The Literate Kitty

There’s an old saw which holds that nothing in life is certain but death and taxes. (Bit of a Gloomy Gus came up with that one, apparently.) Of course it isn’t any truer than most such sayings; the last time I checked, the sun still rises in the east, mathematical formulas continue to work, and (soon to be relevant here) those little directional compasses--common to hikers’ kits and cars’ rearview mirrors everywhere--reliably keep on pointing due north.    If only our so-called “moral” compasses followed the same rules of behavior, always agreeing on what’s right and wrong, things would be so much simpler, wouldn’t they? But, alas, such isn’t the case; whether due to sheer human perverseness or guided by convenience, the ol’ moral compass shows a penchant for fickleness from one situation to the next... sometimes surprising even us.  Newcomer Jamie Mason exposes the intricacies of our moral compasses in her impressive debut, the psychological thriller Three Gr...

A little something ( erm... make that a BIG something ) sweet for you... guaranteed to be calorie- and cavity-free... A fan of Cupid? Perhaps... :)  Hope it's a lovely day, no matter how you spend it...  xoxo,  

“How do you know you don’t like it, unless you try it?” Millions of parents have used that very line on recalcitrant toddlers stubbornly turning their little button noses up at a proffered serving of broccoli (oatmeal, liver, whatever*). A few years later, teenagers goad each other the same way--only by then, the “it” in question usually pertains to beer, drugs, or prospective hook-up material. The funny thing is, we never entirely outgrow the concept; there’ll always be something out there we’re positive we don’t like (don’t agree with, don’t believe)... without ever having tried it (or finding out about it). In our eternal, infernal stubbornness over certain things, we will always be about three years old. The solution is simple enough: go out and try the things we have strong opinions--but no actual knowledge--of... taste, read, explore, sample, experience (and then form conclusions). [Okay, brief interruption, here... if you’re sitting there thinking I’m about to go ...

When times are lean, everyone has to make some tough choices. Do you not pay the bills, and let your family go hungry... or do you suck it up and take whatever little jobs you can find to stay afloat? (That’s a no-brainer, right?) Bounty hunter Kelly Driscoll has been facing the same prospects, now that her work has slowed way down, and the fact that the bounties she tracks down are all escaped monsters--think weird, creepy things you never, ever want to encounter--makes no difference; broke is broke. But, when something that started out seeming like a small job turns into something a whole lot bigger, well... that’s when Kelly has to put her big-girl panties on, in Nina Post‘s whimsically-wild and wacky tale, The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse .                          ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ If nothing else, life is rarely boring in the less-than-melodiously-named Pothole City, where Kelly Driscoll has b...