Hal Johnson's Blog

(Join me and scores of other authors, vendors, etc., at the Westbrook Outlets Mid-Winter Author Warm-up, Feb. 7 11:00–3:00, 314 Flat Rock Place, Westbrook, Conn.)

New book! All thrills! Try it!

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Clem Weisbecker!

(Join me and scores of other authors, vendors, etc., at the Westbrook Outlets Mid-Winter Author Warm-up, Feb. 7 11:00–3:00, 314 Flat Rock Place, Westbrook, Conn.)

New book! All thrills! Try it!

This would be a swell place if it weren’t for that Great One.
•anonymous, Donald Duck in The Lost Jungle City (Big Little Book) (1975).

Unas is he who eats men, feeds on gods.
•anonymous carving, Pyramid of Unas, antechamber, east wall (c. 2345 BC).

The words of Herakles when he was not
Allowed to be initiated i...

Come see me at the Westbrook Outlets!

(I decided to share some short stories I wrote in my youth. Or, like, at least this one.)

A man impales a cork on a metal skewer, holds it in the fire. Flames lick the metal, sooting it, blackening the cork. When the cork has cooled, he rubs it on his face, his hands, the shiny parts of his rifle, the medals on his uniform. He seems particularly disgruntled about having to soil his medals that way, and his rifle, which shone before as brightly as a newly minte...

Blvd. of Blood! Dare you read this book?

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

John Byrne, of course!

(Join me and scores of other authors, vendors, etc., at the Westbrook Outlets Mid-Winter Author Warm-up, Feb. 7 11:00–3:00, 314 Flat Rock Place, Westbrook, Conn.)

Buy this book for your kid!

Buy this book for yourself!

Oh why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?
•A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad XLVIII (1896).

What happens to people who start life each morning with a small shock of alarm from their so aptly named alarm clock? Every day they become a little more conditioned to violence, and a little l...

(Join me and scores of other authors, vendors, etc., at the Westbrook Outlets Mid-Winter Author Warm-up, Feb. 7 11:00–3:00, 314 Flat Rock Place, Westbrook, Conn.)

I, like Gogol, have written

books you may enjoy

I read some good books last year, but the one that haunts me the most is an 1835 novella by Nikolai Gogol about badass cossack warriors: Taras Bulba. I can’t talk about the power the book has over me without spoilers, so proceed slowly, and I’ll, you know, warn you before they come.

Taras Bul...

Please look at these books I wrote

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Bruce Bushman!

Follow me on Goodreads!

The erratic presence or absence of a gall-bladder comes to notice in sacrificial victims. Thus, in a certain district of the Chalcidian settlement in Euboea the sheep have no gall-bladder, whereas in Naxos practically all the quadrupeds have so large a one that when foreigners are offering sacrifice they get quite a shock, supposing that this is some sign from heaven meant for themselves, instead of a natural phenomenon.
•Aristotle, On Animals (ca. 330 BC).

One per artist. Click those links to hear some good tunes. We’re getting to the really good stuff! FIGHT ME!

I wrote many books for you to try

(If you find anything I say entertaining or enlightening, please check out the books I write, such as this collection of twenty alternate history scenarios, this new crime thriller novel, or this postmodern Pynchonean filth about NYC in 2003—a historical novel! Plus many more!)

Zappa fan...

Please purchase some of my books!

My children need shoes / comics!

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Presumably Yarbrough?