Chris Aaland

1 month ago | durangotelegraph.com | Chris Aaland |Stephen Eginoire |Jeffrey Mannix

In January 2019, I received a reviewer’s galley from Cinco Puntos Press, a publisher I hadn’t known or heard of. The book turned out to be the dreamy gamble of two bookish friends quartered in a rented or borrowed storefront in downtown El Paso, Texas. I love the surprise of handpicked and loved books from gutsy, low-volume, literary entrepreneurs. And who but the genuinely undaunted would presume to make a go of publishing English language novels in a city that’s nearly 90% percent Hispanic?

2 months ago | durangotelegraph.com | Chris Aaland |Stephen Eginoire |Jeffrey Mannix

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The population of Brooklyn hovers around 3 million, as compared with the resident population of Manhattan at around 2 million and The Bronx at a million and a half. The three are the most populated boroughs of New York City and home to concentrations of immigrants from everywhere in the world.

Jan 9, 2025 | durangotelegraph.com | Chris Aaland |Stephen Eginoire |Jeffrey Mannix

This year’s quarter-century promises some anticipated social and political crescendos to reorder or disfigure comforts or traditions. It appears the bolts have been blowing out of everything, and disintegration is the new progress. The trend from U.S. crime fiction publishers of anti-intellectual product and excessive flummery is following the swirl of disparaging achievement so the unqualified don’t feel unequal. European crime fiction writers soar above only the rarest U.S. counterpart.

Dec 5, 2024 | durangotelegraph.com | Chris Aaland |Stephen Eginoire |Jeffrey Mannix

If you’re thinking of writing a book, want to be a better writer or want to do justice to your own obituary, you’ll want to read William Boyd’s new book by Atlantic Monthly Press, “Gabriel’s Moon.” Boyd is a consummate writer with 17 novels, five collections of short stories, three non-fiction books and four plays. He was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, grew up in Nigeria and now divides his time between London and southwest France.

Nov 7, 2024 | durangotelegraph.com | Chris Aaland |Stephen Eginoire |Jeffrey Mannix

Author Attica Locke is a Black woman born and raised in Houston who was drawn to the arts at an early age and had published three books before dazzling the world in 2014 with “Bluebird, Bluebird.”  I came upon “Bluebird, Bluebird” as an advanced reader’s copy. I read it, and stunned by the erudition, I read it again. I reviewed it, including the comment that if my house was burning, “Bluebird, Bluebird” would be one of the books I would grab.