Literature is a relative term.
by David Mamet
Non-politicians like David Mamet, who’ve done a hard pivot from one political extreme to the other, fascinate me. In an effort to understand his mindset, I picked up Recessional. Continue reading...
Every bit as entertaining as his first volume, drummer Stephen Morris’s second volume of memoirs picks up where Record Play Pause ended, chronicling New Order’s rise to super-stardom and the tensions that tore it apart. Continue reading...
“It’s like Christine… but wood!”
So remarks a character in Philip Fracassi’s meta horror novel about a haunted desk. And while the statement is true per se, it doesn’t do justice to Fracassi’s work, which proves far leaner and meaner than King’s. Continue reading...
Warm, witty, self-deprecating and self-aware, drummer Stephen Morris’s first volume of memoirs chronicles his formative years in the Manchester suburb of Macclesfield through joining Joy Division, its end, and the early days of New Order. Continue reading...
by Tom Holland and A. Jack Ulrich
Tom Holland, director and screenwriter of the original Fright Night film, partners with A. Jack Ulrich to craft an expanded novelization of the film, proffering more backstory and setting up an expanded universe and sequel. Continue reading...
Don’t Let Them Get You Down follows Peter, a copywriter for a medical website, struggling to hold his life together while battling a spiraling depression triggered by his wife’s cancer death two years prior. Continue reading...
by Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin, the famed music producer of such disparate acts as the Beastie Boys, Slayer, Tom Petty, and Johnny Cash, proffers a meditation on creativity. Continue reading...
To celebrate Jim’s older brother Jack’s release following a six-year prison stint, the brothers, their father Henry, and Jack’s hulking best friend Chris, charter a fishing boat in the Pacific. The choppy seas don’t bode well for an outing, but the group presses ahead, and their grizzled captain takes them a few miles offshore to a deep spot good for fishing. But the men soon realize they’re under threat by an unknown, overwhelming assailant—and how alone they are at sea. Continue reading...
by Kathe Koja
How to describe The Cipher? The plot concerns Nicholas, an aimless twenty-something drifting through life, who discovers a mysterious hole inside a disused storage room in his derelict apartment building. Weird things ensue. Continue reading...
Early morning darkness. Colleen sits stranded in her car. Three hours have produced three cars. None have stopped. But the fourth does. A young man with fashionable clothes and booze on his breath. Won’t she let him give her a ride?
Laymon’s second published story proffers a predictable twist, but at under two thousand words, it doesn’t drag.