Coming from a smaller venue where the books were mostly paperbacks and the space limited, to being seated behind a huge desk in a beautifully appointed room was a little bit of a jolt. The amount of employees was tripled, with two floors of stock, a shipping department, and rare expensive titles in an unlocked … Read more
Panama—Eric Zenecy—1995–in print When first published, this literary thriller was given rave reviews, and so, I just had to read it. And the critics were correct. The atmosphere is palpable, you almost feel the Seine, wafting towards you, the anxiety over a missing woman, the thrill of a new discovery, identifying fingerprints. Imagine what that … Read more
An interesting subject I know zilch about–playing cards. I don’t understand poker, bridge, whatever other games are played with those interesting things full of hearts, spades, diamonds, and clovers. But I must be in the minority, because there are apparently loads of books with a playing card theme or motif–with various authors either expounding on … Read more
Sometimes serendipity enters a book collectors life. When I worked for A&E mysteries.com as their bookclub moderator, I wrote articles and interviewed authors etc., but I also had conversations via comments, just like here. I noticed on one mystery board, a woman was asking anyone who may have info how she could sell a collection … Read more
A dentist? Zane Grey gave up dentistry to become the most famous western pulp fiction author? I guess he just couldn’t sink his teeth into the profession. This interesting factoid and a couple of others highlight a look at the prolific output of Mr. Grey and his influence on our ideas of what the West … Read more
The Innocent Mrs. Duff — Elizabeth Sanxay Holding-1946-used I read Number 100, only recently. And had to jam it into the list, somewhere. Maybe it belongs a lower number, I don’t know and won’t try to figure it out, my mind has lost its ability to discern between good great and greatest, to coin a … Read more
When my best friend’s mother passed away, Bob wanted to give me a thousand dollars from her estate to do with as I pleased. I was gobsmacked. I loved his mother, of course, and was saddened by her passing. She had been ill for years with dementia, and Bob had been there for her throughout, … Read more
