Pop Culture Lunch Box

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson makes the shortlist of my favorite novels read in 2023 alongside two Adrian McKinty books ( The Island and...

I devoured about a dozen Kurt Vonnegut books when I was a teenager, and they were worldview forming towards my lifelong love of science f...

There are those moments during your high-school years when things seem so lucid, so crystal clear, so in-the-moment. Your friends are fi...

The description on the sleeve and in critical reviews made Chang-Rae Lee's new novel On Such a Full Sea a dead ringer for something I...

Being a reader of lots of classics and most recently a somber tale of laborious life in North Korea , it's necessary to break it u...

If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “an albatross around one’s neck,” which pertains to certain levels of guilt, then you’ve been touched by...

The Orphan Master’s Son is the best new novel I’ve read in a few years. Its disorienting series of flashbacks and flash-forwards is ...

For some strange reason, I've never been much into spy stories. I've seen very few James Bond films. I've read none of Ian Fle...

As I mentioned recently, I've discovered that graphic novels are the perfect answer for a person who doesn't have as much time to e...

Rock star Rory is in the middle of trying to convince Paul's dad to let him become one of his roadies. For the rest of the start of the ...

The novel's two main characters, young Paul and rock star Rory, hatch a plan to work in cahoots. For the rest of the start of the book, ...

The novel's two main characters, young Paul and rock star Rory, continue their conversation over drinks and pie at Admiller's Deli. ...

The novel's two main characters, young Paul and rock star Rory, have just met and bonded a little bit. For the rest of the start of the ...

Our chief characters, Paul and rock star Rory, have just met out on the lawn of the Universal/Decca record plant in Upstate New York. To rea...

Our chief characters, Paul and rock star Rory, meet. To read the start of the novel, go here . Chapter 5 “Hey kid, you from around here?” I ...

We continue taking a glimpse into Paul's early life with his parents. You can read the entire beginning of my novel here . I mostly list...

We continue to take a look into our protagonist's life growing up in small-town Papersville, New York. You can read the entire beginning...

Here's a tiny bit of Chapter 3 leftover from yesterday's post, which details the founding of our protagonist's hometown, Papersv...

Apologies again for the long interval. Life has been a little busy since resuming normality post my Dominican vacation . To remember where l...

Sorry for the extended break from our story of the dead rock star Rory and his younger buddy Paul. I was offline in the Dominican Republic f...