You are here

Home » News

Columnists

Review: A Spooky Book For Halloween 

By Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on October 24, 2021 - 7:17am

This book has it all--deaths, a coven of evil witches, ghosts, a dreadfully haunted Victorian house, children in peril, and rain storms at night. It's a great book for Halloween.

I'm referring to Chris Bohjalian's 2011 tome The Night Strangers (Crown Publishers ISBN: 978-0-307-39499-6).

I've reviewed Chris Bohjalian before and praised his writing talents. This book continues with more of the same. The volume will keep you on your toes with its shifting points of view and precise portrayal of the characters and their intentions.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Icon book review: Nailing It

Review by Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on October 10, 2021 - 6:00am

In Robert Dilenschneider's December of 2021 release of “Nailing It-How History's Awesome Twentysomethings Got It Together” (Citadel Press, $16.95. ISBN: 978-0-8065-4175-4 PB), we see the future through the past, be it by circumstance or choice. The future we create by our own desires. In our twenties these choices determine our path forward to our later life. It can be a calling from our hearts or minds to follow what life has presented to us. What we choose when we're young enough to dream--and old enough to strike out on our own and fight for our beliefs.

Section: 
Columnists
»

The Episodic Life Of A Conflicted American Icon

Review by Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on September 26, 2021 - 7:43am

Since 1997 Robert B. Parker, the author of the wildly popular “Spenser” suspense novels, has developed another character that has stood the test of time and become a person to pay attention to. Starting with “Night Passage”  in 1997, Jesse Stone became Chief of the Paradise, Massachusetts Police, leaving California with its problems born of drinking. Jesse is an alcoholic whose main problems center on Jenn, his ex-wife that he obsessives over.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Review of The President's Daughter

by Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on September 19, 2021 - 6:00am

What do you get when you mix an Ex-President and the Grand Master of Pop fiction?

You get a pretty good read.

Regardless of what you think of Bill Clinton as a President, and even though as a man he was a womanizing scoundrel, he knows the inner workings of Washington, DC.

Regardless of what you think of James Patterson as an author who doesn't write many of his books, he knows how to write well when he chooses to do so.

Put them together and you get one heck of a political thriller, packed with non-stop action from the very start to the very end.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Icon book review: Anxious People

This novel is about relationships. And idiots.
Posted by admin on August 25, 2021 - 6:00am

By Robert McCool

Really, Fredrik Backman's 2019 novel, Anxious People (Thorndike Press, ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-7971-6), translated from the Swedish by Neil Smith, is about the ridiculousness in all of our lives. It's about how humor is the only safe guide to a pathway clear of the clay-more mines that lie in wait for those who love somebody, someone who has emotions too, emotions sometimes so like our own it's hard to differentiate between the two. Especially so on New Years eve.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Icon book review: Fire Keeper's Daughter

A Reese's Book Club Young Adult Selection
Posted by admin on August 16, 2021 - 6:00am

Review by Robert McCool

Although this book, “Fire Keeper's Daughter” (Henry Holt and Co. ISBN: 978-1-250-76656-4) is presented as a Young Adult book written by Angeline Boulley, it has many lessons to teach us, in a head-first, nose-dive into the Ojibwa Native Culture. Written very much like Tony's, and then Ann Hillerman's Navajo series of books, it gives us insight into a complex culture older than ours but set in contemporary times.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Pages