Looking for Your Next Book

I fully admit that I don't know nearly as much as I should about Winston Churchill.  I've seen clips of him in video footage of the war, and I've seen him as a character in historical dramas, but I'm not big on history, so he's generally passed me by. But then I saw that Churchill wrote a series of essays about painting and that he himself did a fair amount of painting. Color me intrigued. The book includes copies of a number of Churchill's paintings and what makes this essay 'work' is the fact that Churchill was a very talented artist! And ... his essay writing is rich, direct, and very engaging. The premise of Churchill writing about his painting is that he has observed that people need hobbies (three, preferably) in order to de-stress and to avoid worrying themselves to death. Pursuing a hobby means that the brain is both rested from not thinking about what is stressful, as well as strengthened by focusing on something new or different. While I really...

Is it possible to rob an entire city? If that city is Copper Canyon, and the heist is planned by Parker, on of the best in the business, it just might be possible. The idea is brought to Parker who initially dismisses it, but after careful consideration, he begins to make a plan. The heist will need a team of people and of course the more people in on it, the less each man takes. A mining town in the middle of nowhere, with only one way in and out of the town, Parker gets to work on a plan and hiring a team. Given the specific needs, he needs specific men - some of them no longer available so going to second and third options.  Each man will need to accomplish his job with clockwork precision but by all measures, it should work.   Parker believes he has everything planned for a perfect heist ... but he never planned for the blonde. This was a really fast-moving, straight-forward story.  An idea, a plan, the plan in action, the hiccup.  There's no sub-plot and un...

At one time, Jay was a working artist in London. A graduate of a prominent London art school, he was heading toward greatness and everyone he knew seemed to have his path as a celebrated artist already paved for him. But now Jay is living out of a car in upstate New York, an undocumented alien, delivering groceries to the upscale homes during the peak of the pandemic. One afternoon when making a delivery to a large house on a sprawling acreage of land, Jay recognizes Alice, a former lover of his back in art school. Their relationship had been a bit stormy and ended when Alice and art student Rob left for America where they clearly now found wealth and comfort. Although Jay hopes Alice won't recognize him - a shell of what he once was - she does and encourages him to come to her home until the pandemic passes. There he meets an eccentric gallery owner and his girlfriend and Jay is confronted with his past, his future, and the present that could have been. This is a really splendid t...

I'm not sure who this book is for. Beginning writers, sure, but how 'beginning'? I don't know if I just feel I'm a step or two beyond this book, or if I question just how much need there is for this much of a beginner book, but I really felt put-off by how simple author Lauren Bingham treated this. One of the first chapters, two pages long, titled "Before You Start Writing" deals with the prospective author first needing to decide what type of book they want to write and attempts to help the beginner understand if that's non-fiction, what kind of non-fiction or fiction. There are so many choices! How do you decide? Think on it. Sleep on it. Day dream about it.  Make lists. The answer of what type of book you want to write will come to you. I'm not going to go chapter by chapter pointing out the sheer basic-ness of what is presented here. I think this early portion definitely sets an appropriate expectation on the reader. And while I do wonder what ...

Hugh Denismore is a young doctor driving his mother’s Cadillac from Los Angeles to Phoenix to attend a family wedding. He is well educated, polite, and civilized - he is privileged.  Although he hesitates to pick up the young, female hitchhiker along his drive, he has a soft spot for the trouble she seems to be in and he hopes he can help her out in some way. She is equally hesitant to get in a car with Hugh, but perhaps the Cadillac changes her mind. The girl doesn't provide a very clear, or consistent, story as to where she's headed, which convinces Hugh of her troubles. As they drive, they chat and she becomes more and more comfortable around Hugh - such that after dropping her off at the bus station and providing her with bus fare to where she wants to go, she turns up at his motel room. This would seem to be dangerous in a normal situation and is doubly so given that Hugh is a Black man. A few days later, the girl is found dead and a tip leads the local police to Hugh who ...

Evangeline "Evan" Bright is an American girl whose father happens to be the King of England. The king has publicly acknowledged the relationship and has brought Evan to England to live with the royal family. This has caused no small amount of scandal and jealousy. Although Evan and the crown princess, Maisie, have come to be on good terms (maybe even friends) there are still many extended family members (and press outlets) who see Evan as either a threat to their own line of succession or to the integrity of the English people. In the previous volume Evan was set up to take the fall for the death of a British tabloid owner's son but the evidence and truth eventually came out. But this hasn't relieved Evan of becoming a scapegoat for attacks on the Royal Family. Someone is targeting both Evan and King Alexander - and they might just succeed! After multiple attacks in which a rebel group claims responsibility and claims that Evan is a member of their coalition, a direct...

Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub... John and Rae Ingram are on their honeymoon, cruising casually on their yacht through the Indian Ocean when they encounter a young man, Hughie Warriner, along in a small boat.  Hughie claims to have come from another boat where the other three passengers succumbed to food poisoning, and with them incapacitated, the ship sank with them aboard, with Hughie only barely managing to escape in the dinghy. John, a former Naval officer, senses too many inconsistencies in Hughie's story and heads off in the direction that the young man had come from.  He finds the listing boat and when Hughie is asleep below deck, John takes a small boat over to investigate.  What he finds is an unhappy Russ Bellows and Mrs. Warriner, begging for help. Hughie, it seems, caused the death of Bellows' wife and has gone off the deep end (pun acknowledged). While John was investigating, Hughie takes the Ingram yacht, with Rae still aboard, and leaves John with the ab...

 Alice is still in shock after the event of the previous book, but she's also got the pressure of being a Dreamwalker - a protector of the world, but she can't tell anyone and she still has to do all her typical teenage girl things, like going to school and listening to her over-protective mother. The Black Knight arrives in Alice's mundane world, confronting both Alice and her mother, forcing Alice to let her mother in on some of what she (Alice) is doing. Now Alice must return to Wonderland to uncover who the Black Knight is working for and she worries about her friends Hatta and Chess. I was a little bit tepid about A Blade So Black (the first book in this series) but I definitely liked this book much more, even though it would be pretty important to have read the first volume. While the first book did a good job of setting the scene and introducing us to the characters, this book has an energy about it that's hard to ignore.  There's angst and action, danger an...

'Roy' and 'Bunny' (these are the names they know each other by but not likely to be their actual names) are bank robbers. In their latest heist things don't go as smoothly as they'd hoped in Phoenix and Roy, who killed three men, gets clipped, taking a bullet in the arm. The duo split up so that Roy can lay low and recover (and to throw off the search for two men). There's a contingency plan for just such an event - Bunny heads east with the money and the two will meet up later to divide their loot.  Until they meet, Bunny sends regular checks to Roy so that he can stay where he is until he's ready to travel. Roy just needs to stay out of sight and avoid the dragnet looking for the bank robbers, then travel 2000 miles and meet up with his partner in crime. Nothing to it. But the checks stop coming and Roy learns that something has happened to Bunny and their money. Roy has to travel incognito to the rural town that Bunny was supposed to be in and find ou...

Harlan Ellison was a prominent literary, sci-fi (but don't use that term! call it speculative fiction!) figure in my formative reading years. I met him at conventions and book signings many times (the first time in 1976) and always enjoyed his wit, intelligence, and fervor when he railed against something ... and he always railed against something. The same (wit, intelligence, fervor) could be said about his writing which is why his best work still resonates and deserves to be in print and reaching new (and old) audiences. I was quite sure I'd read everything Harlan had ever written (and I'm currently rereading everything I've got on my shelf by Ellison) but it was nice to revisit some of these great works.  Some I didn't appreciate as much when I was in my teens and early 20's as I do now. The works included here really stretch the length of Ellison's career - from 1966 to 2010 - (though he was writing before and after these dates) showing that he was at th...

It is the late 1950's/early 1960's and Willy Griff is a down-on-his luck actor in Hollywood. He may not have a lot of luck getting acting jobs, but he has great luck when it comes to women. He is currently making time with a hot little number by the name of Doris. Their attraction for one another is genuine and very, very passionate.  Unfortunately, Doris's husband, John Seaton, isn't too keen on the relationship. John Seaton is a wealthy businessman. Older than Doris, he's suspected his young wife of having an affair and Seaton has had a P.I. following her. Seaton arranges a meeting with Willy and lets him know that he's aware of the affair. Because Seaton is wealthy and connected, he offers to help Willy get acting work if he promises never to see Doris again.  If Willy refuses, Seaton will make sure the young actor never works in the town again. Griff agrees to the wealthy man's terms, but the moment the old man leaves, Willy calls Doris to let her know w...

It's time for another Longmire book, but where do you go when Longmire has taken on (and taken down) every petty criminal, every crooked politician, and every drug lord in the state of Wyoming and even a few in Mexico? You look back at Walt's early days - before he ever became a sheriff. Some people attract trouble wherever they go, whether they are looking for it or not, and Walt Longmire is one of those people. In the present day, Walt is being grilled by attorneys regarding the deaths of some prominent citizens (in the previous book) and he's not taking it as seriously as he should. Nor is his undersheriff (and fiancé) Victoria Moretti who finds herself in contempt of court. When not in front of lawyers and judges, Walt relays an early adventure when he and best friend Henry Standing Bear enlisted (in different branches of service) and decided to take a last road trip before their service was to begin. On the road trip, their car breaks down at the edge of a dangerous li...