Category Archives: Uncategorized

The New Mastersounds’ Made For Pleasure

The New Mastersounds is a funk and soul-jazz band that came out of the northern English city of Leeds in the mid-1990s. Made For Pleasure is their 10th album, but the first time I’ve heard about them was when a … Continue reading

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Thomas Godfrey’s English Country House Murders

Back some twenty years ago, I went looking for novels that involved murders set in English country houses. It was, in those days before search engines indexed damn near everything on the Net, far more difficult than it would be … Continue reading

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John Connolly and Declan Burke’s Books To Die For

I’ve been reading mysteries, mostly ones that are set in the British Isles, Ireland, and Europe for well over forty years now. My favourite series are set between The Wars, but I’m willing to read a well-written contemporary ones as … Continue reading

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Kristin Hersh’ Don’t Suck, Don’t Die — Giving Up Vic Chesnutt

Kristin Hersh has had a problematic relationship with music for most of her life. The co-founder of the influential post-punk band Throwing Muses and erstwhile folksinger has made music while dealing with diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but in … Continue reading

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Van Morrison’s The Essential Van Morrison

Millions of people in the English-speaking world pick up a guitar, sit down at the piano or take up some other instrument to sing and play songs of their own devising. Thousands of them are good enough to get people … Continue reading

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Kelley Armstrong, Led Astray

Kelley Armstrong’s Led Astray hits all the notes it’s supposed to, and quite a few higher ones as well. A short story collection featuring both original tales and smaller bits and bobs related to Armstrong’s various ongoing continuities, it’s an … Continue reading

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Michael Newton’s Victorian Fairy Tales

Fairy tales weave a complicated dance between children’s stories and sophisticated adult commentary, often within the same story. Pinning down a definition of what constitutes a fairy tale can sometimes feel like nailing water to a tree, but certain elements … Continue reading

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Gothard Sisters’ Mountain Rose

The Gothard Sisters (Greta, Willow and Solana Gothard) are three young sisters from the U.S. Pacific Northwest. They started out as a classical violin trio. Their first album Christmas was released in 2006 with them playing Christmas songs as a … Continue reading

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Summer Queen S. J. Tucker on Books and Reading

What was the first book that you remember reading? My middle name is Jane. My mother gave it to me in honor of my great aunt Jane, whom I remember from my childhood as the beautiful redheaded relative from Louisiana … Continue reading

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Our Summer Queen, S.J. Tucker, An Interview

The shelves and windowsills were crowded with ravens; the hedgehogs took the first row of seats; even a few of the local fae could be seen peeking shyly around corners now and again. The Jacks and the Annies were in … Continue reading

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