Archive | December, 2011

All Good Things Must Come to an End

30 Dec

Pretty much says it all folks. After nearly two full years of blogging, posting two reviews each week, writing innumerable features, interviewing authors and collecting book headlines from around the world, the Boston Book Bums team is calling it quits.

We’ve been weighing this decision for a few months. We’ve talked among former members of our review team, our founders and others. Polled a select few other bloggers and friends about the future course of the blog. And at the end of each discussion, we were left with the feeling that the time had come to turn a page.

Holding a blog together, made up of different readers, of different lives, priorities and interests, can be challenging. But not impossible.    We feel we proved that with the consistent quality you saw here each and every day.

For the very reasons why the blog worked, the diversity of interests and personalities, also meant that priorities shifted for the team during the preceding 20 plus months. Time becomes pinched. Writing about reading suddenly becomes last on the list. Our leader has moved on, reviewers have come and gone.

It is a hobby, this book blogging, not a profession. It was, for many months, a love. We never ran ads, nor accepted them. Monetize was not in our blogging lexicon. We did Boston Book Bums for the love the book.

But time has forced us to weigh the future course of the blog. Ultimately what made the decision for us was the lack of regular manpower. Without reliable, trustworthy and capable hands working on the blog, we simply cannot keep it going in its current form. We could scale back, just running a review a week, possibly a few news stories here or there as time permitted. However, that would betray the core reason why we founded Boston Book Bums- an intelligent, diverse and always reliable book blog.

Now, we will keep Boston Book Bums up for you to read on with, to catch up on the hundreds of books reviews, interviews and features.  Is there a chance we might reignite this wonderful exercise? Surely. However, as of now, we must unfortunately take a bow and walk away.

And so, dear friends and readers, we will bring the Boston Book Bums news and review blog to close next week with five straight days of reviews. That stable of reviews will run as our curtain call to you our readers.

We are going out with a loud, intelligent and classy, bang!

We wish you all the best, many thanks and please continue reading!

Grub Pages

30 Dec

Bookish Intelligence Report

30 Dec
  • Upstate New York author sees e-books as future of self publishing (via Sippican Week)
  • Pledge to buy a few more book annual turns future around for Wisconsin (via Wisconsin State Journal)
  • Suspicious package at library turns out to be what you’d think (via Middletown Press)
  • A war horse rescued from the trenches (via Telegraph)
  • Coffee table book features Himalayan wildlife (via Express India)
  • Looking ahead to the year in books (via Sydney Morning Herald)
  • Love of books turns into repair business (via Washington Post)
  • Book moving brigade aids Riverrun Bookstore (via Boston.com)
  • The best books of 2011, as read by readers in UK (via Guardian)

Top 10 of ’11: This Burns My Heart

29 Dec

Thanks for sticking with us dear readers throughout this year. You’ve seen the books we enjoyed, disliked, hated and loved.

And now, as the year winds down, so does our year end best book list.

For the hands down, best book we read this year…at number one…


Samuel Park’s first novel, This Burns My Heart, is fascinating story of a young, beautiful, ambitious Korean woman making decisions in midst of the modernization of South Korea.

Soo-Ja , at 22 years-old, wants to leave her father’s home and move to Seoul to become a diplomat but her loving father insists that marriage is her best choice.  Not willing to give up so easily, Soo-Ja chooses a husband who is a weak, someone she can convince to move Seoul and pursue her passion.  She ignores the feelings she has for another young man, a medical student, and the marriage is arranged.  Soo-Ja is convinced her plan will work and is hardly bothered that she is using her new husband to pursue her personal goals.

All of her plans change when Min, her husband, chooses to stay with his family and Soo-Ja’s fate is tied to her husband’s family and her cruel father-in-law.

Park structures Soo-Ja’s story in four parts, meant to represent the Four Gentlemen of Confucianism, chrysanthemum, orchid, plum tree and bamboo.  The flowers represent virtue to withstand adversity, humility and nobility, inner beauty, and the integrity in which one yields but does not break, respectively.  Soo-Ja’s epitomizes all of these traits as each one of her decisions moves her life in unexpected directions.  Perhaps, above of all else, Soo-Ja maintains a naivete that makes her character heart-warming.

Park has created a heroine that readers will cheer for to the bitter end, adopting Soo-Ja’s hope and perseverance.  The Korea in This Burns My Heart is a beautiful entree into another world, where tradition and ambition clash, where hope is more important than life, a love story of a beautiful young woman and a love story of a beautiful old country.  This Burns My Heart is a novel not to miss and an introduction to an author who will surely deliver again.

This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park was received for free for review by Boston Book Bums

Spine Design

28 Dec

Bookish Intelligence Report

28 Dec
  • Actor’s life-long devotion to Dickens (via Telegraph)
  • The value difference between old books (via TheSpec)
  • Beijing’s “human library” (via Hindustan Times)
  • Textbooks are dead, according to one Scottish educator (via Scotsman)
  • Utah bookseller reinvents itself to stay competitive (via KSL.com)
  • Coffee table book commemorates Hudson Bay Company (via Toronto Star)
  • A simple list, five good books (via New Yorker)
  • Child of Ezra Pound battles Italian facists (via Guardian)

Top 10 of ’11: Black Hand Gang

27 Dec

We’re down to the final two books in our year end book list. So, here it is, the second best book we read this year.


In recent years there has been a low simmer when it comes to reviving pulp-style fiction. It roared back mainly in crime fiction, with some minor percolation in science fiction. Well, with Pat Kelleher’s Black Hand Gang, the occult science fiction genre explodes like a trench mortar over Passchendaele.

Part of the No Man’s World series, Black Hand Gang is the story of the First World War and the battles of the Somme. We are quickly introduced to the officers and enlisted men of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers, a British outfit of experienced soldiers, idealist recruits, disconnected officers and even a mysterious ‘practitioner.’

Black Hand Gang builds credibility with impeccable First World War scenes of life in the trenches and the antiquated, slaughterous method of attrition warfare waged by both sides. But in the great pulp tradition, as the 13th advances on the German trench lines, a strange cloud envelopes them. Not poison gas, not chlorine or Mustard gas hurled by the Kaiser’s forces. No, this is something entirely. Something otherworldly. The men regain consciousness to find their battle blasted piece of mud and barbed wire plucked up and transported to a lush alien world.

The shock is immediate. And yes, some struggle with this mind bending reality. But, what makes the men and unit snap into logical shape is the pin sharp regimentation and stiff upper lip that British military men are known for. No sitting around whimpering or whining. These men are refocused on their task- survive this world and try to figure out if there is a way home. It works brilliantly.

Dealing with several hundred men, with specific focus on a few platoons, means that there are a bulging handful of characters to keep track of. Kelleher creates sharp, postage stamp sized portraits of each man, slightly different than the next to make them stand out and cohese as a unit. Early on Kelleher shows his hand with an evil character in British uniform, setting the occult stage for the rest of the book. A smart move, it allows that supernatural spectre to hang over the coming scenes, waiting for the alien mayhem to start.

Kelleher’s research on British military equipment, tactics & slang are superb! His grasp of the miseries of trench warfare are expertly and unwaveringly portrayed. Remove the supernatural and science fiction elements of Black Hand Gang and you would have a Tier 1 piece of military historical fiction.

Possessing all the attributes of great pulp fiction, but with a 21st century edge, Black Hand Gang is the kind of adventure book we need more of. And luckily, it is just a first in a series of No Man’s World adventures that are sure to bring back rock-em sock-em writing to the masses. Don’t hesitate to grab a copy of Black Hand Gang!

Black Hand Gang by Pat Kelleher was received for free for review by Boston Book Bums

Holiday Hiatus!

26 Dec

Headline says it all, fine readers. We are away on family frolics and holiday adventures. As a result, our regular Monday features of Bookish Intelligence Report and Battle Rattle Books, will be preempted. Not to worry, tomorrow we return with the Top 10 of ’11 countdown. Thanks again for reading and Happy Holidays!

Grub Pages

23 Dec

Bookish Intelligence Report

23 Dec
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