Best Books of 2024

On December 20, 2024 By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

The year-end best books of 2024 feature just launched from PopMatters. I contributed the introduction and a few selections of my own:

Industry consolidation or not, publishers of all sizes and tastes kept publishing more fascinating books than anybody could come close to reading in a year. However, the indomitable critics here at PopMatters did our level best throughout 2024 to keep up. As usual, we paid special attention to the exhilarating number of books on music that came our way. Questlove just keeps knocking out books along with 50 quintillion other projects (is that workaholism or just passion?). There were also new volumes on R.E.M., the black roots of country, Jesus and Mary Chain, 2 Tone Records, Beatlemania, and more. Here and there, generalists that we are, we dipped into a broad range of nonfictional reading, from Greil Marcus on creativity to Steve Coll on why the Iraq War happened…

TV Room: ‘The Night Of’

On July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn TelevisionLeave a comment

thenightof1 — Riz Ahmed in ‘The Night Of’ (HBO)

A long-in-development, eight-episode miniseries, The Night Of has the heft and snap of that rare crime novel which seems to have been written by somebody who has actually talked to a few cops and crooks in their time. That’s because it’s written by Richard Price, whose gritty, funny novels from The Wanderers to The Whites provide a kind of alternate history of New York.

What’s it about? In short, a good kid from Queens (Riz Ahmed) goes out when he shouldn’t, hangs out with a girl who fairly screams bad news, and ends up in a police station. For murder. John Turturro plays his low-end lawyer with a heart of gold; in a role that James Gandolfini originated not long before his death.

The Night Of is on HBO Sunday nights; check it out. My review is at PopMatters:

The world of cops, judges, and lawyers is one that sorts the people who come within its grasp. That’s at least the case in crime fiction like HBO’s darkly sparkling new noir miniseries The Night Of. It’s generally a binary thing, without much shading…

Here’s the trailer:

Reader’s Corner: Great Books of 2015

On January 23, 2016January 22, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, OmniculturalLeave a comment

Looking for something to read? There’s plenty out there to choose from.

Check out “From Training Hawks to World War III: A Short List of Great 2015 Books” at Re:Print.

Here’s some other books from last year that really stood out:

After all, winter is (finally) here. Time to catch up on your reading.

In Books: Richard Price’s ‘The Whites’

On March 19, 2015March 19, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

Even though The Whites was technically published under Richard Price’s genre pen name Harry Brandt, the publisher didn’t even bother leaving his real name off the thing. It might be a crime novel instead of straight realist fiction and a couple hundred pages shorter than his usual. But the style is unmistakably that of the writer who brought such lived-in detail to novels like The Wanderers and Lush Life and his scripts for The Wire. This time, it’s just a little tighter, more razored. So in short: great stuff.

My review of The Whites is at PopMatters:

Fitting his moniker, Billy Graves is a cop working the night shift. Exhaustion is his permanent state, eyes falling out of his head from the damage being done to his circadian rhythms. All the caffeine in the world, those long-after-midnight energy-drink bodega injections, can’t keep his thought processes straight. As a result, he’s a little slow on the uptake when things start getting squirrelly. But, then, maybe he always was on the slower side…

You can read the full first chapter here.

Writer’s Desk: Michael Connelly

On February 22, 2015March 13, 2015 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, WritingLeave a comment

When you’re looking for advice on writing, the masters are of course always reliable. But it might be wiser to just dive right into the ranks of those who spend their lives toiling in the fields of pulp. After all, it’s the creators of genre fiction who are more likely to have to work with brutal deadlines and for fiercely judgmental audiences.

So, here’s Michael Connelly, of the Harry Bosch series of novels, as well as The Lincoln Lawyer, talking to Writer’s Digest about his three favorite bits of writing advice. They’re all gold:

The best crime novels are not how cops work on cases; it’s how cases work on cops. — Joseph Wambaugh

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. — Kurt Vonnegut

When you circle around a murder long enough, you get to know a city. — Richard Price

Chris Barsanti

Tag: Richard Price