Reviews

Sometimes, as a book reviewer, it's best to just get out of the way as quickly as possible. Such is the case with this review of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, one of the great ghost novels in the English language.

It had been awhile since I'd seen this 1982 horror flick, so I cued it up recently -- and laughed till I had tears in my eyes.

I had forgotten how funny this movie anthology of five tales really is. Yes, it was directed by George A. Romero, who achieved his greatest fame with truly chilling films such as "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead." But "Creepshow" is played mostly for grins. Stephen King wrote the screenplay, inspired by the horror comics he read as a kid in the 1950s.

Poor Arthur C. Clarke.

What do you say about a book that has been lauded by professional reviewers as a “taut, clear-eyed memoir” with a “sheer and highly efficient writing style” and is “elegant [in its] rendition of the stages [of grief]”?

All I can say is bleech. I didn’t come close to shedding a tear while reading this book and I weep during Hallmark commercials. I don’t understand how a book about the sudden loss of a loving husband after returning from the ICU where a daughter hangs by a thread can leave me void of emotion. But Didion has done it here. It’s inexplicable.

After his early life in Germany and the bullying high school life he received after his immigration, Roland Haas entered Purdue University on a ROTC scholarship. It didn’t take long for the CIA to approach him for a request to serve for the CIA in an international capacity.

Kevin is an 8th grader at a small rural school and the star of the track team. The school is so small that the whole 8th grade class is on the track team except for two students. Kevin hates track but he’s good at it and as all his friends are on the track team he goes along for the ride.

In her best-selling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about the first months of her romantic involvement with Felipe, an older, Brazilian man she fell in love with while staying in Bali.

With the death last month of Dodge City native Dennis Hopper, the American cinema lost one of its great rebel actors and directors.

"The Philosopher's Stone" is a two-CD collection of outtakes, alternate versions and other "orphan" songs by Van Morrison that, for one reason or another, didn't make it onto one of his regular albums.

Because of my interest in photography (and teaching it to teenagers) I found this book a light, relaxing read. The Contact Sheet edited by Steve Crist, serves as a window into a photographers work. For every photo that is published or printed, there are hundreds that are not. In this book, the reader gets to see all the photos that were taken, the photographers notes and marks on the contact sheet.