Extra-special shameless self-promotional post! Egad, old chums, Professor Moriarty has stolen a private letter from among the papers of Her Majesty Queen Victoria! Were its contents to become public, the results could bring the British Empire to its knees! HRH has engaged the services of Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, but the case is [...]

I like fictional jerkwads, okay? There’s something about an antihero that interests me way more than any hero can. Consider yourself warned.

The Haggadah, or prayerbook for the Passover seder speaks of four children: the wise child, the rebellious child, the simple child, and the child who doesn’t know how to ask. All four of these children are to be told the story of Passover, but each must be told in a different way, suited to her [...]

In his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard has one of the title characters explode at a band of travelling tragedians, who make their living by performing heart-tugging plays with endings full of corpses.   “Actors!” he snaps. “The mechanics of cheap melodrama! That isn’t death! You scream and choke and sink to [...]

Have you ever read a book that entranced you until the very last chapter, when the ending reared up like a brick wall in your face?