Month: September 2018

Gal Gadot to Star in adaptation of Death on the Nile

September 29, 2018 Linda L. Richards 0

The next Kenneth Branagh-directed adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel will be 1937’s Death on the Nile. Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman, Justice League) has been tapped to star and the project is moving full steam ahead with release planned for late 2019. The production follows on the oh so successful heels of 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express which grossed $352.8 million worldwide. The book-length version of Death on the Nile was published in 1937, […]

January Interview: Dietrich Kalteis

September 18, 2018 Linda L. Richards 0

When Dietrich Kalteis’ Zero Avenue came out in 2017, I remarked on The Rap Sheet that I’d once heard author Owen Laukannen describe Kalteis’ writing as being like “jazz on the page.” If you want to boil Kalteis’ work down very tightly, for me descriptions just don’t get any better than that. Kalteis’ voice is taut, tight, and if it were any more noir, it would be too dark to see. With all of that, […]

Fiction: Chupacabra Meets Billy the Kid by Rudolfo Anaya

September 12, 2018 admin 0

Chupacabra Meets Billy the Kid (University of Oklahoma Press) is the third installment in Rudolfo Anaya’s ChupaCabra series, following up on 2006’s Curse of the ChupaCabra and ChupaCabra and the Roswell UFO from 2008. The stalwart protagonist of the series, Rosa Medina, this time finds herself leaving the gangs and street violence of East Los Angeles for a very different reality in tiny Puerto de Luna in New Mexico. Rosa is there to research a […]

Cookbooks: Pretty Simple Cooking by Sonja and Alex Overhiser

September 11, 2018 admin 0

In a culture where fewer and fewer people are able to cook for themselves, cookbooks that can tackle simple food prep and make it easy are more and more important. In Sonja and Alex Overhiser’s Pretty Simple Cooking (DaCapo Longlife) food is pared down to its essential plant-based basics, mostly with few ingredients and simple preparations. A Creamy Cashew Sauce is a good example. Cashews. Vegetable broth or water. Salt. Soak the cashews. Toss all […]

Grief Becomes Us

September 10, 2018 admin 0

Two new titles out from Orca Books are aimed at helping kids deal with grief and death, albeit in very different ways. In After Life: Ways We Think About Death, author Merrie-Ellen Wilcox demystifies many of the things our culture has thrown mystery over with a very lucid, hard and fast look at pretty much everything to do with death and dying. Why do we die? What happens after death? What are some of the […]

From Russia With Love

September 10, 2018 admin 0

In honor of Leo Tolstoy’s 190th birthday, the New Yorker devoted a good chunk of real estate to Russian literature. Six (including Tolstoy) of the most memorable of Russian writers are looked at including a look at the making of War and Peace by James Wood while Janet Malcolm follows Anton Chekhov to discover how he turned his travels into art. Keith Gessen looks at research chemist-turned-writer Vasily Grossman and others including a look at […]

January Interview: Sam Wiebe

September 5, 2018 Linda L. Richards 1

  Last year, I waxed poetic about Sam Wiebe’s sophomore novel, Invisible Dead, in The Rap Sheet’s Best of the Year feature. As I said then, in that book Wiebe worked with just about all of the tropes of crime fiction and turned them around, pulling them masterfully beyond the cliché. That was the first book featuring Vancouver, Canada-based Dave Wakeland, an ex-cop turned private eye. In 2018’s Cut You Down, we meet Dave again […]

Bob Woodward’s Fear

September 5, 2018 admin 0

A week before Bob Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House (Simon & Schuster) is due to drop, the book has reached the top spot on Amazon, while creating a storm on social media and in the news. Since the Washington Post published selected excerpts from the book, even the President himself appears to have been helping book sales by slinging mud and referencing the book repeatedly on Twitter, even going so far as to […]

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Philip Pullman on Magic and Poetry

September 3, 2018 admin 0

Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass, His Dark Materials) spends some time at The Guardian this weekend, asking why we believe in magic. The result is beautiful. The universe of magic is a large place. It contains phenomena ranging from simple good luck charms to complicated systems of belief and practice such as astrology and alchemy, and it comes to us from prehistory, and from every part of the world, and it still flourishes today. The […]

The Books You Haven’t Read Will Help You Live Longer

September 2, 2018 admin 0

That towering TBR pile next to your bed might help you live longer and better, that’s what experts are saying about all the books you’ve bought but haven’t yet gotten around to reading. From INC.: Lifelong learning will help you be happier, earn more, and even stay healthier, experts say. Plus, plenty of the smartest names in business, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk, insist that the best way to get smarter is to read. […]