by Robert | Nov 12, 2013 | Book Reviews, Publishing
While traveling these last two weeks via Istanbul, Venice and Trieste to Rovinj, Croatia I have been rereading Robert Olen Butler’s Christopher Marlowe Cobb novel, Hot Country and its follow-on, The Star of Istanbul. I think Hot Country is as good as any novel...
by Robert | Apr 1, 2012 | Book Reviews, Deception
Justin A. Day (pseudonym) with Jan Weeks published The Centerville Code forty-two years too late for me. It is a 10-13 year-old boy adventure book where the heroes require facility in cryptanalysis––the reading of codes. It is the type of story I read as a...
by Robert | Feb 25, 2012 | Book Reviews
Robert Olen Butler (A Small Hotel) I mean being a writer is like being a psychoanalyst, but you don’t get any patients. Al Alvarez Robert Olen Butler’s novel A Small Hotel is a gem. It is a diamond. It is an intense moment-by-moment psychological study of a...
by Robert | Dec 31, 2011 | Book Reviews, Publishing
It is New Year’s Eve 2012 in Madison, Wisconsin. Yesterday there was an alternating snow-sleet-rain storm in our Lake Wingra microclimate. Today this small world is grey and ice-covered. Tomorrow morning there is a winter weather advisory—high winds and sleet. I had...
by Robert | Mar 12, 2011 | Book Reviews, Deception, Russia
On reading War and Peace (Tolstoi), On War (Clausewitz) and War (Sun Tsu) March 15, 2011 In writing my next novel “Wounded,” I have been thinking how to create the eminence grise, Alexander Soroka, is a disillusioned Bolshevik Russian Jew who had had a...
by Robert | Dec 2, 2010 | Book Reviews, Russia, Soviet Union
I am reading interviews about Soviet Repression Orlando Figes [ http://www.orlandofiges.com/familyHistory.php ] with the assistance of Russian Memorial had gathered. It is about as sad as it gets. Memorial, controversial in Russia, is both an organization and an...