The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Richard Osman is omnipresent on British TV as a host of one quiz show and the co-host of another. He is also a frequent guest on comedy panel shows. He’s always impressed me with his quick wit and intellect, so when I heard he had written a novel, and not just a novel but a runaway bestseller in the UK, I was intrigued enough to purchase it. The premise is not one that would normally appeal to me. The titular club is a quartet of […]
Tabloid City by Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill, who recently passed away, was a legendary New York City newspaper man and columnist, so he’s on solid ground in this novel. Tabloid City covers the hectic final publication day of the fictional New York World newspaper, beginning with a late night breaking news story requiring special coverage. “Murder at a good address” as the book puts it, always sells papers. The murder in question is especially difficult for Editor in Chief Sam Briscoe since one of the victims is a woman he’s […]
The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy
Set in 1967 at a barely-fictionalized version of The Citadel, Conroy’s own alma mater, The Lords of Discipline follows indifferent cadet Will McLean and his friends through a turbulent senior year. After surviving their school’s infamously brutal plebe year, with it’s torturous sweat parties and constant harassment, Will and his three roommates are determined to graduate and wear their class ring with pride. Two of Will’s roommates are fairly stereotypical Italian-Americans from the Northeast, Mark Santoro and the meathead Dante “Pig” Pignetti, while the third […]
If It Bleeds by Stephen King
This is a collection of short fiction without any real connection between pieces, so it’s probably best to review them individually: Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is kind of a rarity in that it’s a “period piece” set in the early 2000s around the time of the introduction of the iPhone. The narrator is an adult looking back on his middle school days, when a retired billionaire moved into town and hired him to read to him after school. The title object is a gift from the […]
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I’ve been feeling a little down about my reading during the shutdown and decided I needed to knock off one of the big classics sitting on my to-be-read list. Luckily, The Grapes of Wrath was close at hand. Unlike many, I was never assigned Steinbeck’s ode to the Okie in high school English, and for that I am thankful. (We read Of Mice and Men instead.) My teenage self would not have had the patience to put up with Steinbeck’s digressions and the length […]
The Running Man by Stephen King
I know it’s not great cinema, but I’ve always had a weakness for the movie The Running Man, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a framed convict selected for a sadistic game show. I legitimately think Richard Dawson’s performance as the game show host is one of my favorites. The book, originally published under Stephen King’s infamous pen name Richard Bachman, is quite different from the movie. While Ben Richards is still pushed into appearing on the nation’s most popular game show, here it is […]
