Joe Clifford Faust's Blog, page 7
April 5, 2013
Glock
Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun by Paul M. Barrett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What is this? A business book that reads like a thriller? A history book that reads like film noir? Whatever it is, it is riveting reading.
March 26, 2013
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of those rare books that is the perfect alignment of concept, plot, and writing, and is so well executed that it makes me want to give up on writing my own stuff. Five stars… and five tissues.
March 25, 2013
Elimination Night
Elimination Night: A Novel by Anonymous
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Amusing potboiler taking place behind the scenes of a certain thinly-veiled talent search program, replete with dueling egos, backstabbing, betrayals, and airing of dirty laundry.
March 20, 2013
Master and Commander
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The only problem with getting hooked on O’Brian’s seafaring series is that I now have 19 more books to add to an enormous queue of wanna-reads. guess I need to clear my calendar and get busy.
February 20, 2013
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America: by Bernard Goldberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fun book that roasts nincompoops on both sides of the political aisle (but mostly the left). The book was written in 2005 and could use an update.
January 20, 2013
Black Gun Silver Star
Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves by Art T. Burton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
While the book sometimes got bogged down with digressions or minutia, the story of Bass Reeves still proves to be compelling and historically important. He shouldn’t be ignored
January 9, 2013
Parliament of Whores
Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government by P.J. O’Rourke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
O’Rourke’s classic about the “workings” of government is just as funny and relevant as when it was written 20+ years ago. Only the names and dollar amounts have changed.
December 31, 2012
2012 in Review
Everybody else is doing it – why not me? The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog and sent it to me with the option of making it public. So I might as well. I suspect this will be the easiest blog entry I will ever have to make.
PS: Happy 2013!
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,700 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.
Click here to see the complete report.
December 28, 2012
Can You Hear Me Now
Okay, time to make an announcement. Well, it’s not much of an announcement… if you’re connected to my Facebook Fan Page you’ve known about this for a couple of months. I just never said anything in this venue because I have no idea what the timetable is for what is going to happen.
That is, my entire back catalog of Del Rey and Bantam era books is going to be released in audio book form by Audible.com.
This is exciting news for me because audio books was the last frontier I hadn’t yet conquered. Unless you count TV and the movies, and I came close there. But never mind that. With the advent of ebooks, I’ve been too-slowly getting the back catalog out there for the Kindle, and was wondering what to do about the other e-reader book formats in the world (and more about that in a couple more graf). But one of the things on the back of my mind was how to get the catalog into audio form. I’d done a little research, but nothing earthshaking. Until October.
That’s when I received an unexpected email from my former agent offering to pitch my backlist to Audible to see which titles, if any would stick. As it turns out, all of them did.
So the paperwork is signed, and I’m waiting. I’ve gotten one email from Audible about some issues with A Death of Honor, and suspect there may be others as the time draws nigh to produce.
At present, I don’t have any more information about release schedules or anything like that. Rest assured as I find out, you’ll be hearing from me on this screen and in the aforementioned Facebook page.
And what about non-Kindle format ebooks? Those will be coming, too, slowly as I turn them out. But the current three, A Death of Honor, The Mushroom Shift, and The Company Man are all in the process of being converted, as it turns out that one of my former agent’s new missions is to open up client backlists to the ebook world as well. So I’m glad he still considers me – or my backlist, at least – a client.
So. Back to work now on the new stuff.
December 24, 2012
Methland
Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town by Nick Reding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Eye-opening, fascinating, horrifying and disturbing.
