The ever generous Beth Fedyn sent me this copy of Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters written by Hubert Haddad and translated by Jennifer Grotz. The Fox Sisters grew up in a “haunted” house just outside Rochester, New York. The younger daughter challenged the ghost haunting the house and established communication with the Dead. News of this spread and the Fox Sisters became famous for communicating with the Spirit World. In fact, the Fox Sisters launched the Spiritualist Movement. As their fame grew, the Fox Sisters moved from Rochester to New York City where they conducted hundreds of seances. The Fox Sisters became the most famous mediums of their time. Of course, this all unraveled, but that’s part of the suspense in this historically accurate novel. Thanks, Beth! This was a compelling reading experience!

Altus Press just published The Sinister Shadow but this mash-up of Doc Savage and The Shadow is sure to be a hit for Readers of a Certain Age. Based on a fragment left by Lester Dent, the talented Will Murray expanded the storyline to include two giants of the Pulp Age. I’ve read Will Murray’s previous pastiches of Doc Savage and The Sinister Shadow delivers all of the thrills you would expect from a classic Lester Dent adventure. If you’re a fan of Doc Savage and The Shadow you probably already own this. But, if you’re curious about the continuation of these Pulp Age adventures, I recommend you pick up a copy of The Sinister Shadow and enjoy the action!

What if you were diagnosed with incurable leukemia. What books would you read in the time you had left? That’s the question Clive James faces in what will be one of his last books, Latest Readings because that’s the situation he found himself in when diagnosed with the fatal disease in 2010. James, one of my favorite reviewers and literary critics, finds himself rereading some favorites–Conrad, Hemingway, Anthony Powell–yet finding new writers to get excited about, chiefly Olivia Manning’s two trilogies that I simply must read now (of course, they’ve be on my shelves for years). In his last days, Clive James pursues his life-long interests in World War II and Hollywood. These short essays are full of Clive James’s wit and graceful prose. James doesn’t give in to any sense of doom. He just goes on reading. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Hemingway in the Beginning
Revisiting Conrad
Novels in Sequence
Patrick O’Brian and His Salty Hero
War Leader
Sebald and the Battle in the Air
Phantom Flying Saucer
Under Western Eyes
Treasuring Osbert Lancaster
American Power
Kipling and the Widow-Maker
Speer in Spandau
Shakespeare and Johnson
Naipaul’s Nastiness
Movie Books
Women in Hollywood
Extra Shelves
Always Philip Larkin
Villa America
Angles on Hitler
Stephen Edgar, Australian Ace
John Howard Extends His Reign
Hemingway at the End
On Wit
Richard Wilbur’s Precept
When Creation is Perverse
Conrad’s Greatest Victory
Coda

Sam’s Club had this box of Skinny Pop marked down to practically nothing so we decided to try it. You get 20 Individual Snack Packs, 100 Calories Per Pack, 0g Trans Fat, Cholesterol Free, Non GMO, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Nut Free popcorn. Here’s the nutrition information:
Serving Size 1 package (3 g)
Per Serving % Daily Value*
Calories 100
Calories from Fat 54
Total Fat 6g 9%
Saturated Fat 0.5g 3%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 60mg 3%
Potassium 7.33mg 0%
Carbohydrates 10g 3%
Dietary Fiber 2g 8%
Sugars 0g
Protein 2g
Vitamin A 0% · Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 0% · Iron 11%

We liked the taste of Skinny Pop popcorn. We tried the White Cheddar variety, but didn’t like that much. If you’re looking for a quick, low-carb snack you might want to give Skinny Pop a try.

If you’re looking to watch something very different, I’d recommend this new release: Justice League: Gods and Monsters. The movie is set in an alternate universe where the Justice League is a brutal force that maintains order on Earth. This universe has its own versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman completely different from the standard “good” versions of these super-heroes that we’re used to. In addition to this compelling animated movie, the Special Features include a sneak peek at the next DC Universe animated movie, Calculated Risks: The Making of Gods and Monsters, and from the DC Comics Vault–two bonus cartoons. If you’re a fan of the DC Universe, you’ll find a lot here to enjoy. If you’re curious about the DC Universe, Justice League: Gods and Monsters would be a good place to start your investigation.

John Scalzi reminds me of Robert Heinlein. His stories have a beginning, a middle, and an exciting end. Scalzi’s characters are believable and interesting. And, the future Scalzi invents is full of that sense of wonder that Heinlein’s best stories have. The End of All Things features a neat John Harris cover. It’s the sixth book in the Old Man’s War series. Earth and the Colonial Union are feuding. The End of All Things explores the reason for the bad relations and the efforts to repair them. I’ve read the previous five books in this series–The Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, The Lost Colony, Zoe’s Tale, and The Human Division–and enjoyed them all. You don’t have to read the previous books to enjoy The End of All Things, but it would help understand the story arc. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Life of the Mind 9
This Hollow Union 117
Can Long Endure 205
To Stand Or Fall 269
An Alternate “The Life of the Mind” 351
Acknowledgements 379

Patrick and two colleagues at the University of New Mexico just won a grant from the National Science Foundation. You can read about it here.

I can only assume Ricki and The Flash was a vanity project for Meryl Streep. This story of an aging and unsuccessful singer in a West Coast bar band dealing with her dysfunctional family relies on a surprisingly weak script by Diablo Cody. Ricki abandons her husband (Kevin Kline) and three children to purse her “dream” of becoming a rock star. Ricki’s dream never comes true and she’s reduced to working at Total Foods (a dig at Whole Foods) as cashier during the day and playing in a bar band at night. Several times in the movie, Ricki announces, “I have no money.” Kevin Kline’s character has plenty of money and lives in a mansion in Indianapolis. He calls Ricki when their daughter, played by Streep’s real daughter Mamie Gummer, has a meltdown when her husband divorces her. Predictable family problems occur. Audra McDonald, as Kevin Kline’s new wife, is completely wasted in her role. All in all, this movie resorts to a predicable plot with no surprises. The best part of this movie is Rick Springfield as Ricki’s boyfriend and lead guitarist in The Flash. GRADE: C
SOUNDTRACK SONG LIST:
1. “American Girl” – Ricki and the Flash
2. “Keep Playing That Rock & Roll” – Ricki and the Flash
3. “Wooly Bully” – Ricki and the Flash
4. “Drift Away” – Ricki and the Flash
5. “My Love Will Not Let You Down” – Ricki and the Flash
6. “Cold One” – Ricki and the Flash
7. “Let’s Work Together” – Ricki and the Flash
8. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – Ricki and the Flash
9. “Bad Romance” – Ricki and the Flash
10. “Get The Party Started” – Ricki and the Flash
11. “Walk On” – Lucinda Williams
12. “Here I Am” – Emmylou Harris
13. “For The Turnstiles” – Henry Wolfe
14. “Paint It Black” – The Feelies

Show Less

BAEN Books should be applauded for keeping Keith Lawmer’s works in print over the years. Laumer suffered a stroke in the 1971 and was unable to write for a few years. When Laumer did write novels in the late 1970s, the quality was sub-par. Of all Keith Laumer’s works, the Retief stories are my favorites. Retief: Emissary to the Stars contains seven hilarious diplomatic stories where Retief, a Terran diplomat, outwits the bureaucracy and the alien Groaci. “The Hoob Melon Crisis,” “The Garbage Invasion,” “The Troubleshooter,” “The Negotiators,” “Giant Killer,” “The Forest in the Sky,” and “Trick or Treaty” display all the statecraft you would ever want to enjoy. The stories are clever and witty. If you’re looking for something different, Laumer’s Retief stories (the ones published before 1971) are first-rate.
BAEN RETIEF SERIES:
Retief of the CDT
The Return of Retief
Retief: Emissary to the Stars
Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude
Retief in the Ruins
Retief and the Warlords
Retief’s War

After reading Saul Bellow’s collected essays, I decided to turn to a better writer of essays: Graham Greene. Where I got the sense that Bellow really didn’t enjoy the essays he was writing, Graham Greene’s essays exude joy and energy. His essays on Henry James are enthusiastic and insightful. I really enjoyed “The Lost Childhood” where Greene writes about the books he loved in his youth. The range of Greene’s essays display his interests. When Greene writes about a book or a writer, there’s a sense that Greene has read deeply and understands his subject. If you’re looking for a volume of well-crafted essays, this is it. GRADE: A
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Part 1 Personal Prologue:
The lost childhood.
Part 2 Novels and Novelists:
[1]
Henry James – the private universe
Henry James – the religious aspect
The portrait of a lady
The plays of Henry James
The dark backward – a footnote
Two friends
From feathers to iron
[2]
Fielding and Sterne
Servants of the novel
Romance in Pimlico
The young Dickens
Hans Anderson
[3]
Francois Mauriac
Bernanos, the beginner
The burden of childhood
Man made anrgy
G.K. Chesterton
Walter de la Mare’s short stories
The Saratoga trunk
Arabia Deserta
The poker-face
Ford Madox Ford
Frederick Rolfe – Edwardian inferno
Frederick Rolfe – from the devil’s side
Frederick Rolfe – a spoiled priest
Remembering Mr. Jones
The domestic background
The public life
Goats and incense
Some notes on Somerset Maughan
The town of Malgudi
Rider Haggard’s secret
Journey into success
Isis idol
The last Buchan
Edgar Wallace
Beatrix Potter
Harkaway’s Oxford
Part 3 Some characters
[1]
Poetry from limbo
An unheroic dramatist
Doctor Oates of Salamanca
Anthony a Wood
John Evelyn
Background for heroes
A hoax for Mr. Hulton
A Jacobite poet
Charles Churchill
The lover of Leeds
inside Oxford
[2]
George Darley
The Apostles intervene
Mr. Cook’s century
The explorers
“Sore bones – much headache”
Francis Parkman
Don in Mexico
[3]
Samuel Butler
The ugly act
Eric Gill
Herbert Read
The conservative
Norman Douglas
Invincible ignorance
The victor and the victim,
Simone Weil
Three priests
1 – the Oxford chaplain
2 – the paradox of a Pope
3 – eighty years on the barrack square
Three revolutionaries –
1 – the man as pure as Lucifer
2 – the Marxist heretic
3 – the spy
[4]
Portrait of a maiden lady
Film lunch
The unknown war
Great dog of Weimar
The British pig
George Moore and others
At home
Part 4 Personal postscript:
The Soupsweet Land.