Category Archives: Books

Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Volume One

Is there a more important singer-songwriter? Has there ever been? When first I heard Dylan was writing a book — another book — I worried. Would this be Tarantula revisited? I remember Tarantula all too well. In 1966 the bookstore … Continue reading

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Robert Shelton’s No Direction Home: The Life And Music Of Bob Dylan, and Howard Sounes’s Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan

Where can I begin the story? I’d need a film camera’s flashing chain of images: Dylan at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1984 as 100,000 strangers sing his words…or Chicago, starting Tour ’74 to a thundering ovation…at London’s Albert Hall and … Continue reading

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Four books about Bob Dylan, reviewed in free verse

Carl Benson’s The Bob Dylan Companion: Four Decades Of Commentary Clinton Heylin’s Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments, Day By Day 1941-1995 Paul Williams’s Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, The Early Years 1960-1973 Paul Williams’s Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, The … Continue reading

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Stephen King and f-stop Fitzgerald’s Nightmares in the Sky, and Janetta Rebold Benton’s Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings

In writing my review of In The Shadow of the Gargoyle anthology, I should have made reference to Nightmares in the Sky and Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings. I’ll amend that error with a separate review of these two … Continue reading

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Nancy Kilpatrick and Thomas Roche’s In The Shadow of the Gargoyle

I’m reviewing In The Shadow of the Gargoyle largely because the Spring 2001 Berkeley Publishing Group catalog which arrived recently had a listing for a novel by Katherine Kurtz called St. Patrick’s Gargoyle. What’s the connection, you ask? Simple — … Continue reading

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Anthony Hayward’s The Green Men of Birmingham

Anthony Hayward’s The Green Men of Birmingham is a delightful, self-published chapbook that should interest anyone fascinated by green men. Foliate heads, as they were called before Lady Raglan gave them their present poetic name in the 1920s, are those … Continue reading

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Ronald C. Finucane’s Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England

Laurie Thayer wrote this review. Imagine that for the past several days, you have been suffering an unexplained pain. Over-the-counter pain relievers have not helped. Finally, you decide to take time off work and visit the doctor’s office. She quickly … Continue reading

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L. Frank Baum’s Oz books: An omnibus review by Chuck Lipsig

The Wizard of Oz (George M. Hill and Company, 1901) The Land of Oz (Reilly and Britton, 1904) Ozma of Oz (Reilly and Britton, 1907) Dororthy and the Wizard in Oz (Reilly and Britton, 1908) The Road to Oz (Reilly … Continue reading

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Evan I. Schwartz’s Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story

Faith J. Cormier wrote this review. Finding Oz is a biography of L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books. Rather than being one of those ghastly concoctions that look at their subjects’ public lives in total isolation from the … Continue reading

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L. Frank Baum and Michael Patrick Hearn’s The Annotated Wizard of Oz, and Lewis Carroll and Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice

Norton has risen beyond its usual level of excellence in both the content and design of these volumes. They will certainly be treasured members of my library. Physically each book is a hardcover measuring a compact 10 inches tall by … Continue reading

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