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Category Archives: Mr. Boo Klist

book list, and other write-ups and critiques

Daze of Days

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Book report: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K Chesterton. Thanks, Wall Street Journal. Allan Barra in the Dec. 29, 2008, edition considered this book in its centennial year, with details about the author and his diverse fan base that continues even today. Got it from the library, but I’ll be hitting Dickson [...]

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Duma Me

Monday, August 4, 2008

Book report: Duma Key by Stephen King I can be a snob sometimes: I enjoyed most movies based on Stephen King novels but read nothing of his until seeing a short story or two early this decade in The New Yorker. The plan’s not to catch up on everything he wrote, but so far I’ve [...]

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Hollywood 1, Critics 0

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Mr. Boo Klist — liking audio books nearly as much as printed ones — now wants to recommend a new movie that’s gotten ho-hum reviews, Kevin Costner’s Swing Vote. Even the critics I like get stuck on the probability of its premise, that a presidential election through odd circumstances depends on a single vote, in [...]

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Arson Wells

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Book report: An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke Panning a novel that I devoured in 50- to 80-page chunks approaches being disingenuous. Perhaps an An Arsonist’s Guide, released in fall 2007 to overall glowing reviews (though readers on amazon.com gave it only three of five stars), amused me even [...]

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Eat Global, Think Yokel

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Book report: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver, with occasional essays by her husband, Steven L. Hopp, and a few thoughts from teenage daughter Camille Kingsolver In Michael Pollan’s most recent book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, he recommends among other things avoiding foods your grandmother wouldn’t have [...]

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Scary Comics Not a Contradiction

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock Book report: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu When I saw this title online I had a flashback. In an early primary school year (the early 1960s) Mrs. Friedman gave me for my birthday a subscription to a Disney comic [...]

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Famous Columnist School

Friday, March 14, 2008

Book report: The Art of Column Writing: Insider Secrets from Art Buchwald, Dave Barry Arianna Huffington, Pete Hamill and Other Great Columnists, by Suzette Martinez Standring The reviewing trade has a law that a critic doesn’t write up works created by friends. It’s a group of laws, actually. When a periodical’s staffer or regular contributor [...]

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Georgie Porgie, Porgy and Bess

Sunday, March 2, 2008

The Democrat-Gazette published today my review of What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, Andras Szanto, editor. I was so excited by this book, even though it was disappointing, that I wrote three Bricks referring to George Orwell. Two of them were on revelations about today from his 1949 novel [...]

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Epistolary in Your Pocket

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Book report: The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland Is that epistolary in your pocket, or am I just glad to see a writer pull it off? Yes, I am impressed, not only for a novel comprising journal entries and letters — and e-mails — but also a novel within a novel. Discovering a solid comic [...]

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No Country for Old Dudes

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” – Uncle Ellis, No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy Book report: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Yes, I read the book first, finishing it a few hours before the matinee. It’s a contender for the decade’s Great American [...]

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