Scott Newstok’s slim book celebrates Shakespeare and his various works. Newstok organizes his book around topics and then manages to find new insights (at least new to me) about what the Bard was thinking about.

In addition, Newstok folds in writings of writers like Borges, Hunter S. Thompson, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Bishop, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner depending on the subject of each chapter. Are you a Shakespeare fan? GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

What’s Past Is Prologue ix

1 Of Thinking 1

2 Of Ends 13

3 Of Craft 25

4 Of Fit 37

5 Of Place 47

6 Of Attention 55

7 Of Technology 63

8 Of Imitation 73

9 Of Exercises 85

10 Of Conversation 97

11 Of Stock 107

12 Of Constraint 119

13 Of Making 131

14 Of Freedom 141

Kinsmen of the Shelf 153

Thanks and Thanks 165

Index 173

This game between the Kansas City Chiefs (4-1) vs. the Buffalo Bills (4-1) has been moved by the National Football League–in its infinite wisdom–to Monday, October 19 at 5 P.M on FOX. Meanwhile both the Chiefs and the Bills are battling injuries so we’ll see who shows up to play tomorrow. How will your favorite NFL team perform today?

I found myself exhausted by the end of Jim Butcher’s Battle Ground. It’s a series of battles with Chicago as the prize. Plenty of fighting, plenty of action, plenty of deaths.

Battle Ground is the 17th book in the Dresden Files series. It seems to me that in the 20 years Jim Butcher has been writing these Urban Fantasy novels, all the plot lines have been building to this titanic crescendo of violence and fury. Harry Dresden started out as a wizard who was also a private investigator. Over the span of a couple of decades, Dresden has grown into the Protector of Chicago from Supernatural Threats. The greatest threat Dresden has ever faced shows up in this book: The Last Titan, a nearly invulnerable entity.

If Battle Ground was just a series of fight scenes, the brutal action would become numbing. But, Butcher manages to infuse the plot with some cunning mysteries and surprises that explode at the book’s conclusion. Sadly, much of what happens in Battle Ground depends on knowledge of the preceding volumes in the Dresden Files series. I don’t know how many people in our circle would want to commit to reading 16 books in order to make sense of the 17th–other than me. But, I’m glad I did. GRADE: B+

The March 29, 1929 issue of WEIRD TALES unleashed on the world Frank Belknap Long’s “The Hounds of Tindalos.” H. P. Lovecraft encouraged his friends to contribute to the “Mythos” he constructed and Long’s story might be the best of the bunch. “The Hounds of Tindalos” presents hideous creatures from an alien geometry. Scary hounds from another dimension resonated with readers for almost a hundred years.

Caitlin R. Kiernan, known for her Lovecraft pastiches, returns to the Men (and Women) in Black and Cthulhu mashup that began with Agents of Dreamland (2017) and continued in Black Helicopters (2018) with her newest novel, The Tindalos Asset (2020). Without giving too much away, one of the agents trying to prevent Lovecraftian menaces from destroying our world has a strong connection to a Hound of Tindalos. If you’re a fan of Caitlin R. Kiernan like I am, The Tindalos Asset is a must-buy. If you’re a fan of Lovecraft pastiches, you’ll find The Tindalos Asset a thrilling read. I’m hoping Kiernan continues writing these Agents of Dreamland novels. GRADE: A

Priority Records put out 13 volumes in The Greatest Rock Hits of the 80s in the 1990s. I only have a few. Here’s the first two compilation CDs in the series. As you can readily tell, Priority. Records decided to try to choose songs for these volumes as middle-of-the-road as possible. Most of these songs made the charts in the 80s to various degrees. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites? GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

PASSION & POWER:

LEATHER & LACE:

I’ve had Ron Goulart’s Author’s Choice Monthly #11 on my shelves since it was first published in 1990 by Pulphouse Publishing. I bought several of the Author’s Choice Monthly volumes in the series…but I digress.

The Idea behind this series was to allow the writer to choose a handful of his favorite stories. Goulart had a fondness for supernatural elements in his stories and the stories in this collection reflect that. I enjoyed the Max Kearney story, “Hello From Hollywood.” Kearney works in advertising, but his hobby is banishing ghosts. This particular ghost has taken possession of a TV executive and is picking winning TV shows for the Fall Schedule.

I also enjoyed “Groucho,” a story of a reincarnated TV script writer who returns as a cat. “Crusoe In New York” doesn’t have any supernatural elements, but it does have Time Travel as a woman from the Future visits our time to meet her favorite writer.

These Author’s Choice Monthly volumes are fun to read. I’ll review a few more for future Wednesday’s Short Stories. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• 1 · Introduction · Ron Goulart · in
• 3 · Street Magic · Ron Goulart · ss Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Mar 1984
• 23 · Hello from Hollywood [Max Kearny] · Ron Goulart · ss The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Dec 1983
• 47 · Crusoe in New York · Ron Goulart · ss Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine Mar 1982
• 61 · Skyrocket Steele Conquers the Universe [Skyrocket Steele] · Ron Goulart · ss Espionage Magazine Aug 1985
• 81 · Groucho · Ron Goulart · ss Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine Apr 1981

With over 20 Tennessee Titan players testing positive for Covid-19, it’s astonishing this game is going to be played at all. The Buffalo Bills started out as 3-point favorites, but as the Covid-19 List of the Titans grew, the point spread swelled to 8 points. I don’t have a lot of confidence about this game. The Titans are down several starters because of their infection. The Bills are down a number of players because of their injuries. And, looming on the horizon for next week for the Bills is the Kansas City Chiefs. Tough schedule!

Back in 1971, Jay Parini was a graduate student at The University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Like most twenty-somethings, Parini was struggling with his career path, his virginity, and the prospect that he might be sent to Viet Nam. Parini’s friend, poet and translator Alastair Reid, asked Parini if he could serve as a tour guide to a visiting Latin American writer. Parini reluctantly agreed.

The “visiting Latin American writer” turned out to be the blind, elderly, and quirky Jorge Luis Borges who Parini knew nothing about. The result of the trip around Scotland by Borges and Parini produces humor and melancholy. Borges babbles on and on about everything while Parini drives and tries to figure out his life.

The funniest scene for me was the night Borges and Parini stay at an old inn run by an old woman. The only bathroom in the inn can only be accessed through the old woman’s bedroom. And, of course, Borges has to pee every hour. The antics that night cracked me up!

If you’re in the mood for a road trip with fun, frivolity, and fatalism, Borges and Me is an adventure worth sharing. Are you a Borges fan? GRADE: A

You just knew this had to happen in the Age of the Coronavirus: over 20 Tennessee Titans players and staff tested positive for the virus. So, the NFL in their infinite wisdom has decided to move the Buffalo Bills vs. Tennessee Titans game from Sunday, October 11 to Tuesday, October 13. But, like dominoes, that affects other games.

The Bills were supposed to play the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday, October 15. But that game has been moved to Sunday, October 18. Of course, this is all predicated on the assumption that no more Titan players test positive between now and Tuesday. If they do, then all bets are off. How will your favorite NFL do today?