Blood Alley Diaries

Commentary on hiking, backpacking & fiction writing from California's San Joaquin Valley

Coming soon: updates about my forthcoming novel Ripening the Times.

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Life is reflected well in Leslie M. Rollins’ The Man Dance

18 September 2019 by Nancy Leave a Comment

I enjoy books in which writers take on challenging topics, particularly when the topics are timely or provide some perspective on how things have or haven’t changed. The Man Dance is a book like that, tracing the coming of age of an artistic boy, George, from his school days to the cusp of manhood in 1960s Britain. [Read more…]

Carol Anshaw’s Right after the Weather is a good read

10 August 2019 by Nancy Leave a Comment

I enjoyed Right after the Weather from the start. Carol Anshaw doesn’t waste time in developing the main character, Cate, and giving readers a sense of her life in Chicago: her love life, her work life, her home life. She’s barely making ends meet as a set designer, but her existence is made rich by friendships, a rescue dog, and the prospect of a solid romantic relationship that might help alleviate her loneliness and sense of aimless personal drifting. [Read more…]

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Recent reads

Disappearing Earth
Right After the Weather
Strange Fits of Passion
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Light on Snow
Testimony
The Stars Are Fire
All He Ever Wanted
Sea Glass
Fortune's Rocks
Forever is the Worst Long Time
Body Surfing
The Pilot's Wife
The Weight of Water
The Hired Man
The Red Address Book
Happiness
Where Oceans Hide Their Dead
Breathing Lessons
Where the Forest Meets the Stars

Recent Posts

  • Life is reflected well in Leslie M. Rollins’ The Man Dance
  • Split-Level by Sande Boritz Berger surprised me
  • Carol Anshaw’s Right after the Weather is a good read
  • Hetch Hetchy Valley: If the plan is plunder, keep it under
  • Binge-reading Anita Shreve

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