Books & Mags

Goodreads Sells Their Soul To The Devil

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I didn’t join Goodreads. Mostly because until recently I didn’t know what it was or what I would want to join for. Many authors and friends had suggested via facebook I should join, and that only made me less likely to do so, because I assumed it was another facebook game or oddity. When I … Read more

Book Cover Design

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A fellow approached the register with a stack of books last week and the strange assortment of titles provoked me to wonder. What peculiar circumstances had led this man to such incompatible books? I don’t even remember which books they were now, but it turned out that the explanation was the exactly what you would … Read more

Traitor’s Purse-Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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Traitor’s Purse  Margery Allingham   1940 Finally, I’ve reread one of my best 100, and it not only lives up to a vague memory of  greatness, it excels it. Up until this point, Margery Allingham had written rather lightweight traditional mysteries with Albert Campion as the amateur detective, and his faithful sidekick, Lugg. They were … Read more

Community Lives!

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by Jas Faulkner 

litbooksJeremy is finishing a story while Kaia and I look at the clock.  We’re waiting with a dozen other classmates for the big hand to click over to the twelve and the little hand to scoot to the six.  At that point, at least for us, class is in session.

Not that anyone would notice if we were late.

After all, Jeremy is somewhere near Jackson Hole ,  I am in Nashville, Kaia is in Victoria, BC,  and the rest of our study group is scattered all over the globe. Our classroom is a digital  pocket of space and time, an online intellectual stasis chamber situated somewhere in 2009 at Yale.  Open Yale Courses  is home to English 300 Introduction to the Theory of Literature, a class that the fifteen of us watch as a group and then discuss in a private email list for the rest of the week.  It is one of the forty-five online courses Yale offers free of charge to anyone with a desire to know more.

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Murder Within Murder-Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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Murder Within Murder Frances and Richard Lockridge 1946 The first time I read the book, I was impressed with what I felt was new territory being explored–an old murder having a direct bearing on a recent one. It felt unique. But upon second reading for this list, I wasn’t as taken with the plot within … Read more

What EBooks Mean to Book Collectors

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 by Carrie Bailey The short answer, in my opinion, is nothing, but I want explore how I may be proven wrong. Imagine you lived in 1938 and heard Orson Wells’s radio broadcast of H. G. Well’s War of the Worlds. It’s a great moment in history if you aren’t familiar with the story. A young … Read more

Murphy’s Loft Bookshop

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Murphy’s Loft, Mullica Hill NJ. This was my third experience in this laid back book and ephemera store. I visited years ago, and then a few months back, right after the original owner retired, and her son (grandson?) took the reins. Unfortunately, his mother decided to rid herself of half the inventory, so he let it … Read more