“Joyland” by Stephen King, book review (C+)

Here is what I imagine could have happened as Stephen King was planning to write Joyland: Okay.  I like amusement parks.  I should think of a certain ride that is likely to terrify lots of people.  I know – the ferris wheel.  I’m seeing a struggle on that ride, and it stalls.  Two people are…

The Road – on film and in print

There are certain movies and books that present very different experiences to their audiences depending on where those viewers and readers are in their lives. Older audiences probably don’t appreciate the superhero genre in the same way as those 30 and under, and you can reverse that for most anything starring Meryl Streep or written…

The “Not So” Great Gatsby

Either late in high school or early in college, I was ordered to read The Great Gatsby. I regarded it as the most boring thing I had ever picked up. However, roughly 20 years later, I decided that it may have been me who was boring, so I decided – through the recommendation of others…

Stay out of – “The Shack”

(re-posted from about a year ago – because you never read it. Item G of a 5-part series Of course you can’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s okay to pick one because of it. When I saw the cover for The Shack, by William P. Young, I thought three things. First, I said,…

“Angels & Demons” by Dan Brown

I’m on vacation, so I wrote up a few reposts and saved them as drafts, thus allowing me to publish something each day through my phone. Gotta live technology. (re-posted, because you haven’t seen it) Item triangle of a geometric-part series   In the beginning of Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code,…

“Bleachers” by John Grisham. Scalp the ticket while you can.

Item 7 of a 3-part series Bleachers by John Grisham (re-posted, because you never read it before) There’s a commonly known formula, or at least it’s commonly known to me, that lies in almost every John Grisham novel. Either the government, a nationally feared law firm, or a conglomerate of a company is doing something wrong,…

psst – wanna know “the secret”?

Part 13 of a 6-part series of testing what I think might be stupid self-help books: Listen up, idiots.  You’ve been going about everything the wrong way, and I – with the help of Rhonda Byrne and her book The Secret – will now help you have everything you’ve ever wanted or dreamed up, no…