In 2013 I added another platform to the tried-and-true (and, if truth be told, still preferred by me), 650-year-old printed and bound book platform: the missus sold me her Kindle Fire 7" last February, after she'd bought a Kindle Fire HD. I had a brief scare with it in April, when it mysteriously quit working, but the missus was able to dope-slap ( Read more... )

From Sat., 14 Sept. through Mon., 16 Sept., I read, via library loan, an electronic copy of the 5th Amos Walker mystery by Loren D. Estleman, Sugartown (NY: Open Road Integrated Media), 2011 (original publication date 1984); ISBN: 978-1-4532-2260-7; 221 pps.

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On Saturday, 3 August, I read the second book in Loren Estleman's Amos Walker series, Angel Eyes (NY: Open Road Integrated Media; 2011 [original publication date 1981]; ISBN: 978-1-4532-2253-9; 200 pps.), another e-book checked out via inter-library loan.

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From Thursday, 1 August through Saturday, 3 August, I read my first e-book checked out from the library, on my Kindle: the first book in Loren D. Estleman's Detroit-based Amos Walker private eye series, Motor City Blue (NY: Open Road Integrated Media, 2011 [original publication date 1980]; ISBN: 978-1-4532-2261-4; 256 pps.). This was actually a re ( Read more... )

For various and sundry reasons (one of which happens to be a still-ongoing series of trials and tribulations with my spouse's and my vehicles, plus [PERSONAL CRAP], still more [PERSONAL CRAP], a bout of some non-specific gastrointestinal complaint, and a comedy of errors of an audit at work that dragged on two weeks longer than it should have), I' ( Read more... )

From Monday, 7 May through Saturday, 12 May, I read Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (NY: Pantheon Books [a division of Random House], 1969; English translation by Joan Tate; originally published in 1966 in Swedish as Mannen som gick upp i rök by P.A. Norstedt & Söner, Stockholm; 1st U.S. ed. [May 1969]; Library of Congress ( Read more... )

From Monday, 19 March through Friday, 23 March (23 skidoo!), I read Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Roseanna (NY: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard [Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.]; 1993 [English translation by Lois Roth; Roseanna originally published by P.A. Norstedt & Soners Forlag, Stockholm, in 1965; English translation copyright 1967 ( Read more... )

From Sunday, 5 February through Wednesday, 8 February, I read Henning Mankell's Faceless Killers (English translation by Steven T. Murray; NY: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard [Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.; originally published in Swedish in 1991 as Mördare utan ansikte by Ordfront Förlag, Stockholm; English translation first ( Read more... )

I still haven't read any of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), but, what with the 23 December release of the U.S. movie adaptation of the first book, directed by David Fincher (Alien 3, se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin ( Read more... )

Thanksgiving 2011 gave me good reason to be thankful for the movie theatres in my exurban area being open on that day, so I could cheaply and pleasantly escape an especially AWK-ward familial brouhaha. (I'm also thankful -- I guess -- for McDonald's and Sonic being open so I could get calories from somewhere other than a 7-11; but neither ( Read more... )