Tag Archives: books

Noir at the Bar – October 20th, 2017

Picture yourself in a dimly lit room. A light bulb hangs from the ceiling, swinging slowly to and fro, as if an ethereal skeletal hand had reached down from the inky shadows and tapped it. Beneath the light are a series of faces with dark shadows for eyes and grim, black lines for mouths. TheContinue reading “Noir at the Bar – October 20th, 2017”

5 tips for non-fiction, photographic histories

  There are plenty of paths to success when on deadline. Some prefer to wait until the last minute, as pressure makes them produce. Others prefer the slow boil, working at a snail’s pace until it all comes to a head, but only one of these techniques helps when it comes to historical non-fiction, particularlyContinue reading “5 tips for non-fiction, photographic histories”

COMING IN 2018: The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History

Imagine the world before the Internet, before modern medicine and modern science as we know it today; pre-cars, pre-phones, pre-fast food, and you’ve got the world that saw one of the first natural history museums on the California coast. The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History has been a part of the Monterey Peninsula sinceContinue reading “COMING IN 2018: The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History”

REVIEW: Steampunk boils beautifully in The Gaslight Girl by Hargrove Perth

Steampunk is a subgenre to behold in the science fiction and fantasy world. It’s the stuff of clockwork wonder and corseted amazement and, for many; it’s something readers can’t get enough of. Many, however, don’t quite get it. Exactly what is steampunk? The best way to describe the steampunk life is to imagine a futuristicContinue reading “REVIEW: Steampunk boils beautifully in The Gaslight Girl by Hargrove Perth”

Review: Abandon All Hope grabs you by the throat

Abandon All Hope: Gate 1: Book 1, by Lizzi Cruz and Royce Steele, is a grabber with blue collar hands. The book features an assortment of nine fast-paced rural horrors, similar in spirit to the early tales of Stephen King, but with a dash of Joe R. Lansdale thrown in for good measure, not toContinue reading “Review: Abandon All Hope grabs you by the throat”

Whitehurst’s Top Reads of 2016

From tripping out with Tarzan and the Ant Men, to starting Marie Kondo’s book on tidying up, it’s been a year of diversity and perhaps a bit of quirky inclusion. My print book collection grew in 2016, which came as a surprise due to my Kindle attachment issues, and the number of books started andContinue reading “Whitehurst’s Top Reads of 2016”

BOOK REVIEW: The Innocents by Jaime Lorie Goza

Irish literature holds a special place in my heart. It’s likely my own Irish heritage plays a part in that love, being that I have an undisclosed helping in my DNA. But it’s not just that. Everyone loves reading about the simple things, the struggles born of poverty, and the quaintness of rural life –Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: The Innocents by Jaime Lorie Goza”

Chapter Doodles

We all love stick figures – to the point our hearts will explode in our chests and kill us. So I doodled a few to illustrate each chapter in my upcoming collection of rants, In Curmudgeon (taken from my blog posts over the years), and wanted to share them here. The Saint offered up the bestContinue reading “Chapter Doodles”