Quark Soup
Magdalena Ball
Picaro Press
P.O. Box 853, Warners Bay, NSW 2282, Australia
1920957235 $7.00 http://www.compulsivereader.com
Aaron Paul Lazar, Reviewer
www.legardemysteries.com
Quark Soup is a cryptic collection of alluring poetry that provides fodder for deep introspection, while personifying planets and attributing humans with celestial properties. The subjects of childbirth and supernovas are cleverly interwoven, often cloaking the author's intent. In great mystery, cosmic wonders flow within love and relationships, titillating the reader's imagination.
Examine this segment from Coil of Life:
Hurling matter in all directions,
the particles of the embryonic universe
rush away from each other.
In the beginning there was nothing
but plasma soup. Less than a second later
pure energy became
a slippery birth cry still measurable
fifteen billion years later
in the decaying echoes of space.
Is the author referring to the birth of a child, or a universe?
In this excerpt from Aurora, Ms. Ball appears to be pleading with a cold-hearted scientist who has lost the capacity to perceive beauty and perhaps also the ability to show affection. Her earnest entreaty follows.
If I could capture that spectrum
the atomic neon sign of your lost wonder
and feed it to you on a spoon
when your lonely vigil against
poverty and incompetence
becomes ball and chain
I'd give up my own food
stand with my back to the solar wind
close my eyes to beauty
to keep you warm.
I'd be your personal aurora
your talisman against the dark lure of ennui
an electrical current charging
your ionosphere.
Science and passion fold together in masterful imagery as love, loss, and motherhood slip in and out of the image streams captured by Ms. Ball.
The subject of loss is tackled in several pieces, most particularly in Green, which addresses the loss of a mother to cancer. Examine this excerpt:
my fingers worked independent
from intent
tracing the landscape of her arched back
as she bent over her porcelain taskmaster
begging the drugs which she couldn't swallow
to kill the disease
indistinguishable from her own cells
Honest emotion covers themes like lonely childhood, the perfect universe, an impersonal lover, and the infinite joy of parenthood. With skillful word tapestries, the poems are infused with the wisdom of deep thought and experience, a rare commodity in such a young author. The collection is highly recommended, and will be treasured on this reviewer's bookshelf.
The Psychopath: Theory, Research, and Practice
Hugues Herve and John C. Yuille
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
10 Industrial Avenue, Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
0805860797 $59.95
Alma H. Bond
Reviewer
The Psychopath: Theory, Research, and Practice is a brilliant book! Although I, as a psychoanalyst, shuddered when I first opened the book and saw that it is based mainly on research on psychopaths, notably the research of Dr. Robert Hare, I soon became totally absorbed in the book. It opened new doors of understanding for me, so that after years of study and clinical practice, I feel I finally understand what a psychopath is.
The book consists of seven sections on psychopathy written by different authors, all of whom are well known in their field.. The contents of the book range from the evolution of the construct, through methodology and measurement issues, to etiology, to characteristic behavior and problems, to the generalizability of the construct, to subtypes of psychopathy, and end with practice concerns. As with most books compiled by many authors, the quality of the chapters varies greatly. Some are so fascinating it is difficult to put the book down, while a few are so boring one is tempted to skip over them. This review will concern itself mainly with the former chapters, as they are probably the most valuable.
According to Wong and Burt (p. 461), "Psychopathy is a serious personality disorder marked by a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioral characteristics. Affectively, psychopaths are emotionally shallow, selfish, callous, and lack any remorse. Interpersonally, psychopaths are cunning, deceitful. and manipulative. Behaviorally, psychopaths are irresponsible and impulsive and lack realistic long-term goals." The star of the book undoubtedly is Dr. Robert Hare, who conducted ground breaking research on psychopathy. Before Dr. Hare did this research, no tools were validated for the assessment of the devastating illness. His research is of tremendous importance to the science of criminology, psychology, to mental health professionals of all schools, to those miserable individuals involved in relationships with psychopaths, and most of all, to their future victims. The test has increased the diagnosis sensibility of psychopathy, and highlights important risk factors of this socially devastating disorder. For example, through use of Dr. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) scales, it can be predicted which criminals will recidivate, perhaps to commit murder and other serious crimes, and which ones can be released with minimal danger to society. The test also is able at pinpoint those individuals who are not psychopaths, who are more likely candidates to undergo successful therapy, and are deemed safe to return to society. By studying various components of the tests, perpetrators of specific crimes can sometimes be located. To do their jobs properly, correction managers, therapists, parole board members, supervisors, and line staff require valid information about the psychopathic personality, which is found through study of Dr. Hare's scales. By further developing his research, it is possible that insight will be obtained on why and how psychopaths develop, and perhaps even on how to avoid their development in the future.
The Psychopath: Theory, Research, and Practice is highly recommended for all those who are curious about the concept of psychopathy. It should be required reading for all mental health practitioners and enforcers of the law.
Everyman
Philip Roth
Houghton Mifflin Company
215 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10003
061873516X $24.00
B.A. Brittingham
Reviewer
At one hundred eighty-two pages, Philip Roth's twenty-seventh book may appear diminutive and can, in fact, be read quickly---if one devours books rather than reflects on their content. Such an attitude would be difficult to sustain in the face of the sobering subject, in this case, the downhill slide towards death that is the inevitable end of the book's title. (Thankfully, Roth hasn't fallen prey to the politically correct mandate against gender specific nouns that might have resulted in dreadful constructions like "Everyman/ Woman," "Every Person" or "Every Being.") The fact that "Everyman" is also the title of a fifteenth century morality tract doesn't hurt either. It adds an additional dollop of timelessness.
Moving backwards from the opening cemetery scene where the unnamed protagonist is attended by those with whom he once shared significant portions of his life, the story recounts the various ways in which he managed to fail each of these people. It is an awareness that overtakes him only as he ages, begins to suffer from deteriorating health, finds himself alone, and loses interest even in the lifelong dream of artistic expression. He was not an evil man, or even a cruel one, simply a creature who chose to swim parallel to the shore, compromising with the rip tides of life. If he was guilty of anything, it was of failing to consider his immediate circumstances and whether he should aggressively attempt to impose his own will on them. Should he have tried to explain his mistakes to the two sons from his first marriage who remain lost to him? Why did he allow middle-aged passion to sweep him to where he destroyed his most supportive relationship? His benign ineptness is further magnified by the shadow of an older, apparently flawless brother who swoops in to assist with amazing frequency. That this brother is a creature blessed with unflagging health, kindness and financial success, only serves to embitter the central character.
While many of the painful realizations Roth's character reaches relate to his particular misconduct, the point must be taken that waiting until the end of life to evaluate one's performance---or even whether one has developed suitable standards by which to live---hardly leaves time for adjustment or improvement. Perhaps that is the saddest lesson of all, the realization that wrongs can no longer be undone, that there is no time left to become someone we ourselves consider admirable.
There is a distinct terror in remembering the empowerment of being young, strong and involved with the pleasures of life, while simultaneously recognizing that such feelings have become the speck on a remote horizon. Roth skillfully encapsulates this in phrases such as, "Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre" and "…his longing for the last great outburst of everything" and "Was himself now nothing…but a motionless cipher awaiting the blessing of an eradication that was absolute." He is a master at recreating the imagery and subtle flavoring of a specific segment of society (hardworking, Jewish middle-class tradesman) at a specific time (1930s and on) and in a specific locale (New Jersey). He does it as well in this slim volume as he did on the broad canvas of "American Pastoral."
Obviously, this is not a book for children, although that depends on what age one believes marks the end of childhood. If high school sits at the gates of adulthood, then those years might be the ideal age at which to consider some of the many things that can go wrong. Of course, at sixteen or seventeen we are convinced that mortality only happens to others or in video games, so the effect is bound to be far less than profound. If nothing else, juniors and seniors would appreciate its lean profile. That it becomes a weighty tome by way of its succinctness will likely elude them. That is unfortunate. The rest of us are becoming aware all too quickly of the inescapable melancholy truths listed in "Everyman."
A sensual, insightful, and satisfying compilation of poems, Scarlet E, by Lois Glenn, is an enticing, thought-provoking journey that expresses a whole gamut of human emotion ranging through sorrow, hope, jealousy, desire, and love. Predominantly free verse, Scarlet E has it all, depicting everything from momentary pleasure garnered at a stranger's touch to a yearning for surrender, safety, and commitment. In this her praiseworthy debut poetic collection, Glenn uses sensuous imagery, and melodic phrases to describe the human need for touch, acceptance, and, ultimately, unconditional love.
While each poem is a separate entity, the whole volume tells the story of love, loss, and renewal. Each reader will be able to find personal favorites based on her own taste and experiences. From the first poem, "Just a Dance" to the last, "Forever," Glenn speaks with candor and grace in a style that tantalizes the imagination and stimulates the soul. Her vivid imagery is captivating and draws the reader along on the introspective journey.
The language of Glenn's poems changes to fit the mood and tone. Although most of the poems have no rhyme, she does use it here and there to call attention to a particular phrase or set a mood as in "Guttural Surrender" (p. 47):
Emotions swirling in misty eyes
released mighty and soulful cries.
Lips moved to swallow her groan,
completely surrendered with a guttural moan.
Throughout, the poems are enriched by the words Glenn chooses as much for meaning as for sound. In "Stranger's Embrace" (p. 9) the use of sibilants is soft and caressing and works neatly with the meaning.
Long moments of silence passed,
allowing the sun's warmth to caress
the side of my face, while I listened
to her comforting voice
melt the ice from my lips.
She also varies the tone of the poems. At times conversational with stanzas formed of complete sentences, they can also be cryptic as in "Afterglow" (p. 23) which is a series of unpunctuated stanzas each consisting of a single noun with an adjective phrase. It is pure imagery. And it moves!
But always her poems are dominated by the images. Frequently Glenn creates a juxtaposition of one thing with another completely different to emphasize their one esoteric similarity such as this stanza from "Stray Home" (p. 69). It is such an effective way to express the tenuous thread that keeps a jilted lover sane.
A breeze jangles the leaves;
knowing better than to admit weakness,
they cling tighter to the tree.
These unusual and powerful images are evocative of sensory experience that gives a lushness and resonant timbre to the physical and emotional substance of the poems.
Nowhere is this more strongly evidenced than in the breathtaking and heartrending sorrow of "Malignancy" (p. 98).
Malignancy (c) Lois Glenn (Reprinted with permission from the author)
Echoes of a shadow
proved her dreaded suspicion,
silencing her vigor
with endless nausea
and eternal torture.
One day her pains disappeared
with the thunder of tears
sweeping up the front stairs.
Now clumps of mowed grass
cling to all who pass.
Rainwater swirls as a reminder
over my bare feet;
beneath the cold surface
is no place for
life's triumphant defeat.
Lois Glenn expresses personal thoughts in an intense and intimate writing style through images appealing to all the senses. With verses that explore the full range of the lesbian love experience, Scarlet E is worthy of many readings. Do not miss Scarlet E. I highly recommend it and it is a great gift idea too.
Bio: Lois likes to build sand castles with quicksand, jump in and out of things, including moving vehicles, play with frogs, and walk through pits of angry rattlesnakes. Lois' poetry has been showcased at www.justaboutwrite.com
Meter Made
M.D. Benoit
Zumaya Publications
3209 IH 35 #1086 Austin, TX 78741
1554103029 $14.99, 249 pp.
Cheryl Swanson
Reviewer
is one of those books that defies conventions at every turn while making you sit back and watch the story unfold with a big fat smile on your face. Is Meter Made a hard-boiled mystery, with a bucket of clues, danger at every turn and plenty of action? Or is it sci fi, with all of that genre's specific traditions and variations? Meter Made is both, and the fun is in watching talented author M.D. Benoit mix the two genres up and make them stand on their heads.
In Meter Made, private eye Jack Meter is dealing with the loss of the one thing that previously defined his life, his beloved Annie. Jack desperately misses Annie, but it's not so much obsessive love for her that drives him in Meter Made, as the need to use the memory of her to escape the possibility of a new love. As the story begins, Jack is hired by eccentric tycoon, Lambert Garner, whose apartment building has just gone missing. Jack soon discovers that someone is stealing pieces of the universe and also erasing the record of their existence—tough luck for the poor suckers who happened to be living there.
Fortunately, Jack's got a bit of alien technology, a telecarb, implanted in his arm which allows him to go anywhere in the universe just by imagining himself there. The device was created by the Thrittene, a semi-benevolent group of aliens. While the Thrittene mean Jack well, they are always causing him problems. For one thing, their telecarb never seems to work when it is most needed—a great plot device that keeps it from becoming an annoying deus ex machina. Worse, it seems to be slowly turning Jack into a Thrittene—a fate he'd rather avoid.
Everything goes hourglass shaped when the story's femme fatale, Neola Durwin, enters the picture. Neola is a hot woman who is somewhat rude and Benoit does a good job of keeping you guessing about her role in the story. Is Neola destined to become Jack's new love interest-cum-partner? Or is something more sinister afoot?
As a mystery, Meter Made accomplishes what few mysteries do. The jigsaw puzzle pieces fit smartly together and every event is precisely positioned to build upon previous events and lead smoothly to the climax. Although MD Benoit draws upon speculative quantum physics in the book, this isn't a book in which you're going to learn a lot of science. And it also isn't a book for those who like things writ large across the sky— Benoit has the satirist's gift for telling a violent story without a lot of blood and screaming. But if you like your sci-fi a trifle ironic this book knocks it out of the park and into low-earth orbit.
The Power of Nice
Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
Currency/Doubleday
1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
0385518927 $17.95 www.currencybooks.com
In a business world where we are told nice guys finish last and nice girls do not get the corner office, it is refreshing to stumble upon a book that suggests killing people with kindness not only makes you feel good about yourself but is smart business. In the book, "The Power of Nice" by ad agency executives Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, the authors share just how easy it is to conquer the business world with truth, niceties, and kindness.
In the book, Koval and Thaler share information on how playing fair and being kind have helped them obtain success in the competitive world of advertising and share how we can follow their example. They also provide some examples from folks such as Jay Leno, Warren Buffet and Donald Trump (who ironically was in the midst of a not-so-nice verbal war with Rosie O'Donnell at the time of this review). But can nice overcome it's wimpy image? Here's what the authors say:
"But nice has an image problem. Nice gets no respect. To be labeled "nice" usually means the other person has little else positive to say about you. To be nice is to be considered Pollyanna and passive, wimpy, and Milquetoast. Let us be clear: Nice is not naive. Nice does not mean smiling blandly while others walk all over you. Nice does not mean being a doormat. In fact, we would argue that nice is the toughest four-letter word you'll ever hear. It means moving forward with the clear-eyed confidence that comes from knowing that being very nice and placing other people's needs on the same level as your own will get you everything you want."
Though you may not agree with every theory the book offers, it is still a fun and intelligent book perfect for the mean, lying, and cheating corporate world that doesn't always play by the rules. Buy it for yourself or for that former boss of yours that could really use it; you know the one. "The Power of Nice" is definitely worth checking out. Recommended.
Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid
Jimmy Carter
Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, 17th floor New York, NY 10020
0743285026 $27.00
Fern Sidman
Reviewer
Since it's release several weeks ago, Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid", has received enormous publicity as well as a litany of reviews, both critical and praiseworthy. After reading this book, one can begin to understand why Jimmy Carter's place in presidential history will be not be one of the "great peacemaker" in the Middle East, but rather of the president who holds the dubious distinction of bearing the most animus towards Israel and the Jewish people.
In this one-sided, totally skewed and highly subjective piece of Arab propaganda, Mr. Carter presents a premise and thesis that reeks of vacuity, while presenting ostensibly specious arguments that obfuscate both fact and truth. According to Mr. Carter's gospel on the Israeli-Palestinian debacle, the blame for the continued tensions between these two peoples rests squarely on the shoulders of Israel. His use of the word apartheid in the title says it all. Carter makes it abundantly clear that his accusations of racism and systematic oppression of the Palestinians is tantamount to the South African version of apartheid, which has been universally condemned.
According to Carter, "'The book is about Palestine and what is happening to Palestinian people. Which is a terrible affliction and oppression of these people. There is no doubt that in Palestine, the people are treated with, in many cases, much more harsh treatment than existed in South Africa, even in the apartheid years."
Carter fails miserably in presenting his argument because his book is riddled with gross historic inaccuracies, colossal factual errors, glaring omissions and a plethora of distorted statements. This book also lacks any footnotes or scholarly references and the minuscule amount of research done does not buttress his claims. The publication of this book was followed by the resignation of Professor Kenneth Stein of Emory University and the Carter Center. Professor Stein had a long-standing association with the Carter Center in his capacity as an expert in Middle East politics and history. Professor Stein was in fact the first director of the Carter Center (1983-1986). Professor Stein is apparently terminating his association with the Carter Center, solely as a result of Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid. The reaction of Professor Stein -- a formerly close associate and collaborator of Carter -- to Carter's new book is as follows:
"President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade.
Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins."
Carter devotes many chapters of this book to lambasting Israel for constructing the security wall dividing the Palestinian population from the Israeli population. He mentions nothing about Israel's right to defend herself against Palestinian suicide bombers, nor does he mention the clear and present danger of a Hamas government. Carter displays no understanding or sympathy for Israelis whose lives have been snuffed out by Palestinian terrorists and even justifies such actions as a result of Israeli tyranny.
As Carter takes us down his own personal memory lane, he speaks of his thorny relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. He blames Begin's "intransigence" for his failed peace making attempts at Camp David and insists that Palestinian claims of land ownership are indeed factual. It is clear that Carter is a man who is seething with anger that his political career came to a demise when he was not re-elected. Rather than taking personal responsibility as a failed leader during the Iranian hostage crisis, he turns to Begin, making him the scapegoat for his shortcomings. It is clear that Carter couldn't manipulate Begin nor coerce him to make even greater territorial compromises, so he concludes that it was Begin who was at total fault for not guaranteeing him his place in history as the "great peacemaker" in the Middle East
Carter obviously feels threatened by the "pro-Jewish" lobby in the United States which he claims stifles any debate on the Middle East. He strongly asserts that a countervailing political force is necessary for assuring long lasting peace. It is noteworthy to mention that Simon and Schuster, Carter's publishers, delayed releasing the book until after the mid-term elections that saw an upsurge in the Democratic party at the polls. Surely, releasing this book prior to that, might have jeopardized the Democratic candidates chances for a victory. He aims his diatribes against the Jewish lobby to Christian evangelicals, whose support of Israel has been unwavering. He implores them to reconsider and re-think their position on Israel and points out the secular nature of the Israeli government and its lack of religious commitment. He mentions nothing of the religious devotion and commitment of the Jewish settler movement as well as other Orthodox religious organizations. He also chides President Bush for not forging ahead with his "Roadmap To Peace" and for his support for Israel.
Carter's book can be summed up as an ill conceived and egregious attack on Israel and the Jewish people. It is a shoddy attempt to present his own biased and anti-Semitic views in the form of an intellectual treatise. This book couldn't be farther from anything pretending to be intellectual in nature. The Arab propagandists of the world must be thrilled. After all, an ex-president of the USA touting their line is something money can't buy.
There's a Tree in the Meadow
Tina Hyder
Advocate House, an imprint of A Cappela Publishing
913 Tennessee Lane, Sarasota, Florida
0977913916 $14.95
Jodi Grant
Reviewer
Author offers simple secret for world peace.
Tina Hyder has been seeking truth and following wherever it led her since her days in Washington, D.C., when her husband served as the Assistant United States Attorney General. There's a Tree in the Meadow is Hyder's latest literary effort – this time aimed at helping mankind by sharing what she has learned from her own life experiences and from a prophetic dream that came to her many years ago.
This novel is set in rural Arkansas, where Hyder grew up surrounded by the sweet country spirit coupled with the quiet strengths of the Arkansas people. The story winds you through the green hills and valleys of Arkansas then sweeps you to the fragmented fray of the Iraqi war.
There's a Tree in the Meadow is a real eye opener into the emotional depth of families decimated by this war. It should be read by anyone who is scandalized by the unbridled and unnecessary use of our military power. Spiritual simplicity is the over-riding message, reinforcing the reader's own faith in God and prodding him onward to reach the unreachable star.
All the While
Catherine Abbey Hodges
New Women's Voices Series, No. 42
P.O. Box 1626, Georgetown, Kentucky 40324
1599241013 $12.00 www.finishinglinepress.com
Judy Bebelaar
Reviewer
"Safe," the opening poem in Catherine Hodges' first collection, All the While, is wonderfully, sensuously evocative of childhood. On another level, the poem describes the developing awareness of a writer. First comes the child's noticing, with senses wide open: the smell of coffee, and "the breakfast-making clatter" which means she is safe; the discovery of a "rust-colored and furred" bat in a loquat tree, a "breathing fact" which will "alarm and thrill" her. Then comes the child's creation of a private language, the poet's infatuation with words, and the delicious recording of the secret code in a book made of her mother's onion skin paper.
The language in these poems is unpretentious, unselfconscious, childlike but elegant too, and accurate. "Stems" begins "Lately I catch myself / less interested in / flowers / than in what precedes them." The stems are "hilariously furred," "durable as doves." They are
drinking straws,
submerged in the molten earth
delivering answers
that look for all the world
like cornflowers.
The poems, written by someone who is "the first and last speaker of / a snatch of language / without a name," are a reminder to take in the world as a child does, as if for the first time.
I can look at the book another way : All the While can be read as a kind of writer's memoir. "On the Equator" tells about a more grown up writer than the one in "Safe," but still the child, fascinated by the beauty of the physical world, is present in the poem, a boy who "has been netting golden / carp." The speaker says,
This year we live on the equator.
At times I think it runs straight
through me. This could explain the ripping,
as if I were a piece of cloth, torn
quickly down my length by
business-like hands, the sudden
loud unzipping of my story about the world.
The frustration of the writer-observer who is always missing something is expressed - the first line of "Everything Important," is "happens behind my back." "Water lilies open, then close./ Nations are born. Friends up and leave/ their sturdy bodies."
And from yet another perspective, the book can be seen, as authors John and Muriel Ridland say, on the book's back cover, as a collection of botanical paintings. "The Possibilities of Blue" combines careful observation with the power of the apt metaphor contrasting the agapanthus, which have yet to bloom into blue,
and all the while
the Matilija poppies
lie white on their shrubberies,
lacquered Japanese bowls, petal-thin,
trembling with the published secret
of the lemon planets they cradle.
"Easy" gives us Hodges' painting of a jacaranda tree beginning to lose its blossoms, "the inexplicit purple shawl about the lovely old neck, / easy on the grassy shoulders," and lets us become the beholder, "who sees all in a rush" that the tree letting go is "truer" than the tree's earlier "bright fanfare,"
though neither is false
and easy is anything but cheap.
Hodges' poems give that all-important illusion of having come to the page easily, naturally, perhaps because there is so much close attention to nature in them, and so much humanity.
Via Dolorosa
Ronald Damien Malfi
Raw Dog Screaming Press
5103 72nd Place, Hyattsville, MD 20784
1933293217, $29.95, 264 pgs
Kristina Marie Darling
Reviewer
Ronald Damien Malfi's Via Dolorosa tells the story of Nick, an artist and veteran of the war in Iraq, who stays at the Paradis d'Hotel with his new wife Emma to paint a mural, which has been commissioned by the hotel. As the novel progresses, both the mural and the events of newlyweds' stay on the island begin to reveal Nick's internal landscape, which has been forever changed by his experiences at war.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is the way Malfi uses the scenery of the hotel as a metaphor for the characters' situation. For example, a motif that recurs throughout the book is the use of signs around the hotel that read "Limbo! How low can you go? Every night this week in the Riviera Room." These signs appear when Nick's situation it particularly uncertain. For example, Nick sees one of these signs when the hotel is evacuated and he finds that Emma is gone – this sign describes his indeterminate state in a subtle, clever way.
Another example of this subtle use of metaphor is the mural that Nick has been hired to paint, which turns out more violent than the plans had originally intended. For example, Malfi writes, "He had taken a beautiful island landscape, lush and green and idyllic, and had marred it, ruined it – had transformed it into a desolate desert panorama…The distinction between tropical paradise and desert holocaust was suddenly nonexistent." The aggression of the mural conveys Nick's own internal violence, which he tries to suppress but instead it manifests itself through his artwork. These motifs are woven gracefully throughout the story, and this projection of plot elements onto the scenery of the book works well with the somber but poetic tone of the narrative.
I enjoyed this use of tone as well, which I found matched the content of the book perfectly. The narration of the book often describes the island scenery, noting the "steel-gray sky" and "dirty windowpanes," and while the things Malfi describes are often not particularly cheery or beautiful, the author's metaphors render these dreary everyday objects lovely. For example, Malfi writes, "Shadows of potted plans and a dusty Coke machine at the end of the hall crossed each other like latticework." These metaphors create a tone that is both serious and lyrical throughout, which works well with the content of the narrative and compliments it in interesting and unexpected ways.
Via Dolorosa is a book full of subtle metaphors as well as expressive descriptions, and offers something new to the reader with every encounter. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a thoughtful and rewarding read. Overall, I enjoyed Via Dolorosa and look forward to future books by Ronald Damien Malfi.
Nip, Tuck, Dead
Lori Avocato
HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299
0060837047 $6.99 www.harpercollins.com
Lynn Burton
Reviewer
Nip, Tuck, Dead is a Pauline Sokol mystery. Pauline, an ex-nurse-turned insurance fraud investigator attempts to get the scoop on a plastic surgery "spa" that seems to be doing some shady business with their repeat clientele. Goldie—Pauline's cross-dressing best friend agrees to a nose job so Pauline can get inside and be his private nurse.
Once on the job, Pauline soon realizes there's more going on than just an illegal money making scheme. With the help of her colleague, Jagger, who also makes her heart skip a beat (lots of them) she uncovers some nasty secrets. Family, money and greed run deep.
This book is a fast-paced joy ride! Just the right mix of romance, mystery and humor. I look forward to going on more adventures with Pauline and the gang.
Retire Rich With Your Self-Directed IRA
Nora Peterson
Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
1210 SW 23rd Place, Ocala, FL 34474
091062772X $21.95
Mark Nash
Reviewer
Ms. Peterson's new book offers those frustrated with financial planners perspective of churning their IRA accounts to generate fees for themselves instead of truly exploring options to grow their clients financial base in a IRA. Going on your own in investments can be seen as risky by new investors, but the author lays out the principles to be successful in a variety of investments that many lay-people aren't aware of. Rolled into this definitive book is the foundation of starting your own business to manage a menu of investments. A foreword by Christopher F. Meshginpoosh, C.P.A. lays out the benefits for readers to start their own self-directed IRA.
Chapter titles include: The book is broken down into four sections with applicable chapters. Section One is Choosing to Retire Rich, chapter titles include; Extreme Makeover-Retirement Style, An IRA Primer, Keeping What's Yours, Section Two; Laying a Solid Foundation with supporting chapters: Choosing an Administrator, Jo's Backup Crew, Managing Risk. Section Three covers; Building Blocks to Retiring Rich with accompanying chapters; The Allure of Real Estate, Becoming a landlord: Investing in Income Property, Becoming a Lender: Investing in Real Estate-Backed Notes, Buying Options: The Ultimate In-and-Out Transactions, Alternative Sources for Real Estate, Business Structures, Owning a Business, Buying Precious Metals. Section Four wraps up the book with chapters on Planning for Distributions and Estate Planning . Additional features are an introduction with Assumptions and Terminology, bibliography, conclusion, glossary, two appendixes and an author biography.
Chock-full of many creative options for managing your own self-directed IRA, this book is the perfect primer for those looking to venture out of cookie-cutter IRA products. Helpful tips, call-out boxes, and a resource appendix to point you in the right direction to receive answers on all your important questions concerning taking charge of your retirement finances.
Boyhood With Gurdjieff
Fritz Peters
Arete Communications
773 Center Blvd. #58, Fairfax, CA 94978-0058
1879514052 $27.95 (650) 787-2036
Mary Ellen Korman
Reviewer
"I want to know everything about man," said 11-year-old Fritz Peters in 1924 to G.I. Gurdjieff, one of the great sages of the 20th century, who had brought an ancient esoteric teaching to the West. Gurdjieff said, "I am the only one who teaches what you ask. You make more work for me," but accepted his youngest pupil, a "born trouble-maker," at his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris. Years later, Peters, already a well-known author, wrote this vivid and direct account of what he learned and how, recounting as well his friendships with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and the influence they had on his life. A beautifully done hard-cover re-issue of this spiritual classic, with photos and an introduction by William Patrick Patterson giving a unique perspective on the deep teaching contained in this book.
How I Write
Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof
St Martins Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
0312354282 $13.95 www.stmartins.com 212-982-3900
Maxine Morrey
Reviewer
Reading books about writing is great; it helps writers do one of the things that they are often very good at; procrastinating. But because we are reading about our craft, it doesn't feel as if we are sneaking off quite so much. We are learning more about writing, so that's got to be ok... right?
Evanovich's book is an easy, enjoyable read. As an author, she has a very good website, with a question and answer section which has now been translated into this book. The format is easy to follow and understand and Evanovich imparts some useful information in her own, inimitable, entertaining way.
One criticism aimed at this book is that ‘it's all been said before'. It's true that if you have read other writing guides, you may not learn anything especially new here but having said that, because of the fun and light way her answers are presented, as opposed to some other guides that can be a bit dry and dusty in their style, you may end up absorbing that information easier.
The thing about writing guides is that they are often very good motivators, and reading about other people doing what you want to do (or do already do) is often interesting. Whilst this book will appeal to want-to-be writers for inspiration and motivation, it will also appeal to Janet Evanovich's huge number of fans who love her books and style and want to read more about how she makes it all come together.
If you are looking for a serious, gritty in depth guide to the mechanics and complexities of writing, then this is probably not the book for you. But if you want a fun, light hearted read on the subject of writing, then this could be just the ticket. And if you are an Evanovich fan too, then so much the better.
Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime
Patricia Hampl
Harcourt
15 East 26th Street, 15th floor, New York, NY 10010
0151015066 $22.00 www.harcourtbooks.com 800-543-1918
Molly Beer
Reviewer
In 1972, late to meet a friend in the cafeteria of the Chicago Art Institute, Minnesota writer Patricia Hampl was hauled up short before Matisse's Woman Before an Aquarium. For Hampl, Matisse's Woman was "A madonna, but a modern one, ‘liberated,' as we were saying without irony in 1972, free, even, of eros. Not a woman being looked at. This woman was doing the looking."
"I didn't halt, didn't stop," writes Hampl of this "uncanny moment." "I was stopped. Apprehended, even." Thus begins her fascination with the artist's gaze via the work and life of Henri Matisse, around whom she fashions her own life and her latest work, Blue Arabesque.
In this her third memoir, Hampl's "search for the sublime"—some of it literary, some of it literal—takes her across Northern Africa, "Asia Minor," and the holy land. But the journey has two primary points of reference: the St. Paul of Hampl's Catholic roots, and Cassis, on France's Côte d'Azur, of that perfect, artist's light. Or, put differently, the artist's sun-dazzled studio away from the grit of the world, and its antipode, the "hardscrabble surface of raw ambition" that fuels the work of Matisse—a poor boy from the work-weary north of France who claimed he worked "like a drunken brute trying to kick the door down." Simply, Hampl is an artist in search of inspiration, even as she makes light of her quest: "The big bearded Primary Cause and his timepiece may have stopped ticking for us, Jesus may have become ‘historical,' but the Holy Ghost is still aloft."
From her "gazer at the golden fish," Hampl turns her eye to the odalisques—those lounging, long-backed ladies draped in silk—and the mystery of their subjectivity in the context of their day and the context of our own. Feminism, after all, drives us to question the subjugation of these "lovely women scattered about like decorative pillows," but who doesn't envy the boundless leisure of the harem divan? Or the convent cell? Or the room of one's own? Are these odalisques, Hampl wonders, objects for us to pity? Or have they realized "the curvilinear satisfaction of just being-here-now, of being alive"?
Hampl jokes that the sight of a confession booth beckons to her to "Open the door, open your heart….Tell All, " but this memoir spends more time on the "eye" than the "I." Whole chapters tell Matisse's story, or that of the traveler Lady Montagu who was pitied by the harem dweller for the cage she wore (her corset), or the amateur documentary filmmaker from St. Paul, Jerome Hill, who also made his way to Cassis in his day. And yet, Blue Arabesque is profoundly intimate: "[Memoir's] great intimacy (the display of perception)," Hampl's professor-self explains, "paradoxically reveals its essential impersonality. It wishes to see the world, not itself." In this same line of mirror work, Hampl illustrates with her own prose arabesques how Matisse's odalisques "do not offer rare glimpses of ‘the East,' or illicit peekaboos into a real or imagined sultan's world with its souk's-worth of colonial loot on exhibit. They display nothing more or less than the mind of Henri Matisse." And thus this study of the artist displays nothing more or less than the mind of the writer.
Behind the tapestry of odalisques and foreign lands, this book is a graceful study of the creative process, "the abstract lovemaking of art making." Hampl turns her artist's eye to "greatness" in the likes of Henri Matisse and Katherine Mansfield (whose work Virginia Woolf deemed, "the only writing I have ever been jealous of"). Though whole chapters pass with little more than a fleeting first person, this artist renders the characters who render (Hampl would say "create") her artist self: her gaze refracts—often inverted or camera obscura—glimpses of herself. Hampl tries out being both the gazing woman in Matisse's Woman Before An Aquarium and the contents of that aquarium itself: "an odalisque….all fish, all float."
This lovely, intelligent book reads like rich, leisurely conversation, perhaps outside a French cafe over coffee served in bowls. It would be best read lounging in sunlight, with a plate of dates nearby.
Beyond the Road
M. Howe Bugbee
Mayhaven Publishing
P.O. Box 557, Mahomet, IL 61853
1932278087 http://www.mayhavenpublishing.com
When reviewing a book that has taken the Royal Palm Book of the Year Award from the Florida Writers Association and has also won the Mayhaven Award for Children's Fiction, you naturally have high expectations. You ask what sets this book apart from the rest? What special talent does this author hold over the others? And what exactly makes a good, young adult, murder mystery? Is it carefully hidden clues? Is it Sherlock Holmes style intellect? Or always a biggie—chemistry between the characters? If not that, perhaps it's indignant righteousness where no matter what, you want to see the bad guy (or gal) caught and made to pay.
In this case, it's a story with soul. Lakota Indian soul to be precise. A subtle dose of Lakota wisdom is interwoven throughout the story. It's the backdrop that drives the mystery. In the first few pages we read a quote from historian/storyteller, Joseph M. Marshall III that sets the tone. "We Lakota believe there are many roads in life, but that there are two that are most important: the Red Road and the Black Road. They represent the two perspectives to every situation, the two sides of every person, the two choices we frequently face in life. The Red Road is the good way, the good side, and the right choice. It is a narrow road fraught with dangers and obstacles and is extremely difficult to travel. The Black Road is the bad way, the bad side, the wrong choice. It is wide and very easy to travel."
That led me to ponder the most logical question. Why the title Beyond the Road? What significance did it have to the story? It wasn't your typical mystery title sporting words like: death, murder, mystery, intrigue, and secret. The author, M. Howe Bugbee, said when it came time to give the story a title, it wasn't an easy choice. She truly struggled with the decision. The original working title Body in the Cornfield just wasn't right. But why? Then she started thinking about the middle school characters and what they had to face under extraordinary circumstances, and she realized their experiences had taken them beyond any path or road they had ever taken before. They were thrown into a circumstance that pushed them beyond their experiences into a do or die situation. Something special about an author using young characters is that they don't have the years of wisdom to pull from. They haven't been tested and become stronger from their trials. They haven't found what they are made of or that life goes on no matter what. Teenage characters think life evolves around them and the hardship of school, mortifying disapproval of their peers, and the latest video game. In other words, thirteen-year-old Robin Beekler, and her friends Alex and Marc, were thrown into an ordeal that forced them from their comfort zone into a path beyond the road.
The story takes place in the small, riverside town of Bridgeport, Indiana, where an old superstition hangs over the peaceful community. "...every quarter century or so, an upside-down crescent moon appears and something vile happens. Storytellers say as the pirates left, they slashed open the sky over Bridgeport, creating a portal for their return. Old timers recognize the cosmic warning and lock their windows and doors and stay inside. The young and those new to Bridgeport, will learn to do the same—if they survive."
During a storm, Robin discovers her adult friend, Seth, is missing and a visit to his house unearths a body buried in the cornfield. Not only is a body immersed in the mud, but the air itself holds a horrid stench. Friend Alex catches up with Robin in the cornfield and reports something weird had just happened—a black crow had landed in front of him. But when it started waddling toward him, a pirate appeared in its place, his black hair and beard emphasized by evil looking eyes and a sword. But then the pirate disappeared and a flutter of feathers charged, pecking him on the side of the head as it flew away. Alex tells Robin about his reoccurring dream where he is in a cornfield but he won't divulge the details. Frustrated at the torment, he had ripped the dream catcher made for him by his Lakota grandfather, Kota, from the room.
When Alex and Robin report finding a body in the cornfield, the sheriff arrives at the same time as Alex's grandfather, Kota, an experienced Indian tracker said to possess a sixth sense. Only the narrow minded sheriff doesn't want Kota to help him find the murderer and dismisses his help. The game is afoot when Robin and her friends set off to solve the case but find the road they must travel has twists and turns that eventually tests their will to stay alive.
Readers will easily identify with the five foot tall, animal loving, social outcast, Robin. In one scene Alex consoles his friend after a teasing from her peers. "Don't you see? They just wish they could be like you. And since they can't, they try to tear you down. They want to make you—less you. Don't let them do it."
Arrowhead hunting friend Alex is part Lakota and it is from his involvement we learn the Lakota way. Not truly a follower of the old ways, what he has been taught by grandfather, Kota, suddenly becomes important. And Marc, whose favorite idol is Mohammed Ali rounds out the trio with loyalty and strength of character.
Besides the credible characters and the Lakota intrigue, the plum in the book is the ending. It is a hook-the-reader-can't-put-it-down adventure. Emotions run high when the characters are thrown to the wolves and this is when the reader learns why this book has won two formidable awards. This is when you feel satisfaction at having spent time in another world.
Squat
Taylor Field
B & H Publishing Group,
127 Ninth Avenue North, MSN 114, Nashville, TN, 37234
0805432922 $14.99 www.BHPublishingGroup.com www.amazon.com
Squat is a compassionate but realistic view of life lived by society's throw-aways, the homeless. This powerfully written story begins in a doctor's waiting room. In the opening chapter, an 11-year-old boy (already struggling with mental disorders--OCD comes to mind) is trying hard to look as though he can actually read the picture book story of Abraham and Issac, which he holds close to his face. The boy touches the corners of the page counting, "one, two, three" and again--three times in all--touching the page with smudgy fingertips while wishing that he, too, had a guardian angel for protection, and wishing that he could be the guardian angel who saves Issac from his father's knife.
The boy sits beside his self-absorbed mother, a woman who is in the throes of making a life decision which will have extreme--and negative--consequences for the rest of the boy's life. Her decision made, she yanks him bodily from the doctor's waiting room, out the door and into a future that he intuitively understands will be a precarious existence at best: Squid does not have a guardian angel to shield him from his future.
Squat takes the reader through a day in the life of Squid, the boy grown to adulthood, living out the consequences of a neglected, unsheltered childhood along side other street people in an abandoned, boarded-up tenement in New York City. Taylor Field's writing shows up-close the "smells, squaller and ugliness" of the homeless. He describes--almost too realistically--the abuses of alcohol, drugs, self-inflicted abuses--and abuses inflicted on each other--the street's means 0f escape from hopelessness.
Field tells his story faithfully and compassionately because he knows Squid, and he cares about him. He knows why Squid and the others live there and what brought them there, because he has lived and ministered among them for more than twenty years: Taylor Field is the pastor of Graffiti Community Ministries, East Seventh Street Baptist Church, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Buy and read Squat. You won't look at a homeless person in the same way, ever again. All proceeds from Squat will go to Graffiti Community Ministries. Read about Taylor Field's ministry at The Squat website: http://squatbook.wordpress.com
Andrew's Bookshelf
The Ghosts of Vietnam
Jim Stewart
iUniverse
2021 Pine Lake Road, #100, Lincoln, NE 68512
0595362826 $ 17.95 1-800-288-4677 iuniverse.com
First-time author Jim Stewart has written a raw and powerful memoir of his years in Vietnam and his life. Unlike many of the current Vietnam-era memoirs, Stewart's uncommonly poignant and well-written story details his four years in the ‘Nam without the blood, gore, or trauma so popular today. This is the story of a young man's coming of age and maturing as a human being while simultaneously dealing with a war, a callous family ‘back in the world', and his first real love and long-term relationship.
Stewart takes us back to his childhood, where he grew up in a poor but loving household, and how he tried re-create it with his young Vietnamese girlfriend, Mai. In the midst of the Tet Offensive and the later collapse of the country, Stewart and Mai strive for normalcy in the insanity of Vietnam towards the end of the war. His relaxed yet detailed writing style allows the reader to begin to understand what it was like to live and work in Saigon, both for a Vietnamese and an American; even such insignificant events as shopping and taking a taxi turn must be pre-planned, and Stewart draws the reader directly into the traffic with him.
While the author was an MP instead of an infantryman and therefore believes himself possibly fortunate not seen any actual combat, his book is not really about the fighting in Vietnam; it's a story of the author, his dad, Per, Mai, and Phuong – and it's a story well worth reading. Highly recommended!
We Were One
Patrick O'Donnell
DaCapo Press
c/o Perseus Books Group
Eleven Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142
0306814692 $ 25.00 www.decapopress.com 1-800-242-7737
Author Patrick O'Donnell has written the story of 1st Platoon, Lima Company, 3/1 as they fought their way through the worst part of Fallujah in November 2004. This is a well-written book whose low-key and personable style belies the intensity and strength that these Marines personified in taking the city.
Fallujah was the worst urban combat the Marine Corps has seen since the battle of Hue City in Vietnam, and was the most difficult and bloodiest single battle of the war in Iraq ( An-Nasiriyah being the second ). While Bing West's book "No True Glory" provides the reader with a better overview of the battle for Fallujah, "We Were One" is the best snapshot written to date that details the ferocity of the house-to-house fighting that took place that week.
Starting from their MOUT training in Camp Pendleton, the author focuses on the personal relations within the platoon, and how the Marines come to trust and rely on each other. O'Donnell takes the reader into the private world of a Marine infantry platoon, where the young Marines work to build the trust and confidence in- and from- their mates that is so necessary in combat. He offers vivid descriptions both of their training and their liberty, and succeeds in setting the tone of trust and apprehension in each Marine as 1st Pltn Lima Company leaves in June 2004 for Iraq.
Shifting to the AO, 1st Pltn loses it's first member within the month, and O'Donnell's prose reflects the rising tensions and stresses that the Marines encounter. He also discusses the ROE's in effect, and how the Marines are hamstrung by the rather naïve ROE's as promulgated by MNFI-West. O'Donnell clearly and accurately describes the Coalition and Iraqi Government's inept political machinations of September and October that led to RCT-1's finally being tasked to clear the city.
In the early days of the battle, author O'Donnell was embedded with another unit, but is eventually shifted to 1st Platoon. He covers the final days of the fight as an embed with 1st Pltn, and gets right up in combat with them; his descriptions of the Marines clearing houses, fighting the heavily doped-up insurgents, as well as the physical, mental, and emotional toll it takes on the Marines are amongst the most descriptive and heart-breaking accounts to come back from the Iraqi front.
O'Donnell succeeds in personalizing each of the Marines. The reader gets to know each one; how he thinks, who is his buddy, what is his role in the daily fighting. His description of each individual lets us mourn the loss of each Marine also, as his prose is sufficiently vivid to let the reader walk the streets with 1st Pltn.
For those readers who think that an embedded reporter has his own agenda, this book may well change their minds. For those readers who want to begin to understand just how deadly is fighting in an urban environment, the determination of the enemy, as well as the inherent problems in 4th Generation Warfare…as well to begin to understand the determination and dedication to their fellow Marines of those young men who are doing the fighting – then this is the book for you.
Andrew Lubin, Reviewer
www.andrewlubin.com
Arlene's Bookshelf
Gold Mountain
Anne Azel
P.D. Publishing, Inc.
PO Box 70, Clayton, NC 27528
1933720042 $13.99
Anne Azel has deftly blended the Chinese and Canadian cultures in her novel, Gold Mountain. The title is a derivative of the phrase, Golden Mountain, which the Chinese called the New World during the 1800's. Many wanted to arrive, become wealthy, and eventually return to their homeland. It is with this motivation in mind that Jimmy Li decides to work hard and amass his fortune. In Jimmy's world all that is lacking is a son to inherit and carry on the lucrative family business. To achieve this, Jimmy adopts a boy, Jason, whom he dotes upon and indulges constantly, much to the detriment of his two daughters, Kelly and Sarah. However, despite her father's egregious preference, Kelly manages to forge ahead, obtain her law degree, and becomes an accomplished defense attorney. It is during a case that Kelly meets Jane Anderson, a police officer, and as their paths continue to intersect, their attraction for each other strengthens. Family obligations guide each of these women as they begin a journey that no one could have foreseen.
This is a rather brief novel, when compared to some, and there are those who may find this off-putting. However, this reviewer suspects that Azel may have employed this more condensed style for a reason. The minimalist approach in word and action could be related to the Chinese influence. Whatever the purpose, Azel manages to tell a story which both intrigues and holds the reader's interest. Sometimes less is best, and Azel proves this through her literary stylistic prose. An author writes the book within her, and some readers fail to recognize this when they wish a novel could be more what they want.
Azel manages quite admirably to navigate between the two distinct points of view; that in itself is no easy task. The motivations of both Kelly and Jane are finely drawn. The serpentine intricacies of the Chinese culture and its values captivate and enlighten the reader. Jane's reactions to the many situations are extremely credible. The author's dialogue is written with purpose and illumination. Extensive detail may be missing, but not to the detriment of the overall piece.
Gold Mountain is an enjoyable reading experience. Azel's astute and extensive comprehension of both cultures adds to the plausibility of the plotting. Carefully chosen diction conveys more in a few sentences than many authors achieve in paragraphs. For something different and quite memorable, read Gold Mountain.
The Devil Unleashed
Ali Vali
Bold Strokes Books
430 Herrington Road, Johnsonville, NY 12094
1933110619 $15.95
In this sequel to The Devil Inside, author Ali Vali continues the story of New Orleans crime family boss Cain Casey. Beset with violent new circumstances which threaten both her professional and personal lives, Cain must rely on her wits, ruthlessness, and darker instincts in order to face her enemies, and her own confusing and ambivalent feelings toward the woman who left her, Emma Verde. Fast-paced action scenes, intriguing character revelations, and a refreshing approach to the romance thriller genre all make for an enjoyable reading experience in the Big Easy.
Derby Cain Casey is in many respects an anti-hero. After all, she is involved in criminal activity, questionable associations, and suspect business dealings. However, this bad girl as protagonist is a welcome change from some of the more conventional types one encounters in a romance novel. Certainly, there are those who may find her unappealing because of her family connections, but Vali has created more than a one-dimensional stereotype. Cain is a woman in a genuinely man's world, yet she never assumes those baser elements rife in the criminal world. She also makes no apologies for who she is or from where she came. Simply put, this is her family business, and she endeavors to support herself and son as does any working woman. This reviewer found Cain to be a thoroughly riveting and atypical heroine, a character one could readily identify with on a deeper emotional level.
The Devil Unleashed is an engrossing reading experience, a noticeably more literate effort than the first in the Casey Clan series. It is always satisfying to see an author grow as Vali has displayed in this novel. The structural details in the plot, the adept handling of action and suspense, and the more delineated major characters produce a coherent and stylish technique. The Devil Unleashed is definitely a novel not to be missed.
Arlene Germain
Reviewer
Bethany's Bookshelf
Wrangling Women
Kristen M. McAndrews
University of Nevada Press
Mail Stop 166, Reno, NV, 89557-0076
0874176832 $34.95 1-877-682-6657
Written by American West studies specialist Kristen M. McAndrews (Prof. of English, University of Hawai'i at Manoa), Wrangling Women: Humor and Gender in the American West is a unique look at a mountain community of women in Winthrop, Washington who run a western-theme town and work as ranchers, trail guides, horse trainers and packers. Caught in an unusual crux where they have to keep alive gender stereotypes for the sake of a tourist-based economy yet apply the same levels of authority and expertise as their male counterparts, these resourceful "wrangling women" apply humor and language as useful tools for accomplishing the precarious balancing act. A delightful exploration of gender studies, stereotypes, and human resourcefulness, Wrangling Women frequently quotes the women it studies, allowing the reader to partake in both scholarly observation and the visceral feel of being there. A lively and entertaining treatise.
Give Wings to Your Dreams
Lauren E. Sullivan
Golden Wings Press
3905 State Street, Suite 7-292, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Booth Media Group
1386 Nightshade Road, Carlsbad, CA 92009
0977853810 $14.95 www.boothmedia.com
Written by life coach and award-winning writer Lauren E. Sullivan, Give Wings to Your Dreams: Reawaken Your Joy and Passion for Life is a self-help guide to transforming one's life. Chapters outline Seven Stepping Stones to motivate oneself and improve one's quality of life, such as "Believing You Can Have What You Want", "Harnessing the Power of Intention", and "Staying True to Your Vision." Written in a serious-minded, motivational tone, Give Wings to Your Dreams encourages both the secular and spiritual aspects of rising above adversity and working toward one's dream. An emotionally uplifting and energizing self-help book.
Alligators, Sharks & Panthers
Charles Sobczak
Indigo Press LLC
PO Box 977, Sanibel, FL 33957
0967619904 $16.95 877-472-8900
Offshore fisherman and avid conservationist Charles Sobczak presents Alligators, Sharks & Panthers: Deadly Encounters with Florida's Top Predator - Man, an evenhanded discussion of four deadly species: alligators, who have committed nearly four hundred attacks in Florida since 1948; panthers, whose rare assaults have been historically authenticated; sharks, whose notoriety needs no explanation; and man, who has slaughtered thousands and millions of these dangerous yet endangered animal predators. Alligators, Sharks & Panthers teaches the reader about animal predators' behavior with instructions for avoiding danger and protecting oneself; explores the often strained history of man's interaction with these species; and urges personal efforts to improve conservation for the sake of humans and animals alike. Highly recommended.
The Hassle-Free Walt Disney World Vacation, 2007 edition
Steven M. Barrett
Intrepid Traveler
PO Box 531, Branford, CT 06405
1887140654 $14.95 www.intrepidtrveler.com
Practicing emergency room physician Steven M. Barrett presents The Hassle-Free Walt Disney World Vacation: Stress-Free Touring Plans for Adults & Teens, Families, and Seniors, a no-nonsense, practical guide to getting the most out of one's Disney vacation - now in an updated edition for 2007. Written with the precision of a scientist gifted at turning personal experience into a successful methodology, The Hassle-Free Walt Disney World Vacation is packed cover-to-cover with hints, tips, tricks, and techniques to avoiding long waits in line, staying cool in summer heat, and much more. From formulating a solid yet flexible plan, to inside information such as where to find the least crowded bathrooms and shady spots for viewing parades, which attractions tend to have the shortest wait times, and listings and descriptions of available highlights, The Hassle-Free Walt Disney World Vacation is enthusiastically recommended reading for any potential visitor to the Magic Kingdom.
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Bob's Bookshelf
Health Is Your Birthright: How to Create the Health You Deserve
Ellen Tart-Jensen
Ten Speed/Celestial Arts
PO Box 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707
1587612739 $18.95
In "Health Is Your Birthright: How to Create the Health You Deserve" natural healing expert Ellen Tart-Jensen carries on the legacy of her father-in-law, alternative health pioneer Dr. Bernard Jensen.
A comprehensive resource of simple, health-improving tips, this volume is filled with 75 recipes and cleanses plus information about therapeutic teas and exercise. Citing fifteen case studies the author will help readers cope with allergies, depression, ear infections, chronic fatigue, and high cholesterol.
Working in the natural healing field for more than two decades, Ellen Tart-Jensen says that by simply listening to one's body and following nature's laws, good health is attainable for everyone. She offers advice on making easy healthy food choices, rejuvenating body treatments and beauty aides plus 24 hour liver, gallbladder and kidney cleanses.
The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria
Marlena de Blasi
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
127 Kingston Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
1565124731 $23.95
It's been two years since the release of Marlena de Blasi's "A Thousand Days in Tuscany". The expatriate American who married an Italian and settled in Venice has already chronicled her life in two previous books. Now, with her move to the hilltop town of Orvieto, the adventure continues.
A travel and food writer, de Blasi's evocative prose captures the daily rhythm of living a simple life where cultivating new friendships and enjoying good food are of paramount importance. Since she and her husband Fernando don't seem to stay in one place very long, they have had some interesting adventures finding new living accommodations and reconditioning them. The extroverted writer is usually able to cook her way into the hearts of her Italian neighbors who are often a little wary of the "crazy American" and some of her outlandish ways. Sharing the knowledge she gleaned from living in an area, de Blasi mixes a discussion of history, geography, culture, and local traditions with her account of the daily trials and tribulations that make her life not only joyous but, at times, also very frustrating.
Very candid about her experiences, she writes, "I must learn to see the beauty of life here apart from myself. A common expatriate burden. Yet it's one from which, for the past five years of living in Italy, I'd exempted myself. But I can no longer do that. Orvieto is forcing me to pay expatriate dues as though I'd only just arrived from America."
Along with some friends from her last book, de Blasi introduces a new cast of wonderful and slightly eccentric individuals who give this memoir its distinctive air of originality. This is what good "armchair" travel writing is all about. It engages the reader in the narrative with a strong sense of place and character. By the time the book is finished you will feel as much a part of the Italian community as de Blasi.
Warm Up The Snake: A Hollywood Memoir
John Rich
University of Michigan Press
839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-3209
0472115782. $29.95
"Warm Up The Snake: A Hollywood Memoir" provides a behind-the-scenes look at the author's career as a television and film director. As a director, writer, and producer of dozens of radio, TV and film hits, Rich's career spanned over fifty years.
As one would expect, Rich drops a lot of names of the people he worked with and mentions most of his directing accomplishments that include The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gilligan's Island, All in the Family, and MacGyver. Most of what the director has to say is positive. Overall, he doesn't take this opportunity to divulge any of Hollywood's deep, dark secrets nor slam former colleagues or the stars he worked with.
There is one exception to this "I liked pretty much everyone and they liked me" approach. Of actress Shelley Winters, Rich writes, "In fifty years of working with some of the most professional actresses in our business, most of whom were simply marvelous to work with, she is the only actress I have actively disliked."
Besides the overuse of the word "brilliant" (as in "brilliant" friend, actor or writer) and the avalanche of names worked into the narrative, the numerous anecdotes Rich shares are fairly entertaining. He also does provide some insights into how the television industry works and what has made some of the sitcoms of the past so successful.
Bob Walch
Reviewer
Buhle's Bookshelf
On the Hills of God
Ibrahim Fawak
NewSouth Books
PO Box 1588, Montgomery, AL 36102
1588382044 $28.95 www.newsouthbooks.com
Award-winning, Palestinian-born novelist Ibrahim Fawak presents On the Hills of God, a novel set during the creation of Israel. Yousif Safi, a Palestinian man, begins with hope to study education abroad. When the Zionist movement puts pressure on the United Nations, Yousif is frustrated by his fellow Arabs' inability to block inexorable machinations of political powers, and his own inability to prevent the love of his life, Salwa, from being married to an older suitor chosen by her parents. When the Zionists enact their forced takeover, he and his family are brutally turned out; some do not survive the long, hard march to safe refuge. A novel of determination, courage, and ultimately, bearing witness to greed and ruthlessness as land, home, possessions, and dignity are stolen from himself and his people. A powerful, emotionally impacting novel offering a vivid glimpse of Arab life during the era.
U. S. Nuclear Weapons Policy
George Bunn & Christopher F. Chyba, editors
The Brookings Institute
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington DC 20036-2103
0815713657 $29.95 www.brookings.edu
Edited by U.S. ambassador George Bunn and professor of astrophysical sciences Christopher F. Chyba, U. S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Confronting Today's Threats is an anthology of serious, scholarly-minded essays concerning the dire questions, "What role should U.S. nuclear weapons play in the world today?" and "How can the United States promote international security while safeguarding its own interests?" Examining changes in the U.S. policy, especially those made by Presidents Bush and Clinton after the cold war, U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy is a sober and clearheaded examination of American options and obligations, particularly with regard to the demand side of proliferation and reduced reliance on nuclear weapons for foreign policy. Highly recommended for political studies and college library shelves.
Government Failure Versus Market Failure
Clifford Winston
Brookings Institution Press
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington DC, 20036
0815793898 $16.95
Written by Clifford Winston (senior fellow in Economic Studies, Brookings Institution), Government Failure Versus Market Failure: Microeconomics Policy Research and Government Peformance examines three decades of empirical evidence in search of the answers to a critical question: When should government intervene in market activity, and when is it better to allow market forces to operate without interference? Chapters discuss such topics as antitrust regulations, policies intended to correct market failures, common Achilles heels of social goals policies, and much more. Drawing heavily upon the accumulated data, Government Failure Versus Market Failure strives to give today's economic policymakers and politicians recommendations for optimal success in future strategies to promote optimal well being both in terms of social and free-market interests. Highly recommended.
President Reagan's Conservative Fiscal Policy
Chiazam Ugo Okoye
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
15200 NBN Way, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214
University Press of America Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706
0761830995 $55.00 www.univpress.com
Written by Chiazam Ugo Okoye (Prof. of Political Science, Bethune Cookman College), President Reagan's Conservative Fiscal Policy: Unemployment Among African Americans is a scholarly and critical look at the economic policies of America under President Regan (1981-1988), and their failure to adequately address the social issue of rising unemployment among African American youths, with devastating long-term social consequences. Drawing upon a wealth of statistical and researched data, President Reagan's Conservative Fiscal Policy criticizes economic models that treat labor as no more unique or differentiated a commodity than orange juice, and question the value of programs to help the unemployed in the Reagan era that targeted those job-seekers who needed help the least. Stressing that discrimination has been severely underplayed rather than regarded as a primary cause of African American unemployment, President Reagan's Conservative Fiscal Policy decries America's failure to break a vicious cycle of poverty, crime, and unemployment among African Americans and meticulously dissectes what did not work for the benefit of future efforts to combat this social problem. Highly recommended.
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
Burroughs' Bookshelf
How To Get Along With Difficult People
Florence Littauer
Harvest House Publishers
990 Owen Loop North, Eugene, OR 97402-9173
0736918442 $10.99 www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Written by internationally known speaker and author Florence Littauer, How To Get Along With Difficult People is a straightforward catalogue of difficult personality types one is likely to encounter at church, at college, at the office, or in any other walk of life, and advice for getting along with each of them. The witty takes on hard-to-deal-with personality traits, humanized through alliterative names such as Gertrude Grudge, Bob Bossy, and Larry Lazy. Though How To Get Along With Difficult People frequently discusses irritation-inducing personalities in the context of a church group, its practical advice will prove invaluable to any reader who isn't a hermit. Highly recommended.
Emotional First Aid Manual
Janet Buell
Innovations Press
32196 Via de Olivia, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
1929830157 $19.99 www.innovationspress.com
Trauma counseling specialist Janet Buell dispenses her professional expertise for readers of all backgrounds in Emotional First Aid Manual, a straightforward guide to basic techniques to prevent and lessen emotional suffering in others. From the seven golden rules of emotional first aid (including "Listen - don't talk", "Be compassionate - not critical", and "Do not attempt a diagnosis") to recommendations specific to certain aggrieved situations such as the loss of a child, an impending divorce, or trauma of humiliation, Emotional First Aid Manual walks the reader through what to say and how to say it in order to be a good friend and a source of comfort in a time of need. Divided into three major sections covering Adult Traumas, Childhood Traumas, and Trauma in the Mentally Ill, Emotional First Aid Manual is equally valuable to lay citizens and to individuals considering fields of work that involve regular interaction with aggrieved individuals (such as the funerary business or credit counseling). Highly recommended.
John Burroughs
Reviewer
Carson's Bookshelf
A Declaration of American Business Values
Robert L. Merz
Values of American Company
PO Box 1534, Merchantville, NJ 08109
0976586819 $12.95 www.americanbusiness.com
Entrepreneur and Fortune 500 company veteran Robert L. Merz presents A Declaration of American Business Values: Ethics, Equity & Efficiency in the New Millennium, a compendium of solid business advice based on a scrutiny of the connection between the historical roots of American Democracy and the world of commerce. Divided into brief sections, each only a couple pages long and emphasizing a point, A Declaration of American Business Values covers basic theories of business organization, the concept of corporate social responsibility, training challenges for the new millennium, and much more. An extensive bibliography rounds out this compact primer for adopting a systemic model of business based on culture norms designed to create an efficient and just work environment.
Brand Royalty
Matt Haig
Kogan Page
120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, United Kingdom
0749448261 $19.95 www.kogan-page.co.uk
Written by independent marketing and branding consultant Matt Haig, Brand Royalty: How the World's Top 100 Brands Thrive & Survive is an insightful guide to the tips, tricks, and techinques that one hundred of the most popular brands in America and worldwide use to remain successful in an increasingly competitive marketplace. From pioneer brands, that have earned trust across multiple generations (Heinz, Gillette), to brands that market themselves as status symbols (Rolex, Tiffany & Co.), to brands that laud their own consistency (Coca-Cola, Campbell's soup) and much more, Brand Royalty is filled cover to cover with ideas to consider when formulating one's own brand, and charting a direction in which to take it. Highly recommended for small business owners and big business branders or
marketing consultants alike.
Winning or Losing the Financial & Retirement Race
Robert Lamoreaux, JD
Devere Publishing Inc.
PO Box 970965, Orem, UT 84097-0965
0978798805 $24.95
Successful attorney and estate/financial planning specialist Robert Lamoreaux, JD, presents Winning or Losing the Financial & Retirement Race, a straightforward guide primarily to the financial aspects of one's retirement that also touches briefly on more general advice such as how to keep family connections strong. Winning or Losing the Financial & Retirement Race stands out because it presents its wisdom in plain and simple, no-nonsense terms that even a financial novice can readily grasp. The author testifies directly from his own experience, resulting in an invaluable resource; its discussion of estate planning is a superb primer not just for impending retirees, but also for anyone with assets, since the end of life can unfortunately strike at any time. One example of Lamoreaux's folksy yet utterly serious wisdom concerns the practice of parents disinherting their children: "Disinheritance always destroys relationships. If you have a child who has made some bad choices and has a special problem that upsets you, such as being a spendthrift or using drugs, see your attorney. An attorney can place provisions in a Trust that will provide for the child, yet not support the habits, without disinheritance." Highly recommended.
Michael J. Carson
Reviewer
Christy's Bookshelf
Death by Indifference
Caitlyn Hunter
Star Dust Press
e-book $5.98 www.stardustpress.com
Tess Avery is the epitome of today's woman, feisty and independent and ready to take on the world. The only thing missing in Tess's life is of the male variety. Tess warily seeks to solve this problem by signing on with an internet dating service and all of a sudden the men she dates are ending up dead. Into her life enters sexy detective Sam Marshall, the ultimate alpha male, and Tess's inner bells are ringing a warning while her body is yearning for Sam's touch. Sparks fly between the two as bodies begin to pile up and Sam's having a hard time keeping his mind off Tess, both unaware the killer has focused on them.
This fast-paced story is packed with suspense and intrigue. Sam and Tess are engaging characters with a unique twist: both are middle aged. But that won't stop young readers from enjoying a galvanizing plot which moves at break-neck speed with a sizzling dash of romance thrown into the mix. Baby boomers will appreciate a protagonist who proves that women in their 40s and beyond are just as fresh, interesting, and amazing as those in their 20s and 30s. For adult readers, no matter what age, this remarkable book should receive a special ranking. Highly recommended.
The Toonies Invade Silicon Valley
Betty Dravis
Illustrated by Kristine Soza Ardizzone
Just My Best Publishing
1932586296 $14.95 www.jmbpub.com
Young cartoonist Jeremy Kern is having a hard time dealing with his parents' constant quarrels since his father lost his job. When Doog (good spelled backward), one of Jeremy's cartoon characters, jumps out of the computer, Jeremy thinks he's gone crazy. But Doog convinces Jeremy he's for real, along with other Toonies from Cartoon Land, with its yellow sky, two blue moons and bright red stars. Doog, who hopes to help Jeremy deal with his angst over his parents, is soon joined by Uncle Wom (short for wise, old man), ruler of Cartoon Land. Uncle Wom warns Jeremy about the Mischief Makers, ape-like birds controlled by an evil tyrant named Dab (bad spelled backwards), who would love nothing more than to escape Cartoon Land and take over the world. Fearful that Dab will find a way out of the computer, Uncle Wom warns Jeremy to turn his computer off when he is not using it. Before Jeremy can tell his parents about these fantastic creatures, Jeremy's father inadvertently allows Dab to escape the computer, and before long, Dab has his own battle troops gathered around and ready for action. The humanoids, as the cartoon characters call them, aided by Doog and Uncle Wom, quickly engage in a frantic race to find Dab and his mischief makers before they can wreak havoc on the world.
With creative wizardry, Betty Dravis has written an excellent story here; one that will be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Packed with intriguing characters, vivid visual imagery, an exciting and suspenseful plot, morality issues relayed in a sensitive and subtle manner, and brilliant illustrations, THE TOONIES INVADE SILICON VALLEY is one book this reader thoroughly enjoyed and would love to see in libraries and homes throughout the country. A must-read and highly recommended.
Falls the Shadow
William Lashner
William Morrow/Harper Collins Publishers
0060721561 $24.95 www.harpercollins.com
Defense attorney Victor Carl is wary of representing Francois Dube, a chef convicted of murdering his wife. Although Francois claims innocence and wants a new trial, all evidence points to him as the culprit. Plus, Francois had a motive: he and his wife were in the process of divorcing and bitterly arguing over custody of their young daughter at the time of the wife's murder. Victor doesn't think there's much chance of winning this one, but his partner, Beth Derringer, seems enamored of Francois and pushes to take the case. As Victor begins investigating, into his life steps Dr. Bob, a dentist who not only fixes his broken tooth but inserts himself into Victor's life and begins to cause changes in Victor's life. Good things, such as a new girlfriend and better wardrobe. But before long, Victor discovers that Dr. Bob is tied to the events that led to the murder of the wife of the man he is now defending.
This is one of those books the reader doesn't want to end. William Lashner has a penchant for delivering delicious witticisms that leave the reader laughing and wanting more. Victor Carl is a Jewish attorney with attitude and refreshing self-deprecating view of himself and his life. Dr. Bob is the ultimate character, a man outside the bounds of sanity who sees himself as protector of the world while inadvertently destroying others. Give this one a five plus.
Never Fear
Scott Frost
G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
0399153403 $24.95 www.penguin.com 1-800-847-5515
LA Detective Alex Delillo has sent her daughter off to college and is expecting her biggest worries will center around an empty nest. But before she can feel the first pang, she receives an incomplete fax which turns out to be from a half-brother she never knew about, whose dead body is discovered near where three young women were murdered 17 years earlier. Unknown to Alex, her estranged father was and remains the primary suspect in those prior murders. Although her brother's death is ruled a suicide, Alex suspects otherwise. With the help of her subordinate Detective Dylan Harrison, Alex begins to reconstruct her brother's hours preceding his death, and every avenue she explores leads her back to her father and the three women who were murdered 17 years ago.
Never Fear is a fast-paced mystery with plenty of twists and turns and red herrings at every corner. Single mother Alex Delillo is a fresh character, a gutsy woman with issues struggling to protect her college-aged daughter while chasing bad guys.
Nudist Guy and Yankee Gal
Allen Parker
Authors Ink Books
P.O. Box 396, Sturgis, MI 49091
0972238514 $13.00
Our favorite nudist Chester is back with more humorous renderings of his life, family and friends, and the zany situations he manages to get himself into. Lots of physical slapstick with this one along with plenty of colorful, wacky characters to go along with Chester. It seems Chester's wife and son are the only "normal" people in the whole bunch and their reactions to Chester's antics not only evoke nods of approval but plenty of laughs.
Kitty Burns Florey hits on a number of topics in her brief exploration of sentence diagraming, Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog. Her reminiscences of parochial school diagraming are hitched up against a thumbnail history of the exercise as well as discussions of Gertrude Stein's over-the-top takes on grammar and punctuation, the limitations of diagraming as an educational tool, and the descriptivist-prescriptivist divide. Florey includes a good many diagrams in the book and a number of notes which, thank the gods, are given in the margins rather than relegated to endnotes.
It would be impossible to overemphasize the shelf appeal of an accessible, diagraming-related book to the likes of me. Like the author, I was taught diagraming in the sixth grade by a nun, and I took to it with glee. I am, if not a pedant, certainly grammatically aware--though demonstrably less knowledgeable than the author, whose discussion of "ain't" was an eye-opener for me: it had never occurred to me that ain't (as a contraction for "am not") is arguably grammatical when used with a first-person singular subject, so that "I'm right, ain't I" is to be preferred to the ungrammatical "I'm right, aren't I?" Whoda thunk it? But the point is, there are few topics that could interest me as immediately as sentence diagraming, and I would have pined for this book had more time passed between my learning of its existence and getting a copy into my trembling hands. So I should have loved Florey's book. I was disappointed to only like it.
Florey doesn't actually provide very much information in the book. Her chapter on the history of diagraming--from the system of balloon diagraming created by S.W. Clark in the mid-19th century to the more familiar linear diagrams of Reed and Kellogg--tells us nothing more than you might find in a decent encyclopedia article. One leaves the chapter wondering, at a minimum, how Reed and Kellogg's method differed from its predecessor, other than aesthetically. Nor should one come to the book expecting to learn the principles of diagraming. You can follow along nicely enough if you are already comfortable with diagraming, if, say, you need no further explanation for a sentence like this: "The gerund gets yet another kink in its line so that it seems to fall clumsily downstairs, which may be appropriate for a verbal noun...." But the book is by no means a primer for the grammatically challenged.
Florey's style is informal, which is fine except that her joviality sometimes feels forced:
"Reed and Kellogg began with a straight line: The expressway on which the sentence's most important elements ran as smoothly as a Jaguar tooling along Route 80."
Also grating are the author's numerous references to George W. Bush, which are distracting and will date the book, at the least, and may alienate some of Florey's audience.
A final and minor complaint. You would expect a title as unusual as Florey's to have some real-life story behind it. This one does, sort of: Florey's sixth-grade nun was indeed a Sister Bernadette who was, we are told in chapter four, "obsessed with dogs." The only other explanation for the title comes at the book's beginning:
"Sister Bernadette: I can still see her, a tiny nun with a sharp pink nose, confidently drawing a dead-straight horizontal line like a highway across the blackboard, flourishing her chalk in the air at the end of it, her veil flipping out behind her as she turned back to the class. "We begin, she said, with a straight line. And then, in her firm and saintly script, she put words on the line, a noun and a verb--probably something like dog barked."
"Something like"? "Probably"? The title's genesis story is wanting, the barking dog ostensibly an arbitrary selection. The book might as well have been called Sister Bernadette's Throbbing Ulcer. I feel a little cheated. Sister Bernadette is still worth reading by the crowd that thrilled to Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves, but don't expect to come away with more than a few hours of pleasant diversion.
The Perfect Assassin
Ward Larsen
Oceanview Publishing
61 Paradise Rd., Ipswich, MA 01938
1933515015 $22.95
Sailing solo across the Atlantic westward from France Dr. Christine Palmer, just finished with her third year of residency, pulls aboard a man clinging to a cooler amid the flotsam of a shipwreck. Christine's stumbling across the man in the middle of the ocean is a bit of needle-in-a-haystack good luck that she comes to wish had never happened. Her unexpected passenger--whose name, we eventually learn, is David Slaton--soon commandeers the boat and orders her to sail to England. It is, for Christine, the unpleasant start of a harrowing adventure that will see the two of them running simultaneously from Scotland Yard and from rogue elements within the Israeli secret service.
Ward Larsen tells his story from multiple points of view, his principal characters given just enough back story to make them sympathetic. Perhaps the most compelling of the lot is the Yard's Inspector Nathan Chatham, first introduced in chapter eight, a charming technophobe who is clever and quirky enough to anchor his own series. It is a pleasure, too, to watch our hero outsmart his adversaries using the training of a lifetime of service in Mossad. We certainly come to like Larsen's characters enough to want them to prevail, but it's also true that we are never really made to worry about them. Christine and David are placed in peril repeatedly in the book, but we never doubt that they will both come out safe in the end. Part of the reason for this may be that the bad guys never emerge as fully realized characters. There is no flesh-and-blood villain to root against.
Larsen's debut novel may not pack the sort of suspense that will keep you turning the pages too late at night, but it's a solid spy novel and a good quick read. I'll look forward to seeing more from this author.
Girls of Tender Age
Mary-Ann Tirone Smith
Free Press
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
0743279778 $14.00 www.simonsays.com 1-800-223-2336
Mary-Ann Tirone Smith's Girls of Tender Age is a memoir wrapped around a true crime story. She writes about growing up among the "working stiffs" of 1950's Hartford, Connecticut under less than ideal conditions. Smith's mother was distant and negligent:
"Until I am in first grade, I have no idea that when you are hurt, some people have the urge to hug and comfort you. In the first grade, my fingers get caught in the girls' lavatory door and my teacher, Miss Wells, takes me in her arms and hugs me to her big bosom. I don't understand why this is, a body surrounding mine, pressing sympathy from one heart into another. But my mother is the prototype of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown."
Her father was a sort of saint who devoted his life to caring for the author's autistic older brother at a time when no one understood that condition. Smith's autobiographical chapters--compelling enough without the introduction of further drama--are interspersed with brief sections, sometimes chillingly succinct, on the career of serial rapist and murderer Bob Malm:
"It was during this time [while in service during World War II] that Bob pursued his interest in forced sexual contact with preadolescent girls; he could only have sex successfully with preadolescent girls and only after terrorizing and hurting them, leaving some of them unconscious, or possibly, dead. A man could get away with this in Okinawa."
Eventually, the two threads of Smith's story meet, tragically, when the author is nine years old.
Smith's account of Malm's crime and the lasting effect it had on her life is a powerful piece of nonfiction. What impresses me most about her book is that Smith has managed to construct a coherent narrative out of events that she understood so poorly at the time. It would be hard enough to recreate an incident from one's childhood under the best of circumstances: a child doesn't have an adult's appreciation of what's going on; one's memory of an event decades after the fact is confused and incomplete. But the task of reconstruction was made more difficult for Smith because the adults around her at the time of the tragedy adopted a ham-fisted means of dealing with the impact of Malm's crime on the children involved. They dealt with it by not dealing with it, by suppressing information and prohibiting discussion. So Smith's task in researching and writing her story, supplementing her imperfect memory with hard fact, was a prodigious one.
The result, at any rate, is an honest account of Smith's life in particular and, more generally, of a certain lifestyle--"small-town" Hartford in the 50s, children playing in the streets until dusk, large immigrant families and coal furnaces and a now alien-seeming approach to child rearing. Girls of Tender Age is by turns funny and tragic and horrifying and gripping. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse
Lee Goldberg
Signet Books
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
0451217292 $6.99 1-800-847-5515
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse is the first book in a series of mysteries based on the charming television show "Monk," which stars Tony Shaloub as the brilliant, obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk. Monk, a former policeman whose eccentricities cost him his badge, regularly consults with the San Francisco Police Department, helping his one-time partner Captain Leland Stottlemeyer solve ostensibly unsolvable homicides. Monk's genius for detail allows him to notice things other investigators overlook, and Monk pretty much always gets his man--the one exception being that Monk has been unable to solve the mystery of his own wife's murder.
Goldberg's novel, told from the perspective of Monk's assistant, Natalie Teeger, finds Monk investigating a series of related murders, beginning with the death-by-pickaxe of a firehouse dalmatian. The quest for Sparky's killer leads Monk far outside his comfort zone--as far, in fact, as the city dump, where the germophobic detective dons a hazmat suit to dig for incriminating garbage. Monk has to wrestle his demons through the rest of the story, too, as he is forced to live in Natalie's house while his own comfortably sterile apartment is being fumigated.
Fans of "Monk," the series, will not be disappointed in Goldberg's addition to the franchise. The story's plot and the characterization of Monk strain credibility in a few spots, but on the whole the book is a great read. The mystery is engaging, but the best thing about Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse is the dialogue, which is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. I don't know how the lines would come across to readers who have never seen the television series (though I can't imagine that a TV tie-in is likely to have a large audience among people unfamiliar with the show), but the dialogue struck me, at least, as vintage "Monk." Reading the book was an experience very much like cozying up in front of the TV for a good episode. I look forward to reading the second book in the series, also by Goldberg, Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii.
Wordplay
Christine O'Malley and Patrick Creadon
St. Martin's Griffin
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
0312364032 $9.95 www.stmartins.com 1-888-330-8477
Wordplay is the companion book to the 2006 documentary of the same name. It was written by Christine O'Malley and Patrick Creadon, respectively the movie's producer and director. Will Shortz,the crossword editor of the New York Times (and "the Errol Flynn of crossword puzzling" according to Jon Stewart), contributes a foreword, and the book features interviews with a number of people who appeared in the film--crossword constructors and celebrity cruciverbalists and contestants in the 2005 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The book's 12 brief chapters include a thumbnail history of crossword puzzles and discussions of, among other topics, Will Shortz's tenure at the Times, crossword puzzle construction, and the 2006 Sundance Film Festival at which the documentary premiered. I have not yet seen the movie, so I can't say for certain how much of the information in the book rehashes what appears on film, but much of it appears to be new--a number of those featured in the book discuss their reaction to seeing the film, for example, and crossword constructor Merl Reagle writes about the process of creating a puzzle for the film.
The text of the book reads very quickly, but finishing the 50 puzzles that are included in Wordplay will be the work of weeks, if not months. And it's the puzzles, for each of which a little background is supplied, that make Wordplay a book you'll want to own. Among the crosswords included in the book are:
- The first puzzle Will Shortz published in the New York Times
- The first puzzle Shortz edited for the Times--a puzzle which, we're told, "caused quite a stir, because it couldn't be completely solved with an ordinary pencil"
- The first crossword puzzle ever published (in 1913)
- Samples of puzzles edited by Shortz's three predecessors at the Times, Margaret Farrar, Will Weng, and Eugene Maleska
- The "Wordplay" puzzle that was created for and featured in the movie
- The 1998 puzzle, "Engagement," which was written for Manhattan attorney Bill Gottlieb and concealed in its answers Bill's marriage proposal to his girlfriend
- The ingenious Clinton/Dole puzzle that was published on Election Day in 1996
- The eight puzzles that contestants were set at the 2005 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, with directions for scoring your solution
Plus a lot more. In short, the book is a treasure trove of historically interesting puzzles. If you've been solving the New York Times puzzle religiously for decades, you may have seen all of this before. But for many of us relative newcomers to cruciverbalism, Wordplay is a great source for some of the best puzzles ever constructed.
The Manuscript
Michael Stephen Fuchs
MacMillan New Writing
20 New Wharf Road, London, N1 9RR
0230007430 $13.95
The meaning of life is out there, a Usenet rumor has it, hidden on the web at an unregistered IP address, on a protocol no one uses, waiting for some genius hacker to stumble on it. Such, at least, is the purport of Michael Stephen Fuchs's interesting but uneven technothriller, The Manuscript. The text that gives the book its title was purportedly written by 19th-century explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton after he stumbled on the answers to life's riddles in the mountains of Argentina. It's being sought in the present century by a host of people, most of them heavily-armed baddies, most of them more interested in profit than enlightenment. Among those hunting for the manuscript are Fuchs's protagonists, a quartet of twenty-somethings who are vaguely dissatisfied with the trajectory of their lives: Dana Steckler, a graduate student in medical ethics at Thomas Jefferson College; her friend Miles Darken, a sysadmin with his own Bersa .380; Miles's cyber-acquaintance, intelligence agent Celeste Browning; and chemistry student turned high-tech drug dealer FreeBSD, the genius hacker who manages, after all, to find that hidden IP address.
Fuchs's book starts well. It's set in a decidedly wired world and peopled by intelligent technogeeks, and the author is adept at getting his characters' jargon and the feel of their world down on paper. He is also able to make technical information interesting and intelligible, maybe even sexy, as in this passage in which he writes about IP packets:
"If you could follow a whole burst of IP packets, a group of IP packets, that cohered on reassembly into something like an e-mail message...But you can't, because not cohering is what IP packets do. On their way from--to pick a couple of spots entirely at random--Hookeville, Virginia, to New York City, New York, basically the job of these data packets, as dictated by the odd magic of the Internet Protocol, is to swarm across the internet willy-nilly, each trying to find a good route to, not even their final destination, but just a next destination that might get them, not even necessarily closer to, but just still moving on toward, their final destination. Still, it's possible, probably not even uncommon, for all the packets that make up an e-mail message to traverse the same route, all side by side in formation, like sea horses riding into battle."
I love the way the author sometimes pauses his narrative with these highly technical bits of explication--on IP packets or tunnel vision or the tactical considerations of the various parties to a Mexican stand-off. Some of these passages really shine. Here's the conclusion to Fuchs's discussion of IP packets:
"So, if you could follow a burst of IP packets, say from Hookeville, Virginia, to New York, New York--if you were to piggyback on one of those hundreds of little blips, firing staccato out the back of a machine, tumbling through a local hub and router, sluicing onto some optical fiber strung hill over dale, zipping swarms of oscillating light, splaying outward in pulses much too fast to consider, broken apart and reassembled a dozen times while tumbling through a dozen more routers, darting stealthily through the wall of a nondescript office building in midtown Manhattan, reassembled a last time, all the parts accounted for and in just the right place, turned into magnetism on the shiny copper plate of a hard drive, where to wait faithfully and patiently all the night through to be read by just one person, to be turned into a file, and into pixels, and into light, and into optical pulses, and into ideas, and into someone else's mind...is this what genuine and meaningful contact between two human beings might look like?
"Is this what falling in love might look like?
"Probably."
In case you didn't notice--and I bet you didn't--that whole first paragraph is a single sentence.
But there are problems with the book. It's hard to keep track of Fuchs's numerous secondary characters or to understand the motivations of a good many of them; a character who seems to be important at the start of the book (Paulina) soon drops out of the story, never to be heard from again; and our protagonists, whatever their dissatisfaction with the status quo in the early chapters, seem too prepared to upend their lives, and too prepared to finance their new lives with ill-gotten gain--a decision which you'd think would at least give them some pause. (Knowledge of the meaning of life seems to have little practical effect and does not preclude profiting from the sale of drugs.) Most importantly, there isn't much of a plot here. The story, so promising at first, devolves into a series of confusing gun battles. These go on too long, until finally the book comes to an unsatisfying conclusion.
I don't want to end on a negative note, however, because Fuchs's writing style really is unusual and interesting and intelligent. I hope he writes more, and that he wraps his gorgeous techno-prose around a stronger story next time.
Goon
Edward Lee and John Pelan
Overlook Connection Press
P.O. Box 1934, Hiram, GA, 30141
1892950634, $19.95, 138 pages
When Edward Lee and John Pelan put there minds together on a collaboration, the reader is always treated to a genuinely disgusting and entertaining piece of fiction.
Straker isn't a wrestling fan, but when raped and mutilated bodies of female wrestling groupies start popping up throughout the area, Captain Philip Straker must go undercover to track down the killer with the beautiful reporter and wrestling fan, Melinda Pierce as his guide. As Straker and Pierce play their roles as groupies perfectly, they delve deep into the wrestling world as the body count rises and word is caught that the perpetrator happens to be a wrestler. Goon is a giant: standing six foot nine inches and weighing in at four hundred pounds, he is a monster whose path you wouldn't want to cross, in or out of the ring.
Within a dank storage unit, Captain Straker confronts Goon in an ill-fated attempt to subdue the beast. All looks grim until the intrusion of Melinda Pierce. But Melinda Pierce has a surprise of her own and that will change Captain Straker's life forever, a twist that will leave the reader in awe.
Goon is a humorous journey into the dark imagination of two masters of repulsive horror: Edward Lee and John Pelan. This book is to be read slowly and aloud, every word savored as if it were your last. The imagery produced will sicken, amuse, and invigorate the reader, leaving mental tattoos that will never fade.
Failure
John Everson
Delirium Books
P.O. Box 338, North Webster, IN 46555
No ISBN, $19.95
Failure is the first book in Delirium's Hardcover Chapbook Series, limited to 500 signed copies in a neat 4.50 x 6.25 format that is a handsome example that bigger doesn't mean better. From Bram Stoker Award winner, John Everson this novella is a prime illustration of the author's literary brilliance.
From the very beginning we are stunned by the blunt reality of teenage desolation, Richard's attempt at suicide is interrupted by a frantic telephone call from female acquaintance, Cindy. She is bleeding, and there is only one explanation. Sal had promised them all the weed they could smoke for one little erotic act for an evil known as, Aaron.
In an air of perversion within a candlelit pentagram in Aaron's basement, accompanied by the grotesque sacrifice of a fellow student, the three teens perform sexual deeds upon each other, strangely compelled by unseen forces. Six months, six days and six hours after the incident, the teens are once again brought to the scene of their carnal ramp to confront Aaron and the thing that is ripping its way through Cindy.
Failure is a wondrous accomplishment in dark horror fiction that captures the essence of the teenage loner, in a time where social normality is the drug of choice.
Wolf's Trap
W. D. Gagliani
Leisure Books
0843957026, $6.99
A serial killer is on a spree, slaughtering innocent victims without a shred of guilt or regard for life. Luckily, Detective Nick Lupo is on the case; a respected officer with intelligence, a passion for his work, and with the intuition of an expert, holding the ability to grasp the mind of a killer. Possibly because he is a killer himself: Detective Lupo is a werewolf. As he tracks the killer, Lupo is hit with the realization that he is being tracked himself, by the killer. Martin Stewart is teasing the detective, who years before, had taken the life of Martin's sister, an act done while transformed as the beast.
The blood of the innocent will be shed unless Detective Lupo can stop the reign of terror… or he himself may be killed by the silver bullets in the chamber of Martin Stewart's Smith & Wesson. This magnificent novel was written with proficiency, Gagliani knows horror fiction and he has supplied us with a skillfully crafted piece of dark literature.
Dustin La Valley
Reviewer
Eric's Bookshelf
Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music In America
Edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash
DK Publishing
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
0756623529 $40.00 http://us.dk.com (800) 788-6262
Christmas came early to my house this year when I came home, not to find St. Nick warming by a fire, which would truly be odd considering I don't have a fireplace, but when I came home to find Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America sitting on my doorstep. The coffee-table sized book from The Country Music Hall of Fame (and published by DK) is a treasure trove of trivia and history filled with rare photos and essays from some of the most preeminent Country Music scholars out there.
Beginning with Country's pre-1900s roots, the book traces it's lineage to the present day and introduces the artists and businessmen who populate its colorful history. The book is laid-out in a chronological order, but chapters cover periods rather than a specific time span, for example "Commercial Beginnings: 1922-1930" as opposed to covering 1920-1930. Covering particular periods allows for a little overlap between chapters and, since a different author contributes each chapter, this allows a few instances to see things from a different perspective. Esteemed Country Music historians and authors such as Bill C. Malone, Charles K. Wolfe, Chet Flippo and Rich Kienzle contribute chapters to the book and their insights and expertise make this book a fantastic read.
Two chapters are devoted more to sub-genres in Country rather than periods and give a great look at Cowboy music and Bluegrass. Separating them into their own sections gives both of them room to breath and more room to explore both their roots and their impact.
One of my favorite things are the three categories of sidebars in each chapter. Starting each chapter is a timeline that gives an overview of historic events in World History as well as significant events in Country music during the period covered in the chapter. The other two sidebars, "Profiles in Country" which introduces an artist with some biographical info, and "Classic Country Recording" which gives a behind-the-scenes look at some of Country's best recordings, pop up sporadically throughout the text and give a little more history to something being discussed.
Many of the pictures included in the book have never been published and give a glimpse at moments in time many of us have missed. There are discussions about clothing and instruments that use items that can be found in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
If you don't know this about me, I love Hatch Show Prints, so much so that I used one (or a few) to propose to my beautiful fiancee. (If you don't know about Hatch Show Prints you are missing a fun piece of Country Music history, so go read about it now, I'll wait). The chapters all begin with a double page spread designed by Hatch manager and designer Jim Sherraden exclusively for the book.
To their credit, editors Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury, do not try to make this a definitive History, but an overview that encompasses the whole of the tradition. It is a big task to be sure, but they have done a fantastic job of presenting the artists and music; The flow of information is smooth and easy to read.
If you have someone in your life that loves Country music and its history, or has a blank spot on their coffee table, I cannot recommend loud enough that you get them this book.
The Grand Ole Opry: The Making of an American Icon
Colin Escott
Center Street (Hachette Book Group USA)
1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
1931722862 $24.99 http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com 800-759-0190
There are few entertainment institutions that have experienced the longevity of the Grand Ole Opry. The format of the show has remained virtually the same since it's inception in 1925. The stars that have passed across the Opry stage could fill a book with only a listing of their names. Fortunately, author Colin Escott fills in the blanks rather than supplying only a list. Using many documents and personal interviews, Escott provides a fantastic overview of the history and importance of the Grand Ole Opry.
Nashville was not always synonymous with Country Music, especially in the early 1920's when Edwin Craig started WSM as a way to advertise for its owner National Life and Accident Insurance Company (taking its call letters from the company's slogan: "We Shield Millions"). Craig's original programming idea was to create a station which would be the equivalent to the NPR network we have today, playing classical music and providing cultural programs.
But then he hired George D. Hay, the Solemn Ol' Judge (and, I'm proud to say, fellow Hoosier), away from his job at a Chicago station to come to the fledgling station as its first Program Director. While at Chicago's WLS, Hay had seen success with a Barn Dance program which proved popular with displaced Southerners looking for a way to connect to home.
The Solemn Ol' Judge decided that if the idea would work in Chicago, then it would surely work in the Athens of the South, Nashville. And we know the rest…
Escott, author of perhaps the cream of the Hank Williams biography crop, fills in the story from that initial hiring to this year in the Opry through thorough research to bring quotes from the actual players in the establishment of the Opry. Using those quotes, Escott himself pops up only to serve as a narrator to the story, much like watching a well constructed documentary. Reading the exact quotes lends something special to the story by giving you the point of view of the artists and staff members who were there.
The book also includes many great pictures from the history of the Opry giving a look at the artists in the different settings of the Opry (did you know the current Opry House is the fourth home of the Opry?). One great picture in 1956 shows the whole cast backstage and includes Ernest Tubb, Jimmy Dickens, Webb Pierce, Minnie Pearl, The Louvin Brothers and Johnny Cash among the group.
Led Zeppelin IV
Barney Hoskyns
Rodale Books
733 Third Avenue, 6th Fl, New York, NY 10017
1594863709 $16.95 http://www.rodale.com 212 808-1336
The first book in Rodales' "Rock of Ages" series focuses on Led Zeppelins' classic album IV recounting the formation of the band to its end while focusing squarely on the music without the tales of decadence that often surround writings on the band. Author Barney Hoskyns, who has written extensively on the Southern California Rock scene of the ‘70's and early-‘80's, leaves no stone unturned as he delves into the meanings behind the songs, how they were recorded and also the mysterious symbols that make up the title of the album.
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek And The Dominos
Jan Reid
Rodale Books
733 Third Avenue, 6th Fl, New York, NY 10017
1594863695 $16.95 http://www.rodale.com (212) 808-1336
The second in the new "Rock of Ages" book series, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is the story of the one-shot recording of a rock super group, Derek and the Dominos, which, unlike many other super group attempts, has influenced countless guitar heroes.
Of course, Derek was Eric Clapton and the Dominos consisted of keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon. The band came together and began to rehearse songs written predominately by Clapton and/or Whitlock. The songs were beginning to take shape, but at times, obsessed with the desire for the love of his best friends' wife, Clapton seemed to need that spark to get him back on track. That spark, as we know, came in the form of Duane Allman, who contributed, among other things, the memorable intro lick to the albums most successful song, "Layla."
Jan Reid, who has also written on Country and Southern Rock music as well as for Texas Monthly, weaves the story from the formation of the band with the improbable love triangle between Eric Clapton, Pattie Boyd and her husband, and Clapton's best friend, George Harrison and takes both up to their ultimate demises. Reid provides great insight and his research uncovering interviews with the main subjects those surrounding the project is terrific.
A Shot in the Dark: Making Records in Nashville, 1945-1955
Martin Hawkins
Vanderbilt University Press and the Country Music Foundation Press
Box 1813 Station B, Nashville, Tennessee 37235-1813
0826515320 $65.00 http://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com (615) 322-3585
The latter part of 2006 has seen the release of several great books focusing on the History of Country Music and all things related. The Country Music Hall of Fame has had its hand in two of the recent releases, Will the Circle Be Unbroken and the latest A Shot In The Dark: Making Records in Nashville, 1945-1955.
Written by author/researcher Martin Hawkins, A Shot In The Dark takes a detailed look at the rise of the recording industry in Nashville before it became known as the Music City. The history of the industry includes plenty of Country music, but as Hawkins details, it also includes generous doses of R & B, Blues, Jazz, Gospel, and Pop which helped build the foundation for all that came after.
Hawkins dates the first Nashville recording to December 1945 when Bullet Records produced its first session with Sheb Wooley. "It was just a market test. Nothing happened, it was just a beginning," Bullet founder Jim Bulleit is noted as saying, and it certainly was "a beginning," not only for his small company, but for a whole industry.
Bullet Records continued to record Country, Jazz, Pop, and Gospel, first using the engineers and equipment of WSM and then eventually in their own makeshift studio. Bullet also owned the first set of equipment in Nashville to press their own discs (78s), thus becoming a self-sufficient unit.
Hawkins skillfully takes us from the beginnings of Nashville itself to this historic recording session interviewing many of the major players firsthand. He also drew information from archived interviews and newspapers. Using this information he takes us through each of the Nashville labels of the time.
Beginning with Bullet, we then move on to Tennessee Jamboree, Republic, Dot Records, Nashboro, Excello, and Hickory Records. Each of these labels were small labels, some just a step above vanity labels, but each made a unique contribution to the growth of not only the Nashville recording industry, but in many ways, the entire industry as a whole.
Like a good DVD, this book is also packed with a few fantastic extras. First off is the fantastic bibliography in which Hawkins notes his sources and gives a brief recommended listening list. Next up is a superbly researched and documented discography of every recording made on the labels mentioned in the book between the years 1945 and 1955. The books is beautifully illustrated with great pictures of downtown Nashville in the 20's, 30's and 40's as well as rare or little seen pictures of those artists who helped build the industry with little remembrance of their contributions now.
Finally, packed in a small sleeve attached to the inside cover of back of the book is an incredible 20 track CD providing examples of the music produced during those years. List at the end of the book are artist information and brief notes by Hawkins on the tracks. Included are such rare gems as Cecil Gant, Minnie Pearl and Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys (in a rare singing appearance by Pearl), Francis Craig and His Orchetras' pop standard "Near You," and a recording of Leon Payne singing his composition "Lost Highway" often mistakenly attributed to Hank Williams (although Hank sang it, he didn't write it). The rest of the CD is just as good covering all forms of music that were recorded at the time.
I have to say that, for all of my enthusiasm and respect for this painstakingly researched volume, it is probably not for the casual fan. Hawkins goes to great lengths to detail all aspects of the things he is writing about, even down to street addresses. But it is in these details that Hawkins digs up the real story of how the love of music, not business, started what now seems to be the opposite.
Eric Banister
Reviewer
Gary's Bookshelf
Bloodlines
Joseph DiLalla
Tate Publishing
127 East Trade Center Terrace, Mustang, Oklahoma 73064
1598864785 $14.95 www.tatepublishing.com 888 361-9473
An assassin shoots Congresswoman Ellen Randall Anderson the day she announces she is running for the office of president of the United States. She is not killed but slightly wounded. She uses this to her advantage to make a statement. Such is the beginning of the novel that races along with plenty of twists and turns. What I especially liked is how the author shows how Anderson will do whatever she can to be elected to the highest political office in the country. She is a typical politician who says one thing to the general public but does the exact opposite behind the scenes. There are plenty of conflicts as well and the writing is very easy to follow. This novel has all the best elements for a great film.
Judge & Jury
James Patterson & Andrew Gross
Little Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group USA
1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
0316013935 $27.99 www.HatchetteBookGroupUSA.com
From the first page the authors capture the reader
