By David Marshall For decades, authors have been playing the branding game. Knowing their next peanut butter sandwich depends on enough readers buying their next book, they’ve carefully put their names “out there” as “top authors.” Today, this means working at all the social networking sites, writing
Read more →Here’s a smattering of books that our reviewers felt were among the best they read in 2011. We’d like to hear what YOUR favorite reads were this year. The Big Juice: Epic Tales of Big Wave Surfing By John Long and Sam George, editors Falcon Guides, $18.95, 301 pages
Read more →By Hubert O’Hearn Right at the moment, I’m actually curious to know why it is that curious has a U in it, whereas curiosity doesn’t. The word must have originated either with or without, so how did the U either get shoved inside like that extra pair
Read more →By Hubert O’Hearn The finest caricature of a reviewer in our times was the assistant Beaker to the scientist Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on The Muppet Show. Beaker only ever expressed one opinion: ‘Me, me me me me!’ Really, let’s be straight with each other, especially if the
Read more →By Ryder W. Miller From the heights of San Francisco on the west side of the city, one can look far out over the Pacific and, like others who have been caught up by this muse and the night sky, dream. Having been shipwrecked here after moving
Read more →Halloween is over, but every November, people forget that it’s just not right for adults to keep on playing make-believe after the calendar rolls around. Sadly, on November 1st every year, tens of thousands of people decide that they want to pretend to be novelists and participate
Read more →By Joseph Arellano The late writer Norman Mailer was known to be a tough guy, and he was also quite a writer having won both of literature’s highest prizes – the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award – for his account of the domestic protests against
Read more →By David Marshall Two continuing fights have recently come to interesting points. In the online corner, Amazon announced it was backing a ballot referendum to reverse a state law requiring it to collect sales tax in California. What’s at stake, you ask? Well only about $1 billion
Read more →By David Marshall The mailman cometh and here’s the welcome package of books to review. I say, welcome, with a slightly jaded tone. The mailman also brings boxes of the books I order, the ones I pick from the lists sent out by publishers months in advance.
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