I met rising suspense author Hank Phillippi Ryan (The Other Woman), at Bouchercon 2011—the annual convocation of mystery writers and fans, held that year in St. Louis. She had staked out a counter job at the Welcome Booth for the event, so she was sure to meet as many attendees …
Brad R. Cook’s gift for adventure and his skill for making history fun draw us into a tale of man against the elements, The Remarkable Journey of the First Road Trip Across America. This cross-country adventure is a true chapter from American history, the first-ever 1903 transcontinental automobile trip. Meticulously …
In another Tom Hanks masterpiece The Making of Another Major Motion Picture, his first novel, one of the finest actor-writer-producers of the era invites the reader in for a detailed look at the mad, magical high-pressure world of a movie production company. In this scenario some 100 cast, crew and …
In his 2022 memoir, Directed by James Burrows, this famous and prolific television director recalls highlights of his productive and highly successful career in directing and sometimes co-creating situation comedies, which included Taxi, Cheers, Frazier, Friends, Mike and Molly, Will and Grace, and more. The son of Abe Burrows, a prominent …
Zane Grey’s wilderness adventures are recounted in his several books about fishing. My dad, an avid fisherman, had a first edition of his 1928 stories, Tales of Freshwater Fishing, principally conducted on the wild rivers of Oregon. His writing style is intense, vivid and exciting, as he relates his encounters …
In her 1952 work Giant, Edna Ferber chose the novel form rather than a long, boring trilogy, she says, to help us understand Texas. She presents an intimate and sweeping panorama of this sprawling state–its past, its more recent development and its future. In an era when politics has become …
When she illustrates history’s personal costs, Barbara Kingsolver, in her 2007 historical novel The Lacuna, makes history come. alive. She tackles Mexico’s culture from the sixteenth century Aztecs’ battles with Montezuma to the exile of L. D. Trotsky in Mexico during the 1930s and beyond, into twentieth century North American …
Good fiction, as well as a good motion picture, depends upon strong characters. The poignant story of a foundling eventually adopted by a miller’s wife, François le Champi , 1852 (literally François the Foundling), by the versatile and prolific author and one-time mistress of Chopin, George Sand, exhibits deep and …
It took him until 1984 but Studs Terkel, the noted Chicago columnist and radio commentator, gathered hundreds of interviews and organized them into a single volume, entitled, “The Good War:” An Oral History of World War II. As I read page after page of heartfelt testimony by eyewitnesses from all …
This novel, set in Bentrock, concerns this small Montana town’s terrible secret. David, an insightful 12-year-old, narrates the story of his father, Sheriff Wesley Hayden, his mother Gail, their Sioux Indian housekeeper Marie and his uncle Frank, a war hero and one of only two town doctors. He tells the …
