Wednesday, September 27, 2017
The Marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio
The Marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio: He was the most famous and beloved baseball player in the world. She was the movies' most glamorous sex goddess. But our story begins not with Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, but with Marilyn and a much less famous ballplayer named Gus Zernial.
Bonus FFB on Wednesday: Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express -- Christopher Corbett
I grew up hearing stories about the Pony Express and seeing movies about it. There probably wasn't a lick of truth in any of them. One reason is that people just wanted to tell a good story, and the truth didn't matter. Another reason is that after 150 years or so, it's hard to separate fact from fiction about something that's been so romanticized almost from the beginning. Christopher Corbett tries to do some of the separation in this book, and one of the disappointing things he's discovered is that the famous "Orphans Preferred" ad is probably not genuine. Darn.Also most likely not true is the story that Buffalo Bill was a pony rider, although his Wild West Show did much to perpetuate the legends. Mark Twain's famous account of the pony rider in Roughing It also contributed to the legends, but Corbett, who devotes a whole chapter to Twain, finds that the account is mostly true. At least one of the best stories about the pony riders is all true, according to Corbett, and that's the one about Robert Haslam, known as "Pony Bob," whose 40-hour round-trip ride during the Paiute War, was as thrilling and full of danger as any ride ever depicted in movies or books.
The Pony Express lasted about 18 months before the telegraph made it obsolete, and it was a financial failure, but its place in the lore and legend of the West is secure. Corbett's meticulously researched book is probably the definitive account of "the Pony" and its history. Check it out.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
'Howard Days' Honors the Most Influential Texas Writer You've Never Heard Of
In Cross Plains, 'Howard Days' Honors the Most Influential Texas Writer You've Never Heard Of: In Cross Plains, a literary festival honors Robert E. Howard, the most influential Texas writer you’ve never heard of.
Hat tip to Mike Stamm.
Somehow this post got lost in my files, but here it is, a little late.
Hat tip to Mike Stamm.
Somehow this post got lost in my files, but here it is, a little late.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
Casa Neverlandia – Austin, Texas: The whimsical and inspiring “Casa Neverlandia” in Austin looks like something Salvador Dali would have designed if he had grown up in Morocco and spent his summers studying eastern philosophy at a Tahitian safari camp. In fact, it is the amazing residence and creation of one James Talbot, drawing on his 40 years of remarkable life experiences.
Overlooked TV: Harlan Coben's The Five
Okay, I know it's brand new to the U.S., but how many of you have seen it? I don't see a lot of mentions of it, so I thought maybe you'd overlooked it. You shouldn't because we should all support struggling young writers like Harlan Coben.Okay, so that was a joke. Harlan's doing just fine, as indicated by the fact that he gets his name above the title. How often does that happen to a writer?
I'm not sure just how this series of ten episodes came to be written. I know that Harlan didn't write the individual episodes, but maybe he wrote the overall plan for the series. The premise is certainly typical Coben. A child disappears in 1995. In 2015 his DNA turns up at a murder scene. The child, Jesse, was out with four others, his brother, Mark, Pru, Slade, and Danny. Danny's now a police detective, and he's the one who learns about the DNA match. He calls the others, and the hunt for Jesse is on.
That's all I have to say about the plot because I don't want to spoil the fun. It's full of twists, at least two per episode, and I enjoyed every bit of it. The cast, all British and none of whom I knew, is uniformly excellent, right down to the smallest bits. There's a hotel keeper whose hilarious overplaying made me wish he'd been in more scenes. The British accents were no problem at all for me. I didn't even have to turn on the closed-caption feature.
Maybe Harlan Coben's The Five won't be your cuppa, but I highly recommend that you give it a try. I was hooked from the start.
Monday, September 25, 2017
‘Hap & Leonard’ Update
Deadline: ‘Hap & Leonard’: Louis Gossett Jr., Corbin Bernsen & Andrew Dice Clay Set To Recur In Season 3 Of SundanceTV Series
Forgotten Hits: September 25th
Forgotten Hits: September 25th: "The Letter" by The Box Tops holds on to the #1 spot on the chart as "Never My Love" by The Association jumps from #6 to #2. The rest of the Top Five hold steady from the week before. "Higher And Higher" by Jackie Wilson is up from #9 to #6 and "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and "I Dig Rock And Roll Music" by Peter, Paul and Mary enter The Top Ten for the first time at numbers 9 and 10 respectively.
SuperChart included.
SuperChart included.
25 Books About Teachers & Schools
Higher Learning: 25 Books About Teachers & Schools in Literature: For most of us, schools and teachers have played a big role in our lives. Discover a wide selection of books about schools, the students that attend them, and the teachers that dedicate their lives to educating young people. Touching, amusing and enlightening - you're bound to be educated by this reading list.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Kit Reed, R. I. P.
Kit Reed, June 7, 1932 — September 24, 2017: Reed was the author of 16 novels and 10 collections, including the Campbell nominee Where (2016), Tiptree Award nominee Little Sisters of the Apocalypse (1994), and Shirley Jackson Award nominee The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories (2013).
The Spy Museum
More Than 5,000 Objects of Espionage Are Coming to the Spy Museum: The trove of cool artifacts comes from the world’s largest private collection of spycraft
Celeste Ng: By the Book
Celeste Ng: By the Book: The author of, most recently, “Little Fires Everywhere,” often returns to “The Count of Monte Cristo”: “Right now, I see it as an exploration of the complexities of good and evil and how easily one shifts into the other.”
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Dead to Begin With By Bill Crider: Review/Giveaway
Dead to Begin With By Bill Crider: Review/Giveaway | Kings River Life Magazine: We are excited this week to have a review of the latest mystery by Bill Crider, and an interesting interview with Bill. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Dead to Begin With. We also have a link to order it from Amazon, and from an indie bookstore where a portion goes to help support KRL.
How Bullwinkle Taught Kids Sophisticated Political Satire
How Bullwinkle Taught Kids Sophisticated Political Satire: “Mr. Chairman, I am against all foreign aid, especially to places like Hawaii and Alaska,” says Senator Fussmussen from the floor of a cartoon Senate in 1962. In the visitors’ gallery, Russian agents Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale are deciding whether to use their secret “Goof Gas” gun to turn the Congress stupid, as they did to all the rocket scientists and professors in the last episode of “Bullwinkle.”
I Miss the Old Days
American Actresses Who Defined the Hollywood's Golden Age in the 1940s: The 1930s and 1940s that marked by the Great Depression and leading into World War II is remembered as Hollywood's Golden Age.
As Well They Should Have
Children Used to Learn About Death and Damnation With Their ABCs: In 19th-century New England, the books that taught kids how to read had a Puritanical morbidity to them
Forgotten Hits: September 23rd
Forgotten Hits: September 23rd: The Strawberry Alarm Clock perform America's All-Time Favorite Psychedelic Song "Incense And Peppermints" on American Bandstand.
C. S. Lewis' 1937 Review of The Hobbit
C. S. Lewis' 1937 Review of The Hobbit: “The publishers claim that The Hobbit, though very unlike Alice, resembles it in being the work of a professor at play. A more important truth is that both belong to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save that each admits us to a world of its own—a world that seems to have been going on long before we stumbled into it but which, once found by the right reader, becomes indispensable to him. Its place is with Alice, Flatland, Phantastes, The Wind in the Willows.
Friday, September 22, 2017
I Miss the Old Days
18 Year-Old Boxer Cassius Clay (Later Muhammad Ali) Wins Olympic Boxing Gold at the Rome 1960 Olympics: These were the games where one of the all-time sporting greats took his first steps on the international stage. A young boxer called Cassius Clay came to Rome intent on winning a gold medal, and left having taken a huge step towards becoming one of the most iconic figures in the history of sport.
Forgotten Hits: September 22nd
Forgotten Hits: September 22nd: The Beatles appear on the cover of "Time Magazine" … as a drawing … under the tagline "The Beatles / Their New Incarnation". It depicts The Fab Four in colorful outfits at a time that finds them in between their "Sgt. Pepper" and their "Magical Mystery Tour" projects.
Includes a couple of surveys, some nice photos, and a few songs to play.
Includes a couple of surveys, some nice photos, and a few songs to play.
FFB: Daddy's Gone A-Hunting -- Robert Skinner
I enjoyed Robert Skinner's series about Wesley Farrell, and when I ran across Daddy's Gone A-Hunting the other day while moving some books around, I decided I'd read it again. I'm glad I did, as it was just as enjoyable the second time around.Wesley Farrell is a mixed-blood creole who lives in the white world of New Orleans in the 1930s but who's equally at home in the very separate and definitely not equal black world. Farrell is a man known for being able to handle things of a criminal nature, and he's prone to violence on occasion. He's very good at it. He's asked by Carol Donovan, a black woman who owns a nightclub, to help her with a problem. It seems that a man named Archie Badeaux is threatening her. Donovan is beautiful, and Farrell can't resist helping out, even though he knows something is fishy about the whole deal.
Meanwhile, Badeaux is after the money that Ernie LeDoux hid out from a bank heist. Just out of prison, LeDoux can't find the money because the man he trusted to hold it for him has died.
Added to the mix is the fact that three prominent black businessmen have been murdered, and somehow a wheelchair-bound black criminal named Lincoln and a black banker are involved. The police are trying to solve the murders, and since Badeaux works for Lincoln, Farrell gets pulled into the case.
And that's not all. There are at least two more prominent plot threads working with the others. A lot is going on.
Skinner is great at the '30s atmosphere, and the characters, especially Farrell, are fascinating. I wonder if in this day when "cultural appropriation" has become a catchphrase if a book like this by a white author could find a publisher. The Farrell series came to an end after six books, which is a shame. I'm going to reread another one soon, just for fun.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Lillian Ross, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Lillian Ross, who became known as the consummate fly-on-the-wall reporter in more than six decades at The New Yorker, whether writing about Ernest Hemingway, Hollywood or a busload of Indiana high school seniors on a class trip to New York, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 99.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
“Three Lessons of Shimon Litvak” (by John Gastineau)
“Three Lessons of Shimon Litvak” (by John Gastineau) | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN: When EQMM’s November/December 2017 issue goes on sale next month, readers will be introduced to a new writer, John Gastineau. With his debut in our Department of First Stories, the former newspaper reporter, photographer, and book editor returns to his first love, writing, after many years as a full-time lawyer. It’s clear from the following post that he has long had an interest in crime fiction (and particularly spy fiction), and his analysis of some of the work of John le Carr is timely, with le Carr’s latest book, A Legacy of Spies, currently number three on the New York Times bestseller list. Readers who have not yet read the 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carr may want to do so before reading this post, which discusses the book in detail.—Janet Hutchings
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Bernie Casey, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Bernie Casey, known best for roles in “Revenge of the Nerds” and “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” died Wednesday.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
2017 David Thompson Special Service Award
2017 David Thompson Special Service Award: The Bouchercon National Board of Directors has selected George Easter as the recipient of its 2017 David Thompson Special Service Award for “extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field.”
Down to No Good -- Eric Javorsky
In this book, the point of view alternates between Miner's first person and the third-person narrative that focuses on Miner's friend David Putnam, a cop. Both Miner and Putnam have serious drug problems, and this plays a big part in the story, which involves a psychic who's been helping out the police with some vague but amazingly accurate information about some cases they've been having difficulty in solving. She also makes some accurate predictions about terrible crimes that are going to happen. A genuine psychic in a story about a p.i. like Miner wouldn't be a surprise, but is she genuine or not? And if she's not, what's her game? It's complicated.
Down to No Good is a fast-moving story, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and it kept me flipping the pages at a rapid rate. It's also short, a great virtue in these days of bloated thrillers. If you're like me, you'll close this book ready to see what Javorsky comes up with next.
10 Creepy Psychological Thrillers
10 Creepy Psychological Thrillers: In Jane Robins's novel, White Bodies, Callie Farrow, who works in a London bookstore, becomes obsessed with every aspect of the life of her glamorous twin sister, Tilda, a well-known actress, after Tilda marries the controlling Felix Nordberg, a wealthy financier. Callie believes that Tilda is in danger. The plot forcefully builds to a shocking finale as Robins skillfully explores the dynamics between sisters, mental health issues, and manipulative behavior. Robins picks 10 of her favorite psychological thrillers.
Jake 'The Raging Bull' LaMotta, R. I. P.
Mirror Online: Boxing legend Jake 'The Raging Bull' LaMotta has died, aged 95.
The American professional boxer, former World Middleweight Champion and stand-up comedian died in a nursing home due to complications from pneumonia, his wife Denise confirmed this afternoon.
I Miss the Old Days
1960s: The Era That Even Middle-Aged Women Looked So Cool: The 1960s saw a flourishing in art, music and fashion, and it was definitely for youth. But these cool snapshots prove that it affects more or less some middle-aged people, especially women.
Bonus FFB on Wednesday: The Winter Is Past -- Harry Whittington
The Winter Is Past is likely the most forgotten book ever posted about. Whittington researcher and expert Rick Ollerman found the manuscript when going through boxes of papers with Whittingon's daughter, Harriett (and it deeply saddens me to report that Harriett passed away only a few days ago). Rick says that the only people to have read the manuscript are Harry Whittington himself, his wife, Katherine, and me. Rick read a few pages of it before making a copy and sending it to me. What an honor and a privilege it is to be the person reading a heretofore unknown Whittington novel thanks to Rick's generosity!
Now about the book. It's both a medical drama and a courtroom drama, and I suspect it was Whittington's attempt at writing a best-selling novel. I read a ton of such novels in the late '50s and early '60s, and this one would fit right in. In some ways it follows the formula that Whittington used in most of his work. The protagonist is a doctor named Gordon Hillway, and Whittington gets him in trouble at the start before piling more and more and more trouble on him.
Hillway is a fine surgeon, one of the best, yet he's accused of malpractice when the wife of Herman "Pal" Pilzer dies after Hillway does a routine surgery on her. Her death isn't Hillway's fault, but some of the surgical team has niggling doubts. Pilzer is rich, powerful, and politically connected, and he decides to destroy Hillway and the hospital. He files a huge malpractice suit. Besides this, Hillway and his wife have serious marital problems, and Hillway has been drinking heavily. Things don't look good.
Also figuring into the story are other doctors and nurses like Frank Leslie*, whose problems have a lot to do with sex and alcohol; Robert Corson, who has money difficulties; Merle Walker, the Chief of Staff, who has his own medical problems; Ann Shaffer, who tries to do what she believe is right and later regrets it; and Elmer Blaisdell, who sells out the hospital and his own profession for position and power.
There's a lot of medical stuff in the book, and it's all quite convincing. The amount of research that must have been involved is staggering. The same is true of the courtroom material. The characters are vivid and memorable. The theme is a big one, dealing as it does with the ethics of the medical profession. The closing chapters get into highly melodramatic territory, but Whittington was always good at that.
The novel reads like a historical novel now, and some of the attitudes (especially some of them toward sex) might turn off a contemporary reader, but the book is compelling reading from first to last (as usual with Whittington), and a good editor could easily whip it into shape. Until someone does, it will remain a forgotten book, and I'll remain one of its few readers.
*Pete Brandvold, take note.
Now about the book. It's both a medical drama and a courtroom drama, and I suspect it was Whittington's attempt at writing a best-selling novel. I read a ton of such novels in the late '50s and early '60s, and this one would fit right in. In some ways it follows the formula that Whittington used in most of his work. The protagonist is a doctor named Gordon Hillway, and Whittington gets him in trouble at the start before piling more and more and more trouble on him.
Hillway is a fine surgeon, one of the best, yet he's accused of malpractice when the wife of Herman "Pal" Pilzer dies after Hillway does a routine surgery on her. Her death isn't Hillway's fault, but some of the surgical team has niggling doubts. Pilzer is rich, powerful, and politically connected, and he decides to destroy Hillway and the hospital. He files a huge malpractice suit. Besides this, Hillway and his wife have serious marital problems, and Hillway has been drinking heavily. Things don't look good.
Also figuring into the story are other doctors and nurses like Frank Leslie*, whose problems have a lot to do with sex and alcohol; Robert Corson, who has money difficulties; Merle Walker, the Chief of Staff, who has his own medical problems; Ann Shaffer, who tries to do what she believe is right and later regrets it; and Elmer Blaisdell, who sells out the hospital and his own profession for position and power.
There's a lot of medical stuff in the book, and it's all quite convincing. The amount of research that must have been involved is staggering. The same is true of the courtroom material. The characters are vivid and memorable. The theme is a big one, dealing as it does with the ethics of the medical profession. The closing chapters get into highly melodramatic territory, but Whittington was always good at that.
The novel reads like a historical novel now, and some of the attitudes (especially some of them toward sex) might turn off a contemporary reader, but the book is compelling reading from first to last (as usual with Whittington), and a good editor could easily whip it into shape. Until someone does, it will remain a forgotten book, and I'll remain one of its few readers.
*Pete Brandvold, take note.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Merriam-Webster Expands the Dictionary
Merriam-Webster: We've expanded the dictionary with more than 250 words and definitions
Keep Your Eyes Open For Cher, Bitches
Keep Your Eyes Open For Cher, Bitches: Cher is still making headlines, after more than five decades in the spotlight, because she’s never stopped finding and mastering new outlets for her creative expression.
Arrr!
International Talk Like a Pirate Day – Pirate phrases to say to ye crew mates: International Talk Like A Pirate Day happens this Tuesday, September 19.
The International Day of talking like a pirate began in 2002 and is still going strong in 2017 as people gear up to speak a new sea faring language for the day.
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