The World Serious begins today

In honor of the Washington team’s first appearance in the World Series since 1933, here’s a book about another time it did so. This is Faust retold, with middle-aged Joe Boyd becoming a young superstar baseball player in a deal with a mysterious Mr. Applegate in order to salvage the Washington Senators’ horrible season (the …

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Reversion to YA-hood

Way back when I was in high school I read like crazy (still do). I had lots of paperbacks, including mysteries (Agatha Christie, Rex Stout), thrillers (Doc Savage) and, in hardcover, about half of the Rick Brant Science Adventure Stories. Those were “boys’ books” which tried to make real science more accessible than Tom Swift …

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Book and music purchases arrive

In today’s mail: Paperback editions of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s “Neogenesis” and Eric Flint and Charles Gannon’s “The Vatican Sanction.” Also: the 2016 Celebration of Joan Baez’s 75th birthday, complete with a whole bunch of guest artists singing with her. Here’s one of the songs: Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter singing Donovan’s “Catch the …

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Time for a re-read or re-viewing or both

I used to re-read the books every couple of years, but I haven’t done so in a while. Haven’t re-watched the films, either, although I saw all the Hobbit ones, mostly out of a sense of duty. They weren’t very good. Well, they were well-made, I guess, but they certainly weren’t the light-hearted romp that …

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The Lark Ascending

There’s a scene in Eric Flint’s “1632” in which a collection of Spanish Army soldiers is holed up in a castle, besieged by a regiment or so of combined 21st-century American and 17th-century German soldiers. As an act of psychological warfare, the American general starts playing music (yes, this is reminiscent of the tactics the …

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