tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386566332026-08-21T21:51:25.134-05:00A nineteen-year-old book blog offering book reviews and news about authors, publishers, bookstores, and libraries. Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.comBlogger3828125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-9385859892754099092026-08-17T14:59:12.590-05:002026-08-17T15:02:32.468-05:00

A while back I mentioned here that I thought it might be fun to read a few books from 1926 in order to contrast the experience of reading books written 100 years ago to that of reading what is being published today. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner is the novel I chose to kick off this project, and that may have been a mistake because this one really didn't work for me. (Thank goodness

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-62904099768937349242026-08-13T14:06:36.796-05:002026-08-13T14:06:36.796-05:00

 Michael Flynn's decision in 2006 to turn his 1986 novella, Eifelheim, into a full-fledged novel turned out to be a brilliant decision. The novel, which tells the story of a starship crash near a Black Forest village in 1348 - during the Black Death plague - was so well received that it won a nomination for the 2007 Hugo Award for best novel. The novel was fully embraced by the science

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-36757484547289725282026-08-10T11:01:51.551-05:002026-08-10T11:02:22.712-05:00

 The Camp of the Saints is a French dystopian novel I probably would have never heard of if Amazon had not "accidentally" decided to quit selling it on April 17, 2026. From what I remember, audio and e-book copies of the novel continued to be sold by Amazon even after the paperback edition had been removed from the site, but the resulting backlash was immediate and loud. Within hours, the

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-9096319290752383092026-08-06T13:47:40.500-05:002026-08-08T13:03:24.836-05:00

 I've read some of Ragnar Jónasson's work in the past, and was particularly taken by his Hulda series featuring a 64-year-old Icelandic female detective facing imminent forced retirement. That series is particularly well crafted in the way that it delivers an early gut punch to the reader before recounting Hulda's entire story in reverse chronological order. The first three books in the

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-18580751455594480112026-08-04T19:01:05.519-05:002026-08-04T19:01:05.519-05:00

 My daily routine has been so different these last few weeks that I've slipped into, what is for me, an unusual reading pattern. I have been forced to squeeze in reading time wherever I can find it, and reading in short bursts has considerably lessened my retention rate. That means that reading in and out of eight or nine books at a time is out of the question right now, and I'm down to

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-86295339690180165212026-07-30T12:41:25.561-05:002026-07-30T12:42:13.748-05:00

 To say that I've been overwhelmed by life lately is a gross understatement. We are still in the early stages of dealing with the aftermath of my brother-in-law's sudden accidental death on June 23, and that is likely to remain the case for the next several months. Because we do not live particularly near any of the locations we need to meet with contractors, lawyers, insurance people, and

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-88865090156918261572026-07-21T18:57:50.203-05:002026-07-21T18:57:50.203-05:00

 For me, reading a Craig Johnson novel or short story is very much akin to enjoying the kind of comfort food I grew up on as a kid. After having read Johnson for so many years, I feel completely at home in the Absaroka County world that he has created for the sheriff, and I always look forward to the next chance to visit Walt and his friends there. Have Courage, scheduled to be

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-15840838651873388942026-07-17T17:54:25.015-05:002026-07-17T17:54:25.016-05:00

 As far as my reading goes, this last couple of weeks has really been hit or miss for me. I've found it hard to concentrate even when I've had a little time for myself, and that's caused me to change some of my book choices as I try to find books a little less concentration-demanding. I've really only put one book aside for the long term, however, and that is the huge, in every sense of that

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-12546275762375391082026-07-13T14:08:49.669-05:002026-07-13T14:08:49.669-05:00

 The Cyclist is the second book in Tim Sullivan’s eight-book DS Cross series. As with the titles of the other books in the series, the title of this one describes the profession of the victim of the crime Cross and his team will be investigating. DS George Cross is a Bristol detective who is somewhere on the autism spectrum. He is not an easy man to work with or to befriend, but he is a

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-73125983910189117522026-07-11T13:16:59.174-05:002026-07-11T13:16:59.174-05:00

The last two weeks have been somewhat of a challenge when it comes to finding much time to read or to post anything here on Book Chase, and that is likely to continue well into the foreseeable future. As I briefly mentioned before, we are in the midst of unraveling all the complications arising from my brother-in-law’s sudden death in a traffic accident. In less than two weeks, that has

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-83021424584583117972026-07-08T17:31:09.826-05:002026-07-08T17:31:09.827-05:00

 George Orwell’s Animal Farm should still be required reading in middle schools and high schools across the world, but based upon the current embracement of socialism and communism by the young people in this country, I would guess that that’s not generally the case anymore. Animal Farm is the perfect political book for young adult readers. It is a short, satiric fable that uses talking

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-9824185221582977352026-07-05T10:25:47.849-05:002026-07-05T10:25:47.849-05:00

Travis McGee is living the good life. He lives comfortably on a Florida houseboat and takes a “salvage consultant”job only when it appeals to his curiosity or when he urgently needs a quick infusion of cash. He’s tall and tanned, the kind of man who can be physically intimidating to other men without really trying while attracting more than his share of women. McGee, though is not your typical “

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-8123617860099541142026-06-28T16:29:36.977-05:002026-06-28T21:56:12.830-05:00

 This past week was not the one I expected it would be. I’ll keep it short, but here’s what happened. Two Texas Highway Patrol troopers rang our doorbell on Tuesday night around ten to tell us that my wife’s only brother had been killed in an auto accident about three hours earlier. Because my wife is her brother’s closest living relative, we have been going almost non-stop for the last few

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-12956261982033001612026-06-23T16:23:14.739-05:002026-06-23T16:23:14.739-05:00

 The Dying Light is the fourth novel in the Two Rivers series featuring Detective Inspector Matthew Venn which began in 2019 with The Long Call. Series author Ann Cleeves is a veteran series writer who is best known for her eleven-book Vera Stanhope series and her nine-book Shetland series, but she is also the author of two earlier series. Readers of Ann Cleeves fiction know, first

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-90066063503861055602026-06-20T12:10:23.690-05:002026-06-21T10:26:02.778-05:00

 The four books I finished up in the last couple of weeks were kind of hit and miss:Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy - this one proved to be more difficult, and way less impressive, than I anticipated, as you can tell by the review I’ve already posted,Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne - a re-read that I think was even more fun than the first time I read this classic,Animal

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-30873761818940292312026-06-17T14:26:49.647-05:002026-06-18T12:19:40.102-05:00

 Cormac McCarthy is said to be one of the best authors ever produced in America, and Blood Meridian is said to be his finest novel. The man’s prose has been compared to that of  both Faulkner and  Hemingway, as different as those two styles are. The influence of both men on McCarthy is readily evident in Blood Meridian, as is the prose style utilized in the Old Testament and in

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-63389086150249345732026-06-15T11:20:02.423-05:002026-06-15T19:33:17.096-05:00

 Back when I was eleven years old, the 1960 movie version of The Time Machine was my first real exposure to time travel stories. I knew I wanted more, but time travel movies don’t come along every day, so I reluctantly turned to the movie’s source material, the 1895 novel of the same name by H.G. Wells. That’s how a whole new fiction subgenre was introduced to me, and I’ve been a sucker for

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-11823440060598986402026-06-11T14:46:00.791-05:002026-06-11T14:46:00.792-05:00

 Lucy Mangan’s Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives is Mangan's follow-up to 2018’s Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading, which covers the author’s childhood reading influences and experiences. Bookish picks up with Mangan’s teenage reading years and concludes in what the author calls her middle-age ones (she is 52). “If we stop reading, if we stop putting ourselves in other

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-35101479687691689282026-06-09T06:30:00.000-05:002026-06-09T06:30:00.115-05:00

 Michael J. Fox was only 23 years old in 1985 when he pulled off one of the craziest Hollywood stunts of all time. For about three months, beginning on January 15, 1985, Fox worked simultaneously on two major projects: completing the third season of Family Ties during the day while shooting his scenes in the first Back to the Future movie at night. He managed this by working five days a week

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-45665288654992622482026-06-07T15:15:49.582-05:002026-06-07T15:18:41.554-05:00

 During the past two weeks (since I’ve done one of these “what I’m reading” posts), I’ve finished up four very different books:The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout’s latest literary novel,Future Boy - Michael J. Fox’s memoir about working simultaneously on the third season of Family Ties and the first Back to the Future movie,Bookish - Lucy Mangan’s account of her

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-30905939006205170952026-06-05T14:49:25.328-05:002026-06-05T14:49:25.328-05:00

 The Things We Never Say is Elizabeth Strout’s first standalone novel since The Burgess Boys was published in 2013. Going back to 1998, the year in which her first novel was published, this is Stout's eleventh novel overall, and just her fourth standalone.“For Artie it was as though he had lived these many years looking at things from one angle, and now it was as though someone had turned

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-73907712059057934372026-06-04T13:17:59.220-05:002026-06-04T13:17:59.220-05:00

 I generally keep track of the books I’ve tossed aside, usually somewhere between 10 and 20 of them per year, just in case I might want to give them a second chance. During the first five months of 2026, I’ve abandoned seven books for one reason or another.In the order of which I’ve abandoned them, these are the seven:This is the first book I bought after acquiring my new Kobo Reader, and I

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-28216387386964187662026-06-01T16:06:49.256-05:002026-06-01T16:06:49.257-05:00

I’m really not all that much into audiobooks these days, but I do still enjoy them anytime I’m driving alone for more than just a few minutes at a time. The extra focus that audiobooks demand keeps me more aware and alert than I otherwise would be by just listening to music while I drive. So I put Mitch Albom’s The Little Liar to good use last month. I chose an Albom book mainly because he is one

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-28102226472135886012026-05-30T13:02:46.750-05:002026-05-30T13:02:46.751-05:00

 “No one knew where the thing came from. What it was. How it remained unseen for so long. Only that it was three miles long, head to toe. If it didn’t change course, in six days and twenty-two hours it would make landfall in the United States. Models were forecasting western Nebraska. At the speed it was going, it would strike the earth like a bullet. An extinction-level event…"But that’s

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38656633.post-3992301846978344472026-05-29T00:21:16.639-05:002026-05-29T00:21:16.640-05:00

College Station, home to Texas A&M University, is only about 75 miles from my front door, so I enjoy driving up there every few months to see what might turn up in the city’s bookstores. Even though I ended up doing more selling (I hope) than buying this time around, I did come home with five additions to my home library. I’ve decided to begin selling off my collection of Civil War books,

Sam http://www.blogger.com/profile/17448913705757509608noreply@blogger.com8