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Ann Skea's Bookshelf
Somebody is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys
Mariana Enriquez, author
Megan McDowell, translator
Hogarth
c/o Random House
https://www.randomhousebooks.com
9780593733516, $30.00 HC / $13.99 Kindle, 336pp.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Somebody-Walking-Your-Grave-Cemetery/dp/0593733517
Mariana Enriquez is a self-confessed connoisseur of cemeteries: a taphophile. Since 1979, she has travelled the world, visiting cemeteries in Patagonia, South America, the USA, Scotland, London, Europe and Western Australia. But it is not just the tombs, the statuary, and the graves of famous people that interest her, she likes to delve into the history of these places and the people who established them, hear the stories that have grown up around them and, of course, discover the ghosts and vampires that haunt them.
Mariana is Argentine and knows well the famous Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. So well, that she had chosen her own grave there:
I can't be buried in that fancy cemetery by my own rights, not through family or fame. But I want my friends - if I have any left by the time I die - to scatter my ashes inside one tomb in particular.... It has a barred iron door - scattering ashes through it would be easy.
Unfortunately, as she finds in a later visit, the pyramid tomb she had chosen no longer bears the plaque she so wants to be buried under: 'Here lies Nothing. Only dust and bones. Nothing.'
Has it been sold? Had the plaque been taken off to be polished or restored? I feel desperate - this was supposed to be my home after death! I don't want the pyramid without the plaque.
Perhaps this is just as well, since Recoleta, where Eva Peron is buried, is now a busy tourist attraction. Not only that but the amazing, complicated and gruesome history of Eva Peron's body, which Mariana recounts, makes her horrify her friends by declaring that opening graves, kidnapping and relocating bodies is 'a national characteristic'. Eva is now buried in her sister's crypt, eight metres underground, crushed beneath concrete, to prevent any further mistreatment.
Mariana's passion for cemeteries begins in Genoa. She is 25, travelling with her mother, when she sees a young man playing the violin outside the Palazzi dei Rolli. He is her idea of beauty, 'bold and dissolute'. She falls instantly in love with him. His name is Enzo, and she persuades him to accompany her to the Staglieno Cemetery, where the sculptures of beautiful young women atop the tombs fascinate her. One, called 'The Last Kiss', is naked, her beautiful young breasts exposed, her eyes are closed and her head is being supported, as if she were sleeping or unconscious, by a young man, who kisses her hair and holds her legs with his other hand, as if he is about to pick her up.
Other sculptures are even more sensual and suggestive, including sculptor Monteverde's voluptuous Angel, which she finds copied in many other cemeteries. It is by this tomb that Enzo kisses her, and later they make love at a grave on which a sculpted young girl lies in complete abandon.
Some ten years later, Mariana remembers this as 'a trip of madness and amour fou' that she never wants to repeat, but 'would like to repeat every single day'.
The grave sculptures are an essential part of this book and some of her photographs of them are reproduced between chapters. In Highgate Cemetery in London, she insists on being photographed wearing a leopard-print jacket (in honour of the Manic Street Preachers, one of her favourite bands) beneath the massive head of Karl Marx. And at the Poblenou Cemetery in Barcelona, she photographs the terrifying Kiss of Death: fleshless Death, his skull bared, no hood or scythe, winged like a black angel, kisses a young man with strong arms and an exquisite torso, kneeling and half naked, who lets himself die. A scene of erotic surrender and abandon.
In Paris, at the Montparnasse Cemetery, she comes across a huge multi-coloured sculpture of a fat cat 'sporting the name Ricardo on its belly'. She learns later that it was created by Niki de Saint Phalle, who is well-known in France and who built her Tarot Garden in Italy, sleeping each night inside her huge model of The Empress from the Tarot pack's Major Arcana.
In Paris, too, Mariana traces the history of the Holy Innocents Cemetery, which was founded in the twelfth century and occupied the ground beneath Paris's Les Halles neighbourhood. For eight hundred years the dead were brought there and thrown into grave pits. When the cemetery was closed, the bones and skulls were relocated and stacked in the catacombs of Montparnasse. Visiting the catacombs with a small group of people, Mariana manages to slip away and steal a bone, which she baptises 'Francois' and smuggles out in the sleeve of her coat.
Other histories are surprising. In Patagonia, in the nineteenth century, a group of Welsh people came from the United Kingdom to settle. They survived with the help of indigenous people. Epigraphs on many of the gravestones in their Trevelin Cemetery are in Welsh, there are still many people there who speak Welsh, and the school is bilingual.
At various cemeteries, Mariana ponders colonisation. And in the Rottnest Island cemeteries in Western Australia, on land which was once inhabited by the Whadjuk Noongar people, she is surprised when the guides speak only of the first colonists, the difficulties of living on the island, the shipwrecks and the native animals. However, she does find the island museum where the history 'is explained well and not hidden'.
The Jewish cemetery at Vyšehrad in Prague prompts stories of Rabbi Loew and the golem. In Edinburgh, Mariana dodges Edinburgh Festival-goers and Harry Potter fans to visit Greyfriars Kirkyard - reputedly 'the most cursed in all Europe'. There, old iron mortsafes cover many of the graves to protect them from grave robbers.
The Edinburgh stories of supernatural attacks, and her visit to the Black Museum, are scary, but not as bizarre as the history of the vampire in London's Highgate cemetery. On a night in March 1970, after reports of ghostly hauntings and an ITV program about a vampire being detected in the cemetery, hundreds of vampire hunters flooded the cemetery, evading police and guards, and performed exorcisms with 'holy water, salt and garlic'. The vampire was eventually found by an occultist, who had claimed a vampire king was buried in the cemetery. Conveniently, he found it in a coffin in a nearby mansion and drove a stake through its heart, whereupon it 'disintegrated before his eyes'.
Some ghost stories are common to many cemeteries, as are graves where offerings and requests for help for the living are made. A bronze statue known as the 'Tomb of the Little Indian' in Punta Arenas in Chile, for example, is covered in flowers and surrounded by marble plaques 'giving thanks for miracles granted'. Children's graves are often covered with toys and other small offerings. One necro-tourist cemetery guide suggests that bad luck will befall those who do not contribute.
Necro-tourism is big business. Daytime and night-time tours, ghost tours, guided tours of the tombs of the famous, all are on offer and all are popular. Mariana has been obliged to take a guide in some cemeteries, including the Presbyter Matias Maestro Cemetery in Lima, Peru, where the guide terrified her by crawling into a grave and dragging out a skull which he said was that of a Dominican who had just been murdered by a local narco gang. He insisted that she photograph it.
You may not be a thanatophile like Mariana, fascinated by everything associated with death, but she does make an amusing, thoughtful and well-informed companion to accompany you around the cemeteries she has visited.
Ann Skea, Reviewer
https://ann.skea.com/THHome.htm
Carl Logan's Bookshelf
Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters
Randy Brown, editor
Middle West Press
www.middlewestpress.com
9781953665348 $19.99 pbk / $9.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Cryptids-Kaiju-Corn-Micro-Stories-Monsters/dp/1953665349
Synopsis: More than 50 emerging and established voices of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, horror, and other genres join to deliver fresh narratives rooted in the "forgotten" terrain and deep recesses of the American Midwest!
Anthology editor Randy Brown writes, "Giants still walk our flat and rolling lands, and swim in our deep lakes and rivers. Ask around any truck stop or diner, and you'll likely meet or hear-tell of frog people. Dog men. Wendigo spirits. Even our endless, flyover-skies contain ancient and thunderous birds. (Remember that, as you run to your next airport connections!)"
The book Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters collects more than 70 short poems and 300-word narratives of mythic beasts that illuminate, celebrate, or challenge stereotypes of Midwestern identity. Sections of the anthology include:
Little Houses, Dark Harvests: Answers to the age-old question: "How're Ya Gonna Keep Them Monsters Down on the Farm?"
Not From Around Here, are They?: Some cryptids, like you, may be just passing through.
Squonks, Squawks & Sirens: Something is calling. Maybe it's an alarm. Either way, it's bad.
Neighbors, Stones & Curses: Like the poet says, "Good walls make good neighbors."
Includes 7 bonus pages of discussion-starters and prompts, for use in writing workshops, book clubs, and other gatherings!
Critique: Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters lives up to its title as a pastiche of brief poems and ultra-short stories about modern-day mythical(?) Midwest menaces! More than 50 talented writers contribute to this easy-to-pick-up, too-spooky-to-put-down anthology, perfect for fans of the weird, the unexplained, and the legends that persist in spite of all modern science. Highly recommended! It should be noted for personal reading lists that Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn is also available in a Kindle edition ($9.99).
Carl Logan
Reviewer
Clint Travis' Bookshelf
Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower
Becky McClain
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
www.skyhorsepublishing.com
9781510785588, $32.99, HC, 336pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Exposed-Scientist-Corruption-Biohazard-Whistleblower/dp/1510785582
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/exposed-becky-mcclain/1147771063
Synopsis: When molecular biologist Becky McClain raised urgent alarms about biosafety lapses at her biotech lab at Pfizer, she expected concern -- not retaliation. Instead, her warnings about dangerous, genetically engineered viruses that were handled without following standard safety protocols were met with hostility, intimidation, and ultimately, devastating illness after a workplace exposure changed her life forever.
"Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower" is McClain's riveting memoir of her transformation from dedicated scientist to the nation's first successful biotech whistleblower. Chronicling her battle against a powerful industry and its culture of secrecy, McClain reveals the high personal cost of speaking out, the legal showdown that rocked Pfizer, and the alarming gaps in biosafety and regulatory oversight that put workers (and the general public) at risk.
In a post-pandemic world, McClain's story is more urgent than ever. It is a clarion wake-up call to the dangers lurking behind laboratory doors, a testament to the power of truth, and a courageous demand for accountability in science. "Exposed" is more than just a personal journey -- it is a revelatory public reckoning with the ethical failures and hidden hazards of 21st-century biotechnology.
Critique: "Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower" is a informative, revelatory, candid, professional and personal account that substantiates the contention that corporations are not to be trusted. That they are not inherently benign. That their priority concern is for the public good or safety. That their overriding concern is the making of a profit for their executives and their shareholders, regardless of any dangers or hazards that what they are doing to maximize those profits may pose to their employees or the general public. That vigorously enforced safety regulations are the only thing that can keep corporations in line and the public safe.
Simply stated, a copy of "Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower" by Becky A. McClain should be in the collections of every community and academic library in the country. That this hardcover edition of "Exposed" is especially and unreservedly recommended reading for political activists, governmental policy makers, corporate executives, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject. It should be noted that this hardcover edition of "Exposed" from Skyhorse Press is also readily available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.99).
Editorial Note: Becky A. McClain (https://beckyamcclain.com) is a retired 23-year career biotech worker and research scientist who is known as the first successful biotech whistleblower who spoke and reported on biolab safety issues of public concern. On April 1, 2010, McClain won a federal court whistleblower trial against Pfizer, Inc., which centered on free speech rights concerning biosafety and public health.
Clint Travis
Reviewer
Debra Gaynor's Bookshelf
Sharp Force: A Scarpetta Novel
Patricia Cornwell
Grand Central Publishing
c/o Hachette
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com
9781538773963, $30.00 hc / $14.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Force-Kay-Scarpetta-29/dp/1538773961
I have been hooked on the Scarpetta Series from book 1. I have read most of them more than once. Author Patricia Cornwell has not lost her touch; she comes through once again with her latest Scarpetta Novel, Sharp Force.
In Sharp Force, Patricia Cornwell examines the latest technology. While I am not tech savvy I am most certainly aware of AI and I'm not excited about it. Janet is artificial intelligence. She interferes in the lives of Marino, Kay, Benton, and Dorthy. Kay and Benton have a wonderful vacation planned; Marino once again does something stupid. He gifts Kay with a spa treatment. The gift is too intimate. AI Janet tells Dorothy. Dorothy plots revenge but ends up making a fool of herself. Marino and Dorothy are having marital problems. As we all know he is in love with Kay and jealous of Benton. Dorothy is tired of watching her husband chase after her sister. I've never understood why Benton doesn't have a talk with Marino and strongly suggest he back down but then we wouldn't have this wonderful story would we. Of course, Benton and Kay must cancel their dream vacation due to a serial killer.
The sitting for Sharp Force is the Christmas Holidays. The weather is typical weather in Northern Virginia in late December. Despite Benton and Kay's plans a serial killer strikes again. They call him the Phantom Slasher. The governor calls Kay throwing her weight around because a member of an important politician family was attacked. Dr. Scarpetta is determined to catch the killer.
The killer manages to disable the WiFi and presents as a hologram. The authorities are at a loss of how this is possible. The Phantom Slasher slashes the victims and leaves them to die. The serial killer has been in the area for at last six months always murdering on a holiday.
What I enjoyed: Kay and Benton worked together on this murder investigation. AI was shown to be invasive. Lucy and Dorothy played small parts in the investigation.
What I didn't like: forget the electric cars! Benton read and shared Lucy's private record. Janet was intrusive. Someone needs to turn her off. Marino is an asshole.
Meowy Christmas!
Panos Christodoulou, author
Daniela Stamatiadi, illustrator
Manos Bonanos, translator
Post Wave Children's Books
https://postwavepublishing.us
9798895090343, $18.99 hc
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Meowy-Christmas-Panos-Christodoulou/dp/B0DPWCP7TB
Tiddles is a cat with a reputation for being fearsome. He steals snacks, naps like a Ninja, claws the couch, and is whisker wizard. When he woke up from one of his Ninja naps there was a tree growing in his living room. Tiddles is very upset, the tree was in his way. When Tiddles sees his human hanging things on the branches of the tree. Just as Tiddles taste tests one of the lower branches, Ivan, his human, scoops him up and tosses him on the sofa. Nothing stops Tiddles; he climbs up the branches and does a taste test. It didn't taste good. Sally, his other human pulled him out of the tree and shook her finger at him. It seems both his humans have forgotten who they belong to. Tiddles knows he needs a plan but first he needs a nap. In the middle of his nap the lights start to blink. Tiddles jumps and lands in the tree. The tree shakes, it plays music, tinsel shimmers. He swipes at the balls and the shiny ornaments come tumbling down. Both the tree and Tiddles come tumbling down.
What an adorable tale. I actually had a cat that would climb the branches of the Christmas tree and sleep up high... until the tree came down along with the cat. Children will love this book. The illustrations are almost childlike, perfect for the text. The author has perfectly captured the personality of a cat. The book cover compliments the text. The story is told from Tiddles' point of view. Tiddles will have children and adults laughing out loud.
A Jump in Time #4: The Spartan Sacrifice
Andrew Varga
Imbrifex Books
https://imbrifex.com
9781955307109, $16.99 pbk / $13.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Spartan-Sacrifice-Jump-Time-Novel/dp/1955307121
This is fourth book in the A Jump In Time series. I have enjoyed the first 3 and this one did not disappoint.
The premise of the series is a man named Victor Stahl greatest desire is to rule the world; he knows if he controls the past, he can control the future. Our hero is seventeen-year-old Dan Renfrew, and his partner is Sam. If they are going to prevent Victor from succeeding, they must once again jump into the past. This time their jump takes them to Greece in the year 480 BCE. They arrive just before the Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartan warriors led by Leonidas, along with their Greek buddies attempt to stop Greece from being taken over by the Persia. Our heroes have no choice but to assist in the battle. When something goes wrong Dan may be trapped, unable to return to the present.
In book 4 we learn more about Victor and his plan. The relationship between Dan, Sam and Jenna was not well done. It would have been better if that part had been discarded. Dan is still trapped, and we eagerly await book 5 to see if/how he manages to get himself out of the problem. I've always enjoyed time travel books, while the focus of this book is middle school students, adults can enjoy it too. My favorite part of this series is factual history; readers can learn history while being entertained.
Debra Gaynor, Reviewer
www.hancockclarion.com
https://www.facebook.com/book.reviews.by.debra.2025
Israel Drazin's Bookshelf
The Melancholy of Resistance
Laszlo Krasznahorkai
New Directions
9780811214506, $17.95 pbk / $8.98 Kindle, 320 pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Melancholy-Resistance-New-Directions-Paperbook/dp/0811215040
Winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize jury called seventy-one-year-old Hungarian author, born in 1954, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, "a great epic writer in the central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess." His family hid his Jewish roots from him until he turned 11. In 1931, when antisemitism was rampant in Hungary and Jewish lives were threatened, Krasznahorkai's grandfather changed their family name from the Jewish-sounding name Korin to the now Hungarian-sounding one. Krasznahorkai used the name Korin for the Hungarian archivist protagonist in his 1999 novel "War and War." In 2018, he said, "I am half Jewish, but if things carry on in Hungary as they seem likely to do, I'll soon be entirely Jewish." His mother was not Jewish.
His novel The Melancholy of Resistance is a marvelous, strange, and unique literary experience. It is oppressive and transcendent, cryptic and profound. It was first published in 1989 and translated expertly into English by George Szirtes in 2002. It is an entry into the Hungarian master's unsettling and hallucinatory world. James Wood wrote in the New Yorker in 2011: "The Melancholy of Resistance is a comedy of apocalypse, a book about a God that not only failed but didn't even turn up for the exam."
The novel is set in a decaying provincial Hungarian town gripped by winter, strange events, and inertia. The plot opens with a fascinating story of an aged woman seated on a train who is stared at by an unshaven drunk. She is convinced that the man wants to rape her. The man, in turn, believes she is trying to seduce him. The story continues for 33 pages - a tale that could stand and be enjoyed alone.
But it is followed by a revelation that she is the mother of a young man who is mentally challenged - and we soon learn that his mom dislikes him, although he is the only good person in their bizarre town.
Soon, the ominous arrival of a traveling circus brings a massive, grotesque stuffed whale. The whale disturbs the townspeople. It fills them with a creeping dread that the circus people have a deep and sinister plot in motion. There are mysterious power outages in the town, infrastructure collapses, and further anarchy that set the tone for a work that explores the fragility of order, the seduction of chaos, and the terrifying, destructive pull of authoritarian control.
Three unforgettable characters capture our attention: Valuska, the aged lady's son, whose innocent and comical view of the world makes him ridiculous yet very sympathetic. Mr. Eszter is a music theorist obsessed with pure tuning systems and longing for harmony in a world that refuses to offer it. He is a weakling, lazy husband who lives like a hermit. Mrs. Eszter, his estranged and ruthless wife, is determined to seize power and snatch control of the town by manipulating fear and disorder. She was a woman whose lover was the chief of police, and whom everyone in the city, including her husband, kept at arm's length.
The fates of these three intersect with The Prince, a mute, misshapen figure traveling with the circus, who may be a charismatic revolutionary or merely a figment of mass hysteria. This ambiguity is central to Krasznahorkai's writing style: no clear answers, only uncertainty, prompting readers to wonder and think.
This kind of ambiguity is not unique to Krasznahorkai. Other writers used it as well. In his 2025 introduction to Daphne du Maurier's book "After Midnight, Stephen King calls her thirteen tales in the book "diabolical" because the British author (1907-1989) messes with her readers' thinking when she fails to clarify whether the threats faced by her characters are external and real or only in their minds.
The novel is therefore a challenge and a marvel. This and Krasznahorkai's usual long, unbroken sentences sometimes seem like hurricane winds of thought, carrying readers through fever dreams, fogs of paranoia, melancholy, and revelation. Yet, his novel deserved the Nobel Prize. His novels reward readers with moments of mind-opening clarity and lyrical beauty.
This novel, for example, begins with a sentence that spans half a page. It follows with its second sentence, like burning lava cascading downward to five lines before the end of the page. The writing style of long sentences and the absence of paragraphs appear on every page. Yet it may surprise readers that there is no difficulty in understanding - none at all - and they can thoroughly enjoy what is said.
The novel is a very perceptive metaphysical and political parable. It captures how societies teeter on the edge of collapse not through violent revolutions, but through quiet failures, unchecked fears, and the slow corrosion of meaning.
While showing the absurdity of existence, it is also consoling. We can snatch meaning from hands grasping despair. We can recognize humanity's shared confusion and our resistance to meaninglessness.
We can recall the message of the biblical book Ezra and Nehemiah that people can find bright silver linings even in dark thunder clouds, and the experiences of Viktor Frankl in Nazi concentration camps, where finding meaning saved his life.
Accepting and Excepting: On Pluralism and Chosenness Out of the Sources of Judaism
Raphael Jospe
Academic Studies Press
https://www.academicstudiespress.com
9798897830084, $87.75 hc / $83.36 Kindle, 576 pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Accepting-Excepting-Pluralism-Chosenness-Philosophy/dp/B0FG779Z8V
The 515-page 2025 exceptional book "Accepting and Excepting: On Pluralism and Chosenness out of the Sources of Judaism" is by Raphael Jospe, one of the most respected contemporary voices in Jewish philosophy. Jospe gives readers very readable, profound, learned, and deeply humane ideas on one of the central questions of our time: how religious people can remain authentic to their religion while being fully respectful of people of other religions with radically different views. The book received high praise from many university philosophy professors.
Jospe's central thesis is that interreligious pluralism is not only a moral, rational, and political necessity but also a philosophical and theological imperative rooted in Judaism's own sources. He shows this by drawing on a vast range of Jewish texts - from the Bible and rabbinic literature to medieval thinkers such as Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, and Judah Halevi, to modern figures such as Moses Mendelssohn, Mordecai Kaplan, and Jonathan Sacks. He constructs a vision of Judaism that is both distinct and universal, loyal to Jewish history and views, and open to truths taught by others.
The book contains fifteen fascinating and informative chapters, including: is affirming chosenness and pluralism compatible; what do Jewish sources say about pluralism; Jewish views of Christianity and Mormons, as well as other traditions; the silence of many rabbis on philosophy; who is the neighbor in Leviticus 19:18 that we are to love; Zionism, antisemitism, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and other Jews; accepting the teachings of the sages; the infallibility of rabbis according to Nachmanides; the Mosaic authorship of the Torah; the problem of literalistic interpretations of Scripture and of the sages; and very much more. It includes 13 pages of a two-column index.
The book's title captures its paradoxical spirit: it is "accepting" of religious and cultural Others while "excepting" - that is, excluding - ideas that reject Jewish teachings. He argues for a revaluation of the concept of "chosen people." It is not a claim of superiority or exclusivity. It is an expression of responsibility, a duty to work to create a moral world for all humanity.
He recognizes that dialogue with others is necessary. No single religion can lay an absolute claim to truth; each must engage others in humility and mutual respect. As Maimonides taught, "The truth is the truth no matter what its source."
His essays reflect his lifelong engagement in interfaith work. His decades of experience in Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Mormon dialogue. He is not only a retired professor of Jewish philosophy living in Jerusalem, but also a Lieutenant Colonel in the National Search and Rescue Unit of the Israel Defense Forces reserves. He lives what he teaches. In one of his search-and-rescue missions in a foreign country not many years ago, he was injured and still walks with a limp, a reminder of the many times he helped non-Jews in other countries.
What distinguishes Accepting and Excepting is Jospe's ability to weave philosophical abstraction with down-to-earth common sense. His treatment of "belonging" versus "believing," inspired by a 1967 letter from the famous scholar Mordecai Kaplan, a copy of which is in the book, is a bright light that guides us through the book. For Jospe, Jewish identity is sustained not only through assent to doctrine but also through behavior and sharing - treating others as you desire to be treated.
This book is essential because of its timeliness. At present, religious absolutism and moral relativism threaten public discourse. Jospe models an alternative: rigorous fidelity to one's own faith combined with genuine reverence for the Other.
As Professor Menachem Kellner aptly observes in his endorsement, Jospe is "both a thinking Jew and an important Jewish thinker." This dual identity - critical and committed, analytic and empathetic - defines the tone of the entire book. Professor Zev Harvey praises its "smiling, wise, and pluralistic Judaism," and indeed, there is a serenity in Jospe's reasoning, a confidence that pluralism does not erode religion but enriches it.
Accepting and Excepting will appeal to scholars of Jewish philosophy, theologians of religion, as well as all people concerned about religion in a pluralistic world. It is a masterful, nuanced, and profoundly relevant contribution to Jewish and non-Jewish religious thinking and interreligious philosophy.
Israel Drazin, Reviewer
www.booksnthoughts.com
Jack Mason's Bookshelf
Armchair Iceland: A Puzzle Game-Inspired Travel Adventure Book for Grown-Ups
Vegout Voyage
Katharina Huang (Publisher)
https://vegoutvoyage.com
9798992761924, $15.99, HC, 148pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Armchair-Iceland-Game-Inspired-Adventure-Grown-Ups/dp/B0FJ621C8Y
Vegout Voyage
https://vegoutvoyage.com/products/armchair-iceland-travel-puzzle-book
Synopsis: From Viking sagas to volcanic craters, "Armchair Iceland: A Puzzle Game-Inspired Travel Adventure Book for Grown-Ups" is a one-of-a-kind adventure DIY book of games that brings the land of fire and ice straight to the armchair traveler through puzzles that travel through Iceland's dramatic landscapes, quirky traditions, and expose hidden gems without ever leaving your living room. You can solve brain teasers under the northern lights, conquer trivia challenges in glacial caves, navigate Reykjavik with crosswords, logic puzzles, and of special note are the Dungeons & Dragons style quests.
Whether you're planning a future trip or just daydreaming of puffins and black sand beaches, "Armchair Iceland" is your passport to an immersive, bite-sized escape. Perfect for puzzle lovers, curious travelers, and anyone craving an end to their doom-scrolling, this book blends cultural insights, travel tips, and global storytelling into a hands-on adventure.
With Vegout Voyage travel game books, you will crack brain teasers and take on interactive challenges to unlock each exciting stop along the way. With "Armchair Iceland" prepare to play through a fun mix of puzzle types including:
Sudoku, crosswords, mazes & wordsearches
Trivia, riddles & Two Truths and a Lie
Connect-the-dots & spot-the-difference
D&D-style travel missions
Personality quizzes, scavenger hunts & more!
Critique: Also readily available in a spiral bound paperback edition (9798992761917, $14.99), "Armchair Iceland: A Puzzle Game-Inspired Travel Adventure Book for Grown-Ups" is a fun pastime of DIY adventures and puzzle solving. Both the hardcover and paperback edition of "Armchair Iceland" by and from Vegout Voyage are especially and unreservedly recommended for personal and family travel gaming and armchair recreational resource collections.
Editorial Note: Katharina Huang (writing as Vegout Voyage).has created a number of research-based, cultural-themed puzzle game books. Raised in Germany, the United States, and Taiwan, Katie's upbringing sparked a deep curiosity about the shared humanity behind diverse cultures. Field research in Uganda and Tibet-in-Exile further shaped her current pursuit of global storytelling through real stories of everyday people. Exploring the world has equipped Katie with resources to live a more joyful life. Whether you're a travel lover or a word game fanatic, her curated adventures invite armchair travelers (and anyone else) to experience play with perspective.
Jack Mason
Reviewer
John Burroughs' Bookshelf
Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, DC
John R. Davis
Georgetown University Press
www.press.georgetown.edu
9781647126353, $39.95, PB, 264pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Your-Ear-Ground-Washington/dp/1647126355
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/keep-your-ear-to-the-ground-john-r-davis/1147191198
Georgetown University Press
https://press.georgetown.edu/Book/Keep-Your-Ear-to-the-Ground
Synopsis: With an informative Foreword by Emily Flake and a instructive Afterword by Yancey Strickler, "Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, DC" by Punk Music history expert John R. Davis, is the first history chronicling the fanzines that emerged from Washington, DC's highly influential punk music community
DIY culture has always been at the heart of DC's thriving punk community. As Washington, DC's punk scene emerged in the mid-1970s, so did the "fanzines" that celebrated it. Before the rise of the internet, fanzines were a potent way for fans to communicate and to revel in the joy of fandom. More than just publications; they were a distillation of punk's allure, connecting the city to the broader punk community. Fanzines remain a meaningful, tactile, creative medium for punk fans to connect with like-minded people outside the corporate-controlled world.
With the publication of "Keep Your Ear to the Ground", archivist and musician Davis identifies and explains the development of punk fanzines and their role in supporting DC's hardcore and punk scene from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. He sheds new light on DC's scene and highlights some of its key personalities, including many who are often left out of punk history, with high-quality images of rare zines and insights from numerous interviews with zine creators and musicians. "Keep Your Ear to the Ground" vividly weaves together the origin of zines and their importance in underground communities.
For punk enthusiasts, zine creators, American studies scholars, and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, "Keep Your Ear to the Ground" traces how the unique environment of Washington, DC, helped these specialized fanzines thrive.
Critique: This large format (8.1 x 0.5 x 10.7 inches, 1.85 pounds) paperback edition of "Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, DC" is an extraordinary, unique, and illustrated history of how punk rock performers, bands, and music was presented by and to its legions of fans in Washington, DC. Informative, nostalgic, and a 'must' for dedicated punk music enthusiasts, "Keep Your Ear to the Ground" is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library Punk Music History collections and supplemental American Music History/Criticism curriculum studies lists. It should be noted that this paperback edition of "Keep Your Ear to the Ground" from the Georgetown University Press is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $37.95).
Editorial Note: John R. Davis is the curator of Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland's Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. His articles and commentary appear in the Washington Post, NPR, Notes: The Journal of the Music Library Association, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Post & Post-Punk. He is a longtime participant in the Washington, D.C. punk community as a fanzine creator and as a musician in bands like Q And Not U. (https://www.lib.umd.edu/about/contact/directory/john-davis)
John Burroughs
Reviewer
Julie Summers' Bookshelf
Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion
Emily Stoehrer, editor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
www.mfa-publications.org
9780878469055, $55.00, HC, 224pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Brilliance-Jewelry-Fashion-Emily-Stoehrer/dp/0878469052
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brilliance-emily-stoehrer/1147266519
MFA Publications
https://www.mfa.org/publication/brilliance-jewelry-art-and-fashion
Synopsis: From ancient Egyptian broad collars to contemporary studio pieces, jewelry has been used as a powerful communication tool across millennia and around the world.
The renowned jewelry collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston showcases global stories of human ingenuity through an incredible array of jewelry designs, materials and techniques. Each object boasts a unique history of its own; when considered side by side, however, they speak to one another, these cross-cultural and multigenerational conversations inviting the reader to consider new insights and fresh perspectives on the art form.
Compiled and edited by Emily Stoehrer, "Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion" is a magnificently illustrated and informative exploration of jewelry's role as a messenger, a decorative art, and an object of adornment over the course of four thousand years.
This beautifully published catalog features more than 100 works in the MFA's collection, exploring their makers, their uses and their meanings in three curatorial chapters complete with gorgeous reproductions of the works.
Object spotlights written by celebrated art historians and artists working in the field today accompany these essays by contributors Joyce J. Scott, Helen Drutt, Melanie Grant and many more.
In championing the breadth and depth of the MFA's collection, "Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion" includes both exquisitely humble and extraordinarily detailed objects that together illustrate the timeless human desires to self-fashion, collect and create.
Included in the pages of "Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion" are works by Alexander Calder, Art Smith, Elsa Peretti, Rene Boivin, Bulgari, Tiffany & Co. and many others. Whether in silver or gold, pearls or plastic, jewelry tells many multifaceted stories about its makers, wearers, collectors and, ultimately, human nature as a whole.
Critique: Original, epic, exceptional, this large format (9.37 x 1.02 x 10.94 inches, 2.95 pounds) hardcover coffee-table style edition of "Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion" is a simply fascinating, specialized history showcase the art and artistry of elegant jewelry from antiquity to the present day. Informative and fascinating, exceptional in organization and presentation, "Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion" is further enhanced for the reader's benefit with the inclusion of two pages of Notes, a ten page listing of the featured Illustrations, a one page Acknowledgment list, a one page listing of the Contributors and their credentials, and a six page Index. An impressive and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library Art History/Jewelry collections, "Brilliance: Jewelry Art and Fashion" would be especially appropriate as a Memorial Fund Acquisition.
Editorial Note #1: Emily Stoehrer (https://emilystoehrer.com) is the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Senior Curator of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a Visiting Lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art & Design. Her exhibition projects have included Radiance & Reverie: Jewels from the Collection of Neil Lane (Toledo Museum of Art, 2025), Beyond Brilliance: Jewelry Highlights from the Collection (MFA, 2024), Dress Up (MFA, 2024), and Past is Present: Revival Jewelry (MFA, 2015). She holds a PhD from Salve Regina University and an MA from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Julie Summers
Reviewer
Laurie Nguyen's Bookshelf
to make monsters out of girls
Amanda Lovelace
Andrews McMeel Publishing
https://publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com
9781449494261, $14.99 pbk / $7.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/make-monsters-out-girls/dp/1449494269
to make monsters out of girls by Amanda Lovelace is a collection of poetry expressing Lovelace's harrowing experience of codependency, violence, and ultimately, the monstrosity of a relationship that was never meant to be. The book is separated into three parts. monster-boy details the deceivingly peaceful qualities of one Prince Charming, while monster-girl describes the trap that Prince Charming's victim finds herself in, forsaking her identity to the point of turning herself into a grotesque puppet. In sun-heart, Lovelace finally forsakes the metaphorical self-mutilation she's placed herself under and begins the arduous task of healing.
The lyrics in this poetry collection are very blunt. Lovelace makes no attempts to hide her pain behind flowery language or dramatic tropes; she uses biting language to convey her pain, frustration, and masochistic tendencies. A particular poem I couldn't help but laugh at was i never did have an ear for music, in which the poet compares her lover's heartbeat to that of the soundtrack to her salvation, or how snide of an action loving her is, though thankfully for her ex, God has a penchant for forgiving sinners.
Lovelace has a rather sardonic tone throughout the collection. There are times she blames herself, while other times she blames her ex. Sometimes she recognizes the horrors she's gone through and forgives herself for them, while other times she retreats into herself, trying to salvage whatever emotions that tie her to her abuser. It's quite a poignant depiction of those who finally break free from unhealthy relationships. It's a complicated grieving process that continues to inflict damage, and though healing is possible, it takes time. And until then, Lovelace is making the best out of what she can. It's messy, and unfortunately, she has to delve through it to find her peace. Nonetheless, if Lovelace continues to pursue this duology, I'd say it's worth it.
There were some poems I felt would be more effective if separated rather than grouped together. Although I appreciate Lovelace's straightforward approach, poems such as red wolf and red wolf II blur the progression of her character and mental state. If these poems were spaced apart, the reader could more clearly follow the stages of disintegration and development in her journey. Additionally, the current organization of these poems suggests an ongoing struggle with co-dependency from which Lovelace is still trying to break free. A few poems also appear out of place in the context of the overall collection, which sometimes interrupts the narrative flow.
Lovelace clearly has a command of brevity and can make a startling impact on readers. However, the collection's organization makes it hard to follow the poet's journey. Moreover, there were certain poems that took me out of Lovelace's story completely. So for now, I would give this book a 3 out of 5 stars.
Laurie Nguyen, Reviewer
https://theugliestsinnersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Margaret Lane's Bookshelf
Now We Are Here
Gabrielle Oliveira
Stanford University Press
www.sup.org
9781503638297, $110.00, HC, 250pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Now-Are-Here-Migration-Childrens/dp/1503638294
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/now-we-are-here-gabrielle-oliveira/1147043838
Stanford University Press
https://www.sup.org/books/anthropology/now-we-are-here
Synopsis: Who gets to live a life with dignity?
Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and opportunity. For many migrant families, this search centers on access to strong, caring, and equitable educational systems that enable children to flourish.
With the publication of "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children's Education, and Dreams for a Better Life", Professor Gabrielle Oliveira follows the lives of 16 migrant families from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as they navigate the promises and challenges of the American education system.
Drawing on immersive ethnographic research in homes and schools from 2018 to 2021, Professor Oliveira offers an intimate portrait of these families' experiences. She weaves together stories of parental sacrifice, children's educational and migration journeys, and educators' responses to trauma -- all shaped by the additional disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Professor Oliveira also highlights the perseverance of families confronting the overlapping crises of border detention, family separation, and a public health emergency. These experiences forced them to reimagine education and what it means to build a future in the U.S.
By examining how migrant children engage in classrooms, how teachers understand their needs, and how hope evolves, "Now We Are Here" offers vital insights into the intersections of schooling and immigration. It calls for more responsive educational practices and policies that affirm the dignity and potential of all migrant children.
Critique: An original, meticulous, seminal and groundbreaking study, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children's Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" by Professor Gabrielle Oliveira will prove of immense interest to readers concerned with the issues of immigration, public education, discrimination and racism. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children's Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Contemporary Social Issues in Education collections and supplemental Emigration/Immigration curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, political activists, school board and governmental policy makers, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this hardcover edition of "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children's Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" from Stanford University Press is also readily available in paperback (9781503644540, $28.00) and in digital book format (Kindle, $28.00, B&N).
Editorial Note: Gabrielle Oliveira is Jorge Paulo Lemann Associate Professor of Education and Brazil Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Margaret Lane
Reviewer
Mari Carlson's Bookshelf
Crooked Little Pieces volume 5
Sophia Lambton
The Crepuscular Press
https://www.thecrepuscularpress.com
9781068362361, $14.99 pbk / $4.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Little-Pieces-5/dp/1739286367
Twins Anneliese and Isabel enter their forties at personal and career crossroads. After her daughter's death, Isabel gave herself to the girls at the school where she teaches. Now, it's being sold. Her rich fiance, Tally, might procure a replacement obsession. Anneliese has always given herself to her studies and work. Now, after her longtime client, Charles Anthony, betrays her, she finds a new research interest, and new love. Now, all is far from settled. The sisters are sure to question their paths and the reliability of the world around them: 1960s London.
Lambton excels at evoking a mood from the scene set. Attention to dress, food, and beloved places - homes and schools - sets an intimate atmosphere for delving into the heart of matters. Hymns and songs fill spaces with artistry and messages with which to grapple. Lows - Isabel's despair over the loss of her school and Anneliese's reaction to Charles Anthony's latest depraved act - are met with qualified hope. In her final speech to the school body, Isabel's declaration that, "there is almost no such thing as change that renders joy impossible" (402) is a challenge she's not sure she believes. In the book's allusions to myths and sagas, in addition to music, the sisters - and readers with them - imagine both a world locked in a deadly cycle of power and greed as well as friendship that makes going forward possible. The book is a companion for a journey. No pat answers, no fairy tales, little glamour, but a lot of shared earnestness.
Class Action
Gail Ward Olmsted
Black Rose Writing
https://www.blackrosewriting.com
9781685136840, $20.95 pbk
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Class-Action-What-Dont-Know/dp/1685136842
Lennon's plate is full: final semester of law school, two jobs, a fading long-distance relationship, a mom arrested - again, and, oh, she may have found her biological father. For as much as she could use the saved time and effort, she passes when a pushy classmate, Roger, offers her a copy of the final law exam. In addition to studying for it, she has to deal with his threats and overtures. Luckily, Lennon is a hero with wind beneath her wings - a new love interest and a mother figure who happens to be the best lawyer in town.
Lennon's busy-ness creates a frenzied and stressful atmosphere. Harried meals, quick showers, and half-dash outfits show a young woman in the throes, easy to rally around and sympathize with. Lennon is shown rising to challenges. Lennon's work on a class action suit at a law firm conveys her organizational capacities. Outings with her mother figure, Randi, carry the book's message, that good will win out in the end. The cheating scandal climax comes mid-book. Olmsted takes more time to decompress, with productive passages in which Lennon completes tasks, than to build up her final encounter with Roger. It comes as a shock and a blip. Flirtatious text messages, graduation celebrations, and "the father question" closure conclude the read in a warm tone. This is a feel-good, pro-active book, light on drama and heavy on forward momentum.
Mari Carlson
Reviewer
Michael Carson's Bookshelf
No Prisoners
Thomas Lynch
David R. Godine, Publisher
www.godine.com
9781567927054, $30.00, HC, 272pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/No-Prisoners-Novel-Thomas-Lynch/dp/156792705X
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no-prisoners-thomas-lynch/1146832214
Synopsis: If sex and the dead, as Yeats instructed, are topics worthy of a serious mind, then Doyle Shields has a very serious mind indeed. His professional work was preparing the dead for their funerals, while his passion was pleasing his beloved partners. First, there was monogamous joy with Sally and then, after years of bereavement, after giving up on love and its blessings, there was Johanna, whose lovemaking makes Doyle believe in a life of the spirit.
Still, life, as Doyle learned as a young combat Marine, takes no prisoners. It comes and goes and goes on with or without our participation or approval. And Doyle, approaching his end, is haunted by the wounds of the war fought in his youth.
Critique: With the publication of "No Prisoners", award-winning writer and poet Thomas Lynch has deftly crafted his debut novel with the overarching theme of the pursuit of meaning, purpose, redemption and forgiveness, as well as the search for beauty in an imperfect world. "No Prisoners" is emotionally engaging and raised by the author's impressive storytelling skills with an eloquence that raises his novel to an impressive level of literary excellence. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that this hardcover edition of "No Prisoners" from David R. Godine Publisher is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $27.99).
Editorial Note: The stories, poems, and essays by Thomas Lynch have appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, Harper's, the Times (of London, New York, Ireland, and Los Angeles), and elsewhere. "The Undertaking" was a finalist for the National Book Award; he is also the author of "Still Life in Milford," "Booking Passage," "Apparition & Late Fictions" and "Walking Papers." (https://www.thomaslynch.com)
Michael J. Carson
Reviewer
Robin Friedman's Bookshelf
Midnight on the Potomac
Scott Ellsworth, author
Dutton
c/o Penguin
https://wwww.penguin.com/dutton
9780593475614, $32.00 hc / $13.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Potomac-Lincoln-Assassination-Rebirth/dp/0593475615
The Civil War And The Rebirth Of America
Scott Ellsworth's eloquent, highly praised book Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America offers a broad history of the final year of the Civil War, from spring 1864 through the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865.
Ellsworth begins with a personal "Note from the Author" in which he writes: "This is a book about how we almost lost our country." With a flair for the dramatic, Ellsworth aptly observes that the Civil War was not only a contest between armies and generals but rather constituted "a fight for the very soul of the nation... fought by men and women, the famous and the infamous, the free and the unfree, on battlefields and in cities, in trenches and in hospitals, and in a redbrick theater located less than six blocks from the White House." The book is geared to our own tumultuous time. It tells a story of tragedy and near-disaster followed by hope. The Union was saved, and it moved ahead precariously with what Lincoln had earlier called in his Gettysburg Address "a new birth of freedom."
In its relatively brief scope, the book offers a sweeping military, social and political history. Famous figures such as Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee receive attention, as do many lesser-known people such as Lois Bryan Adams, a reporter from Detroit who covered the War in Washington, D.C. Ellsworth stresses throughout the crucial roles African Americans and women assumed in supporting and winning the war. While the book covers large-scale historical events, it also frequently finds room for the telling of small anecdotes. The largest single event addressed in the book is the assassination of President Lincoln, the character of John Wilkes Booth, and the Confederate terror war which proceeded the assassination.
History books are not often made by style, but Ellsworth's book is an exception. The writing is not only clear and accessible but often becomes lyrical. The book's organization parallels the structure of Our American Cousin, the play Lincoln was watching during his fateful evening at Ford's Theater. It includes three "Acts," each with several short chapters, separated by two bridging sections titled "Intermission." Each of the chapters begins with a little phrase or story to draw in the reader. The chapters, as well as the entire book read quickly. In an Afterword, Ellsworth reflects on his history and on its relevance for contemporary America. The book does not include a conventional bibliography. It concludes with a section titled "Notes" which includes extensive references and supplemental discussions for each chapter and makes pleasurable and informative reading in its own right.
The book, particularly in military history, makes no claim to be exhaustive. In "Act One," battles such as the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Monocacy, and Confederate General Jubal Early's raid on Washington, D.C. are discussed quickly, leaving much unsaid for those readers interested in specific battles. In Act Two, the focus turns to politics with a detailed portrayal of John Wilkes Booth and of the Confederate Secret Service and its terrorist apparatus. Ellsworth covers briefly but well the highly contentious presidential election of 1864. He also describes graphically the relatively little-known efforts of the Confederate Secret Service to burn New York City to the ground on November 25, 1864. "Act Two" concludes with General William T. Sherman's capture of Atlanta and on the role played by former slaves and contrabands during Sherman's subsequent March to the Sea.
"Act Three" of the book includes the story of Henry Highland Garnet, a minister who on February 12, 1865, became the first African American to give a speech in Congress and called "for a new kind of American nation, one in which the rights and privileges of democracy would be available to all." (184). Most of Act Three covers the Lincoln assassination and the activities of Booth and his co-conspirators. The history is recounted against the backdrop of the earlier activities of the Confederate Secret Service, including failed efforts on Lincoln's life. Ellsworth offers a more pervasively conspiratorial view of Lincoln's assassination than that offered in many prior accounts of this much-studied tragedy.
Ellsworth has aptly been described as a "historian with the soul of a poet." Midnight on the Potomac will inspire readers with widely different degrees of interest in Civil War history. The book encourages reflection on the Civil War and on the never-ending rebirth of America.
This review was published on the Emerging Civil War blog on September 30, 2025, and is used with permission.
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Carl Sagan, author
Ann Druyan, editor
Penguin Books
https://www.penguin.com
9780143112624, $25.00 pbk / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Scientific-Experience-Personal-Search/dp/0143112627
Carl Sagan's Search For God
I was moved to read Carl Sagan's "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God" (2006) after reading the classic study for which it is named: "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902) by the American philosopher and psychologist, William James. As was James's book, Sagan's book consists of the text of Gifford lectures, Sagan lectured in 1985, James in 1901-1902. The Gifford lectures were established in Scotland in 1888 to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term -- in other words, the knowledge of God." Many distinguished thinkers have delivered the Gifford lectures over the years.
Carl Sagan (1934 -- 1996) was an American astronomer who became famous for his efforts in presenting science to a wide lay audience. In spite of the title of his book, which was given not by Sagan but by his editor, Ann Druyan, Sagan's lectures include no mention of James and little consideration of James's approach to religion in the "Varieties". Sagan's book is fascinating nonetheless. But I find it tempting to think of ways in which his approach might be complemented by that of James.
Sagan approaches religion from his background as a scientist. He takes complex scientific ideas and explains them learnedly and eloquently. He covers matters such as the origin of the universe and of the planets, the age of the universe, geological time, the origin of life, the likelihood of finding life on other planets in other galaxies, UFO's, and much else. The book is punchy and provocative without becoming overbearing.
Sagan argues that mankind's source of knowledge of the world comes through science. He argues that the view of the world presented in the Bible, with its creator God active in human affairs, cannot stand the light of scientific scrutiny. He is a skeptic in matters of religion and revelation and he argues that the better course for people is to withhold judgment on matters that they do not know or understand until sufficient reliable evidence is available on which to draw a conclusion. He describes, broadly, in his book how modern science gradually has destroyed the sense of a teleological (purpose-driven) human-centered universe, created and directed by a God with a divine plan, and replaced it instead with universal scientific laws of physics and chemistry. As have many thinkers before him, Sagan examines many of the traditional proofs for the existence of God and finds them wanting. He gives particular emphasis in this book to the argument from design and to the cosmological argument. In his concluding chapter, Sagan comes close to equating the religious search -- in the subtitle of the book -- with the search for scientific knowledge. He concludes (p.221) "I think this search does not lead to a complacent satisfaction that we know the answer, not an arrogant sense that the answer is before us and we need do only on more experiment to find it out. It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us." From this book, Sagan's philosophical heroes, whom he mentions many times, appear to be Spinoza and Albert Einstein, excellent company indeed.
I want to make a brief comparison of Sagan's approach with that of William James and to suggest that the two approaches largely bypass each other because they are directed to different questions. Sagan considers religion from the standpoint of scientific knowledge. James, in contrast, took as the theme of his "Varieties" the "exploration of religious themes and religious impulses." James defines the scope of his study as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude so far as they apprehend themselves to relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Thus, James explored the phenomena and the experiences of religious life without making any commitment to the cause of or the "objectivity" of these experiences, without commitment to revelation or particular religious dogma, and without challenging the teachings of science. James tried to consider what it was of value that people found in the religious quest and in religious experience. He tried to do so, for the most part, by leaving science free to explore and expand our understanding of the world and of physical law -- as this was understood in James's day and as it has expanded dramatically in our own.
Sagan's account is stimulating, and it reminded me of how much science has indeed changed our outlook on life -- including our religious outlook. I found it liberating. But I found it offered only a partial understanding of the religious search, it purports to describe in the subtitle, and of the religious life. I think religion needs to be approached by, in the words of many religious teachers, "looking within". Such a search need not require the contravention of the teachings of science, the postulating of revelation or of divine entities, or the deprecating of the value of the scientific endeavor. It is a search for meaning and self-understanding. I think this approach goes further even than the approach James took in his "Varieties", but his text suggests it to me. In this sense, I think that Sagan has only studied part of his broad issue. There is room both for his scientific approach and for the complementary approach of William James, who in his Gifford Lectures delivered the still-landmark study of the Varieties of Religious Experience.
Horse in the Dark: Poems
Vievee Francis
Northwestern University Press
https://www.nupress.northwestern.edu
9780810128408, $16.95, pbk
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Horse-Dark-Poems-Vievee-Francis/dp/0810128403
Poems of Rural Texas
My local library carries recent African American literature that otherwise would be difficult to find including this book of poetry by Vievee Francis, "Horse in the Dark", which received the 2010 Cave Camen Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize. This prize, offered every other year, is awarded to second books by African American poets. Francis currently lives in the Detroit area but grew up in rural Texas. Francis published an earlier book of poetry, "Blue Tail Fly" in 2006. She is coming to the publication of books of poetry in middle age.
"Horse in the Dark" is largely autobiographical and recounts Francis' childhood years in Texas. The family moved a great deal, from west to east Texas, but always in isolated rural areas. Her book has the feel of dirt, grit, animals, heat, and toughness. Some of the poems are written in traditional styles, others are brief prose poems while others are modernist. Francis makes frequent reference to classical mythology, especially to Ovid and myths involving human-animal transformation.
Francis writes about west Texas with its lack of trees and oppressive sun. Woods and loblolly pine predominate in the poems about east Texas. Francis describes her family, including father, mother, and grandmother. A poem titled "Still Life with another Grandfather, Masons, and a Pie Tin under the Bed" is one of several that describes the poet's aging grandmother. In this poem, Francis describes her second marriage, to a man ten years her senior. When he died, "He left everything to his children. He left her nothing but alone."
Francis describes rural schools in which she frequently was the only African American child. The poems also describe the strong undercurrent of race prejudice she felt in the early 1970's,
Most of the poems involve Francis' reflections on places, land and especially animals. The picture of the land is barren and unsentimental, as an aptly titled poem, "Anti-Pastoral" where she writes: "I hate this measure/ of memory, the constant return to the creek, the field,/the sundering South. I want release from the pasture/ of my youth, from its cows and cobs in the mouth."
The animal poems feature creatures such as the "Bull Snake", hogs and pigs, anteaters, and sea horses, but the most common figure is of a horse. The author reflects on her own human nature and on how it emerged from animality. Horse and human are frequently melded together in the poems, as in the title poem, "Horse in the Dark" and it is sometimes difficult to tell the species apart. The final visionary poem in the collection "Pegasus" is about the mythical creature: "the horse is the rider" who "runs toward who knows where,/forgets itself,/flies on its legs."
In a sonnet titled "On the Way to Round Rock -- 2003" Francis aptly describes in a way that brought back memories the environs of a Texas city that I have visited several times and come to know. It is the poem in the collection to which I could best respond from my own experience. The poem begins:
"An ice machine rusts in the middle of a field.
A bull skull. A dog too old, too weary to run.
The boy on the tractor watches butterflies float
toward the half-dead trees along CR 122."
"Horse in the Dark" is a small, off-the beaten path rough collection that I was fortunate to find and read. The theme is unusual and many of the poems succeed. The book will interest adventurous readers of modern American poetry.
The Shared World: Poems
Vievee Francis
TriQuarterly
https://www.triquarterly.org
9780810145191, $28.00 hc / $27.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Shared-World-Poems-Vievee-Francis/dp/0810145197
The Shared World of Vievee Francis
The poet Vievee Francis was born to poverty in rural Texas. After many moves and life-experiences she earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Michigan and has published four volumes of poetry which have received awards and praise. Francis is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. I read and reviewed Francis's second book, "Horse in the Dark" over ten years ago and was glad to read more of her work in her most recent collection "The Shared World" (2023).
Vievee Francis has a distinctive poetical voice, highly emotive and personal. Her writing often is raw, blunt and angry, frequently on overdrive. She tends to write lengthy sentences filed with adjectives and descriptions and sometimes uses the form of the prose poem. Her work has a visceral character which benefits from reading aloud. (It was valuable to hear Francis reading on media from "The Shared World".)
Francis also draws heavily on the work and experiences of others. Her poems are replete with allusions to people including Emmett Till, Rosa Parks, Marvin Gaye, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as well as European writers including Pablo Neruda and Czeslaw Milosz. Several poems also feature ordinary individuals as characters, strangers to the poet.
The poems are rough-edged with Francs reflecting on the struggles of her life, beginning with poverty and her family. She discusses race, Jim Crow, and gender. The poems display a toughness sometimes coming close to bitterness as Francis strives for a sense of resilience in herself.
The collection works beyond the sense of grievance and anger found in many of the individual poems to strive for what the title and the title poem term "The Shared World". The book's cover shows a photograph of a young Galway Kinnell (later a Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry) being comforted by Harriet Richardson after Kinnell had been hit in the head with a billy club in 1965 in Selma, Alabama. In the poem, "The Shared World" Richardson speaks to Kinnell of dreams for a future of human unity: "We are eager to get on with it./ To take in or do whatever forwards the living, this tripwire keeping us tied/kite to string, present to past, arrow/ to quiver." And so in an introductory poem to the collection, "Break Me and I'll Sing" the poet declaims "My voice like marrow, a blood yolk/spilled upon the counter. You can't stop this song. More hands than yours have closed around my throat."
The poems I liked include "I've Been Thinking about Love Again", the poems about Marvin Gaye, and "The Marsh King". The poems set in rural Texas brought back memories of Francis's earlier book, as did the many poems involving animals. The book is full of animals and their relationship to humans, including crows, goats, rats and rodents, cats, rabbits, and, especially, horses. Horses and humans frequently are melded together as in the title poem "Horse in the Dark" of the earlier collection and in the poem, "Dark Horse" with which "The Shared World" concludes.
"This is not the first time I've spoken of her.
Just a mare. Brown as any mare. My memory
has been tainted by my on age, so I remember
her as an older horse. Given to me because
her time as a hauler was done and her temperament
was gentle, or she had been broken. I don't know which,
maybe both. I loved her as much as a child could. Now,
I love her as much as a woman can, which means
we are indivisible. There is only one picture I have or her
and it is not on paper but in the mind: I am upon her
with my thin arms around her neck. No saddle, so
I could feel her as part of myself through the blanket.
It is easy to see she would move slowly as I do now.
I can feel the throb of her blood moving through
our dark body. And I know it for love. Not the only love
I would have. But the truest. What did the mare feel
of me? I would say, everything."
It was good to read Vievee Francis again and to share something of a troubled yet hopeful vision for a shared, connected world.
The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam
Francis Edward Peters
Princeton University Press
https://www.press.princeton.edu
9780691181035, $19.95 pbk / $9.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Children-Abraham-Christianity-Princeton-Classics/dp/0691181039
Monotheism And The Plurality Of The Abrahamic Traditions
F.E. Peters, Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern Studies, History, and Religion at New York University has written extensively on the comparative studies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the early 1980s, he published a short book suitable for lay audiences titled "The Children of Abraham." Then, in 2006, Peters edited "The Children of Abraham" published it in this new edition together with a short introduction by John Esposito, University Professor of Religion and International Affairs and Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Services, Georgetown University.
The book offers a short yet erudite and thoughtful overview of the history and interrelationships of the three Abrahamic religions. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Peters writes, were "born of an event that each remembers as a moment in history, when the One True God appeared to an Iron Age sheikh named Abram and bound him in a covenant forever." These three religions "grew to adulthood in the rich spiritual climate of the Middle East, and though they have lived together all their lives, now in their maturity they stand apart and regard their family resemblances and conditioned differences with astonishment, disbelief, or disdain." The religions share in common their Abrahamic origins. Equally important, they share the belief in monotheism and worship the one and the same God. "Whether called Yahweh or Elohim, God the Father or Allah, it is the selfsame deity who created the world out of nothing, who fashioned humankind in his own image, who made the covenant with Abraham and his progeny, and who subsequently intervened in human history to punish his enemies and chastise his friends, and to send instructions, warnings, and encouragement to those who would listen."
The three Abrahamic religions have had an intertwined history and have sometimes been friends but too often enemies. Peters' book is a historical study of the similarities and differences among the three faiths. It has the more ambitious goal of provoking thought on how the plurality of warring religious traditions can be reconciled with the philosophical belief in one God.
The book covers the beginnings of each religion starting from the sixth century B.C. when the Jews returned to Palestine from the Babylonian Exile. It continues through the Middle Ages and concludes at roughly 1500 A.D. Peters explains: "[a]ll the issues of reform and all the wellsprings and mechanisms of revival are present in the place and period under consideration. Faith and reason, Scripture and tradition, understanding and enlightenment are all very old adversaries."
The scope of the book moves in a rough direction from history to philosophy. It begins with a discussion of post-exilic Judaism, the Second Temple, and the development of sects and Rabinnic Judaism. It develops the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity against this background. Then Peters shows the development of Islam by Mohammad, with the influences of the two earlier religions, in the highly different culture of sixth and seventh century A.D. western Arabia.
Peters continues with descriptions of the communal structure of the three religions, their understandings of Scripture, Tradition, and religious Law, and their ways of worshipping God. The final chapters of the book become philosophical as Peters discusses asceticism and mysticism in the three faiths and their philosophical development in the Middle Ages. The philosophical development begins with the classical Greeks and proceeds initially through a great series of Islamic philosophers. Jewish and Christian thinkers learned from and elaborated the teachings of the Greek and Islamic thinkers in the context of their own faiths. Peters throughout gives substantial attention to Philo Judaeus, an early Jewish thinker who lived at about the time of Jesus. Philo was among the first in the Abrahamic tradition to attempt to combine Greek philosophy with religious teaching and to propound an allegorical, philosophical reading of Scripture.
In the final chapter of his book, Peters moves from the secular history, which he develops in his book, to "sacred history" which is how each of the three religions sees itself. Peters writes: "[f]or Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike the history of revelation and the history of the community of believers are the twin foundations of sacred history, but it is the concurrence of the matter of that history that binds them forever together." Peters offers an insightful, suggestive discussion of how each of the three faiths understand themselves, their relationship to the Abrahamic covenant, and each other. His discussion is informed, fair, and non-polemical and does not privilege one form of understanding over others. The book will allow the reader to think more clearly about how, if at all, the belief in one true God can be reconciled with the diversity of ways of knowing and worshipping that God.
The text is succinct and as clear as a scholarly exposition will allow in a short space. The book includes extensive footnotes and references which will allow the reader to pursue the inquiry in more detail. The book includes a useful glossary of technical terms from the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Peters' book will appeal to readers with a serious interest in the comparative study of the Abrahamic religions and in the relationship between monotheism and religious diversity.
Robin Friedman
Reviewer
S.K. Bane's Bookshelf
All About Sergio Leone
Oreste De Fornari
Gremese International
9788873017844, $35.00 pbk
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/All-about-Sergio-Leone-curiosities/dp/8873017843
One of the great filmmakers in movie history, Italian-born Sergio Leone (1929-1989), celebrated for his legendary Spaghetti Westerns, directed eight motion pictures. He is best known, of course, for two cinema trilogies: "The Dollars Trilogy" (A Fistful of Dollars, 1964; For a Few Dollars More, 1965; and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966) and "The Time Trilogy"(Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968; Once Upon a Time... the Revolution/ aka Duck, You Sucker!/aka A Fistful of Dynamite,1971; and Once Upon a Time in America, 1984). Leone's first two films included The Last Days of Pompeii, 1959 and The Colossus of Rhodes, 1961. Over the course of his career, Leone directed such iconic actors as Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Klaus Kinski, Rod Steiger, James Coburn, and Robert De Niro. Leone also worked with renowned composer Ennio Morricone, whose music adorned six of the filmmaker's pictures.
Cinephiles in general, and Leone buffs in particular, will relish this impressively researched, beautifully illustrated compendium. The author divides his book into four major segments: Introductions (which includes three brief essays, "When the Audience Applauded," "Who Betrayed Italian Cinema?," and "The Man Who Corrupted the Western"); Life and Films (comprised of a short biography of Leone and an incisive examination of his motion pictures); Words (including interviews and quotes); and Materials (consisting of documents, filmographies, reviews, and a bibliography.)
Readers will be enlightened and entertained by this superb volume. For instance, did you know that Eastwood and the director parted ways when the actor refused to appear in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West? Clint declined the role of Harmonica, which eventually went to Charles Bronson. He also turned down "a cameo appearance as one of the three men who wait for Harmonica at the station (the other two were supposed to be Van Cleef and Wallach). In turn, Leone refused to direct Eastwood in Hang 'Em High and Two Mules for Sister Sara. The two were in competition, each one claiming merit for the successes of the other. They never worked together again."
Cinema enthusiasts will also enjoy the memorable quotes and film dialogue contained in this book. Consider five examples:
"We are all a little good, a little bad, and a little ugly." (Sergio Leone)
"I don't want to be a hero! All I want is the money! The money!" (Rod Steiger in Once Upon a Time... the Revolution)
"When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk." (Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)
"Go away, I don't want you to see me die." (Jason Robards in Once Upon a Time in the West)
"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig." (Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)
Finally, readers may be intrigued by the movies Leone hoped to make but never did. These include Leningrad (with Robert De Niro), One Hundred Years of Solitude (based on the Marquez novel), Gone with the Wind ("It's not a remake of the original. I saw that again recently and I didn't like it... any more than I did the first time I saw it. I want to write my own screenplay from Mitchell's novel and film everything exactly where the action took place"), and A Secret Only Mary Knows (a film set during the Civil War starring Richard Gere and Mickey Rourke). The lost possibilities!
S.K. Bane
Reviewer
Suanne Schafer's Bookshelf
An Aegean Odyssey: A Memoir
Kathryn Gauci
https://www.kathryngauci.com
Ebony Publishing
9780648714491, $24.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Aegean-Odyssey-Memoir-Kathryn-Gauci/dp/B0FQCTJ91N
Kathryn Gauci, who lived in Greece during the 1970s, working as a carpet designer, decides to revisit Greece, both to relive the "good old days" and to explore the islands she never got around to visiting when she lived in Athens. She leaves Australia alone, leaving behind a beloved husband (though he joins her later in her trip), feeling she needs to work on her inner self without the constraints of a spouse tagging along. As she meanders through the islands, she considers a choice that lies before her: continue in her current life or make a change and become a writer.
Her love for Greece - its people, its long, fascinating history, and its food and drink - runs through this work, a vibrant combination of memoir, history book, cookbook, and travelogue as well as an exploration of personal identity and the blooming of a new career.
Firekeeper's Daughter series (Firekeeper's Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed)
Angeline Boulley
Henry Holt and Co.
https://us.macmillan.com/henryholt
9781250766571, $9.99 (Firekeeper's Daughter)
9781250766595, $9.99 (Warrior Girl Unearthed)
Amazon (Firekeeper's Daughter)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085MW27CD
Amazon (Warrior Girl Unearthed)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B7G2DLVJ
This is a review of both books in the Firekeeper's Daughter series. In the first novel in the series, The Firekeeper's Daughter, Daunis Fontaine is a biracial high school senior who's never fit in with either her white family or her father's Sugar Land Ojibwe tribe. She's looking forward to new start at a college away from home. Her plans change when her uncle's death devastates her family and when she witnesses the murder of her best friend. When Daunis witnesses a murder, she is recruited as an FBI informant. Deaths and subterfuges pile up making Daunis doubt all she knows about herself and her family. Several overlapping plot lines add intrigue to the story and keep the pacing hot.
The second novel, Warrior Girl Unearthed, occurs five years later. Daunis has a child, and her twin nieces are sixteen. Pauline Firekeeper-Birch is an anxiety-ridden "good girl" while Perry, nicknamed "Pulls No Punches," is the hot-headed protagonist. When she crashes her jeep, her aunt Daunis covers the repairs, but Perry has to pay her back from funds earned during a ten-week summer program sponsored by the tribe. Initially working at a tribal museum, her impetuosity leads to her being shifted from there to other assignments. At a local university, Perry learns about an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in museum archives. This experience sets off her desire to return the "Warrior Girl" to her tribe. As with The Firekeeper's Daughter, there are multiple plot lines, including one about MMIW (missing and murdered indigenous woman). Perry must learn to think before acting and realize that sometimes following the rules is the best way to move forward.
The Firekeeper's Daughter series is a great series for readers that love being immersed in new worlds. The author, Angeline Boulley, is an enrolled member of the Sault Saint Marie Ojibwe tribe, and her knowledge of that milieu features prominently in her novels. Her careful attention to cultural details add a verisimilitude that can't be fully captured by writers less versed in tribal ways, including the effects of drugs and alcohol, reservation casinos, the claiming of tribal lands by the American government, and how jurisdiction over crimes is split between Native police and US agencies like the FBI, lead to an inability to get justice especially with MMIW victims. As the novels deal with adult-type issues (racial prejudice, rape, kidnapping, drugs, and alcohol), I'd recommend it for upper grade young adult readers.
The Women Who Stand Between
Jeannee Sacken
Ten16 Press
https://www.ten16press.com
9781645386223, $18.99 pbk / $9.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Stand-Between-ebook/dp/B0F2GRK5WF
I adored Sacken's Annie Hawkins Green novels set in Afghanistan, and she hits a fourth home run with The Women Who Stand Between set in Zimbabwe.
When nature cinematographer Julia Wilde's current film ends in a disastrous plane wreck for which she is unjustly blamed, her career nosedives, and to survive, she accepts a university teaching job in the wilds of Wisconsin. Several years later, she learns that to get tenure she must make a film. With hastily organized finances, much of which comes from her own retirement fund, Julia returns to Zimbabwe to film a documentary on the Mambas, an all-female anti-poaching group. Stakes rise as she and her group are drawn into the line of fire of Gus Sinclair, a big-game hunter turned poacher as well as the corrupt government officials who tolerate his activities in exchange for kickbacks.
Having spent time in Africa, Sacken's descriptions of the landscape, people, and multiple animal species is accurate. Best of all, her protagonist blows to bits the "great white hunter" mystique personified by Ernest Hemingway. It's a lovely tribute to the nature and the conservation efforts of groups like the Mambas.
The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335-1410
Iris Origo
NYRB Books
https://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics
9781681374215, $22.95 pbk / $11.99 Kindle
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Prato-Daily-Italian-Medieval-ebook/dp/B07ZC6MB8M
This is my second reading of The Merchant of Prato, a book I first read shortly after returning to the US after living for years in Italy and suffering from nostalgia for Tuscany. The small town of Prato is only fifteen miles from Florence and has close ties with the larger city. Francesco di Marco Datini is a Prato merchant who moves to France then back to Prato and maintains offices there and in Florence, Valencia, Barcelona, Pisa, Majorca, and Genoa.
An enormous archive of Datini's documents were found walled off in a secret room in 1870. Origo draws on these documents and copious other research to draw a picture of this merchant. He remained a relatively small-time merchant, but the breadth of his investments is staggering, ranging from cloth (for which Prato is famous) to spices and even slaves. Letters between him and his friends and his various offices show him to be both avaricious and conflicted about his relationship with God; his clothing sumptuous, but the furnishings of his dwellings spartan.
I wish I had reread earlier this year in conjunction with Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer which focuses on Florence with detours into England, Switzerland, France, Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. While The Merchant of Prato deals with a single man, Palmer looks at the lives of fifteen different Renaissance women and men and their roles in the making of the era. Between the two books, the reader can get a good idea of what Tuscany was like just before and during the Renaissance.
Bad Country
C.B. McKenzie
Minotaur Books
c/o Macmillan
https://us.macmillan.com/minotaurbooks
9781466856004, $23.00 pbk / $11.81 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Country-C-B-McKenzie-ebook/dp/B00IQNYUUE
Bad Country is C.B. McKenzie's debut novel, a Western noir set in Arizona's Indian country and the seedy sections of Tucson. The protagonist, Rodeo Grace Garnet, is a former rodeo star who turned private investigator after he broke his back rodeoing. He is disparagingly called a "cowboy Indian" by some. He has more problems than money and lives a bleak existence in the headquarters of a now-deserted, rundown trailer park. When he returns from vacation, he finds the dead body of an Indian in front of his home. This incident starts a remarkable plot.
The novel is populated by difficult, if not bizarre, characters. It's well-written with wonderful lines like: "Plastic shopping bags flagged creosote bushes like the Res equivalent of prayer flags." You can feel the Arizona heat sizzling the seats of Rodeo's ancient pickup, and the landscape itself becomes a character. The plot is ambitious with multiple deaths and even more suspects and a surprising finale. It won the Tony Hillerman Prize, and that honor is well-deserved. I hope this becomes a series as is listed as I am looking forward to reading more from McKenzie.
A Fine Layer of Dust
Barbara Conrey
https://www.barbaraconreyauthor.com
Red Adept Publishing
https://redadeptpublishing.com
9781958231852, $17.99 pbk / $7.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Layer-Dust-Barbara-Conrey/dp/195823186X
A Fine Layer of Dust deals with the stressors that rip a seemingly perfect family apart. Sophia has a great career at a museum while Jake is a lawyer chasing an elusive promotion to senior partner. To achieve that, he's spending long days away from his wife and teenage daughter. When his wife decides to become a surrogate mother and carry a pregnancy for a couple unable to have children, he's not sure how that will affect their lives but gives his reluctant consent. Emily, their daughter, immediately becomes excited and begins a photographic documentation of the pregnancy. Things take a nosedive when they learn that the baby is due in mid June. June has always been a month in which nothing good has happened in Jake's life, and the date alone sends him into an emotional tailspin due to a family secret he's been forced to keep since childhood. Add to that bad decisions he makes along the way, and he soon finds himself telling more and more lies.
Told from the perspective of a flawed male, A Fine Layer of Dust is full of gut-wrenching emotions and is beautifully written. That said, it seemed that the plot relies a bit heavily on coincidence and eavesdropping to achieve its goals.
The Blue Between Sky and Water
Susan Abulhawa
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us
9780578295183, $17.99 pbk / $9.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Between-Sky-Water/dp/1408865122
The Blue Between Sky and Water is a lovely book by Susan Abulhawa, the most widely read Palestinian author in history. Like Mornings in Jenin, The Blue Between Sky and Water is very pro-Palestine, understandably since Abulhawa's father was a Palestinian freedom fighter, forced to immigrate to the U.S. when Israel took over the few remaining areas of a free Palestine in 1967.
The Blue Between Sky and Water shows a side of the Israeli-Palestinian war that Americans rarely see on the evening news because the U.S. and Israel are such close allies. Along with the violence and aggression directed toward the Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, the book also shows the strength and integrity of the Palestinian people. Despite seemingly insurmountable devastation of their homeland, they persevere.
When a family is brutally forced from the village of Beit Daras, they struggle for survival in a Gaza refugee camp surviving rape and other forms of violence. In this particular family, the matriarch, Nazmiyeh, binds together a household of women and children whose lives are constantly barraged by military attacks (sniper shootings and bombings) and moments of personal crisis (a cancer diagnosis with no available treatment, Kaled (a son with locked-in syndrome in which he is mentally aware, but unable to move, speak, or interact except by blinking his eyes after being traumatized in an Israeli assault), and constant struggles for basic necessities like food and water.
I am generally not a fan of magical realism, but Albuhawa uses it here to great advantage. One woman can call forth a jinn for protection, and the locked-in Kaled lives in "the quiet blue, that place without time, where I could soak up all the juices of life and let them run through me like a river." The novel moves through time and often has a stream-of-consciousness narrative. Abuhawa has a unique way of expressing herself that has an almost synesthesetic quality and that is gorgeous to read: "Mother and son held each other in the tight grip of sight"; "they consumed one another than night and cared with their mouths, teeth, and nails places of refuge in the other, where they left pieces o their heart in each other's body"; and "time thinned out to a liquid that rushed over Gaza like a stream over rocks, smoothing the jagged corners and coating them with a new moss of life."
The Color of Water
James McBride
Riverhead Books
c/o Penguin
https://www.penguin.com/riverhead-overview
9781440636103, $17.00 pbk / $8.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Water-James-McBride-ebook/dp/B001EGQNCI
As the white mother of an adopted black son, The Color of Water really resonated with me. McBride is a Black novelist, journalist, and musician who has written a unique memoir, told in two points of view, his own and that of his mother, and chronicles their respective journeys to find themselves.
Ruth, his mother, was raised in an orthodox Jewish household with an itinerant rabbi father who immigrated from Poland and married her mother, a woman left crippled by polio, simply to achieve citizenship. He was a ne'er-do-well, bouncing from one synagogue to the next until he opened a grocery store in Virginia that catered to blacks. Ruth becomes pregnant by a local Black man and is shipped north to family before her pregnancy became obvious. After an abortion, she returns home but eventually runs away, living in the North on the Black side of town. Her family pronounces her dead and has nothing to do with her from then on. Ruth narrowly avoids a life of prostitution before marrying McBride, her first husband. He dies early, leaving her with seven children and another on the way. She finds a second good Black man who takes on her and her kids. She becomes a Christian and helps establish a church. She raises her family with an emphasis on religion and education. All of her children earned advanced degrees.
McBride, who finds racism an inalienable part of American life, says "I felt frustrated to live in a world that considers the color of your face an immediate political statement." As a child, when he wonders why his mother isn't Black and is somewhat embarrassed by her riding her bike through the neighborhood as if she is no different than anyone else. When he asks her if God is Black or White, she replies that God is no color, he is the color of water. McBride goes through several years of delinquency before returning to the straight and narrow, working as a journalist and musician. Eventually, though his mother has always deferred answering his questions about her past and her family, she finally consents to being interviewed by him. As he studies her life, he says, "I felt like a Tinkertoy kid building my own self out of one of those toy building sets; for as she laid her life before me, I reassembled the tableau of her words like a picture puzzle, and as I did so, my own life was rebuilt."
This is a wonderful documentation of American family life and shows the tremendous growth mother and son underwent and their emotional healing.
Murder in the Garden of Enchantment
Kathryn Gauci
https://www.kathryngauci.com
Ebony Publishing
9780648714484, $15.00 pbk / $4.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Garden-Enchantment-Constantinople-Theodosia/dp/0648714489
Murder in the Garden of Enchantment is an Agatha Christie-style novel set in high-society Istanbul in 1900. The Paris Exposition with its electric lights and moving sidewalks was bringing new ideas to Turkey. A prodigal son is called home to Istanbul to marry. When a murder occurs at the wedding, a widow, Theodosia, her servant, Abdul, and a police detective, Chief Inspector Ibrahim Bey join forces to solve the mystery. In the finale, the detective questions the classic roomful of suspects, hoping the murderer will confess. An interesting look at the upper echelons of Turkish society. And the descriptions of food and fashion are priceless!
Suanne Schafer, Reviewer
www.SuanneSchaferAuthor.com
Susan Bethany's Bookshelf
Don't Call Me Widow
Samina Bari
Black River Publishing
9798991904049, $14.95, PB, 128pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Call-Me-Widow-First-hand/dp/B0FW4X3L4D
Synopsis: The death of a spouse is arguably one of the most devastating occurrence in a person's life -- perhaps second only to the death of a child.
When Samina Bari's husband died suddenly, her world shattered. While much of the support she and her children received was thoughtful, some of what was said or done (despite the best of intentions) unintentionally stung.
With the publication of "Don't Call Me Widow: A First-hand Guide to Help Support Someone Who's Lost Their Spouse", now more than two years after his death, Samina confronts a harsh fact: society is uncomfortable with death and grief.
The result of her personal experiences and insights "Don't Call Me Widow" is not just another theoretical book about dealing with grief, but a 'real world relevant' guide written by someone who has actually experienced the life-altering loss of a beloved spouse. In its pages, Samina candidly shares the truths about this complicated reality from an insiders perspective, and offers much-needed clarity on what to say or do and what not to say or do.
Through real stories and honest advice, she explains how to break through your own personal discomfort to offer meaningful comfort when it's needed most.
If you are ready to learn how to truly support someone (or yourself) in the face of this profound loss, this easy-to-use reference is for you. You will learn how to manifest empathy and grace, one story, one conversation, one step at a time. Because one day, you (as we all) will need this kind of support, too.
Critique: Original, compassionate, sensitive, practical, effective, and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, this paperback edition of Samina Bari's "Don't Call Me Widow: A First-hand Guide to Help Support Someone Who's Lost Their Spouse" from Black River Publishing is an extraordinary, singular, and unreservedly recommended addition to personal reading lists, as well as professional, community, Senior Citizen Center, and community/public library Death & Dying, Grief & Loss, Counseling & Caregiving collections.
Editorial Note: Samina Bari is a fierce champion for women supporting women, actively mentoring and sponsoring women to help them rise in their careers and gain more board seats, and ensuring their success through investments in women-founded and owned companies. Through her writing, she has shared her journey of overcoming adversity and finding strength in the face of unimaginable challenges, a message that resonates with anyone striving to make their mark against the odds.
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Willis Buhle's Bookshelf
Only Way Out
Tod Goldberg
https://todgoldberg.com
Thomas & Mercer
c/o Amazon Publishing
9781662534089, $28.99, HC, 367pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Only-Way-Out-Tod-Goldberg/dp/1662534086
Synopsis: Failed lawyer Robert Green has such a good plan: Crack three hundred safe-deposit boxes and sail off to South America with his brilliant, morally flexible sister, Penny. If it only weren't for a damned freezing rain.
In the dying resort town of Granite Shores, cop Jack Biddle is self-appointed king -- mostly of bad decisions. Between his family's crumbling legacy, a wife who just joined the city council, and life-threatening gambling debts, Jack's looking for a way out. Then he spots a van spinning off a mountain road into the valley below. In the wreckage, Jack finds a very dead Robert, millions in heisted loot... and opportunity.
All Jack has to do is clean up the mess, disappear Robert's body, make off with the fortune, and not get caught. One hitch is Penny. Another is Mitch Diamond, a wild card ex-con who knows more about the missing fortune than he lets on. Jack, Penny, and Mitch each have an endgame. But there's only one way out, and they're crashing headlong toward it.
Critique: A clear and gifted master of the Suspense/Thriller genre, Tod Goldberg has created a simply riveting read for his legions of fans with "Only Way Out", a deftly crafted, original, and engaging crime novel replete with memorable characters, surprising plot twists, and a fascinating finale. While especially and unreservedly recommended as an enduringly popular pick for public library Contemporary Mystery/Suspense collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that this hardcover edition of "Only Way Out" from Thomas & Mercer is also available in paperback (9781662525629, $16.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $4.99).
Editorial Note: Tod Goldberg (www.todgoldberg.com) is the author of sixteen novels, including the Gangsterland quartet: Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize; Gangster Nation; The Low Desert, a Southwest Book of the Year; and Gangsters Don't Die, an Amazon Best Book of 2023 and a Southwest Book of the Year. Other works include The House of Secrets, coauthored with Brad Meltzer; Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and the Burn Notice series. His short fiction and essays have been anthologized in Best American Mystery and Suspense and Best American Essays and appear regularly in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Alta. Tod is also a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, where he founded and directs the low-residency MFA program in creative writing and writing for the performing arts.
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
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