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Popularity causes welcome problem for Historical Society Press

Around 1930, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote an autobiography about her and her family’s pioneer experience. No one would publish it. Wilder ended up using it as a source for her wildly successful Little House series. Turn the clock ahead 80 some years and things have changed dramatically. The autobiography was finally published late last year […]

Tim January 23rd, 2015 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | |

A belated Book Festival follow-up

I know, it’s been a couple weeks since the Festival of Books. But, as you can see, I’ve been mostly absent from the blog. Being crazy busy at work doesn’t go well with oral surgery (fortunately after the Festival), especially when it greatly impairs your ability to speak. Besides, one of the items just came […]

Tim October 13th, 2012 | Tags: , , , | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | |

Book Review: And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields

“Idols are best when they’re made of stone,” Joan Baez wrote in a song about Bob Dylan, the songwriting voice of a generation. It could also apply to a man many viewed as being the literary hero of the counterculture. As Charles J. Shields shows in his outstanding biography of the author, Vonnegut was far […]

Tim November 4th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | |

South Dakota authors: “No one of note”

I am not easily offended. But there are exceptions. One is the post at the Publishers Weekly‘s blog of the “singular” writers for each of the 50 states. South Dakota’s entry? “No one of note. The closest South Dakota has to literary tradition is that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s itinerant childhood stopped through Dakota territory [sic] […]

Tim July 28th, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: A Reading Life, Rants | 4 comments - (Comments are closed) | |