James Hall is one of my favorite authors and this non-fiction book is quite a change from his Thorn series of thrillers. Although it is somewhat repetitive in places, it was a nice recap of the 12 books selected, many of which I read years ago. His collection of essays, Hot Damn, is one of my favorites so I knew the non-fiction arena would not be too much of a challenge for him. I appreciated the insights into his own writing. Since the titles discussed and their commonalities have been described in other reviews, I'm tossing this one in only to flag an interesting read.