It moves from the interior thoughts and emotions of its characters to the historic events that surround them, to the interaction of people across social, cultural and language boundaries, all while sucking you into this gripping story of a fantastical expedition and its impact on both the future and the lives of a young marriage.
Continue reading
Shelf Awareness is offering a chance to win a signed copy of Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Click to learn more about the contest and Shelf Awareness for Readers, a twice-weekly e-mail newsletter that features reviews of the best books coming out each week. This is what we call a win-win situation.
Continue reading
The Steve Martinez novels are obviously not high-tech, continuous action thrillers, but they are interesting stories, well told. Something to keep you entertained on cold winter nights. The flavor of the UP and the cultural and political commentary weaved in adds to the enjoyment.
Continue reading
What Kisor offers is a police procedural/mystery with an interesting hook and the people, history and culture of the Upper Peninsula as a setting and important background. Having gotten to know Steve Martinez and his world it is easy reading to slip back into that world as he tackles the latest mystery.
Continue reading
Let’s take a quick look back at 2016 as it pertains to books. My year in books as it were. For this post I just want to take a high level look. In a separate post I will get into favorite books of the year.
Continue reading
It is great blend of urban fantasy, police procedural, and mystery. Peter Grant is a strong lead character but there is a nice mix of secondary characters, including London itself, and with enough action to keep the plot moving. Highly entertaining.
Continue readingIf you are like me you probably feel that watching election coverage probably killed a few brain cells. So I am offering a way for you to cleanse your palate and gain some wisdom and knowledge: watch the brilliant Victoria Coates discuss her book David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art at the Acton Institute.
An entertaining and well done novella. Scalzi/Quinto drop you into the story and keep you interested from the start. It has an interesting hook and some well done twists. For such a short story, the characters were developed and seemed quite believable in their actions and motivations. Part urban fantasy, part police procedural, part mystery.
Continue readingCommodification has led most people to view God as a device to be used rather than an all-powerful Creator to be revered. This also explains our abundant and careless words about him. Is it any surprise that a divine butler would fail to provoke reverent silence? What need is there to rein in one’s tongue if God is merely a cosmic therapist? The god of Consumer Christianity does not inspire awe and wonder because he is nothing more than a commodity to be used for our personal satisfaction and self-achievement.
— The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity” by Skye Jethani