Book Review: Gaslight Carnival by Tracy Cembor

Tracy Cembor sent me an email via the Contact Me page on this blog and asked whether I do book reviews in return for gift copies. Gaslight Carnival is her first novella and currently available on Amazon for US$0.99. For that price, I told her I’d happily purchase a copy to read and review it.

When Your Favourite Authors Jump the Shark

If you’re not familiar with the reference, “jumping the shark” is what Fonzie did in a latter episode of Happy Days – and it was the point at which people started thinking the show had gone on a few episodes too long. After all, he is water skiing in the scene in which he jumps the shark. Yes, that’s almost unbelievably right. He literally jumps a shark while water skiing!

Now I would never suggest that anyone should ever stop writing – how would we ever get better if we stopped? – but there seem to be a number of uber successful writers who have reached a point where their writing, which was once “must read” to me, is now a bit ho hum. In fact, I have stopped reading some of my once favourite writers altogether.

The Perfect Job

Maybe it’s a misleading article title because I should start out by acknowledging there’s no such thing as the perfect job. At least, there’s no one-size-fits-all perfect job. The perfect job is different things to different people.

Book Review: Ghost Money by Andrew Nette

I really wanted to like this book because it is written by someone who lives in the same town as me…but I just couldn’t. Ghost Money is ostensibly the story of a private detective searching for a missing Australian businessman in Cambodia but so much of it feels like a history lecture (and I do mean lecture) that I often forgot that we were supposed to be on the lookout for a missing person.

My Top Ten Movies – Part Two

On Wednesday, I posted the first five of my top ten movies. Here’s Part Two, again in no particular order.

My Top Ten Movies – Part One

This is not a traditional top ten movies list. Even though many of them are my favourite movies, this is my list of top ten movies containing great dialogue with examples included. Sometimes great dialogue goes by so quickly you don’t have a chance to appreciate the beauty of its construction.

I’ve broken it into two parts because it got very long when I was typing it up. So here are the first five of my top ten movies in no particular order and some terrific pieces of writing.

Book Review: A Is For Alibi by Sue Grafton

An easy read – finished it in two days (and not with non-stop reading). I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it and I’m prepared to continue on with the rest of the alphabet.

Guest Post: Signs and Sounds Our Human Knows by Kiwi, Mia and Jock

Kiwi’s Story
Louise is my human. Got that? Mine. I chose her. I had a few options, although I suppose she did, too. I used to run with a lot of other cats. We were wild rebels. We didn’t need owners.

Words and Sounds My Cats Know

As a communications expert, I think it’s important to acknowledge both inter-human and cross-species messages. While my cats might not have the detailed awareness of the English language I do, they know enough to get what they want – which is mostly (but not always) some type of food.

Book Review: The Great Flood Mystery by Jane Curry

I first read this book when I was ten after buying it from the Scholastic book catalogue that we used to come home from school with and I read it again this year in preparation for adding it to a list of my current top ten books.