Lee Irby: 7,000 Clams
I think the worst thing about becoming a baseball fan for me is getting infested by the magical thinking associated with the sport. This intricately-plotted, noirish crime novel features Babe Ruth (as...
View ArticleJack Finney : 3 by Finney
This omnibus collection of 3 short novels is a case where a current re-reading failed to live up to the expectations set by the first time I encountered the book. The Woodrow Wilson Dime is an...
View ArticleLou Beach: 420 Characters
I expected that limiting the length of a short story to 420 characters — as counted by Facebook’s software, spaces and punctuation included — would come off as a gimmick rather than an artistic...
View ArticleJohan Harstad: 172 Hours on the Moon
I think I stumbled on Johan Harstad’s 172 Hours on the Moon when I was looking for John Barnes’ Losers in Space; both novels share the plot element of young people trying to get off of Earth to boost...
View ArticleMaureen Johnson: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
13 Little Blue Envelopes is tricky to write about while avoiding spoilers, but I found it satisfying, surprising, funny, and even insightful at times, and it almost entirely steers clear of...
View ArticleJoe Gores: 32 Cadillacs
32 Cadillacs opens with a preface in which Joe Gores claims that the bones of the titular scheme, in which hapless Bay Area dealerships are confidence-tricked out of a boatload of caddies, are rooted...
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