About This Blog

What About this blog
My specific interests are noir, hardboiled, police procedurals, and literature from Africa—specifically South Africa. I also enjoy science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Here you will find reviews of books, films, and graphic novels.

You will also see an occasional post featuring scans from my fathers 50+ years of slides, negatives, and prints.

If you wonder why there is a hyena in the header block it's because when I set up this blog I experimented with formatting an image for the header block and this photo was handy. I also think hyenas are interesting. The photo was taken by my aunt in 1954.\ in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

About Me
About me there isn't much to say. I'm a retired librarian whose speciality was library automation. You know when you search a library catalog online, that sort of automation is what I mainly supported.

Email me at macksstacks@gmail.com

Above I mentioned my interest in literature from Africa which you might find curious. The following section explains in (too much) detail.

Why my interest in South Africa?
You'll notice that I have reviews for African -- primarily South African -- authors. And, of course, there is the obvious hyena in the header block which is a clue to my interests. When asked why this interest in South African literature, I'll generally ask back, "Why would someone in Kansas study French literature?" The answer is that it is satisfying intellectually and it makes me happy.

In my case, though, I do have a distant connection with South Africa. My family lived in Pretoria between 1952 and 1956. My father was the radio operator on the aircraft assigned to the Air Attache attached to the American Embassy. I was nearly 6 yrs old when we arrived so my memories are fading and, let's face it, I was a little kid, an Air Force brat, it was another duty station and I don't think that the enormity of the setting sunk in. Certainly I had no awareness of apartheid.

Jump ahead many years. There are souvenirs around the house and boxes of negatives, slides, photographs deteriorating in the closet but South Africa hadn't lodged itself as a major focus. I did read the odd Alexander McCall Smith and Wilber Smith book but didn't embrace South African writing. Then one day a South African author named Roger Smith started following me on Twitter. Roger was coming out with his first (I think) novel, Mixed Blood, and was tweeting lines from the book. I started corresponding with Roger, asking him questions about the characters and the background of the story. Roger told me of the books that influenced him: Antjie Krug's Country of My Skull -- her account of covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- and Jacques Pauw's Into the Heart of Darkness -- an exploration of the the apartheid government's death squads.  Those books lead to others and before I knew it I was amassing a library of South African literature.

I also credit Marcia L. who, when I first contacted her, was working in a bookstore in Johannesburg. I was looking for guidance in in expanding my reading interests beyond crime, mystery, and thrillers. Marcia gave me recommendations for books I would not otherwise have known about but which I came to love. And helped me get signed copies of many books. Fortunately I was still receiving a paycheck that allowed me to feed this growing habit.

Boiled down, South Africa has first rate authors who are the nicest people you could hope to know.