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‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King My rating: 4 of 5 stars So many years since my first visit to Jerusalem’s Lot! Way back in the halcyon days of the early 1980s, when the teenage version of myself decided to move out of high fantasy and explore the horror genre, I began by buying an H.P.…

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens My rating: 3 of 5 stars The Life We Bury is one of those books where you can see what’s coming from a long way off, but the characters are compelling enough that you want to keep reading. But then everything happens pretty much just like you predicted…

Man Hunter by Dusty Rhodes My rating: 2 of 5 stars This is a novel about Superman playing Santa Claus dressed as Josey Wales in the Old West. It ranged from mildly entertaining to borderline frustrating for over 500 pages, then came to an anti-climactic ending. As I’ve stated before, I break Western novels into…

Wolves by D.J. Molles My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is another one that was compelling enough that I almost gave it five stars, but in the end I held back because it didn’t really have any deeper meaning than just a really, really good story about a man who’ll stop at nothing to…

To the Far Blue Mountains by Louis L’Amour My rating: 3 of 5 stars The continuing adventures of Barnabas, founder of the American Sacketts, L’Amour’s most famous family saga. Still more of a swashbuckler than a western. I think I liked it better than the first book, but Barnabas was still too arrogant, too sure…

The Pearl by John Steinbeck My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Pearl was not only the very first John Steinbeck novel I read, it was one of the books assigned to me by my favorite high school teacher, Wilda Walker. So, it’s a pretty special novel for me. This is the story of Kina,…

Demian by Hermann Hesse My rating: 3 of 5 stars This may be one that grows on me as the ideas it planted take root and blossom. For the moment, though, I was considerably less impressed with Demian in comparison to Siddhartha, which I loved. This novel starts out with young Emil Sinclair making up…

Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine by Eric Weiner My rating: 3 of 5 stars Consider this a 3.5 star review. There were things I really liked, and things I really didn’t like, but overall I’m glad I read it. Former journalist Eric Weiner had gas and went to a hospital, where a…

Sackett’s Land by Louis L’Amour My rating: 3 of 5 stars Despite my love of Westerns, I’d only read a couple of Louis L’Amour’s novels prior to this one, plus his autobiography. I just wasn’t a fan of his style. But I wanted another Western series to get into, so I decided to give L’Amour…

To a God Unknown by John Steinbeck My rating: 4 of 5 stars I went into John Steinbeck’s novel a little skeptical. His debut, Cup of Gold, was, shall we say, less than impressive. He found himself, though, found his subject matter, found his voice, found his themes, and began laying the groundwork for The…