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Reviewer's Bookwatch

Volume 25, Number 1 January 2025 Home | RBW Index

Table of Contents

Andrea Kay's Bookshelf Ann Skea's Bookshelf Arthur Turfa's Bookshelf
Carl Logan's Bookshelf Cindy Trost's Bookshelf Clint Travis' Bookshelf
Debra Gaynor's Bookshelf Israel Drazin's Bookshelf Jack Mason's Bookshelf
John Burroughs' Bookshelf Julie Summers' Bookshelf Margaret Lane's Bookshelf
Mark Walker's Bookshelf Matthew McCarty's Bookshelf Michael Carson's Bookshelf
Robin Friedman's Bookshelf Steven Kirk Bane's Bookshelf Susan Bethany's Bookshelf
Tristen Kozinski's Bookshelf Willis Buhle's Bookshelf  


Andrea Kay's Bookshelf

Nita's Food Signs
Kathy MacMillan, author
Ekaterina Ladatko, illustrator
Familius
www.familius.com
9781641709514, $14.99, Board Book, 12pp

https://www.amazon.com/Nitas-Food-Signs-Interactive-Signing/dp/1641709510

Synopsis: Sign language makes it easy to communicate with your hearing impaired child, and Nita makes it fun with the "Nita's Food Signs" board book by author Kathy MacMillan.

With adorable illustrations by Ekaterina Ladatko, Nita and her family (and young children) learn 10 ASL food signs throughout the day, from bananas to bread, and a cookie for dessert, putting each sign in context.

Even better, each page slides open to reveal accurate instructions on how to make each sign, plus tabs on the side of each page make it simple to locate every sign for later reference. No signing book collection is complete without Nita!

Critique: Fun and informative from cover to cover, "Nita's Food Signs: An Interactive ASL Board Book" is an ideal interactive board book introduction to American Sign Language and unreservedly recommended for family, daycare center, preschool, and community library Board Book collections for children ages 1-3.

Editorial Note: Kathy MacMillan (www.kathymacmillan.com) is a writer, American Sign Language interpreter, librarian, and signing storyteller. She writes picture books, children's nonfiction, and middle-grade and young adult fiction. Her debut young-adult novel, Sword and Verse (2016), was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award. She has also published eight resource books for educators, librarians, and parents. Kathy established the mentoring program for the Maryland/Delaware/West Virginia Region of the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and served as the co-regional advisor for five years.

Editorial Note #2: Ekaterina Ladatko (https://rs.linkedin.com/in/ekaterinaladatko) is a Moscow-based illustrator and animation art director.

Andrea Kay
Reviewer


Ann Skea's Bookshelf

Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin
Sue Prideaux
W. W. Norton & Company
https://wwnorton.com
9781324020424, $39.99 HB / $29.09 Kindle 399pp.

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Thing-Life-Paul-Gauguin/dp/1324020423

Who was Paul Gauguin? Was he a 'colonialist'; 'the bad boy who spread syphilis around the South Seas'; a 'defender of native vices', a 'subverter of the rule of law and a dangerous anarchist'? Or an innovative artist who attracted 'devoted' disciples and became known as the 'reputed leader of the Symbolist-Synthetist painters'?

Sue Prideaux wastes no time in debunking the accusations of spreading syphilis. In her preface she tells of the DNA identification of three teeth that were found in a well beside Gauguin's house at Atuona on the French Polynesian island of Hiva Oa. These were proved to be his, and a forensic examination showed no sign of 'cadmium, mercury and arsenic, the standard treatment for syphilis at the time'.

She sets out, too, to 're-examine Gauguin's life' in the light of newly available material and contemporary debate: 'not to condemn, not to excuse, but simply to shed new light on the man and the myth'. In the process, she reveals the multiple facets of Gauguin's character, the great variety of his life experiences, his shifting identity (displayed in his writings, where he adopts alter-egos and pseudonyms), and his determination to express himself, his feelings and ideas, through his art.

Two things brought Prideaux to write this book. One was the sudden reappearance in 2020 of the 'long-lost' manuscript of Gauguin's Avant et Apres, which includes the text of some of the letters he wrote pointing out cases of injustice and corruption in the French colonial government of the Polynesian islands and pleading for greater justice and lower taxation of the indigenous people. He writes of his strong belief that women should be treated as equals. He loves Jesus but hates the Church... [and] he tells silly stories, and much more.

The second was the 2021 completion and publication of the catalogue raisonne of Gauguin's works, 'covering the paintings between 1891 and 1903'.

In Prideaux's richly illustrated book, she charts the development of Gauguin's art alongside the way in which his life influenced it, and she discusses many of his paintings in detail. For a man who did not seriously begin painting until he was in his early twenties and who was largely self-taught, his achievements were, and still are, remarkable.

He smashed the established Western canon, ignoring rules laid down over the centuries, trading Renaissance picture-box perspective for multipoint perspective, distorting scale and privileging decorative line over believable solidity, employing colour emotionally rather than realistically and pioneering the assimilation of indigenous themes in Western art.

Prideaux shows, too, how Gauguin's 'conceptual approach and stylistic simplification fanned out through Henri Matisse and the Fauves through Bonnard, Vuillard and the Nabis, influencing Edvard Munch [and] German Expressionists'; and how his Polynesian pictures and sculptures 'led Picasso to explore African art', and 'evolved Cubism'.

These claims are stated with certainty, but her close examination of Gauguin's life, especially his times in Paris, where he joined the debates and experimentation of artists who are now known as 'impressionists', 'pointillists', 'expressionists', etc., shows that it was not just Gauguin, but also developments in science, psychology and philosophy that influenced these movements. In Paris, Gauguin was

pondering the wider questions of what actually is painting, and what is its relationship to the other branches of art? This was the sort of thing he would have hammered out at the cafe table with the Manet gang over a glass of absinthe, or with Pissaro during their painting trips.

Scientific discoveries about colour perception and the role of rods and cones in the eye were, for example, set out as a theory that

each line and each particle of colour should be treated as words are treated. Each word is separated by a white space on the page, so each colour must be treated as a separate entity, because each is possessed of a different identity to every other. Colours must not be blended. This theory of colour separation explains Seurat's pictures, entirely constructed from little coloured dots, often with a little white space between.

Gauguin experimented with pointillism but 'did not persevere', believing that 'strict application of a repertoire of "scientific" rules to art was both intolerable and absurd'. He called the pointillists 'little green chemists who pile up tiny dots', and he went on to perpetrate a literary hoax, writing a 'newly discovered' ancient treatise on art from the pen of Mani-Vehbi-Zanbul-Zadi, who had purportedly lived in the time of Tamerlane. Mani's text disapproved of leaving white spaces. He instructed artists to 'let the background of your paper lighten your shades and provide the white, but do not leave it absolutely bare', and declared that 'The maker of patchwork blunts sensibility and immobilises colouring.' This text was accepted as genuine and caused much debate.

Gauguin's obstinate and individualistic character was clearly shaped by his early years as a wild child running free on the estate of his wealthy uncle in Peru. By the time his mother moved the family to France and he first attended school, he was an outsider, unable to speak French, and reacting to bullying with his fists, saying he was 'a savage from Peru'.

He was strongly influenced by his later schooling at the Petit Seminary, where the boys were schooled alongside priests being trained 'to revive the Roman Catholic Church in France'. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Orleans, who was leader of the seminary, however, was 'a churchman and a scientist' who believed that 'each individual must feel free to examine their own religious faith as critically as they examined any other subject, including scientific theory'. This was something Gauguin did throughout his life, and the bishop's 'catechism' - 'Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?' - became the title of a huge painting Gauguin created late in his life and which Prideaux analyses in detail.

Gauguin's own belief was that he inherited his obstinacy, his artistic talent, and his 'life-long readiness to battle for the underdog' from his maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan, who had been a notable campaigner against 'human exploitation and degradation'. Prideaux tells of Flora's interesting life, and also that of Gauguin's beautiful mother, Aline, who, as a widow, found a wealthy protector in Paris who set her up in business as a dressmaker. She and the children spent a great deal of time at his 'splendid country house', and after Aline's death, this man, Gustave Arosa, became Gauguin's guardian. The 'seventy-seven important paintings' that hung in Arosa's country house were Gauguin's first exposure to fine art, and it was Arosa who, through the influence of a son-in-law, found Gauguin work as a liquidateur, trading stocks on the Paris Bourse.

Gauguin excelled at this work, became affluent, began to paint and explore art galleries, and bought art that he would keep, always, as an investment. He also spent money on a lavish lifestyle. When the Paris stock market failed, his own shares became worthless and he lost his job with little prospect of finding anything similar. No-one had the money to buy art, and by that time, Gauguin had a beloved wife, Mette, and five children to support and little in the way of savings. He started to work furiously on his painting, producing 'more or less' one picture a day, but they were not good and did not sell. Pissaro, who had become Gauguin's artistic mentor by that time, found them 'petty and monotonous'.

Disasters, lack of sales at exhibitions, untrustworthy friends, promising investments that failed, deaths of those who had provided financial support, illness - all these seem to have hounded Gauguin throughout his life. Only in his last years on Hiva Oa did his art begin to be valued by French buyers. Yet, when Gauguin was becoming blind and immobile and thought of returning to France, his financial advisor dissuaded him on the grounds that

You are currently seen as that legendary, unforgettable artist who from the depths of Oceania is sending works that are bewildering and unique, works characteristic of a great man who supposedly disappeared from the world. Simply stated, you are blessed with the immunity of the dead and famous, you have passed into history.

Prideaux's account of Gauguin's life is fascinating and her analysis of many of his art works (a generous number are reproduced in the book) is informed and interesting, although the reader may not always agree with her interpretations. She shows the influence of Japanese art and of cloisonne on Gauguin's evolving style, his use of symbols, and the way he expressed his synaesthesia, which, for him, linked colour and sound.

Gauguin's wife, Mette, who for financial reasons lived for most of their married life in her home city of Copenhagen, where she taught French and conducted popular 'salons', corresponded with him frequently. It seems that their relationship was mutually passionate, and Gauguin was faithful to Mette for many years. She must have been remarkably tolerant, and she only seems to have lost patience with him late in their marriage when they fell out over the sharing of an inheritance.

It is left to the reader to make their own judgment about Gauguin's now notorious relationships with the young Polynesian girls who, it seems, chose to live with him, and who became the subjects of his paintings. Prideaux describes the girls' continuing close involvement with their families, and the customs of the islanders, where 'marriages' were arranged by the family when the girls were 13 or 14, and sexual relations were a matter of consenting parties unrestricted by Christian teaching of sin. Tohotua, who became an 'important model' for Gauguin, was married to the magician Haapuana, who, when asked if she and Gauguin had been lovers, replied: 'If I have a friend and he temporarily desires my wife... I am glad if she is willing.' Prideaux also notes that the age of consent in France at that time was 13, at which age young girls were 'considered independent beings in their own right, and sex with them was not only permissible but unremarkable'.

Overall, she chooses not to examine whether Gauguin was a man or a monster, instead she presents a detailed account of the life of a complex character who, as he wrote, believed that 'life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will'.

Dr Ann Skea, Reviewer
https://ann.skea.com/THHome.htm


Arthur Turfa's Bookshelf

Living in Language: The Literary Word at Work in the World
David Bosworth
Front Porch Republic Books
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/fpr-books
9781666774498, $26.00

https://www.amazon.com/Living-Language-David-Bosworth/dp/1666774502

Anyone who has spent time in academia can relate to this scenario. A colloquium takes place, and the speaker says something to which you strongly object. Leaving is not an option, and even if there is a time for questions, saying anything that pertains to the disagreement is not advisable for several reasons.

What caused David Bosworth to write this book? The statement made by this speaker, a distinguished scholar who remains for obvious reasons anonymous, "If I had a half hour, I could prove to you that language only refers to itself." One wonders why that was not fleshed out in the 50-minute talk dealing with postmodern fiction, but most likely there was not enough time.

In this book of essays, Bosworth takes issue with the claim mentioned above and demonstrates that "mythos-minded thinking (which incorporates narrative precedes :logos-minded thinking" (which involves math and abstract logic) and "remains the most powerful means for expressing and transmitting our cherished beliefs" (p 6)

Bosworth accomplishes this by re-examining a vast array of cultural items, movies, books, and music, to validate his thesis. A series of lyrical and profound essays follows. Readers should pause after each one and reflec ton what Bosworth has to say before going on to the next one.

There is a treatment of the American Frontier starting with the novels of James Fennimore Cooper and is figure of Nathaniel Bumpo, who goes by a plethora of names. John Ford's classic Westerns also come into consideration' John Wayne receives special attention as a symbol of the American hero. (the Lone Ranger receives some attention as well.)

Harold Bloom's defense of the Western canon (primarily Shakespeare) also receives attention, as does Patricia Lockwood's memoir Priestdaddy (which I bought for my Kindle). Bosworth's style is engaging and informative.

The latter part of the volume deals with Bosworth's introduction of a "Literature of Awe", one that connects to the world, the individual, and enables transcendence.

I have a strong feeling that I shall come back and re-read sections of this interesting volume in the future.

Arthur Turfa
Reviewer


Carl Logan's Bookshelf

Lost Loot: Cursed Treasures and Blood Money
Jim Willis
https://www.jimwillis.net
Visible Ink Press
www.visibleinkpress.com
9781578598670, $59.95, HC, 320pp

https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Loot-Cursed-Treasures-Blood/dp/1578598672

Synopsis: "Lost Loot: Cursed Treasures and Blood Money" by Jim Willis is compendium of mesmerizing stories about the pursuit of riches turning to grief. It's an authentic and thrilling exploration of the world's most intriguing and dangerous treasure hunts,

"Lost Loot: Cursed Treasures and Blood Money" presents fascinating stories of reward, riches, greed, and ruin including:

Curses, deaths, and centuries old treasure on Oak Island
Searchers hunted down and killed before finding a gangster's stolen riches
The eternal quest for D. B. Cooper and his hijack ransom
Elaborate booby traps protecting ill-gotten gains
Cursed Aztec wealth lost as it journeyed to Spain
Mysterious caves holding secrets in the Grand Canyon
Montezuma's revenge
The train-robbing Robin Hood myth of the Sam Bass Gang
Jean Lafitte and the Galveston Hoard
The lost Dutchman mine
Civil War coins hurriedly stashed after a brutal reign of terror
The missing Faberge eggs
John Dillinger's suitcase
King Kamehameha's burial chamber
Captain Kidd's buried treasure
And many more stories of doomed pursuits of plundered riches.

With its tales of bewitching riches and hunts gone wrong, yet hope springing eternal on the part of treasure hunters. "Lost Loot" unfolds like a treasure map -- but beware of the hidden, deadly obstacles!

Critique: A fascinating, informative, and thought-provoking read from start to finish, "Lost Loot: Cursed Treasures and Blood Money" is essential reading the the legions of aspiring treasure hunters. Of particular appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history, pirates, antiquity treasure legends, and real-live adventures in search of hidden wealth, "Lost Loot" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library collections. It should be noted for armchair and onsite adventurers alike that this hardcover edition of "Lost Loot" from Vision Ink Press is also readily available in a paperback edition (9781578598557, $22.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99).

Editorial Note: Jim Willis (www.jimwillis.net) earned his master's degree in theology from Andover Newton Theological School, and he has been an ordained minister for over 40 years. He has also taught college courses in comparative religion and cross-cultural studies. His background in theology and education led to his writing more than 20 books on history, the apocalypse, and the mysteries of the unknown. His books include Visible Ink Press' American Cults, Hidden History, and Lost Civilizations.

Carl Logan
Reviewer


Cindy Trost's Bookshelf

boysgirls, second edition
Katie Farris
Tupelo Press
www.tupelopress.org
9781946482273, $18.95

https://www.amazon.com/boysgirls-Katie-Farris/dp/1946482277

boysgirls. Wow. Just wow.

Katie Farris' boysgirls may be a little book - literally measuring 4x6 inches and just 85 pages - but don't expect it to be a light read. This hybrid-form text brims with metaphor, allusion, and striking ink-drawn images that probe complex questions about identity, desire, and love.

Before diving into the first story, Farris offers readers a forewarning of what lies ahead:

You're used to sitting back and eavesdropping, playing voyeur on the lives of others. But between these covers, you will participate, whether you desire it or not. You might think about this before you turn the page. You might turn the page.

This is new literature.

After reading these words, I felt like I was standing at the gate of a haunted house, staring at a sign that read: "Enter if you dare." Then I remembered - I like haunted houses, roller coasters, bungee jumping, and confronting my own beliefs about what it means to be me. So, I took a leap of faith and read boysgirls, my first journey into this bold new genre called hybrid-text. Now, I'm hooked.

The Book of Qualities
J. Ruth Gendler
Turquoise Mountain Publications
Harper Perennial; Reissue edition
www.harpercollins.com
9780060962524, $14.99 pbk

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Qualities-J-Ruth-Gendler/dp/0060962526

J. Ruth Gendler's The Book of Qualities personifies over seventy emotions and personality traits, bringing each to life with vivid, imaginative storytelling. All of the Qualities' life stories are expressed on a single page. However, it takes two full pages for Gendler to give us Criticism's bio and background -- a reflection, perhaps, of its complexity.

Personifying human qualities is as challenging a task as personifying the Wind, which may be why Gendler introduces us to The Wind first. Using the pronoun "she," Wind is portrayed as a gossip - not malicious, but a restless spirit who loves to move and stir things up.

I was impressed by the thought and care Gendler poured into ensuring that each Quality stood as a distinct individual. Yet, like people, some were interconnected or kin to other Qualities, dependent on them, or even at odds. For example:

Boredom

"On Sunday afternoons, he goes to the bar on the corner and drinks dark beer with futility, rage, and anxiety."

Trust

"...is the daughter of Truth... She has a gambler's respect for the interplay between luck and skill; she is the mother of Love."

Faith

"Faith lives in the same apartment building as Doubt... It is Faith that protects Doubt from Cynicism."

Reading The Book of Qualities brought me Joy - quite literally, as Joy is the final Quality described in the book. Gendler's portrayal of Joy comforted me, reminding me that in her perfect world, Joy's desire to walk with us is as great as our longing to walk beside her.

Cindy Rucker Trost
Reviewer


Clint Travis' Bookshelf

63 Hours in Hell
Susan L. Davis
https://www.susanldavis.com
Abundance Books
https://abundance-books.com
ISBN TBA; $TBA; Formats TBA, Page Count TBA

https://www.susanldavis.com/63hoursinhell

Synopsis: The clock is ticking, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

When Hannah and Benjamin, two siblings on their way to witness Jesus's crucifixion, are killed in a tragic accident, they are sent to the enigmatic afterlife of Paradise. There, they encounter Dismas, the redeemed thief, and a mysterious angel. Together, this unlikely band must race to find the scattered pieces of an ancient key that will allow Jesus to open the gates of hell and free the prisoners within.

As their journey spans the epochs of history, they uncover key fragments and hidden pieces of their own hearts, discovering the enduring power of friendship and courage.

Will they repair the key in time, or will Lucifer destroy them all?

"63 Hours in Hell" is an epic adventure where Jesus sends a jilted bride, her brother, and the 'good thief' across time to find key pieces, free hell's prisoners to fight the devil, and confront their own inner demons.

Critique: Impressively original, inherently fascinating, imaginatively thought provoking, and a fun and compelling read from start to finish, (and all the more impressive considering that this is her debut as a novels), author Susan L. Davis' "63 Hours in Hell" from Abundance Books deftly combines a Christian themed and epic fantasy with a wealth of surprising quest style action/adventure plot twists and turns. One of those unusual and unique novels that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book is finished and set back upon the shelf, "63 Hours in Hell" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community and college/university library Literary Fiction and Christian Fantasy collections.

Editorial Note: Susan L. Davis (www.susanldavis.com) is an author, blogger, content creator, and ordained minister. Susan was an agnostic until she met Jesus at a funeral. He grabbed hold of her heart and she felt so much love for him that it changed everything in her life from there on out. She now tells others about Him every chance she gets and writes inspirational blogs as well.

Clint Travis
Reviewer


Debra Gaynor's Bookshelf

Booked For Murder
P.J. Nelson
Minotaur Books
https://us.macmillan.com/minotaurbooks
9781250909954, $28.00 Hardback
B0CQHKW46Z, $14.99 Ebook, $45.95 Audiobook

https://www.amazon.com/Booked-Murder-Mystery-Juniper-Bookstore/dp/1250909953

3 stars

Madeline Brimley is an actress, or she was until she inherited a bookstore. Years ago Madeline left Enigma Georgia to go to college and to pursue her dream of the stage. She returns to Enigma (a small town) after the death of her Aunt Rose. Years ago, Aunt Rose left the stage to open a bookstore, the Old Juniper Bookstore. She left everything to Madeline including the bookshop. Someone wants Madeline out of the way. She receives threatening phone calls, and someone sets fire to the gazebo.

Characters: I like Madeline! She is a great female lead. Madeline is in her 30s. She is outgoing and tends to be impulsive. She placed herself in danger more than once. The secondary characters are well fleshed out. I was very fond of Gloria, the Episcopal priest of a church a few blocks from the bookstore. At first, I liked Philomena but as the plot progressed, I lost some interest in her. She taught psychology at the local college. Some of her actions/behaviors were shocking plus she came across as not very bright.

Plot: The plot was interesting but a little predictable. Author P.J. Nelson threw in lots of disagreements, surprises, and humor. Readers will find murder, anguish, reconciliation, bitterness, gossip, amateur sleuthing, and self-reflection. This is the first book in this series.

The Spirit Girls
Dawn Merriman
Second Sky
https://secondskybooks.com
9781837904037, $8.99 Paperback
B0BT84YKY7, $2.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Girls-totally-gripping-paranormal/dp/1837904030

Rylan Flynn can see ghosts. She solves mysteries that are binding ghosts/spirits to this earthly plane. When Rylan wants to get away from it all she escapes the solitude of the woods surrounding her aunt's cabin. The spirit of Celeste Monroes approaches Rylan; she leads her to her body before disappearing. The young woman had been murdered. Rylan offers to assist the police in their investigation, but Detective Ford Pierce refuses her offer. She must walk a fine line, any information she shares could make her a suspect. After another body is found the evidence points to Rylan's family.

The Spirit Girls is a genre duo: mystery and romance. This is the first book in a new series. The premise of this book has potential, but it falls short of my expectations. The storyline, central character and script are immature. In my opinion the author started writing and used whatever got her to the finish line without research. Books must be researched. Readers are an intelligent group, and they will pick up on mistakes. I could not connect with Rylan she was immature and not realistic. The language used by the main character proves this book was written for YA. The narrator did a nice job, kudos to Stephnie Cannon. I realize I sound very negative in this review. I would like to clarify this book has potential but needs a lot of work. Young Adults might enjoy it for the light paranormal plot.

I have struggled with the rating of this book. It isn't a 3-star tale. I think there is enough potential to give it 2 stars.

Not In My Book
Katie Holt
Alcove Press
https://alcovepress.com
9781639109753 $19.99 Paperback
B0D9ZLB014, $14.99 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Book-Katie-Holt/dp/1639109757

2 Stars

I was disappointed in this book. The main character was annoying. This book should have been a perfect match for me because it was romance with a bit of humor. I enjoy romance and humorous books so this should have been right up my alley. This tale reads like an old formula. The plot was unoriginal. The characters were weak, dull, boring and flavorless. Rosie was obnoxious and immature. While Rosie may claim to dislike Aiden, she spends all her time thinking about him. She is obsessed with him. Neither Rosie nor Aiden are capable of holding a conversation. The two main characters are taking a literary class. Their bickering has the professor at her wits end so she assigns them to write a book together. They use the book to communicate. Through the book they express their desire for each other. The method of using the book to communicate made much of the writing repetitive. There are no twists or turns in this book. It is easy to see where the plot is going. I do think this book has potential, but it needs work.

The Way: A Novel
Cary Groner
Spiegel & Grau
https://www.spiegelandgrau.com
9781954118423 $29.00 Hardback
B0CVN711KL $29.00 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Novel-Cary-Groner/dp/1954118422

Will Collins is a man on a mission. He must journey from Colorado to California with what could be a cure for the epidemic that has wiped out 80% of the population. The world as we know it is gone. The deadly virus is fatal to most adults but has little effect on young people. Cities have fallen in disrepair. Animals now possess the land; Camels roam the American west like buffalo once did. The animals were not left unaffected, there are now neon green crocodiles glowing in the rivers.

Will was the existing caretaker of a Buddhist monastery in Colorado. When he received an urgent request to deliver a potential cure to a scientist in what was once California. The journey is not an easy one with two mules pulling his old rusty pickup truck, followed by a terrorizing brute, and armed militias controlling the roads. His only help come s from an opinionated cat, Cassie, a clever raven, Peau and a teenage girl who has learned to survive on her own.

Author Cary Groner offers readers a unique tale of a journey fraught with danger. Most of the story takes place in the American West. Will, his cat and the raven have an unusual relationship; they can understand each other. Will spends much of his mission reflecting on his flawed motivations and behavior as well as the behavior of others; his reflections come from his Buddhist background. Will comes across as gentle and honest. However, this book is not all peaceful as the reader will witness the chances of survival in this dystopian world. While it was fascinating watching the natural world regain balance the pain of human suffering was sad. While the plot is intriguing the ending was anticlimactic.

What makes this book stand out is the reflection on contemporary society and the continued existence of nature/animals despite eradication of the world.

Freezing (The Jayne and Steelie Series, #1)
Clea Koff
Severn House
https://severnhouse.com
9780727880963, $16.80 Hardback
B0CWZ54LRB, $7.99 Ebook, $18.99 Paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Freezing-Jayne-Steelie-Mystery-Clea/dp/0727880969

A bundle of frozen body parts falls out of van on a Los Angeles freeway. FBI agent Scott Houston is assigned the case. He turns to Agency 32/1 for assistance knowing they are discreet, and they are more than competent.

There seems to be a serial killer on the loose... the body parts were from more than one person. Jayne and Steelie created the agency to use their forensic skills to assist the police in solving cases. The call from Agent Houston places their lives on the line.

Freezing is told from several perspectives: law enforcement offices, the forensic specialist and the killer.

This tale has possibilities but falls short in some areas.

1. I felt as if I were reading a book from the middle of a series and not the first of a series. There wasn't enough background information to make me connect with the characters.
2. The characters felt flat... they just exist but we don't see what's special about them.
3. The cases need to be sensational with a hint of risk.
4. Much of the story was predictable.

The Christmas Presence (#14 The Mystery House series)
Eva Pohler
https://www.evapohler.com
Independently Published
B0D9TF4XYK, $5.99 Ebook, $15.00 Paperback, $20.00 Hardback

https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Presence-Mystery-House/dp/B0DL6L4H1S

This is the 14th book in the Mystery House series, this is the first one I've read; it stands well alone.

In this series we meet three old friends and business partners Ellen, Tanya and Sue. The women are around 50 years old. Their business is to remove spirits/ghosts from homes. The women received a request to remove someone from cabin the San Juan Mountains. The family that owns the cabin are having a terrible time with nightmares that seem real. They take on the job and move into the cabin where they find not one but two spirits living there. The women researched the history of the cabin and the surrounding area. They discover why the spirits want to linger in the cabin.

This tale was a little too paranormal for me. The circle stuff is too witchy, also there is the use of an OUIJA BOARD, I am not comfortable with summoning spirts! I liked the way the women went about researching the areas history in an effort to discover why the spirits linger in the cabin and terrorize the owner.

Beautiful Ugly
Alice Feeney
Flatiron Books
https://www.flatironbooks.com
9781250337788, $26.09 Hardback
B0D3QS21DQ, $14.99 Ebook, $39.99 Audio

https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Ugly-Novel-Alice-Feeney/dp/125033778X

Grady Green's wife is on her way home when she disappears. He calls her with good news, his book made the New York Times bestselling list. During their conversation she tells him she sees a body in the middle of the road. He hears her slam on the brakes and leave the car. Grady rushes out to find her. That was his last conversation with her. Her car is found abandoned, it is by the edge of a cliff, the headlights are on, the driver's door is open, her phone is there but she isn't.
A year later: Grady is devastated and desperate to learn what happened to his wife, Abby. He can't focus on anything. He can't write or sleep. His agent arranges for him to stay in a cabin on Amberly, a tiny Scottish Island. All expenses paid. The cabin belonged to a popular deceased author.

The setting is a beautiful island off the coast of Scotland. The characters are odd. There are two timelines intertwined. The characters all stand out because they are eccentric behavior. The narrator is inconsistent. The island has a personality of its own and becomes one of the characters. The description of the island is vivid, I felt as if I were transported to the island, I could see the misty of the fog rolling in and I could smell the salt water.

There was a foreshadowing and a threatening feeling. The reader knows there is something wrong but what is the question. Author Alice Feeney offers readers twists and turns that kept this reader guessing. This thought provoking book by author Alice Feeney will please her fans.

A Killing Cold: A Novel
Kate Alice Marshall
Flatiron Books
https://www.flatironbooks.com
9781250343055, $28.99 Hardback
B0D481YRV6, $14.99 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Cold-Kate-Alice-Marshall/dp/1250343054

Theodora Scott works at a bookstore, she was a young child when she was orphaned and adopted by an abusive family. She tells everyone they are dead but are they or is she hiding a deep dark secret. She has vague memories of her early life, she remembers a woman in a red scarf, it could be her mother, but she isn't sure. She remembers the woman told her to run.

Connor Dalton is a member of the rich Dalton family. The Dalton's are powerful and menacing. Things always go their way. Theodora Scott and Connor fell in love at first sight. Six months after they met Connor proposed and invited her to Idlewood, his family's secluded winter retreat. Theodora expected the Dalton's to be cold and suspicious, but she wasn't prepared for her own feelings.

There are several members of the Dalton family at Idlewood: Alexis, Connor's sister. Alexis's wife, Paloma, and their son Sebastian. Alexis tends to be a bit snobbish. The two women showed support for Theodora. Louise, Connor's grandmother, showed her dislike for Theodora from the moment they met. Rose, Connor's mother, a widow was suspicious of Theodora's motives. Trevor, Connor's youngest brother, considers himself intitled. He immediately labels Theodora a gold-digger. Connor's Uncle Nick was on the edge of hostile; the reader knows he is up to something but isn't quite sure what.

Something strange was going on at Idlewood. Theodora received several threatening messages on her cell phone, someone has been looking through the window of their cabin and she has a sense that she has been there before. There are several cabins at Idlewood, one isn't used. Theodora is drawn to the cabin and finds a photo of herself as a child with Connor's deceased father, Liam. The photo was taken in Idlewood. Bits and pieces of her past start coming together. She realizes her mother was the woman in the scarf. She remembers a man with antlers chasing them. Could Connor be playing a sick game? Theodora's life is at stake.

Blood Moon
Sandra Brown
Grand Central Publishing
c/o Hachette
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com
9781538742983, $21.00 Hardback / $32.00 Paperback
B0D5X3H8VF, $14.99 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Moon-Sandra-Brown/dp/1538742985

The setting is costal Louisiana. Our main character is Detective John Bowie, a member of the Auclair Police Department. Bowie was recently divorced, enjoys his liquor a bit too much and is struggling to come to turns with the Crissy Mellin investigation. Crissy Mellin, a teenager, disappeared three years ago. A television show, Crisis Point plans to run a documentary on the unsolved case. Bowie's boss has warned him to keep all of his complaints and blame over the case to himself.

Senior producer of Crisis Point, Beth Collins, knows a great story when she sees one. She has spent the last years examining, studying, and editing a multitude episodes of the show. Her experience tells her that Crissy Mellin's disappearance is linked to several disappearances. All the teenage girls disappeared on the night of the Blood Moon. Beth travels to Louisianna to ask Detective Bowie to assist in finding out what happened to Crissy. Time isn't on their side with only four days until the next blood moon. They must find answers before the offender strikes again. The life of someone close to Bowie is on the line. Bowie and Collins' jobs and lives are on the line.

Both John Bowie and Beth Collins are on the verge of being fired. There is corruption in the Auclair Police Department. The department has a dark side. There was an immediate attraction between Bowie and Collins.

Author Sandra Brown, like most successful authors, has a formula that works well for her. Brown's characters follow a pattern. Like most of Brown's male main character, Bowie comes across as caring and slightly controlling. He is a man that needs a woman that will stand up to him, a woman that will love him despite his imperfections. Bowie's character has depth. Collins also follows the female main character formula. She is strong, smart, capable of standing up for herself and yet ready for a man like Bowie.

Silent Scream (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 1)
Angela Marsons
Grand Central Publishing
c/o Hachette
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com
9781538734728, $14.95 Paperback
B00S5K0CAU, $2.99 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Scream-Detective-Kim-Stone/dp/1538734729

This is the first book in the Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Series. It was published in 2015. Author Angela Marsons has provided readers with 16 books from this series.

The five of them dug a shallow grave.

Years later, human remains are discovered in the field next to the children's home. DI Kim Stone is heading the team assigned to the case.

The characters are rather predictable. DI Kim Stone had a terrible childhood. She is strong, independent and doesn't need a man. Neither does she need rules because she doesn't like them or follow them. She comes across as sour, uncaring, and incapable of dealing with her past. She comes across as a bully. The plot had too many coincidences. Toward the end the plot is very confusing. There were threads that just don't make sense. But this is the first book in this popular series.

The Scorpion Queen
Mina Fears
Flatiron Books
https://www.flatironbooks.com
9781250852946, $21.99 Hardback
B0BFC5D11S, $11.99 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Scorpion-Queen-Mina-Fears/dp/1250852943

This is the retelling of a Malian fairytale. Meet our main character, Amie; she lives in the palace at Timbuktu. Amie is the daughter of a affluent salt merchant. She was betrothed to marry Kader, the man she loved. Amie was merely sixteen when her father disowned her, for a crime she didn't commit. She is sent to the palace to serve Princess Mariama of Mali. Emperor Sulyeman is a harsh man; any man wishing to court the princess must work their way through tests that are impossible. When the suitor fails, they are placed in a pot of boiling water and boiled alive. Ninety-nine men have perished in an attempt to marry the princess.

Life in the palace is difficult for Amie, the work is hard, the servants hate her, and the princess is difficult to work for; she is moody. As Amie gets to know the princess they form a bond. Amie and Kader plan to run away together and live far from Timbuktu. Amie discovers a mysterious map that takes her on a dangerous journey.

Amie had to make a decision to help the princess or escape with Kader. There seemed to be a growing attraction between the princess and Amie. This book felt as if I were reading two books. The first half Amie spent a lot of time complaining and feeling sorry for herself. Grant you she had a good reason to be upset but she doesn't really change or mature any. Then comes the journey to find something that can only be retrieved from the god Hausakoy. At this point there is a lot of action. Amie has finally matured a bit, and she is now fond of two of the other maids. I'm glad she carried about them because I didn't. Amie's sister Haddy comes across as being a spoiled brat willing to throw anyone under the bus to get what she wants. She set up Amie. I don't care what her excuse is she shouldn't have done it. Penda and Jeneba hesitate to befriend Amie at first but then they follow where their princess sends them.

This book has great potential. I suggest the beginning is too slow but once it picks up speed and action this is a great read.

Debra Gaynor, Reviewer
www.hancockclarion.com
www.facebook.com/bookreviewsbydebra


Israel Drazin's Bookshelf

The Scroll of Antiochus
Rabbis Haber and Sedley
Amazon Kindle
$2.99 23 pages

https://www.amazon.com/Scroll-Antiochus-Rabbi-Yaacov-Haber-ebook/dp/B004DNWL48

The Scroll of Antiochus, a Fiction About Hannukah

People of all religions frequently describe some things as holy and devise sacred ceremonies that involve them without realizing they are false. They do so because others thought they were holy or because of superstition or flawed reasoning. The Scroll of Antiochus is an example.

The Scroll of Antiochus

The Scroll of Antiochus was written to describe what caused the creation of the holiday of Hannukah and to praise its history as significant and sacred. It does so by writing the tale using language and acts similar to those in the biblical book Esther. While well-intentioned, the Scroll is fiction.

Saadiah Gaon

The prominent Babylonian Jewish leader, sage, and philosopher Saadiah Gaon (882-942) claimed the Scroll was composed by the Maccabees, whose story is told in the Scroll, a couple of centuries before the common era. Scholars reject his view and assign a date between 500 and 1,000 CE.

A Gaon, the plural is Gaonim, was the head of one of the two Babylonian Talmudic Academies in the cities of Sura and Pumbedita. From the 7th to the 13th century, Jews worldwide accepted Gaonim as their spiritual leaders. Gaon, translated as "genius," is a title of honor given to these Jewish scholars. The Geonim were responsible for interpreting and developing Talmudic laws and protecting Jewish legal traditions. They were in contrast to the Rosh Galuta, the Exilarch, who exercised secular authority over the Jews in Islamic lands.

Many consider Saadiah to have been the greatest Gaon. His masterpiece, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, was the first systemic attempt to present Judaism as a rational body of beliefs.
The scholars are correct. While Saadiah was bright and should be respected, he had incorrect ideas. A significant example, one rejected by Targum Onkelos, Maimonides, and other rational thinkers but accepted even today by many Jews, is that there is a being called Shekinah, which is not mentioned in the Torah.

Shekinah is the English transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning "dwelling" or "settling" and denotes the presence of something in a place. A version of the word is mentioned in Exodus 25:8. Jewish mystics think the Shekinah is the feminine divine part of God that descended to this world, dwells with the people of Israel, and helps Jews in their struggles. While other Jews reject the idea that God has a feminine part, they still think there is a divine being that is separate from God. They fail to realize that they accept that there is more than a single divinity. This is polytheism and why Maimonides and other rational thinkers rejected the idea.

They pointed out that the Bible does not indicate the existence of a Shekinah. When the Torah states in Exodus 25:8 veshakanti betocham, "and I will dwell among them," it does not mean a divine being will be with them, but the people will "feel" a divine presence.

So, while Saadiah Gaon was bright and strived to teach rational ideas, he, like all humans, made mistakes. He was wrong about Shekinah and The Scroll of Antiochus.

Abraham ibn Ezra

Ibn Ezra is another of millions of examples. I enjoy Abraham ibn Ezra's writings and humor. He was poor and financially unsuccessful. He wrote, "If I became an undertaker, people would stop dying. If I sold umbrellas, it would stop raining." Despite being very intelligent, he accepted the idea of most people of his generation that people are influenced by astrology, by the stars and planets.

In his commentary on Genesis 6:4, he shows his rational thinking. He states that the verse is anthropomorphic when it describes God as grieved when he must punish his creatures. He rejected the interpretation that va-yinnachem means "and repented." God does not become emotional. He wrote that it should be rendered as "set a time."

But ibn Ezra, like Saadiah and all of us, was not entirely rational. He explained many biblical passages based on his belief in the powers of astrology. For example, in his commentary on Genesis 31:19, he said that Rachel took her father Laban's idols (teraphim) because, had she not done so, Laban, an astrologer, could have used them to discover where her husband Jacob fled. She did so to protect Jacob.

He also used astrology to explain Genesis 6:2-4: "The sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men that they were fair. They took them as wives... and they bore children by them. These were the mighty men of old, men of renown." Ibn Ezra interpreted Elohim not as "God," the usual translation, but as wise men who understood astrology. They found excellent wives by examining the stars and, as a result, had outstanding children.

The Scroll of Antiochus

Jews in Italy and Yemen considered the Scroll holy. As stated in the Tosaphot commentary on the Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 42, they read it in their synagogues on Hannukah, as Jews read the book of Esther today.

The Scroll is available for under three dollars on Amazon Kindle. The brief, just over a dozen pages in English, is followed by the text in Hebrew and over a dozen explanatory notes. Scholars think the original was composed in Aramaic, the language spoken by many people at the time it was written, as English is today,

According to the Scroll, Antiochus, a Greek king, was the most powerful king then. (Scholars disagree. They say he ruled the Seleucid empire from 175 to 164 BCE and was a very unsuccessful monarch. The Scroll also states that his general was Bagris, which scholars say is not mentioned in history.)

The Scroll states that Antiochus decided to attack Jerusalem 213 years after the second temple was built and wanted to annul the Jewish Shabbat, the New Moon celebration, and circumcision. (Since the second temple was built about 70 years after the first temple was destroyed in 586 BCE, this would date his decision to 303 BCE- 516 minus 213, more than a century before Antiochus was king.)

Antiochus sent Nikanor, one of his commanders, to implement his plan. Nikanor slaughtered many Jews, set an altar in the Jewish temple, and sacrificed a pig on it. Judah, son of Matisyahu, was a high priest at that time. (This is also not true.) Judah killed Nikanor for committing this foul deed. He gathered a force and killed 772,000 Greek soldiers that same day. (An unbelievable number). Judah was called Maccabee.

Antiochus sent General Bagris to do what Nikanor failed to do. Bagris arrived and murdered many Jews.

Judah and his four brothers fought against Bagris, who persuaded Antiochus to invite many nations with elephants to help him defeat the Jews. They came, and the five brothers and their army defeated the many countries, but Judah was killed during the battle.

Matisyahu, his father, took over command and was victorious. (This is the only source for Matisyahu leading the Jews in battle.) A second son was killed during the fight when he tried to kill an elephant. The elephant's shit smothered him. Bagris was also killed.

The Jews destroyed the Greek kingdom. "From that time forth, there was no remnant of the Greek kingdom." (This is not true. Jewish leaders had good relations with later Greeks.) The sons of Matisyahu made themselves kings and ruled for 206 years until the second temple was destroyed. (Again, this is not true; others took over the throne. Also, according to the Scroll, the second temple stood for 420 years. The Bible, Jewish tradition, and history date it around 516 BCE to 70 CE, about 586 years. Another error.)

After the victory, the Jews went to the temple, cleansed it, and found a single pure jar of oil to light the candelabrum, the Menorah. This jar contained only sufficient oil for one day, but it lasted eight days.

The Scroll's story differs significantly from the versions in the Book of Maccabees, the Talmud, and history. Despite Saadiah Gaon, the Jews of Italy and Yemen, and others' claims, it is fiction.

Israel Drazin, Reviewer
www.booksnthoughts.com


Jack Mason's Bookshelf

Be the Unicorn
William Vanderbloemen
Harper Leadership
c/o HarperCollins Publishers
www.harpercollins.com
9781400247103, $29.99, HC, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Be-Unicorn-Data-Driven-Separate-Leaders/dp/1400247101

Synopsis: How do I stand out? How do I become irreplaceable? With a crowded workforce, an unstable job landscape, and the rise of AI, these questions are the ones that everyone either is or should be asking.

William Vanderbloemen has asked these questions over the past 15 years while running one of the world's top executive search firms. Through extensive research of over 30,000 top leaders and proprietary data, Vanderbloemen has identified the 12 habits that the best of the best have in common. Traits such as authenticity, responsiveness, agility, and the ability to problem solve, among others.

Each habit includes information on What We Know (the hard data behind why the habit is so transformative), What We've Seen (first-hand accounts by high-achieving professionals on how they live the habit), and What We Do (simple ways to build this habit into your daily routine).

With the publication of "Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest", William Vanderbloemen will help you:

Discover the top twelve soft skills the most successful leaders, the top 1%, have.
Understand how to develop these soft skills in your own life for better job success.
Learn how to apply soft skills to interpersonal relationships outside of work.
Understand how these soft skills can be applied in different work environments and job fields, especially with the rise of AI technology.

Critique: Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest" by William Vanderbloemen is as informed and informative as it is 'real world practical' and motivationally inspiring. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community, corporate, non-profit organization, and college/university library Business Management/Leadership collections and supplemental MBA curriculum studies lists, it should be noted for MBA students, aspiring corporate executives, group leaders, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this hardcover edition of "Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest" from Harper Leadership is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).

Editorial Note: William Vanderbloemen (www.vanderbloemen.com/william) combines over 15 years of ministry experience as a Senior Pastor with the best practices of executive search to better serve teams with a greater purpose.

Jack Mason
Reviewer


John Burroughs' Bookshelf

Terrible Beauty
Auden Schendler
Harvard Business Review Press
https://hbr.org/hbrpress
9781647829759, $32.00, HC, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Beauty-Reckoning-Complicity-Rediscovering/dp/1647829755

Synopsis: Something's gone badly awry with environmentalism. We faithfully separate our waste into different streams, but wonder whether it really makes a difference. Global companies announce their commitment to carbon negativity while simultaneously sponsoring oil conferences. American businesses, communities, and individuals assiduously measure their carbon footprints, then implement voluntary emissions reduction programs, all while trumpeting their do-gooderism.

The problem is, none of this (whether individual efforts or corporate sustainability tactics) will make a dent in solving the civilizational threat of climate change. We only pretend it will, at our peril.

With the publication of "Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul", sustainability veteran Auden Schendler argues in that we are living a big green lie. The hard truth is that much of the modern environmental road map could have been written by the fossil fuel industry specifically to avoid disrupting the status quo. We have become somehow complicit.

But there is another truth: while ineffective or duplicitous environmentalism has become standard practice, we all have friends and family we love and care about, whose future depends on solving the problem of climate change. Conscience tells us we have an obligation to repair the world. How can our common dreams be so at odds with our daily practice? And how might we meld our spirit and our passion to create a better future?

Schendler meets this profound contradiction head-on with a bracing critique, moving personal stories of parenthood and service, and innovative, real-world methods to tackle climate change at the corporate, community, and individual levels.

"Terrible Beauty" is a unique and inspiring call for a new environmentalism, showing us that the key to saving the planet is to tap into our own humanity.

Critique: A clarion call for reassessing our approach to a climate crisis that if inadequately addressed or ignored will most certainly result in the end of human civilization as we know it as assuredly as any global nuclear conflict, "Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul" must be considered essential reading for anyone with an interest in Climate Change solutions and the relevant politics/policies concerning it. While unreservedly recommended as a high priority addition to personal, professional, community, governmental, and college/university library Environmental Economics & Green Business collections, and supplemental Environmentalism curriculum studies lists, it should be noted for students, academia, governmental and corporate policy makers, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject, that "Terrible Beauty" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.99) as well.

Editorial Note: Auden Schendler (https://audenschendler.com) is Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company, where he works on scale solutions to climate change, including clean-energy development, policy, advocacy, and activism. He publishes widely on climate change, parenting, and the outdoors and was named a "climate innovator" by Time magazine and a "climate saver" by the EPA. He is also the author of the book Getting Green Done.

John Burroughs
Reviewer


Julie Summers' Bookshelf

The Little Book of Quotes by Women: Inspiring Words to Live By, second edition
Kathleen Welton, editor
AKA Books
https://www.akabooks.com
9798989035731, $6.99, PB, 148pp

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Quotes-Women-Inspiring/dp/B0DGT8L2ZV

Synopsis: Now in an expanded second edition, "The Little Book of Quotes by Women: Inspiring Words to Live By " is an inspiring collection of 365 quotes from women who have appeared on U.S. postage stamps from 1893-2024. They are activists, actors, athletes, artists, astronauts, attorneys, authors, choreographers, comedians, dancers, designers, engineers, first ladies, journalists, judges, mothers, musicians, nurses, painters, physicians, pilots, poets, publishers, scientists, senators, singers, wives, writers, and more.

Their words of wisdom have been thematically arranged in twelve sections including "Beauty," "Courage," "Happiness," "Freedom," "Possibility," "Service," and "Strength." The Little Book of Quotes by Women features quotes from more than 130 women including Emily Dickinson, Pearl S. Buck, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lena Horne, Helen Keller, Margaret Mead, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Mother Teresa, and more.

The women featured in this new edition of "The Little Book of Quotes by Women: Inspiring Words to Live By" all share one thing in common -- they have indeed left their stamp on history. Their unforgettable quotes have stood the test of time.

Critique: Fascinating, fun, informative, inspiring, "The Little Book of Quotes by Women: Inspiring Words to Live By: 2nd Edition", compiled and edited by Kathleen Welton, is a prized and unreservedly recommended pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Women's Studies reference collections. It should be noted that his new second is also readily available from AKA Books in a digital book format (Kindle, $1.99).

Editorial Note: Kathleen Welton (www.kathleenwelton.com) is an award-winning author and publisher with a lifelong passion for storytelling. She is committed to celebrating the beauty of nature, particularly beaches, birds, and wildlife while promoting a sustainable future through her work. Her books balance inspiration and adventure and have been honored with Best Book Awards, Literary Titan Book Awards, and Purple Dragonfly Book Awards. Her current writing projects include novels, an ocean mystery trilogy, and picture books. As publisher for aka Associates, Kathleen also collaborates with authors and organizations on award-winning and best-selling books and book series including Doodle Art Alley Books, Little Quote Books, and Puzzle Books for Fun.

Hometown Betrayal
Emily Benedek
Greenleaf Book Group Press
www.greenleafbookgroup.com
9798886452488, $28.95, HC, 314pp

https://www.amazon.com/Hometown-Betrayal-Tragic-Secrecy-Country/dp/B0D4KS4S4H

Synopsis: Valarie Clark Miller seemed to have it all. Smart and beautiful with a wealthy, successful husband and growing family, Valarie appeared to be the picture-perfect Mormon wife. But it was all a facade. Inside, she was crumbling from the pressures of long-repressed memories of a childhood filled with sexual and physical abuse.

With the publication of "Hometown Betrayal: A Tragic Story of Secrecy and Sexual Abuse in Mormon Country", author Emily Benedek brings you behind the closed doors of the remote Mormon community of Clarkston, Utah. With the help of hundreds of individual stories, she pieces together not only what happened to Valarie, but also the conditions and culture that allowed it.

"Hometown Betrayal" culminates in an account of the Miller family's fight to hold accountable the men (including the local cop) who abused Valarie and controlled the systems designed to look the other way.

Critique: Revelatory, emotionally engaging, authentic, "Hometown Betrayal: A Tragic Story of Secrecy and Sexual Abuse in Mormon Country" by Emily Benedek is an inherently compelling and fascinating read. This is one of those exposes that will linger in the mind and memory of the readers long after the book itself as been finished and set back upon the shelf. Especially and unreservedly recommended to the attention of readers with an interest in childhood sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress recovery, "Hometown Betrayal" is a critically important pick for community and college/university library collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that this hardcover edition of "Hometown Betrayal from the Greenleaf Book Group is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Emily Benedek (www.emilybenedek.com) grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard College. Her stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Glamour, Vogue, and the Dallas Morning News and on NPR, among others. She is the author of three nonfiction books: The Wind Won't Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute, Beyond the Four Corners of the World: A Navajo Woman's Journey, Through the Unknown, Remembered Gate: A Spiritual Journey, and two thrillers: Red Sea and Iranian Rhapsody.

Julie Summers
Reviewer


Margaret Lane's Bookshelf

Field Notes from a Fungi Forager
Ashley Rodriguez, author
Libby England, illustrator
Sasquatch Books
www.sasquatchbooks.com
9781632175366, $22.95, HC, 176pp

https://www.amazon.com/Field-Notes-Fungi-Forager-Illustrated/dp/1632175363

Synopsis: From evergreen forests shrouded in mist to the urban backyards of Seattle, mushrooms are everywhere in the Pacific Northwest if you know how to look.

With the publication of "Field Notes from a Fungi Forager: An Illustrated Journey Through the World of Pacific Northwest Mushrooms", forager-chef and forest therapy guide Ashley Rodriguez provides an evocative and personal survey of 50 of the most fantastic mushrooms to be found in the region.

Included are the famous Morchella (morel) and Cantharellus (chanterelle) as well as lesser-known species, like the blueish purple Clitocybe nuda (wood blewit) which smells like frozen orange juice, and Hydnellum peckii (Bleeding tooth fungus), which oozes brilliant red droplets that are widely used as a natural dye. Through the lens of these humble fungi, the interconnectedness of all living things comes into focus.

"Field Noes from a Fungi Forager" features: An introduction to mushrooms in the Northwest landscape; Best practices for mushroom foraging and appreciation; 50 mushroom profiles, includes information about each mushroom's appearance (plus scientific illustrations of each species), what distinguishes them from other species, how they have been used throughout different cultures and lore, and personal field notes from the forest floor; The most prized edible species are paired with mouthwatering sidebars about ways to use that mushroom in the kitchen.

Infused with a forager-chef's love of edible mushrooms as well as the reverence of an eco-spiritual guide, this fully illustrated book is as much a treat to read as is to look at.

Critique: Profusely illustrated with artist/illustrator Libby England's museum quality, full colored, page sized mushroom drawings throughout, "Field Notes from a Fungi Forager: An Illustrated Journey Through the World of Pacific Northwest Mushrooms" is exceptionally informative and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. While also available from Sasquatch Books in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), this hardcover edition of "Field Notes from a Fungi Forager" by Ashley Rodriguez is an unreservedly recommended pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Mushroom/Fungi collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note #1: Ashley Rodriguez (www.notwithoutsalt.com/shop) is a Seattle-based author, cooking instructor, food photographer, writer, partner, and mother of three children. She is the co-creator and host of James Beard Award-nominated outdoor cooking adventure series Kitchen Unnecessary, and the top food blog notwithoutsalt.com. She is the author of three cookbooks, and is a certified Nature and Forest Therapy guide.

Editorial Note: Libby England is an artist whose work celebrates nature through both an analytical and spiritual lens.

My Time to Stand: A Memoir
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, Melissa Moore, and Michele Matrisciani
BenBella Books
www.benbellabooks.com
9781637745908, $29.95, HC, 264pp

https://www.amazon.com/My-Time-Stand-Gypsy-Rose-Blanchard/dp/1637745907

Synopsis: Forced to use a wheelchair in public and endure a lifetime of faux illness, fraud, and exploitation, Gypsy was subjected not only to her mother's medical, physical, and emotional abuse, but deprived of childhood milestones. Prevented from attending school or socializing, Gypsy's formative years were defined by pain and isolation.

After serving 8 years in prison for the role she played in her mother Dee Dee's murder, with the publication of "My Time to Stand: A Memoir", Gypsy is now embracing her fresh start -- and reminding all of us that it's never too late.

In this revelatory, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful memoir, Gypsy shares the painful realities she grew up with and the details of her life that only she knows, including:

The abusive cycle that began with Dee Dee's abuse by her father
Gypsy's fear that continued unnecessary surgery would leave her truly disabled
How she coped with guilt and accepted responsibility for her mother's death
Memories of her final days in prison
What she learned upon reviewing her own medical records for the first time
How it felt to finally see her family again as her authentic self

Featuring Blanchard family photos and new facts about Gypsy's life that she previously kept private, "My Time to Stand" offers an unprecedented look at the real Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, proudly embarking on her ongoing journey to recovery and self-discovery.

Critique: Fascinating, candid, emotionally engaging, thought-provoking, "My Time to Stand: A Memoir" by Gypsy-Rose Blanchard (with the assistance of co-authors Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani) is a simply riveting read from start to finish. Deftly written with a distinctive first person and narrative driven storytelling style, "My Time to Stand" is especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library Contemporary American Biography/Memoir collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "My Time to Stand" is also readily available from BenBella Books in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).

Editorial Note #1: Gypsy-Rose Blanchard served 8 years of a 10-year sentence for the second-degree murder of her mother, Clauddine Blanchard, and was released from Missouri's Chillicothe Correctional Center at the end of 2023. From birth to age 23, Gypsy was the victim of incomprehensible emotional, physical, and medical abuse at the hands of her mother, who is suspected to have suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- a rare psychological disorder marked by attention-seeking behavior of a primary caregiver (most often the mother) through those who are in their care.

Editorial Note #2: Michele Matrisciani is an editor who founded Bookchic LLC, where she collaborates and consults on all aspects of writing and publishing. She is the coauthor of Whole: A Guide to Self-Repair and a Pushcart Prize nominee for her personal essay, "The Case for the Second Mom."

Editorial Note #3: Melissa Moore is the Emmy-nominated executive producer of Lifetime's The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Monster in My Family. Moore is the author of Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter and Whole: A Guide to Self-Repair.

Margaret Lane
Reviewer


Mark Walker's Bookshelf

Vagabond Dreams
Ryan Murdock
https://ryanmurdock.com
Polyphemus Ltd
9780957370203, $25.59 print / $8.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Vagabond-Dreams-Ryan-Murdock-ebook/dp/B00A04EP4S

I met the author through his podcast, Personal Landscapes: Conversations on Books About Place, which included interviews with some of my favorite authors: Paul Theroux on Orwell and Burma Sahib, Thomas Swick: Life in Cold War Poland, Nicholas Shakespeare on Ian Fleming, Barnaby Rogerson: The making of the Middle East and Jeremy Bassetti: Pilgrims on Bolivia's Hill of Skulls.

Murdock's latest book, A Sunny Place for Shady People, takes place in Malta and blends travel writing and political reportage to show why a journalist was killed in broad daylight in a tiny European Union member state. But I chose Vagabond Dreams because it takes place in my favorite part of the world, Central America. It was the beginning of wanderlust for both of us. Murdock started his journey in 2000 when he was 28, and I was 23 when I entered Guatemala with the Peace Corps in 1971. Similar ages, but very different times, and yet I recognized and felt a connection to many of the places he visited.

Murdock starts his book with an excellent description of the misperceptions that exist about Central America:

At the time I went there, Central America was a place of shady geography for most North Americans: a land of violent revolutions, of Sandinistas, and contras, of military intervention and a kidnapped dictator. Drama for the eleven o'clock news. Beyond that, what? One of the many gauge regions where coffee comes from?

His description a travel writer assured me this was the author I wanted to follow, "Every traveler is, in a sense, an anthropologist: a bridger of cultures, a recorder of customs, a fieldworker immersed in the incredible diversity of human life, searching for understanding and experience."
Murdock's travel memoir focuses on the relationships he developed with the people he met. He sets off alone in the Darien Gap in southern Panama and takes us through his personal transformation during a carefree week with new friends on Corn Island in the Caribbean Sea off Nicaragua. He lets go of culturally bred inhibitions with colorful depictions of characters he met, like Zack, an outgoing, uninhibited Chicagoan. Other memorable characters include Jack Romano, a socially awkward hanger, and Ivannia Gonzales, a beautiful 19-year-old Costa Rican who is his love interest, and whose family takes him in with a pair of like-minded Slovenia women.

A country is often known for its fine liquor in one form or another, which was the case of Nicaragua, where Victory Beer looked quite communist." ...It had a plain revolutionary-looking label painted directly onto the bottle. Exactly the kind of bottle I'd imagine would be produced in a third world, formerly communist republic. In retrospect, it was the best-tasting beer that I drank in Central America."

Flor de Cana was symbolic of Nicaragua for both of us. Murdock describes one drink with this local elixir: "The rum transmitted through its very genes the essence of the Caribbean. It released and mellowed me. It slowed me down and pushed my irritability to a distant place. It made me realize that it had all been in my head."

Murdock gets philosophical as the story progresses: "We all ponder the meaning of life now and then, but to do so armed with a bottle of the world's smoothest rum is considerably more enlightening than to do so without." He has a point...

According to Murdock, Nicaragua served the best food, "The plantain held a natural sweetness - a hint of bananas baked in brown sugar - which the butter brought to life and caused to run down my chin in a rich oily sheen. The meat fell apart in my mouth and left an aftertaste of charcoal that lingered in the nose. The cost of all this: one dollar."

Murdock also described life's seamy side: "But of course, naivety and daydreams had to be balanced by harsh reality. You couldn't airbrush out the unpleasantness: the poverty, the petty crime, the ugliness, and the dirt, the fact that people drank too much. All you could do was accept it and wait. Given a bit of time, that too would pass."

The author shares an uncomplimentary conversation between two Peace Corps volunteers. "I'm working in this village diggin' latrines, tryin' to teach these people about sanitation." He said the word 'sanitation ' as though he'd read it in a manual somewhere... He says that one of the villagers works hard, "But the rest, what a bunch of lazy fucks." Another volunteer chimes in with, "They're so fuckin ' stupid."

Social commentary includes the clash of cultures, "Silicon Civilization exists purely on the surface. It has no real depth. Grey factories and mirrored office towers crank and shuffle night and day, churning out weak backs, environmental allergies, fibromyalgia, hypertension, and obesity - lifestyle diseases of overfed and under exerted..."

Things were different in Latin America, according to Murdock. "Life wasn't sterile... The Third World streets were raw and primal, and they taught me the essence of Life - of Life stripped down to absolutes, to necessities."

When Murdock finally arrived in my favorite country, Guatemala, his description of what he didn't see was enlightening. He was told to go to backpackers' "paradise" on Lake Atitlan, San Pedro:

"In hindsight, I'm glad I never went. When I finally got to Guatemala, I learned that San Pedro had very little to do with the life of that country. Even the locals mockingly referred to it as "gringo-tenango." Those backpacker places were always the same. The people who stayed there went on and on about some village in the highlands where they were the only foreigners, where they couldn't speak the dialect, and where they got ringworm and dysentery. They sat up all night arguing about who found the most "authentic" culture, and they thought they were terribly original. But Everyone with Lonely Plant was doing the same thing. In their self-professed originality, they were simply identifying with a group of like-minded others. It's not hard to be different with a support group.

At the end of the book, Murdock tells us what he hopes to accomplish (and he did): "I work hard to ensure that travel writing draws larger connections to our lives as a whole, and I hope each piece leaves my readers with meaningful insights that continue to resonate long after they've turned the last page. Travel writing without meaning bores me."

About the Author
Ryan Murdock has written about travel, culture, and the world's marginal places for over 20 years. His journeys have taken him to 78 countries, including desert expeditions and long solo trips through Central America and East and Southeast Asia.

He is Editor-at-Large (Europe) for Outpost, Canada's national travel magazine, where his popular print column "Adrift on the Continent" explores odd corners of Europe, strange bits of political, human or physical geography that are largely unknown to Canadian readers. His feature articles have taken him across a remote stretch of Canada's Northwest Territories on foot, into the Central Sahara in search of prehistoric rock art, and around Wales with a drug squad detective hunting for the real King Arthur. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Mark Walker, Reviewer
www.MillionMileWalker.com


Matthew McCarty's Bookshelf

Fight Like Hell
Kim Kelly
One Signal Books/Atria
simonandschuster.com
9781982171056, $27.00 Hardcover, $14.99 Kindle 418 pgs.

https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Like-Hell-History-American/dp/1982171065

American labor history is the history of America. Without the efforts of strong and persistent labor unions, American workers of all vocations would not have the benefits that they are currently able to utilize. Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor (One Signal Publishers, 2022, 420 pgs., $28.00 US, $37.00 CAN) by Kim Kelly is a defining effort to relate the history of American labor in the context of the multi-century life of our country. Kelly has written a true narrative of how labor has had an impact on the economy, culture, and daily life of Americans. Kelly has done a masterful job of portraying labor as just as important as military victories or political deal making.

American labor has undergone a life of rapid advance and just as rapid retreat over the last three and a half centuries. The struggles of miners, factory workers, teamsters, and even sex workers are discussed in great detail by Kelly. These struggles often result in dramatic wins such as the eight hour workday, minimum wage, and health benefits which are contrasted with dangerous working conditions, child labor, and deplorable living conditions. Kelly deftly describes how these ups and downs have committed American workers to the struggle and how they seem to show corporations that workers will not be taken advantage of in the drive for higher profits. Kelly also skillfully relates how the efforts by workers in a wide array of industries have resulted in lives saved and families sustained.

Fight Like Hell is an excellent history. Kim Kelly has written a book that should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the connections between American labor and American history in general. Labor organizers and workers seeking representation would do well to read about the efforts of custodians, air-traffic controllers, and truckers as they attempt to bargain for better working conditions. Fight Like Hell is a skillfully researched and well -written book. It is encouraging and impactful in the struggle for better lives for all Americans.

Matthew W. McCarty, EdD
Reviewer


Michael Carson's Bookshelf

Seeds of Leadership
David A. Ogden
Privately Published
9798990978102, $12.99, PB, 128pp

https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Leadership-Foundations-Excellence-Responders/dp/B0DPBDZ7RT

Synopsis: Spiritual wellness is officer safety!

Law enforcement officers are eight times more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. Issues like PTS, depression, and the latest data suggest diverse rate are higher than the normal population. Police work is intrinsically spiritual. Officers strive to do good, meet people at their most difficult times, and try to bring them to hope. Yet, when they return to work, their leaders focus solely on mental and physical toughness, avoiding discussions on spiritual wellness of personal relationships.

For decades, addressing officers' mental health has been discussed in police leadership, but the battle continues to be lost as their approach hasn't changed; doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. If leaders continue to miss the critical component of spiritual wellness, officers will remain trapped in this cycle.

With the publication of "Seeds of Leadership: Sowing the Foundations of Excellence in First Responders", author David A. Ogden demonstrates that he is passionate about helping first responders become better leaders at home, work and I the community. It is his prayer that officers will read, relate, and apply the leadership lessons he shares over the next 100 days.

Critique: Drawing upon his extensive and professional experiences as a law enforcement officer and that would eventually lead him to serving as the Chief of Police for Windermere, Florida, (and presented from a Christian perspective), "Seeds of Leadership: Sowing the Foundations of Excellence in First Responders" is of particular value and appeal to readers with an interest in the well-being and moral code of the men and women who service the public as first responders including police officers, fire fighters, and EMT personnel. Exceptionally well written, inspiring, real world practical, and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "Seeds of Leadership: Sowing the Foundations of Excellence in First Responders" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as professional, community, police & fire fighter academies, EMT trainee curriculum, governmental, and college/university library collections.

Editorial Note: Dave Ogden has excelled as a law enforcement executive, accumulating over three and a half decades of experience in police work. Currently serving as the Chief of Police in the Town of Windermere, her has orchestrated a successful transformation within the agency; creating a team that leads with honor, integrity and selfless service. Our team has earned our communities respect only through creating a new culture. Dave firmly believes that leadership is synonymous with discipleship, emphasizing the importance of radiating God's light to cultivate trust in the relationships he encounters.

Michael J. Carson
Reviewer


Robin Friedman's Bookshelf

The Poems of Charles Reznikoff: 1918 -- 1975
Charles Reznikoff, author
Seamus Cooney, editor
Black Sparrow Press
http://www.godine.com/collections/black-sparrow-press
9781574232035, $42.95 paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Charles-Reznikoff-1918-1975-Sparrow/dp/1574232037

Charles Reznikoff Revisited

I learned years ago of the poems of Charles Reznikoff (1894 -- 1976) through an article by Robert Alter titled "Poet of Exile" in the February 1977 issue of "Commentary." Alter described the life and work of this poet who never left the United States and with the exception of three years in Hollywood and one year's education in journalism never left New York City. Alter described the three matrices of Reznikoff's writing from beginning to end as "New York, the Jews, and America." Alter's article and Reznikoff fascinated me, and I purchased from an independent bookstore, still common at the time, the two volumes of Reznikoff's "Complete Poems" edited by Seamus Cooney (1933 -- 2023) and published by Black Sparrow Press. At the time, Black Sparrow Press was an independent California publisher noted for publishing the works of deserving writers who were largely ignored by the mainstream. The most famous Black Sparrow writer was Charles Bukowski. I read the Reznikoff Black Sparrow volumes at the time and still treasure them. Black Sparrow was eventually sold, and items from its catalogue are still published under its name.

Reznikoff was born to immigrant Jewish parents and lived when young in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He was a solitary young person who wrote poetry and studied journalism for one year in Missouri before attending law school in New York City. He never practiced law, but legal studies made an indelible imprint on his writing. After drifting and working as a salesman in his father's business, Reznikoff devoted himself to writing. He self-published many volumes of his short poetry, and printed many of these volumes himself.

Reznikoff's works include the short poems I am reviewing here, a two volume poem called "Testimony" and a late single volume poem "Holocaust". Reznikoff also wrote novels, including the autobiographical "By the Waters of Manhattan" and the posthumously published "The Manner Music" as well as other writings.

Reznikoff was part of the Objectivist school of 20th Century American poetry, together with Ezra Pound, Louis Zukofsky, George Oppen, W.C. Williams, and others. Louis Zukofsky saw the traits of objectivist poetry as treating the poem as an independent object, sincerity, and depiction of a particular aspect of the world. Reznikoff was his paradigm of an objectivist poet. The generalization still should be used with caution. Many of Reznikoff's poems are autobiographical. And there is a heavy sense of things left unsaid in many of his poems.

Reznikoff was throughout his life a walker in the streets, parks, subways, and buildings of New York City. He wrote many one or two line poems that capture a moment of observation, such as the following poem, much admired by the objectivist poet George Oppen.

"Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies
a girder, still itself among the rubbish."

Reznikoff also wrote vignettes describing people he knew and people he met during his life of city walking. These are also largely New York City poems. Then, Reznikoff became increasingly attracted to Jewish themes and wrote many poems about Judaism, his religious search, and about Jewish history and Scripture. These poems tend to be longer. Robert Alter regards them as, on the whole, less successful than the shorter New York City poems. Reznikoff was a secular American who struggled with and who learned from his Judaism.

The first of the two Black Sparrow volumes includes nine short books Reznikoff self-published between 1918 --1936, including the evocatively named collection "Jerusalem the Golden" (1934), which includes the short poem quoted above. Here is another, somewhat atypical poem from the collection titled "Spinoza" that celebrates this great philosopher.

"He is the stars,
multitudinous as the drops of rain,
and the worm at our feet,
leaving only a blot on the stone;
except God there is nothing.

Go neither hates nor loves, has neither pleasure nor pain;
were God to hate or love, He would not be God;
He is not a hero to fight our enemies,
nor like a king to be angry or pleased at us,
nor even a father to give us our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses;
nothing is but as He wishes,
nothing was but as he willed it;
as He wills it, so it will be."

Volume two includes four collections of poems Reznikoff published between 1937 and 1975, together with an uncollected group of "Last Poems". The collection "By the Well of Living and Seeing" includes a lengthy autobiographical poem, "Early History of a Writer". The collection "Inscriptions" includes a section called "Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays". Here is the concluding stanza of the poem, "Day of Atonement".

"Now, as from the dead, I revisit the earth and delight
in the sky and hear again
the noise of the city and see
earth's marvelous creatures -men.
Out of nothing I became a being,
and from a being I shall be
nothing-- but until then
I rejoice, a mote in Your world,
a spark in Your seeing."

And here is a short selection from a poem in the 1941 collection "Going to and Fro and Walking Up and Down:"

"It is not to be bought for a penny
in the candy store, nor picked
from the bushes in the park. It may be found, perhaps,
in the ashes on the distant lots,
among the rusting cans and Jimpson weeds.
If you wish to eat fish freely,
cucumbers and melons,
you should have stayed in Egypt."

I have lived with and revisited Reznikoff's poetry many times since discovering his work in the 1970s. He is a writer who speaks immediately to me and who will, perhaps speak to others.. I was fortunate to read the "Complete Poems" again and to share thoughts with other readers.

Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason
Yirmiyahu Yovel, author
Princeton University Press
http://www.press.princeton.edu
9780691020785, $49.95 paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Spinoza-Other-Heretics-Vol-1/dp/0691020787

Spinoza As The Marrano of Reason

This book "The Marrano of Reason" is the first of two a two-volume study "Spinoza and Other Heretics" (1989) by the Israeli philosopher Yirmiyahu Yovel (1935 -- 2018). Yovel argues that Spinoza was a major figure in Western thought who developed what Yovel describes as a "radically new philosophical principle that I call the philosophy of immanence." In the first of many depictions of the philosophy of immanence, Yovel says that it "views this-worldly existence as all there is, as the only actual being and the sole source of ethical value. God himself is identical with the totality of nature, and God's decrees are written not in the Bible but in the laws of nature and reason." The first volume of the set, "The Marrano of Reason", describes the origins of Spinoza's philosophy of immanence in the Marrano culture from which he sprang. It is the volume under review here. The second volume "The Adventures of Immanence" traces the development of the philosophy of immanence through key figures of modern philosophy, including Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, and Einstein. Yovel's goal is to show how much of modern philosophy may be understood from the standpoint of Spinoza and the philosophy of immanence.

Yovel understands Spinoza as the "Marrano of Reason". The Marranos were Jewish people in Spain and Portugal who had forcibly been converted to Catholicism beginning in about 1391. Many of the converts remained Christian while others practiced Judaism, or a form of it, in secret to keep their identity alive. Marranos eventually traveled in Europe and some arrived in the liberal city of Amsterdam, Spinoza's home, where they worked hard to recover their heritage. Spinoza was a member of a temple in Amsterdam, from his birth, until he was excommunicated for his heretical views on July 27, 1656, age 23.

Yovel offers a historical and philosophical analysis of the Marranos, in Spain and Portugal and then in the Netherlands. He combines this with a broad-based study of Spinoza's life and thought. He develops in successive chapters a series of traits that Spinoza shared with and likely took from the Marranos while translating them into a "new, secular, and rationalistic context". These traits include,in Yovel's words, "a this-worldly disposition; a split religious identity; a metaphysical skepticism; a quest for alternative salvation through methods that oppose the official doctrine; an opposition between the inner and the outer life, and a tendency toward dual language and equivocation." Yovel calls Spinoza the "Marrano of Reason" because Spinoza transferred both in his thought and in his life the patterns of Marranism "from transcendent historical religion to the domain of reason and immanence."

The book moves back and forth between Spinoza and the Marranos. The first chapter begins with Spinoza's Excommunication and with Yovel's view of its background and causes. In the second chapter, Yovel develops briefly Spinoza's immanent philosophy and shows why Spinoza is entitled to be called the "Marrano of Reason".

In chapter 3, Yovel follows the course of other New Jews in Amsterdam, showing the "Split mind" of some of Spinoza's friends and contemporaries. The fourth chapter consists of a lengthy analysis of the famous work of an earlier converso, "La Celestina" (1499) by Fernando de Rojas. Yovel compares and contrasts Rojas with Spinoza finding that where Rojas's work lead to skepticism, Spinoza's immanence was "much more coherent and organized" in that Spinoza's world had "intrinsic meaning and unity, not a hybrid of two lost religions but a new, positive entity, a deified nature that inherits the absolute positivity, divinity, and sublimity of the old transcendent God."

Yovel's fifth chapter examines Spinoza's careful, equivocal use of language in the "Theological-Political Treatise", his circumspection, and his doubts that the majority of people would ever be able to think fully clearly and rationally. The sixth chapter "Knowledge as Alternative Salvation" has the most extended philosophical analysis in the book. examines the difficult Part V of Spinoza's "Ethics". In it, Spinoza developed his third, and highest form of knowledge based on intuition of the whole, which Yovel sees as leading to a form of "secular salvation." The Epilogue to the study. "Spinoza and his People" studies Spinoza's relationship to Judaism, with the diversification and rise of secular Judaism subsequent to Spinoza's time. Yovel questions the frequently-made claim that Spinoza was the "first secular Jew".

I read this book many years ago when seriously engaged in the study of Spinoza and was moved recently to re-read it. The book is inspiring and provocative in the treatment of my favorite philosopher and thoughtful in its discussion of a "philosophy of immanence." The book is learned in its discussion of the Marranos but does not always tie this discussion in with Spinoza in detail. The discussion of the details of Spinoza's difficult philosophy also is necessarily brief. The key insight of this book, that Spinoza is a "philosopher of immanence", however, seems to me largely correct and worth developing.

Students of Spinoza, philosophy, and Jewish history will benefit from this book and from its companion volume.

Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Adventures of Immanence
Yirmiyahu Yovel, author
Princeton University Press
http://www.press.princeton.edu
9780691020792, $40.07 paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Spinoza-Other-Heretics-Adventures-Immanence/dp/0691073465

Spinoza And The Adventures Of Immanence

This book "The Adventures of Immanence" is the second in a two-volume study "Spinoza and Other Heretics" by the Israeli philosopher Yirmiyahu Yovel (1935-- 2018). Yovel argues that Spinoza was a major figure in Western thought who developed what Yovel calls the "philosophy of immanence". The goal of the two volumes is to examine the nature of the philosophy of immanence. In the first volume "The Marrano of Reason" Yovel argues that Marranism -- Jews who converted to Catholicism under duress during the Inquisition, practiced Judaism in secret, and ultimately returned to Judaism -- was a critical factor personally and philosophically in Spinoza's thought. In the second volume, which is reviewed here, Yovel takes Spinoza's philosophy of immanence through subsequent thinkers to try to show how they both built upon and disagreed with Spinoza.

It is important to understand what Yovel means by the philosophy of immanence. He says at the outset that immanence "views this-worldly existence as the only actual being, and the unique source of ethical value and political authority. All being is this-worldly and there is nothing beyond it, neither a personal creator-God who imposes His divine will on man, nor supernatural powers or values of any kind. The laws of morality and politics too, and even religion, stem from this world by the natural powers of reason: and recognizing this is the prelude and pre-condition for human emancipation." The philosophy of immanence challenges the theistic views of major Western religions and is closely related to naturalism and secularization, two other difficult concepts.

With this basic discussion of immanence, Yovel points out that there are many questions and possible ways of construing it. Some of these difficulties were apparent in Yovel's first volume, but the come to the forefront in this second volume. Again, it is useful to read Yovel's own summary of these difficulties:

"[O]ne can still argue about the adequate way to construe the world of immanence. For example (1) is it Nature, as in Spinoza, or rather Spirit, History, Wille, or any such other metaphysical construction? (2) Should it be individuated as a single, infinite totality? (3) Should it also be deified?
(4) What structure applies to it: mechanical causality, organic purposiveness, dialectical logic-- or a much more fluid and flexible model? (5) Does it have this structure eternally? Is our Spinozistic quest for fixed, eternal laws well-founded or rather a pre-philosophical bias, perhaps the vestige of theological thinking? (6) Should the human being (either as a subject, or as a natural species be assigned a special position within the world of immanence? If so, in what capacity? And how is the role of human history affected by answering the former question? (7) Should human liberation (which presupposes the immanent revolution) translate the religious view of salvation into an equally absolute secular eschatology, or should it (by its very secularity) be confined to a humbler version, restrained by critical boundaries."

Yovel explores these daunting questions in the body of his book. In six chapters, he compares and contrasts the thought of Spinoza with other important, difficult thinkers with a crucial imprint on the modern world. In the first and most important chapter, Yovel discusses Spinoza and Kant and their approaches to Biblical interpretation. Yovel argues that Kant developed a critical as opposed to a dogmatic philosophy of immanence found in Spinoza. In the second chapter, Yovel discusses Hegel and his many similarities to and differences from Spinoza. Hegel pointed to difficulties in Spinoza's theory of one eternal substance and developed a complex metaphysics of subject. The third chapter discusses efforts to naturalize Hegel in the works of Heine, Hess, and Feuerbach while the fourth chapter offers a consideration of Marx as "Man-in-Nature and the Science of Redemption". In the fifth chapter, Yovel considers Nietzsche and his philosophy of finitude. Yovel contrasts Spinoza's understanding of "the intellectual love of God" with Nietzsche's treatment of "amor fati" or loving one's destiny. In chapter six, Yovel compares Spinoza immanence to that of Freud with its distinctly less ambitious but naturalistically based goals.

In the final chapter of the book, Yovel shifts from comparisons between Spinoza and other thinkers. He works to state a philosophy of his own based upon what he has learned from the study. He develops what he terms a critical philosophy of immanence which is not based upon the global, absolute character of reason, as in Spinoza but rather is based upon human finitude. He tries to develop his own answers to the seven questions discussed earlier in this review. Most importantly, he discusses what he terms the "status of transcendence" and argues that transcendence cannot be ruled out in the manner of Spinoza. This is because, as Kant said, human knowledge unavoidably poses transcendent questions that it is unable to answer. Yovel writes that "[C]ritical rationality requires maintaining the mind's transcendent quest along with the recognition that it cannot be fulfilled. It thereby creates an unfulfilled gap, a void of tension, which is the mark of human finitude and a distinctive feature of the critical philosopher."

I learned a great deal from revisiting Yovel's study of Spinoza after many years. It reminded me of what I have learned from Spinoza and what I have learned as well from other thinkers. The books are difficult and cover a great deal of material quickly in the relatively short scopes but are moving in their erudition and passion for their subject The books are accessible, with patience, to readers without a strong background in studying philosophy. They offer a great deal of insight both into philosophy and into Judaism as well. Much can be learned by thinking about Spinoza's philosophy of immanence for contemporary life and in contemporary thought.

Hegel's Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit
Georg Wilhelm Hegel, author, Yirmiyahu Yovel, Translator, Commentator
Princeton University Press
http://www.press.princeton.edu
9780691120522, $41.98, hardcover

https://www.amazon.com/Hegels-Preface-Phenomenology-Spirit-Georg/dp/0691120528

An Outstanding Introduction To Hegel

Hegel (1770 -- 1831) is probably the most difficult and the most controversial of the great philosophers. Much of modern analytic philosophy, beginning with Russell and Moore, had its origin in an uncompromising rejection of Hegel (in the persons of his British idealist followers) and his obscurantism. Continental philosophers, such as Heidegger, are heavily indebted to Hegel even while philosophizing against him. I have had difficulty in prior attempts to read Hegel. His massive "Phenomenology of Spirit" proved nearly impenetrable when I read it several years ago. The short introductory secondary sources on Hegel that I read proved unsatisfactory.

Thus, I was pleased to find and read this short book by Yirmiyahu Yovel, "Hegel's Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit." Yovel is a Professor of Philosophy at the New School University and Chairman of the Jerusalem Spinoza Institute. I had earlier read Yovel's two-volume study of Spinoza, "Spinoza and Other Heretics" which made me eager to learn about Hegel from him. Yovel offers an erudite, careful and highly-philosophically informed account of this difficult philosopher.

Even with a philosopher as difficult as Hegel, the best approach begins with the philosopher's own writings rather than a paraphrase. Yovel offers a translation of the Preface to Hegel's "Phenomenology." Written in 1807, the "Phenomenology" remains Hegel's greatest work. A close reading of the Preface, which Hegel wrote after completing his text, may be the best way to begin to understand what he is about. Yovel's translation is as accessible and accurate as a translation of such a work may be. But the major appeal of his version of the Preface is the running commentary which explains and elucidates Hegel's words on an almost line-by-line basis, trying to clarify Hegel's thought and its many differing interpretations. After reading through the Preface and Yovel's commentary, I tried to read the Preface alone, without reference to the notes. This remains a daunting task. The better approach remains to read the Preface closely several times, together with Yovel's commentary.

The text and commentary forms about one-half of the book. Yovel begins with an introductory 60-page essay which, he observes, "is not intended to replace the commentary but to complement it." Much of the introduction is spent explaining Hegel's difficult metaphysical concepts which are anathema to most contemporary philosophers. Even if much of Hegel's metaphysical baggage is rejected, as it should be, Yovel argues persuasively that it must be understood in order to know Hegel and to find whatever may be valuable in his thought. Yovel tries to explain two of the most famous and puzzling statements in Hegel: that "the true is the whole" and that "the true [the absolute] is subject." He offers parallels and divergences between Hegel's thought and that of Kant and Spinoza. Yovel differentiates Hegel's idealism from that of his former friends and post-Kantian thinkers, Fichte, Schelling and Holderlin, in elucidating Hegel's rejection of "mysticism" and commitment to what he viewed as "reason". The introduction concludes with a consideration of what Yovel finds valuable in Hegel, including his commitment to a this-worldly philosophy of immanence which tries to avoid both positivism and spiritualism, a recognition that human reason is substantive rather than a formal machine-like calculus, and a concern with the meaning of existence and with the role of human activity in bringing it about (rather than finding it ready-made somewhere). Yovel also emphasizes the dynamic character of Hegel's thought, with its emphasis on becoming, the abandoning of substance-based metaphysics, and historicism. Yovel finds that the key to developing these themes for contemporary thought lies in renouncing Hegel's inflated claims to certainty and to absolute knowledge. The result would be a philosophy that "would no longer be Hegel but would not have been possible without him." (p. 62)

The book concludes with a section on "Works on Hegel" in which Yovel describes some of the competing interpretations of Hegel that have been offered in recent years together with a select but detailed annotated bibliography for further study.

This book gave me more of an understanding and appreciation of Hegel than I had before I read it. Yovel's passion for his subject and for philosophy and his commitment to its importance is apparent on every page. This is not a book for the beginner in philosophy. But it is a rare book in that it will teach both readers new to Hegel as well as the readers who have studied him for many years.

Zen is Right Here: The Wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki
David Chadwick, editor
Shambhala
https://www.shambhala.com
9781611807875, $12.95, paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Right-Here-Shunryu-Shambhala/dp/1611807875

To Shine One Corner Of The World

The Zen monk and teacher Shunryu Suzuki (1904 -- 1971) came to the United States from Japan in 1959 where he worked to teach Buddhism and founded two Zen centers: the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center. He wrote "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" (1970), a highly influential book about Zen.

David Chadwick, a long-time student of Suzuki wrote a biography of the life and thought of his teacher, "Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Thought of Shunyu Suzuki" (1999). Shortly thereafter, Chadwick published a short book "To Shine One Corner of the World" (2001) which presented brief recollections and vignettes of encounters with Suzuki recounted by his students and found in the archives of the Zen Center. This book went out-of-print, but it has been reissued in this volume as "Zen is Right Here" (2019) published in the Shambala Pocket Library series of Shambala Press, which aims to present brief, readable books of religious teachings from leaders and texts across time and traditions.

This book is short and can be read quickly, with each page consisting of a paragraph or two detailing an encounter with Suzuki. Often the student asks a question or otherwise provokes a comment or teaching from the Roshi. The responses are frequently humorous, down-to-earth, and almost always paradoxical and unexpected. They aim to jar the reader and to encourage reflection on everyday life. Here are a few examples of the tenor of the book.

"One morning when we were all sitting zazen, Suzuki Roshi gave a brief impromptu talk in which he said, 'Each of you is perfect the way you are and you can use a little improvement.'"

"After an evening lecture, a man in the audience asked : 'You say that Zen is everywhere. So why do we have to come to the Zen Center?"

'Zen is everywhere,' Suzuki Roshi agreed. 'But for you, Zen is right here.'"

"Now and then Suzuki Roshi would make this point: 'In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light one corner-- not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.'"

There is much to be pondered in these little teachings. The book includes an Introduction by Chadwick, a Glossary of Buddhist terms, and suggestions for further reading.

The book reminded me of another religious tradition in the stories and anecdotes frequently recounted of Hasidic Rebbes in their encounters with disciples. The book also reminded me of a dear recently-deceased friend. We participated for many years in a study group on the Buddhist Suttas. He was affectionately known to our group as the "pacceka buddha" -- as one who had the qualities to achieve Enlightenment on his own. He was learned, quiet, and modest and was comfortable in himself and in living in the present.

Robin Friedman
Reviewer


Steven Kirk Bane's Bookshelf

The ABC-CLIO Companion to the 1960s Counterculture in America
Neil A. Hamilton
ABC-CLIO
c/o Bloomsbury Publishing
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us
9780874368581, $79.00, hardcover, 386 pages, illustrated

https://www.amazon.com/ABC-Clio-Companion-Counterculture-America-Companions/dp/0874368588

"Released in 1967, the movie Bonnie and Clyde enthralled the counterculture generation with a fictionalized story about two infamous outlaws from the 1930s... Using sudden changes in mood, from violence to tranquil scenes punctuated by banjo music, director Arthur Penn kept his audience off balance... the portrayal of Bonnie and Clyde as doomed outsiders and rebels against society - and perhaps victims of the capitalist-engendered Great Depression - captivated young moviegoers." So asserts author Neil A. Hamilton, professor of history at Spring Hill College in Alabama.

This creditable reference work consists of more than 400 entries, arranged alphabetically, beginning with Acid and concluding with Howard Zinn. Hamilton examines the "social, cultural, and political revolution" that occurred in the United States during this turbulent era. His topics include significant people, both famous and infamous (such as Cesar Chavez, Angela Davis, Betty Friedan, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Hayden, Timothy Leary, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Norman Mailer, Charles Manson, and Hunter S. Thompson); popular terms (such as Far-Out, Joint, Make Love Not War, Pig, and Unisex); major movements and events (such as AIM, Altamont, Civil Rights, the Kennedy and King Assassinations, and Love-Ins); influential publications (such as Catch-22, The Greening of America, Ramparts, Rolling Stone, and the San Francisco Oracle); celebrated musicians and bands (such as The Doors, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and Sly and the Family Stone); iconic films (such as Alice's Restaurant, Barbarella, Easy Rider, The Graduate, and Midnight Cowboy); key places (such as Haight-Ashbury, Kent State, Old Town Chicago, the Stonewall Inn, and the University of California--Berkeley), and noteworthy groups (such as the Diggers, Hell's Angels, Hippies, SDS, and SNCC). A helpful Chronology (spanning the years 1960-1973) and a useful Bibliography (including articles, books, and websites) round out the encyclopedia.

Dr. Hamilton's book, wide-ranging, impressively researched, clearly written, and well-illustrated, deserves a prominent place in high school, university, and public libraries. Moreover, researchers and teachers would benefit from having this superb reference work in their personal library. In short, it's a gas, man!

Steven Kirk Bane
Reviewer


Susan Bethany's Bookshelf

Self-Care for Winter
Suzy Reading
Aster
c/o Octopus Books
https://www.octopusbooks.co.uk
9781783256358, $19.99, HC, 192pp

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Care-Winter-thriving-colder-months/dp/1783256354

Synopsis: Are you feeling it too? The genuine urge to bunker in, a growing need for rest, a deep desire to seek comfort? As the days become shorter and the cold descends, hibernation mode sets in. While seasonal change is a normal part of the natural world, many of us expect to have the same levels of energy all year round. The result is that our incessant drive to grow and out-perform can often leave us feeling frustrated and disheartened with our lower levels of energy and reduced productivity.

But what if there was a better way to approach the winter season?

With the publication of "Self-Care for Winter: Seven steps to thriving in the colder months ", self-care expert Suzy Reading presents 7 steps to not only survive the winter months but to thrive in them. By embracing the lessons from the natural world (from regulating light activity to warming body movements) you will learn how to alter your daily rhythms so that you can embrace winter. Through honoring lower energy levels and listening to what your body needs in the colder months, this can be an opportunity to rekindle joy and find fulfilment in every season of life.

The 7 steps to thriveing in a cold climate include:

1. Harness Light & Colour
2. Make a Healthy Movement Habit
3. Embrace Nature
4. Savour Comforting Rituals
5. Develop a Compassionate Pace: Sleep & Rest
6. Make Meaningful Connections
7. Practise Reflection

Critique: Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Self-Care for Winter: Seven steps to thriving in the colder months" by Suzy Reading is a unique, 'real world practical, effective DIY, and comprehensive course of direct DIY instructions and motivational commentary that is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Self-Help/Self-Improvement collections in general, and a Winter based 'how to manual to deal with Cabin Fever and other winter driven challenges of happiness, self-esteem, and good mental health. It should be noted that this paperback edition of "Self-Care for Winter" is also available from Aster in digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Suzy Reading (www.suzyreading.co.uk) is a Chartered Psychologist, yoga teacher and coach. Suzy has over two decades of experience in the health and wellbeing industry, with qualifications in personal training from Australia and yoga teacher training accreditation from The Life Centre in London. She draws these modalities together with psychology to help people build sustainable healthy lifestyle habits and is one of the top UK experts on self-care. Suzy is also the Psychology Expert for the wellbeing brand Neom Organics and is a founding member of the 'Nourish' app. Additionally, she is the author of The Little Book of Self-Care, The Self-Care Revolution, Stand Tall Like A Mountain, Self-care for Tough Times, This Book Will (Help) Make You Happy, And Breathe and Sit to Get Fit.

There's Something About Mira
Sonali Dev
https://sonalidev.com
Lake Union Publishing
c/o Amazon Publishing
9781662524271, $28.99, HC, 317pp

https://www.amazon.com/Theres-Something-About-Mira-Novel/dp/1662524277

Synopsis: Mira Salvi has the perfect life -- a job she loves, a fiance everyone adores, and the secure future she's always imagined for herself. Really, she hasn't a thing to complain about, not even when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York alone.

While playing tourist in the city, Mira chances upon a lost ring, and her social media post to locate its owner goes viral. With everyone trying to claim the ring, only one person seems to want to find its owner as badly as Mira does: journalist Krish Hale. Brooding and arrogant, he will do anything to get to write this story.

As Krish and Mira reluctantly join forces and jump into the adventure of tracing the ring back to where it belongs, Mira begins to wonder if she is in the right place in her own life. She had to have found this ring for a reason... right? Maybe, like the owner of the lost ring, her happy ending hasn't been written yet either.

Critique: A skillfully crafted, fun, and emotionally engaging read from start to finish, author Sonali Dev's new novel "There Something About Mira" rises to an impressive level of literary excellence and will prove to be of particular interest to fans of narrative driven and original fiction with themes of romance, relationships, and the ambiguity of happy endings. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that this hardcover edition of "There Something About Mira" from Lake Union Publishing is also readily available in a paperback edition (9781662524264, $16.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $3.99).

Editorial Note: Sonali Dev (https://sonalidev.com) writes stories that explore the experience of being a woman in today's world. Her novels have been named Best Books of the Year by Library Journal, NPR, the Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, PopSugar, and Kirkus Reviews. Dev has won the American Library Association's award for best in genre, the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, and multiple RT Seals of Excellence. Other honors include being named a RITA finalist and being listed for the Dublin Literary Award.

Susan Bethany
Reviewer


Tristen Kozinski's Bookshelf

The Book of Azrael
Amber V. Nicole
Rose and Star Publishing
9781737706755, $16.99 pbk
B09PGSNF62, $2.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Azrael-Gods-Monsters/dp/173770675X

The Book of Azrael, for me, was a book in conflict with itself tonally. It begins with a rather grim and gothic setting involving monsters and blood, torture, etc, and the author goes through the paces of committing to this theme. The main character, Diana, is a primary perpetrator in many of these darker acts, which allowed me to settle in for a pleasingly mature dark fantasy dealing with elements afore mentioned, further themes of relationship abuse, and teasings of a suitably gothic magic system. The story progresses along this track fairly well, balancing Diana's more horrific actions with a little inner turmoil and most crucially a well developed, deeply loving relationship with her sister upon whom she (and thus the reader) are greatly dependent for her humanity.

But as the narrative progresses and the male lead, Liam, enters, the tonal dissonance beings to emerge. The narrative gradually shifts from a gothic fantasy of moral conflict to an aggressively teen romance, and this is where the tonally conflict begins. It's not that Diana and Liam are bad characters, or lack depth, or strong personal drama (none of these are true, and in most cases the opposite is) but the strength of all these elements is diminished because all are viewed and interacted with through the lens of the romance. Liam is a deeply traumatized, millennia old, god-born emerging from centuries of isolation and all of these are used almost exclusively to further the romance, converting what otherwise would be an intense internal journey of conflict an drama in a brooding bad boy. Diana suffers a similar-ish fate; she, as a character, has spent most of her life experience various degrees of abuse, enslavement, and horrific violence (as well as committing it) and yet displays almost no signs of trauma, or internal conflict, or remorse. All the delicious meat and drama of her situation (apart from a few passings mentions of her reactions to a more positive romantic relationship) to a fawning adoration as Liam (an aforementioned god-born character millennia old, survivor of a shattered world and centuries of brutal combat) becomes increasingly infatuated with her. Much of this fawning is an attempt to infuse Diana with power and competence, and thus fails because of it.

The prose is fine, but the writing has a glaring weakness in how the author conveys and utilizes the power of her characters. On the most basic level, the power of her characters is both displayed poorly (leading often to a sensation of lacking weight) and inconsistent. Liam is both capable of partially reassembling planets and reading the heartbeats of multiple thousand people, and yet will be snuck up on, deceived, reduced to a fist fight, and prove incapable of overpowering a couple hundred zombies. Diana suffers a similar, although lessened, fate, and this leads to many events and progressions of the narrative to feeling contrived.
Still, the characters are mostly likable, and there are several scenes of real tension.

Trial by Sorcery
Richard Fierce
https://www.richardfierce.com
Independently Published
9781947329195, $14.99 pbk / $0.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Trial-Sorcery-Dragon-Riders-Osnen/dp/1947329332

Trial by Sorcery is a solid read but can at times feel a bit rushed due to the brevity of the narrative. It's not a long story which by definition necessitates a more concentrated plot, but the result is several fairly major plot points (such as the missing princess's identity) just happening.
The prose and characters are solid, with reasonable complexity and chemistry between our leads, but the plot is a little lackluster. The school setting is a well explored archetype and there's not enough done to really make use of or innovate upon it. The antagonist's plot exists in the narrative, but doesn't really drive it, existing more as an ancillary narrative to our MC progressing through the trials and resolving in a rather un-impactful fashion, with no real climax, or objective to prevent. The larger plot in general suffers a similar weakness; events happen, decisions are made, and they all make sense, but they don't synergize; there's no personal journey our MC embarks upon, no change that the plot forces upon him, or he upon the world. It is a story where nothing meaningful changes, and the most impact moment/plot point occurs at the end of the story and mostly without buildup or interaction with the MC apart from his being the primary actor in it.

This may sound overly critical, and that is not my intention. Trial by Sorcery is fine, and generally enjoyable, it just never reaches any grand heights of emotion, drama, tension, or action. It also has barely any scenes/interactions with dragons.

Tristen Kozinski, Reviewer
kozinskibooks.com


Willis Buhle's Bookshelf

Eye Contact Over Truk
Stephanie Woodman
Vortex Press
9798989940615, $17.00, PB, 309pp

https://www.amazon.com/EYE-CONTACT-OVER-TRUK-Heartrending/dp/B0D53PGK74

Synopsis: America, 1985. Nick Mitchel is wracked by grief. Destroyed by his beloved wife's death, the retiree is fighting to keep his flashbacks from disturbing long-buried truths. And a diving expedition in the Pacific Ocean he'd hoped would heal old wounds only reopens dark memories of the war...

Japan. Junichi Takahashi is brimming with indignation. After surviving the WWII firebombing of Tokyo as a child, he resents his dying father's request to explore a sunken graveyard. And with the location now a tourist mecca for scuba divers, he's furious that one of his nation's most tragic losses has turned into an underwater playground.

As Nick struggles with nightmarish visions, his anger awakens when a saboteur starts tampering with his equipment. And as Junichi battles to make peace with his grim history, he confronts Nick in a dangerous collision of perspectives.

Can the two men salvage anything from the wreckage of a bitter conflict?

Critique: Unique, original, deftly crafted, a riveting read from start to finish, and all the more impressive when considering that it is the author's debut as a novelist, "Eye Contact Over Truk" by Stephanie Wood is an outstanding historical novel populated by memorable characters, emotionally conflicting encounters, all told against seemingly surreal backdrops. One of those stories that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf -- "Eye Contact Over Truk" is an especially and unreservedly recommended pick for community Literary & Historical Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that this paperback edition of "Eye Contact Over Truk" from Vortex Press is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $6.99).

Editorial Note: Stephanie Woodman (https://woodmanbooks.com) is an avid collector of experiences and a perpetual student of life. She is also the author of "Operation Hailstone".

Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer


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Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
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