Adrian McKinty’s latest novel is the best thriller I’ve read so far this year. I’m familiar with this novelist, having read every title in his gritty Sean Duffy series that was set in his home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The setting of this book is thousands of miles away from Belfast–a small, rugged island off the coast of southeastern … Read More
Happy Holiday Humor: Rejected Book Titles
From my connections in the book publishing industry, I have learned some new, shocking facts. Acquisition editors are no longer reading book proposals or manuscripts from authors, and they can’t depend on judging a book by its cover because the covers have not yet been designed. So they’re depending on book titles to make their decisions on whether or not … Read More
Rejected Book Titles
Through my contacts in the book publishing industry, I have compiled the following amusing collection of book titles that editors hated and summarily rejected. Personal Care and Beauty DIY: Be Your Own Therapist Pimplology: Using Homemade Lasers for Skin Care You Call This Fat? Turn Your B.O. Into a Powerful Attractant Food and Cooking Spruce It Up: The Conifer Cookbook … Read More
Some Hope for the Environment
A Review of Islands of Abandonment In this excellent book, Cal Flyn uses the word “island” in the metaphorical sense of “a thing or place resembling an island, especially in being isolated, detached, or surrounded in some way.” Her main accomplishment is a rejection of the gloom and doom attitude about the future of the environment so prevalent in the … Read More
Review of “This is Your Mind on Plants”
Pollan was just giving his opinions on the three drugs and his limited experiences with them, with the exception of caffeine, which he claims to have been addicted to.