct 18. Stats for the Year Stories Finished: 3 Submissions Currently Out: 7 Submissions Total: 38 Rejections: 33 Acceptances: 0 Submissions and Responses It was a quiet week. No new submissions or responses. Goals My goals from last week: Revise The Magpie Write Mother Night My kids had some school holidays this week, which seemed as…

David Tibet the creative force behind Current 93 is hosting what he's rather fabulously called a "Gnostic cartoon PickNick', 'HALLUCINATE, CHILDREN' at the DOX Gallery in Prague from 23 Oct 2026 – 4 Apr 2027.Through music, word and image David has long been one of our great esoteric, visionary artists and this show looks to pull together all those threads of a creative life that has included collaborations with, amongst many others, Steven Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound), Jhonn Balance & Peter…

Last page (no spoilers here) of a very interesting book. Hat tip Mark Kissler.

If you are at all familiar with my blog, you know that I delight in sharing moral tales that provide both spiritual uplift and valuable practical advice at navigating this thing called Life. For instance, if you are going to fake a pregnancy in order to gain a claim to your husband’s inheritance, make sure you have all your paperwork in order. Acquiring bogus heirs is not a job for amateurs.Read on.In 1902, Joseph Boyer, the owner of a machine shop in St. Louis, Missouri, took over as company…

He, She, and It by Marge Piercy (Ballantine, 1991) Both Shira and her husband Josh are owned by the Y-S corporation, so it is the corporation that decides to award sole custody of their son, Ari, to Josh when they split. Josh and Ari are soon shipped offworld to Pacifica, leaving Shira with no way to see her son. Heartbroken, she leaves the domed corporate enclave and travels to the free town of Tikva, in what used to be New England, where she grew up and where her grandmother still lives. But…

💬 “Cut anything into tiny pieces and it all becomes a mass of confusion.” — Seneca, Epistulae Morales, 89.3. Cited by Michel de Montagne in ‘On Experience’ in The Essays: A Selection. Trans. M.A. Screech. London: Penguin Books, 2004. 3.13, 366. This is true, potentially, of writing notes. It’s too easy to produce fragmentary knowledge. The solution? Link your notes and create hub or structure notes (there is a difference — see Bob Doto’s post for details) that cluster separate ideas together…

Christopher Lee as Dracula.The idea of inserting Count Dracula into a groovy 1970s London setting was a potentially intriguing idea. Unfortunately, by the time Hammer Films produced Dracula A.D. 1972, the premise had already grown stale. The contemporary-set Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and its 1971 sequel had already been released, with the former earning respectable reviews. Blacula (1972), another well-received, modern-day vampire film, debuted in American theaters a few months before…

It’s been years since I last read anything by Philippa Gregory, so I decided to try her latest novel, Royal Witch. It’s the story of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, a woman who has appeared as a secondary character in other books I’ve read (including Gregory’s own The Lady of the Rivers), although this is the first one I’ve read that focuses on her specifically. We first meet Eleanor in 1421 as a young woman of twenty arriving at Westminster Palace to become a lady-in-waiting to…

tags: [film] commentary: this actually occurred to me because I just rewatched Hereditary "and thought "Ari Aster, what happened to you?"" but Midsommar is also good so I don't think he actually scores that high Here's a fun game to play: which director maximizes the ratio of "quality of feature film directorial debut" to "quality of the rest of their feature film oeuvre"? I think Darren Aronofsky is the one to beat here. Pi is quite good; it's got just enough science fiction to feel exciting…

Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh published 1955 On a recent post, blogfriend Jan W put this in the comments: The first book I bought for myself (by Book Token) was Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh. Rosemary and her mother live in a boarding house , the latter is a seamstress who goes to peoples’ houses, sides to middling sheets and other dull sewing, but she gets a tray of the same food as her employer to eat in the sewing room. The Browns lives are transformed when the leader of a theatrical troupe…

Thank you to everyone who made the 1944 Club such a success! As always, it’s wonderful to see the range of titles that come in – I have a lotttt of reviews to read, and it turns out that my week was very busy, but I loved it. And I’m reading one 1949 title that I didn’t make much headway in, but I’m really enjoying, so watch out for that. We are moving to the 1970s for our next club – here’s your six-month warning for the 1973 Club!

Compare Here and Below If You Can Stand It ...'Tis Another Spook Season --- Part OneHere’s Where We Spot AI From a Mile Away --- To collect lobby cards, you often make do. Pinholes, scuff marks, even paint dabs can be fixed. Fading cannot. Cards sat often in the sun, displayed outdoors to damaging rays. It didn’t take long for Old Sol to do his harm. I got this group scene from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and tried to kid myself it was OK, self-deception collectors often engage, but no, it…

Alba DeTamble inherited her father’s Chrono-Displacement disorder, and living with that makes for a very complicated life. While I found it far less emotionally satisfying than The Time Traveler’s Wife, it’s an interesting and more complex read. More characters are interwoven, and timelines blur and cross in a more intricate fashion. It’s also a book of our time, themes in it clearly influenced by current events. The ending felt, in parts, somewhat unresolved and vague. Some important events…