- Since my author’s website will expire in 20 days, I’m transitioning this blog into a website–to the extent that’s possible. The first thing is a new books page which contains most if not all of my books.
When I’m playing hookey from my writing, I read a lot. I roar through books at the rate of one or two a week. I re-read many of my books and have found myself transitioning over to non-fiction a lot of the time for a change of pace. This week, it’s Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion that focuses on the events leading up to the revolutionary war. I wish I’d had his well-researched novels in history class since I’ve learned more from them than I did in the classroom. I met Jeff when he was a teenager, though he wouldn’t remember me since I was one of his father Michael’s many students who came to the house once a week for our college creative writing class.
I link some of my books (in promotions, etc.) to IndieBound as a book-store friendly alternative to Amazon. Now I’m linking my books to Bookshop.org as well because it supports bookstores rather than supporting the Amazon near-monopoly. All of my books are there since the hardcover copies are printed by Ingram.
My wife and I watch a fair number of noir movies on the TMC (Turner Classic Movies) channel. One of my favorites (it’s hard to choose) is the 1975 version of “Farewell, My Lovely” (from Raymond Chandler’s novel) starring Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe. (Wikipedia notes that Mitchum was the only actor who portrayed Marlowe more than once.) As always, I like the deadpan voice-over dialogue of noir movies along with the gloomy cinematography and the plots filled with down-and-out people. This movie is usually referred to as neo-noir since it wasn’t made during the 1940s/1950s noir period. However, the movie was set in 1941, and the cast, director, and photographers get everything right and was a nice change of pace from the films on Netflix.
Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the three-volume Florida Folk Magic series that begins with “Conjure Woman’s Cat.” (Click on the book graphic to see what’s its Bookshop listing looks like.)
Malcolm's Round Table 