by Rick Skwiot
September 1, 2010
Books
With Labor Day upon us, I thought to share with you a 1950s Labor Day, excerpted from my book Christmas at Long Lake: A Childhood Memory. (New trade paperback and e-book versions of it are being released later this month by Antaeus Books®.) I hope you enjoy it. * …I’m awakened by summer sunlight coming through the back-porch screens [...]
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by Rick Skwiot
August 27, 2010
Books
I had the great pleasure of recently reading the English-language Kindle edition of Gabriela Popa’s novel Kafka’s House. It gives an intimate and affecting view of 1968 Romania, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, through the eyes of Silvia Marcu, a dreamy and imaginative 10-year-old learning about death, disappointment and informants in a totalitarian society. Yet for all [...]
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Rediscovering Martin Beck Mysteries
by Rick Skwiot August 23, 2010 BooksIt had been decades since I’d read a Martin Beck roman policier from the Swedish team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – so long that I can’t remember which ones I might have read. But on a reader’s recommendation I went back to Beck in a 1969 mystery The Man Who Went Up In Smoke. While reputedly not their best [...]