Musings

Essays

An enormous loss — Bill Cook

Bill Cook, who with his wife Gayle financed and oversaw the incredible restoration of the West Baden Springs Hotel and French Lick Springs Hotel, brought Pete Dye in to create a one-of-a-kind golf course, and generally restored the beauty and life to an area that...

Reading Recommendations

Book-buying Friday

It’s a beautiful spring weekend in most places, time to drag out the patio furniture, prop your feet up, and do a little reading. Might I recommend: 1) EMILY, ALONE, by Stewart O’Nan. Novel of the year already delivered in March? Quite possibly....

Reading Recommendations

Recommended reads for March

I was traveling a great deal this month, which meant I was reading a great deal. Having just returned from a wonderful literary festival in Lyon, France, I knocked off eight books in the last few days alone. Being an insomniac on an overnight flight isn’t...

Essays

Tragic news in the mystery community

http://www.murderbooks.com/ If you can make the memorial service, do so. If you can’t, buy a book from David Thompson’s store — we just lost the most passionate bookseller in the business, and one of the finest people I’ve ever known....

Essays

On genre

Thought I’d tackle this one after receiving an e-mail interview from the excellent writer Tom Piccirilli who said he’d begin by asking the obvious question, the one I’m probably tired of answering: why switch genre? I realized that beyond being a...