When you’ve run out of ideas and your to-be-read pile is gone, desperation can set in quickly. That’s uncool.  Book lists are the key to defeating the dreaded slump, and to honor the 200th birthday of the most famous horror novel of all time, Frankenstein, NPR put together a list of 100 favorite horror stories. Frankenstein and Dracula made […]

When I found out Annie Oakley’s birthday day was August 13, 1860, it reminded me of my girlhood enthusiasm for the petite sharpshooter from rural western Ohio. Born Phoebe Ann Mosey, Annie’s early years were marked by poverty and hardship. Her early interest in shooting was forbidden, and she says in her autobiography that “my […]

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, was published 171 years ago.  The story of the “poor, obscure, plain, and little” Jane who survived a harsh, unloved,  and lonely childhood has enthralled readers ever since, and her passionate nature, realized both in her rebellion against her oppressors and her love for Mr. Rochester, makes the novel a romantic […]

Attica Locke’s new book, Bluebird, Bluebird, deals about race and justice, and the way they work in rural East Texas. When a black man from Chicago and a local white woman are found murdered in the tiny town of Lark, Texas, Darren Matthews wants to look into it. As a suspended Texas ranger, he has […]

What is noir? It’s fiction loaded with amoral, nihilistic creeps on the run from the consequences of their morally bankrupt actions. At its best and most noir-y, it’s pretty hard to take. Here are some examples:             The thing about real noir fiction is, there are no happy endings, nobody […]