Book review report

I expect to finish Wendy McClure’s The Wilder Life tonight and post my review Friday.  If all goes according to plan, my review of The Mad Bomber of New York: The Extraordinary True Story of the Manhunt That Paralyzed a City by Michael M. Greenberg will be up some time tomorrow.

Not sure what I’ll review next after McClure’s book but it’ll be something.  And I’ve been invited to review another play down in New York.  That’ll be later in the month.

I hope you’re enjoying these reviews because I’d really like to keep them a regular feature.  The trouble with theater and book reviews, though, is that they’re not conducive to interactivity.  That is, the odds that enough of you will have already read a particular book or seen the play to get a comment thread going aren’t good.  I’m trying to think of what to do about this.  If you’ve got any ideas or think I even need to do something about it, please let me now.

Here are some of the books I have in the hopper:

My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir by Dick Van Dyke.

The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge by T.J. English.

In the Rooms a novel by Tom Shone.

The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes.

When the Thrill Is Gone, the new Leonid McGill mystery by Walter Mosley.

Let me know if there's one in particular you'd like me to tackle next.

All of them are available for your kindle, in case you have one and were wondering.

And please visit The Mannionville Daily Gazette Review of Books on Facebook.

Comments

[voxpoptart]

I don't think the lack of discussion is a problem - not for me, anyway. Your book and theater pieces are often among my favorite of your posts, and at least in the case of books there's a reasonable chance I'll have comments to add two years from now when I randomly pluck them from my ever-expanding To-Read List.

If you want such comments! Do you read and reply to comments from very old pieces? If so, you might want to make a little habit of mentioning it on book/theater reviews, just in case someone wanders by later and you have the chat you were imagining.

Only slightly related: are you familiar with Noah Millman's theater blog? Discovered it a short while ago, with perfect timing; my wife and I were able to read your David Ives piece then his, both in the wake of having watched all three seasons of the wonderful "Slings and Arrows" (thanks, Lance!) to prime our interest. I will probably never see *any* of the productions he writes about. But he's got a fascinating mind, and I've been trolling happily through his archives regardless.

[Lance Mannion]

vox, thanks, that's good to know. I just don't want to bore folks. And yep, I read comments on older posts and try to respond. (Links to all comments appear in the sidebar, and I know lots of readers keep an eye out for them.) Two more book reviews this weekend and I'll be going down to NYC on the 19th to see another play.

Thanks for the link to Noah Millman's blog. It's going to be a regular read for me. And maybe I'll get a chance to meet him now that I know he's there.

If I've done the world any little bit of good with this blog it's been in introducing folks to Terry Pratchett and Slings & Arrows.