I’ve got a soft spot for novels set off the beaten path. Creosote, Nevada certainly qualifies. Mary Sojourner invents the town for her novel, Going Through Ghosts, centering the action in Creosote’s two-bit casino. The reader immediately meets enough characters to make her feel like a new bride at her husband’s family reunion. Sure hope I can remember all these people. Then one of [...]
Fast Sunday. It’s probably not in the spirit of things to stuff ourselves once the fasting is over. But, to our credit, we feasted with half dozen fruits in this Glazed Fruit Bowl. And we added just as many vegetables to the Brunch Strata. (We won’t mention that it also called for cream and cheese and cream cheese.) We even ate fruit in the [...]
Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth turned out to be a three-weeker. Last week, I accused him of running out of good ideas halfway through. This week I have to apologize and tell you that his story revived. […]
And how did your big game go? Did anybody get raped, pillaged, trampled under a horse, burned with torches, locked away in a cold isolation cell, anything like that? Oh, wait. Wrong game. You’ve been hearing all about the Super Bowl while I’ve been munching on tail-gater food, absorbed in the Medieval Bowl. Who's playing? Well, it's the Monks vs. the Earls. Mini Muffulettas [...]
If Oprah liked it, will I like it?That's not exactly why I picked up David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but I can just imagine Oprah holding up this thick book on her TV set and sincerely bearing testimony that it will hold you in its grip clear up to the last harrowing page.Actually, I have no idea how harrowing things will get, but [...]
