Category Archives: Books

SHOOTING AT THE MOON – Roger Warner

December 5, 2011 – 10:53 am

The airbases of Issan are relatively quiet now. A few arrivals a day from Bangkok, but during the Viet-Nam War these runways were scorched by the fire from US fighters and bombers flying missions over Hanoi and more secretively Laos. This supposed secret war was run out of a small complex on the Udon Thani [...]

By Peter | Also posted in 60s, Asia, War | Comments (0)

THE ITCH by Steven Hammer

November 2, 2011 – 8:22 am

Early in the summer of 1965 I was coming home from buying the newest Rolling Stones LP in Mattapan Square. A green paperback lay atop a trash can at the Lower Mills trolley station. THE ITCH by Steven Hammer on Olympia Press was not on the summer reading list for thirteen year-old boys. I opened [...]

By Peter | Also posted in 60s, Sex, Sin, semi-fiction | Comments (0)

The Outrage of Christ

October 28, 2011 – 11:58 am

THE LAST TEMPTATION by Nikos Kazantzakis was a revelation for a young Catholic boy living on the South Shore of Boston in the late 60s. I found the book in our town library next to his successful novel ZORBA THE GREEK. I read the blurb on the dust cover and was shocked to discover that [...]

By Peter | Also posted in 60s, Sin, boston, heresy, religion | Comments (0)

FIELD GREY by Philip Kerr

October 24, 2011 – 6:36 am

Philip Kerr has been writing about a pre-WWII Berlin detective for more than a decade. These novels cover Bernard Gunther’s career from policeman to private detective to SS soldier to post-war criminal. The books introduce infamous Nazis at various points of their lives and in FIELD GREY the old veteran is entrapped by the CIA [...]

By Peter | Also posted in Crime, War | Comments (0)

The Last Executioner of Thailand

September 24, 2011 – 5:23 am

Books are much better than DVDs. While used ones cost about 160 baht as opposed to 100 baht per DVD, movies rarely last longer than 2 hours, unless you hit the fast-forward button. The BLACK DAHLIA flashed before my eyes in less than 12 minutes. It sucked. Reading a book is a journey of days [...]

By Peter | Also posted in Crime, Thailand | Comments (0)