shrouded skeleton statue

Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • Author Kemper Donovan and his two novels, The Busy Body and Loose Lips

    Interview With an Author: Kemper Donovan

    Kemper Donovan is the host of the All About Agatha podcast. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, he worked at the literary management company Circle of Confusion for a decade…

  • Author Chris Nichols and his latest book, Bowlarama!: The Architecture of Mid-Century Bowling

    Interview With an Author: Chris Nichols

    Chris Nichols is a longtime preservationist and senior editor at Los Angeles magazine. For many years, he worked with the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee, serving a term as chairman of the…

  • Author Rebecca Serle and her latest novel, Good Dirt

    Interview With an Author: Charmaine Wilkerson

    Charmaine Wilkerson is the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, which was named a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick and adapted as a Hulu streaming series by Oprah Winfrey and Kapital…

  • Author Mallory O’Meara and her latest book, Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman

    Interview With an Author: Mallory O’Meara

    Mallory O’Meara is the bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon, which won the 2019 SCIBA award for Biography and the 2019 Rondo award for Book of the Year, Girly Drinks, which won a 2022…

  • But Not Too Bold, a novella by Hache Pueyo

    Interview With an Author: Hache Pueyo

    Hache Pueyo is an Argentine-Brazilian writer and translator. She won an Otherwise Fellowship for her work with gender in speculative fiction, and her work has appeared as H. Pueyo in The Magazine of…

  • Author Edward Underhill and his latest book, The In-Between Bookstore

    Interview With an Author: Edward Underhill

    Edward Underhill grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, where he could not walk to anything, so he had to make up his own adventures. He studied music in college, spent several years living in very…

  • Author Jess Armstrong and her latest novel, The Secret of the Three Fates

    Interview With an Author: Jess Armstrong

    Jess Armstrong is the USA Today best selling author of the Ruby Vaughn Mysteries. Her debut novel, The Curse of Penryth Hall, won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel…

  • Chunck Tingle and his book cover Bury Your Gays

    Interview With an Author: Chuck Tingle

    Chuck Tingle is the USA Today bestselling author of Camp Damascus and Straight. He is a mysterious force of energy behind sunglasses and a pink mask. He is also an anonymous author of romance, horror…

  • Author Delilah S. Dawson and her first novel, The Resurrectionist

    Interview With an Author: A. Rae Dunlap

    A. (Amanda) Rae Dunlap studied film and Victorian literature at Northwestern University and spends her days as a trailer editor at Disney, bringing to life the magic of the world’s most influential…

  • Book covers of favorite books

    My Favorite Books of 2024

    Season’s Readings, everyone! As is generally true, there have been some marvelous books published in 2024, and I’m thrilled to share my favorites with you. I’ve listed these books in alphabetical…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for The Book Woman's Daughter

    The Book Woman's Daughter

    • By: Richardson, Kim Michele
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 2019, Kim Michele Richardson told the story of Cussy Mary Carter and her work as a Pack Horse Librarian in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Now, in 2022,  Richardson returns to tell the next chapter in Cussy Mary’s story, which actually belongs to her daughter, in The Book...
  • Cover image for One last stop

    One last stop

    • By: McQuiston, Casey
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    A young woman on her way to her first day of classes at Brooklyn College spills coffee on herself just prior to boarding the subway. Another young woman on the train comes to her rescue with a scarf and a kind word. The next time the student boards the train...
  • Cover image for The Quarter Storm

    The Quarter Storm

    • By: Henry, Veronica G.
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Vodou priestess Mambo Reina Dumond learned the practices and customs of Vodou as a child from her father, while her family was living in Haiti. She is inhabited by the spirit of Erzulie, which makes her a gifted practitioner of water magic. Reina operates a small business behind her home...
  • Cover image for One-Shot Harry

    One-Shot Harry

    • By: Phillips, Gary
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    The year is 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. is about to hold his Freedom Rally at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles; William H. Parker is Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department; John F. Kennedy is President of the United States; Pat Brown is the Governor of California; Gas is...
  • Cover image for The Fervor: A Novel

    The Fervor: A Novel

    Meiko is the Japanese wife of Jamie Briggs, a white US Air Force pilot fighting in World War II. Meiko, and her daughter Aiko, are “residents” of the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. A few days ago, an unscheduled truck came to the camp. The residents are told to stay...
  • Cover image for Mickey7

    Mickey7

    • By: Ashton, Edward
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Mickey Barnes NEEDS to get off Midgard, the colony planet on which he has lived his entire life. Because staying on Midgard is not an option, he takes the only avenue open to him: he volunteers to be the “expendable” on Midgard’s first outgoing colony ship, the Drakkar. An “expendable”...
  • Cover image for Secret Identity

    Secret Identity

    • By: Segura, Alex
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 1975, the comic book industry is struggling. It has survived, mostly, Frederic Wertham’s criticisms and claims regarding a causal relationship between reading comics and becoming a juvenile delinquent in Seduction of the Innocent. But there have been casualties. Readership is down. Publishers are closing. Writers and artists are left...
  • The City We Became

    The City We Became

    • By: N. K. Jemisin
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    N.K. Jemisin is a multiple award-winning, speculative fiction writer. Currently, she resides in Brooklyn, New York and, as evidenced by her novel, The City We Became, she LOVES the “Big Apple”.Every century or so, a city will “manifest”, it becomes a living thing, an entity of its own. This has...
  • Cover image for Redwood and Wildfire

    Redwood and Wildfire

    • By: Hairston, Andrea
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Redwood Phipps is an African-American girl. Aidan Wildfire Cooper is a Seminole Irish young man. The two are brought together by a hateful act of racial violence, which affects both of them for the remainder of their lives. But both are determined to keep the event from defining them. In...