Two or three years ago, while we were on vacation in The Berkshires, we spent a day at the Norman Rockwell museum. It was great. We learned a ton about Rockwell and his life and walked around the gorgeous property where he painted. As an added bonus, there was a special exhibit on display, featuring all (or at least a lot) of Edward Hopper’s Cape Cod paintings. This was particularly eye-opening, as I really didn’t know much about Hopper other than that he painted Nighthawks. […]
Probably more like 3.5 stars, but I’ll round up in Bernie’s honor
I’ve been reading and rereading Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series for years (like, probably close to 20 years — they were on the shelf above Lillian Jackson Braun’s books at my library and I picked them up at some point in middle school when I’d exhausted The Cat Who…) but I’ve never really read anything else by him — although he’s published quite a bit. I saw his name on this story collection, along with some other favorites (Stephen King, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Craig Ferguson, […]
Not With a Bang but a Whimper
That noise is the sound of me yawning through this latest Jack Reacher adventure by Lee Child. A few novels ago I almost stopped reading Child—really turned off by the feel of revenge porn, pure and simple, where violence and bloodshed seem to roll off Reacher like I don’t know, water off a duck’s back, or blood off of a serial killer’s plastic rain gear. Personally, I like my heroes and anti-heroes just a tad melancholy and tortured by the choices they make, and the […]
Return to Form
[read 6/11/14] So, after a number of delays—novelistic in length, Jack Reacher finally gets to DC to meet the person behind the intriguing voice from a few books ago—Susan Turner, the commanding officer of his old MP unit. Of course, this being a Lee Child novel, Reacher and Turner don’t get to go out for a romantic dinner and get to know each other better. Instead, when Reacher arrives at the headquarters of the 110th, he isn’t allowed to see Turner and is instead charged […]