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Andrea Kay's Bookshelf
Riding for America
Nancy Hays
https://www.nancy-hays.com
Nancy Hays Entertainment, Inc.
9798892821810, $15.99, PB, 262pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Riding-America-Nancy-Hays/dp/B0FVTRFHVR
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/riding-for-america-nancy-hays/1148524243
Synopsis: Based on true events and people, "Riding for America" by Nancy Hays is a YA historical novel about a mother's sacrifice and inspiration as she guides her only son, Isaac Burns Murphy, to become the highest-paid and most successful sports icon of the 19th century.
Although both of Isaac's parents, America Murphy and Jerry Burns, were born into slavery-and Jerry fought in some of the most decisive battles of the Civil War-Isaac was able to overcome challenges and become the "Prince of Jockeys." Isaac was known for his intellect, strategy, good sportsmanship, and kindness to the horses he cared for and rode to victory. A few of his notable wins and accomplishments include three Kentucky Derbys, four of five American Derbys, and the first photo finish in American sports history-a match race between a White and a Black rider.
Readers will learn about a Black horse trainer named Eli Jordan, who coached Isaac to become the first jockey inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
A page-turner and a quick read, "Riding for America" moves at a fast pace with unpredictable twists and turns that keep readers on the edge of their seats throughout.
Educational, entertaining, and historically significant, "Riding for America" is a journey of excitement filled with tenderness and a love of literature, life, animals, mothers, teachers, spouses, and friends.
Isaac Murphy was a superstar with class, sophistication, and impeccable integrity. His life exemplifies perseverance and triumph against unimaginable odds. Isaac was a great American. He deserves to be remembered and celebrated as one of the most extraordinary sports heroes in U.S. history.
Critique: Fascinating, informative, inspirational, "Riding For America" by Nancy Hays is an extraordinary and deftly crafted read from cover to cover. While also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format ($9.99, Barnes & Noble), this trade paperback edition of "Riding For America" from Nancy Hays Entertainment, Inc. is especially and unreservedly recommended addition to family, middle school, highschool, and community library Historical Fiction collections for Teen and YA readers ages 13-18.
Editorial Note: Nancy Hays (https://www.nancy-hays.com) is a singer/songwriter and business owner based in Chicago. "Riding for America" is Nancy's passion project, which began as an inspiration in 2019 after reading about Isaac Murphy's story while producing an entertainment event at the Kentucky Derby Museum. During the pandemic, Nancy commissioned her son, Eddie Heffernan, a screenwriter, to assist her in creating a screenplay, stage play, and Young Adult novel about a remarkable mother named America, who raised a legendary sports hero.
Andrea Kay
Reviewer
Ann Skea's Bookshelf
Mona's Eyes: A Novel
Thomas Schlesser, author
Hildegarde Serle, translator
https://monaseyesnovel.com
Europa Editions
https://www.europaeditions.com
9798889661115, $30.00, HB 300pp.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Monas-Eyes-Thomas-Schlesser/dp/B0DTTH6GBV
Mona is a ten-year-old French girl living in Paris with her parents, Camille and Paul, and near to Dade, her beloved grandfather, Henry Vuillemin. One day, while quietly doing her maths homework, everything suddenly goes dark.
As a funeral garb. Then, here and there, some flashes, like those bright spots that appear when you vainly stare at the sun from behind eyelids that are as tightly clenched as fists fighting pain or emotion...
'Mommy, it's gone all black!'
Mona was blind.
Frantic calls to the family doctor, an urgent visit to the hospital, then many questions and tests, all find 'nothing there'. Meanwhile, Mona's sight has returned.
Having run more tests, the doctor can make no clear diagnosis, so he suggests hypnosis (which Paul rejects), then weekly blood and arterial tests, eye tests, and a consultation with a child psychiatrist. He does not mention the possibility of a relapse, but when Henry, who is not 'the sort to run away from questions, however dreadful they might be', hears what has happened, he fears that his granddaughter may go blind.
Henry, who is a lover of art, lives in an apartment in which his art books are 'piled right up to the ceiling'. When he sees Mona's bedroom full of glittery knick-knacks and cuddly toys, 'plastic jewelry' and 'cartoon-princess-style' furniture, it horrifies him. There is a single beautiful painting on the wall (which he recognises as a Musee d'Orsay poster of Seurat's Les Poseurs), but he can't bear to think that the kitsch clutter is all Mona will remember if she loses her sight.
He imagines her living her 'entire life in the dark with only the worst the world produces to draw on mentally, with nowhere for those memories to go. It was unthinkable.' So, when Camille asks him to help out by taking Mona to a child psychiatrist, he comes up with a plan.
He wouldn't take his granddaughter to see a child psychiatrist, no! Instead, he would administer a therapy of a totally different kind, a therapy capable of compensating for the ugliness inundating her childhood...
Once a week... he would go with Mona to contemplate a work of art - just one - first in prolonged silence, so the infinite delights of colour and line penetrate his granddaughter's mind, and then with words, so she went beyond visual rapture to understand how artists speak to us of life, how they illuminate it.
Without revealing his plan, he gets Camille and Paul to agree that he will be in charge of this psychological therapy 'without question or intervention'. So, he and Mona embark on this secret routine.
After their first outing, when Henry takes Mona to the Louvre and introduces her to Botticelli's Venus and the Three Graces, Mona wants to know what she will tell her parents when they ask the name of the doctor she has seen. 'Tell them he's called Dr Botticelli', says Henry, and mischievous Mona is delighted at the 'naughty trick they were playing on her parents'.
Mona is a bright, cheeky, likeable little girl, and through Henry she learns to look closely at the art to which he introduces her, to learn from the explanations he offers, and to apply his lessons in her life. Thomas Schlesser, however, is an art historian who teaches at the cole Polytechnique in Paris, and the heart of this book is the art, rather than the story of Mona, her Dade, her parents, and her school friends, in which he embeds his insights and knowledge.
Over 52 weekly visits to the art galleries of the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, and the Beaubourg (Centre George Pompidou), Mona and the reader look closely at art by Botticelli, da Vinci, Titian, Poussin, Goya, the Impressionists, Klimt, Kahlo, Kandinski, O'Keeffe, Pollock, Basquiat, Soulages and many others. Each visit is given a chapter heading that suggests the lesson in life Henry wants Mona to learn: 'Learning to receive', 'Respect humble folks', 'All flees, all fades', 'Know how to say "no"', etc. Each artwork is described in detail and is illustrated on the inside of the dust jacket, but the reproductions on the internet are, of course, better, and the details that Henry and Mona discuss can be enlarged and studied.
Henry talks about each artwork and also tells Mona about the artists. Raphael, for example, became 'a big star very young', and 'swore only by absolute perfection'. He employed others to help him and
'would hire and train the best, considered them like brothers or sons. And then he would try out all possible formulas to obtain his pearly tones and reflective effects; he created vast frescoes, tapestries, had his paintings printed to multiply the images and circulate them.'
Henry is scathing about the crowds of visitors who pour through the galleries wanting 'to gobble it all up in one go... not knowing how to moderate their dreams'. He and Mona will consider a 'single work of art, only one'. Mona finds this concentration difficult at first and Henry's explanations are sometimes too long for her. To ruffle him, she once cheekily put her fingers in her ears and closed her eyes, but he just smiled and ignored that. She soon begins to love their routine and she starts to notice small details, to see the landscape behind Mona Lisa in da Vinci's painting, for example, and to wonder about the partially carved monkey behind the leg of Michelangelo's marble statue of the Dying Slave freeing himself from matter. On one visit she questions Manet's choice of subject matter - a stalk of asparagus - and learns about Manet's attention to the 'means of painting' - the tiny details, the brushstrokes, the contrasting colours, the weave of the canvas. 'Manet', Henry tells her, wants to show that 'life's charm lies precisely in the almost nothing', and when we pay attention to that 'life brightens up'.
When Mona herself begins to worry that she might become blind and not see the colours of life - how the autumn leaves change from green to yellow - Henry takes her to see a panting by Georgia O'Keeffe. She sees images of the human body in the flowing colours, like the images she sometimes imagines in clouds, and she understands when Henry says that O'Keefe's painting makes 'the elements of the world melt into anatomical elements' and those elements become the elements of world, so 'The world is one flesh', we are part of it, and the colours of life remain in the world.
It is not always Henry who explains the artworks. On their final visit to a gallery, Mona feels confident enough to offer her own interpretation of an abstract black painting by Pierre Soulages. 'Seeing as it's the last one, Dade, it's my turn', she says. Then she watches for a long time as her grandfather loses himself in the work. Finally, she explains:
'Soulages' work is full of details. But they're the details of the material, the details of the wood's veneer, and those of the light that floats on the surface. And there are also those four white lines drawn with pastel. They're like rays of light...
'You must see what you want to see, too... Because each person must be left free...
'There are plenty of images that are forming, but they're in the mind of each person, and that's what matters.'
This, too, is what Mona's Eyes seems to tell us applies to all art. Schlesser, through Henry, may explain the works and suggest how they might offer a lesson about life, but the reader may not always agree with his interpretation. But for anyone who loves art, this book is a delight. There is pleasure in reading about familiar works, revisiting old favourites, and, perhaps, seeing small details never noticed before; and, in reading about some of the things that influenced the artists and made them choose a particular subject or materials, and shape them in a particular way. There is always the chance, too, that Mona's Eyes will introduce readers to works and artists that are new to them, and offer the chance of finding new favourites.
Thomas Schlesser Mona's Eyes, translated by Hildegarde Serle, Europa Editions 2025 HB 300pp $39.99
Thomas Schlesser discusses his book on the Mona's Eyes website at https://monaseyesnovel.com
TonyInterruptor
Nicola Barker
Granta Books
https://granta.com
9781803512549 $18.89 PB, 224pp.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512547
Nicola Barker is a prize-winning author. Several of her books have been long- or shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but she is known for ignoring the usual writing conventions. Her idiosyncratic prose is full of long sentences, parentheses, italics and block capitals, and her characters are often eccentric. There has been, for example, a woman who breeds wild boars and whose daughter is a part-time nudist and pornographer (Wide Open), and a man who slept inside a horse's carcass (The Behindlings). The characters in TonyInterruptor, however, are more-or-less normal, although perhaps more introspective and prone to philosophical argument than most of us.
The book begins dramatically. In the middle of an improvised jazz gig, a man stands up, points a finger at Sasha Keyes, 'who had just begun what he (Sasha Keyes) felt to be a particularly devastating improvised trumpet solo', and asks 'Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?'
This 'heckle', as architect professor Lambert Shore calls it, is recorded by his daughter, India, on her iPhone and circulated on her social media account.
'Disgruntled Zoomer', India, is a wonderfully bolshie, articulate and argumentative teenager who considers her father to be maddening. He suspects - actually he knows - that India often pretends not to recognise particular words he uses simply to make it seem as if he is incredibly old and therefore given to communicating in a way that holds no significance to the modern (young) mind. He is an historical artefact, a period piece. He - and his words - are antique.
They argue about 'intellectual property', 'privacy, permission and who owns or controls content' and she tells him:
'Kids don't look at content in the same way your generation did... For us it's just kind of... of...'
She twirls her hand descriptively.
'Like a pick'n'mix counter at the cinema. Because we're social animals by...'
Another hand twirl.
'Design?'
'Nature. And knowledge is just a series of...'
'Pointless memes?'
'Nothing is truly original,' she huffs. 'Everything comes from something or somewhere else! Everything. So to try and own a thing and box in a thing or a picture or a thought like it's some kind of... of building?'
She gazes at her architect father, disgusted.
India's video might have gone unnoticed if one of Sasha's Ensemble '(the Ensemble didn't consider themselves to be "his" or an "ensemble")' had not picked it up, added to it his own video of Sasha denigrating the heckler as 'some dick-weed, small-town TonyInterruptor...', inserted the comment '#TonyInterruptor', added 'Agree? Disagree? LET'S VOTE PEOPLE', and posted it on Instagram.
There, of course, his video goes viral. But it is the question 'Is this honest?' and the relevance of this to the lives of Nicola Barker's characters that she expands throughout the book in riffs that resemble jazz improvisations.
John Lincoln Braithwaite - TonyInterruptor himself - regards his own interruption as
'a completely spontaneous enquiry about the true nature of improvisational performance, which I suppose became, in turn, almost a part of the performance, and so - at some level - the most authentic thing about it.'
Mallory, Lambert Shore's wife, 'is a trained barrister' and she wants a forensic analysis of 'honest':
'To be honest? With each other? With ourselves? Do you even have any idea what that means?'
Sasha, who prides himself on meticulous practice and performance - 'he must improvise flawlessly; to the highest possible standard', is infuriated that his honesty might be questioned:
'To dare to call me out for not being honest, when I am virtually the only person on the planet who actually speaks their mind - and expresses themselves creatively - without visible constraint.'
Later, however, he is taken to task by Mallory, who is high on painkillers for a broken ankle and a sprained wrist. She lists his faults at length, including 'endless bullshit', 'hypocrisy' and 'moral turpitude', but then seems to backtrack and suggest that they are alike:
'I'm saying that you and I - that we - don't pussy-foot! Neither of us. And the AWFUL TRUTH about the fucking world is that it's ALL ABOUT pussy-footing!'
Which makes Sasha wonder if this means he is too serious:
'Doesn't somebody have to take things seriously, though? Does THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD need to spend all its spare time watching cat videos on TikTok?'
Are they being 'honest' or 'real'? All Barker's main characters question this in some way. India challenges Lambert over what he calls his 'friendship' and 'collaboration' with Fi Kinebuchi, another member of Sasha's 'Ensemble'. 'Is it really so hard to admit that you and Fi are a couple now? To yourselves? To each other?' For her, this is another form of dishonesty, like his infuriating habit of framing everything 'in terms of ART and IDEAS and MEANING'. It is 'so META'. Can't he for once in his life 'risk being real?'
Nicola Barker brings her characters to life but they are, as improvisations always are, disconnected from a continuous story. Sasha and Mallory do change; Lambert and Fi do collaborate over a transactional video/performance art installation that John Lincoln Braithwaite (TonyInterruptor) helps to install in a Paris gallery; but perhaps Sasha Keyes speaks for Barker when he claims that he is 'perfectly happy to inhabit cultural corners'. 'We are scratchy,' he argues. 'We are particular. We are determined. We are persistent. We don't turn away from the difficult stuff.'
TonyInterruptor's characters are persistent and highly articulate and the book may need to be read in short bursts to absorb the 'difficult stuff', but it is often very funny and it certainly demonstrates the dissembling, self-delusion and dishonesties of our everyday lives. As Lambert realises, 'We're all flawed, all beautiful, all riddled with...' The sentence is left unfinished.
Salt Upon the Water
Lyn Dickens
https://lyndickens.com
Wakefield Press
https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au
9781923388208, $32.95 AUD PB, 268pp. / $TBA audiobook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Salt-Upon-the-Water/dp/B0FK5C8GX2
Barnes and Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/salt-upon-the-water-lyn-dickens/1148315984
Wakefield Press
https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product/salt-upon-the-water
Salt Upon the Water is an historical fiction; also, according to the blurb on the back cover, 'an epic love story'. Both are true, but this is not a conventional romantic novel. Rather, it is an exploration of identity - of what makes and shapes a person's character - and also a well-researched vision of the first few Europeans to settle on the coast of South Australia, at a time when whaling ships still visited the coast, the land was still un-surveyed and the plans for a free-settlers' colony were still new.
In October 1836, Clarissa Lucia Fitzroy is on an American whaling ship off the coast of Kangaroo Island. The weather is stormy and a freak wave washes her from a slippery deck into the sea. She thinks 'of the Devon coastline and the mermaid sign over the village tavern', and of the 'half-fish princess of the Laccadive Sea', and she remembers the stories of selkies her Scottish governess had told her: stories of
strange women in fur pelts who could transform between woman and seal... That was what selkie mothers did. They left their half-human children, took up their darkened sealskins and slipped away.
Clarissa, too, is a double creature, half English, half Hindu, and her own mother suddenly disappeared when Clarissa and her brother were children. She spent her early childhood with her parents in Calcutta, among 'the scent of dried patchouli and mangoes going to seed', but this ends abruptly when her father dies and two friendly strangers come to take her and her older brother to the estate of her grandfather, Sir Charles Fitzroy, in England.
'What about my mother?' I asked the lady...
'Now don't you worry about her,' the lady says. 'Don't you worry about a thing.'
Clarissa is a fictional character, but William Light, the second main character in Salt Upon the Water, is not. He was the first Surveyor General of South Australia and laid out the plans for the city of Adelaide. He, like Clarissa, is of mixed-race heritage. His father, Francis Light, while employed in Malaysia by the East India Company, had negotiated an agreement with the Sultan of Kedah by which he became governor of Palu-Penang. He cleared the land, changed its name to Prince of Wales Island, and established Georgetown. His wife, William's mother, Martina Rozells, was the granddaughter of the Sultan. She was a princess of 'Siam, Chinese Malay and perhaps Portuguese heritage', and it was she who had arranged this negotiation.
Will inherited his father's estate in Penang but was sent to England at the age of six, and did not see his mother again until, as an adult, he attended the wedding of one of his sisters in India. In Salt Upon the Water there is some secret about his mother's life after his father's death, and his older sisters, who all live in India, now claim not to be able to remember a word of Malay, in spite of having grown up speaking it. They will not discuss their mother with him.
Both Clarissa and Will belong to two worlds. Both are very familiar with the way others see and respond to their different complexions and histories, especially those in polite English society and, in particular for Will, in the East India Company. Clarissa, who was trained by her father to forget the name her mother gave her - Indamuti - remembers being been called a 'stunning mulatto' by one young English gentleman, or 'perhaps you're an octoroon'. She watches, from her grandfather's estate, as other young women go out into the world to be presented and attend balls, while she had Rousseau and logic. Brisk walks and shooting. 'I could load and clean a flintlock before I knew how to waltz.'
But she has books (although there is outrage when she chooses to read them), and she has wit and determination.
Will, whose features are more Eastern and whose skin is darker than hers, knows well the experience of rejection. As an officer from the East India Company tells him bluntly, he is not descended from two European parents; his parents' marriage 'according to the local custom of [his] mother's people' is considered 'invalid', so his 'lack of legitimacy is not convenient'; and his mother never took his father's name:
'A shocking custom. A family cannot be united when a mother does such a thing.'
'There's no blending in for us,' Will tells Clarissa when they first meet. Initially, their differences unite them; ultimately they are the cause of their separation.
Clarissa is not yet 21 when she meets Major William Light by accident (literally) at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. She, thrilled by the experience of a hot-air balloon flight, dreams of freedom:
the world spins away and there are no cousins, no pleasure-seekers, no relatives. Just the uncertainty of the shifting air... How is it that I can fly, that I can be here among the clouds and still not free?
Will is more interested in the balloon:
How would one make a balloon to carry a man. Could he do it. He could do it... What must it be like to explore the great expanse of air. He has navigated the waves and charted the land, but this last frontier is still foreign to him.
Clarissa draws him away from her watchful cousin and tutor to quiet places away from the crowds, but they soon have to return. After this, they continue to meet. When her grandfather dies and she becomes a wealthy heiress with more freedom, they go to Europe together. Her later memories of this are of pleasure and delight. She refuses Will's suggestion that they should marry, wanting to remain independent, but when something happens in Venice, their relationship sours and Will leaves her. Clarissa has never really understood his reasons.
Now, 14 years later, Clarissa has arrived in Australia to find Colonel William Light, who is surveying the South Australian coast in preparation for the new colony. She has been told that he knows where her mother might be, and she is determined to find her.
The whalers set up thin tents on the coast where a few Europeans are already living and harvesting seal-skins. Many of these sealers are convicts and deserters who have escaped from the convict settlement on Van Diemen's Land and they are dangerous and unpredictable, but the whalers protect Clarissa, who has paid for their most recent expedition. The arrival of the Will's ship, the Resolute, brings Clarissa and Will back together but their meetings at the whalers' tent-encampment, soured as they are by past secrets, are strained, brief and constantly interrupted by ongoing events. Clarissa is infuriated by Will's reluctance to tell her what he knows about her mother; Will feels he needs to protect her from the bad things said to have happened and from his own secret - something he did after meeting her mother in the Bow Bazaar area of Calcutta.
When the Cygnet, a ship full of new settlers, arrives unexpectedly, there is an ugly dispute with the American whalers over fishing rights. At the same time, unpleasant information about Clarissa is circulated and she becomes vulnerable.
As history, Salt Upon the Water creates a realistic picture of the very earliest days of colonial South Australia. Will, as an idealist, is determined to make this new Australian state a better place for settlers and the Indigenous people than the corrupt and violent convict states. Historically, William Light is known to have had good relations with the Indigenous owners of the land he was surveying, but, as the First Mate of the whaling ship tells Clarissa in Salt Upon the Water, this had not always been the case with other arrivals in the past, and his own parents and grandparents, who were Aboriginal, had suffered terribly from men who raided their land. Clarissa has seen, too, the horrors perpetrated against Indigenous women on Kangaroo Island. She challenges Will over his belief:
'This place, the things that have happened here. You say that it will get better, that things will change-'
'This is a colony, not an enclave of escaped thugs.'
'Is it really so different? What about the people here? ...Your men have been here but a few months, and already they treat the natives with disgust. I don't understand what you are doing here or what you hope to achieve. How long do you think your ideals will last? You are just one man.'
'Do you think so little of me? I have a chance to make a difference here, Clarissa. I may be just one man but the settlers listen to me... My ideals mean something.'
In Salt Upon the Water, the themes of prejudice, power and identity underlie the story of Clarissa and Will. The awkward growth of their new relationship is shadowed by Will's illness and increasing debility, but their memories of earlier times are rich and happy, as well as painful. Clarissa's responses, as secrets are slowly revealed, are natural and believable, as, too, are her actions and the eventual outcome of her search.
Lynn Dickens's writing is fluent and often poetic. She captures the characters of Clarissa and Will and their interactions beautifully, and she captures, too, the unrest, the dangers, and the rough nature of the early beginnings of the first small free-settlement that would grow into the now-thriving state of South Australia.
As a debut novel, Salt Upon the Water is distinctive, imaginative, carefully researched and very enjoyable. It was awarded the Arts South Australia Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2024.
Dr Ann Skea, Reviewer
https://ann.skea.com/THHome.htm
Carl Logan's Bookshelf
Money and Liberty
Rick Lynch
Van Cortlandt Books
9798999044822, $24.99, HC, 200pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Money-Liberty-Obsession-Protecting-Constitution/dp/B0FNC7DSRW
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/money-and-liberty-rick-lynch/1148049954
Synopsis: The premise of "Money and Liberty: How the Framers' Obsession with Protecting Your Money Shaped the Constitution" is that -- 'Everything You Know About the Constitution Is Wrong!'
This is a fascinating study that uncovers the shocking truth about the Constitution's original intent -- and how nearly everything Americans believe about it today is wrong.
With the publication of "Money and Liberty: How the Framers' Obsession with Protecting Your Money Shaped the Constitution", seasoned journalist and speechwriter Rick Lynch tears down the myths of modern constitutional thinking to expose a stunning truth ignored in political history books: The U.S. Constitution was built first and foremost to protect your money -- not just your speech, your religion, or your guns. It was the protection of your property (and your paycheck) that was the sacred right the Framers most feared the government would steal.
Drawing from the Federalist Papers, Convention records, and the Framers' own words, Lynch presents a bold, evidence-rich reinterpretation of our nation's founding. Diving into the very foundation of American democracy, "Money and Liberty" delivers a thunderclap of clarity and reveals the secrets of the real meaning of the Constitution. Learn why the Framers rejected the Bill of Rights, how they saw money as a sacred right, and why they believed economic freedom (not freedom of speech or religion) was the priority and cornerstone of liberty.
"Money and Liberty" reveals:
Why the Bill of Rights was rejected as a "preposterous" and "dangerous" idea.
How the Framers equated money and freedom with divine law.
Why money and property are mentioned in the Federalist Papers 17 times more often than speech, press, and religion combined.
How a welfare program led to the Constitutional Convention.
Why protecting property rights was not only the heart of the Constitution - but the key to true liberty.
"Money and Liberty" is more than constitutional interpretation -- it is a call to reclaim your most overlooked freedom: the right to your own money. If you've ever wondered how we got so far off course, "Money and Liberty" delivers a history lesson on the United States government and American freedom you won't be able to forget.
Critique: Unique, iconoclastic, revelatory, and a masterpiece of detailed research, "Money and Liberty: How the Framers' Obsession with Protecting Your Money Shaped the Constitution" is a deftly crafted, seminal, and groundbreaking study that is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Political Science and General Constitutional Law collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, political activists, governmental policy makers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this hardcover edition of "Money and Liberty" from Van Cortlandt Books is also readily available in paperback (9798999044808, $14.99).
Editorial Note: Rick Lynch (https://rick-lynch.com) is a retired speechwriter, former Marine and combat veteran, and longtime researcher of U.S. history, political philosophy, and constitutional law. With over 30 years of independent study, his work challenges modern assumptions about the Framers' intent-especially regarding your money and government power. His writing has appeared in The Washington Times and other national outlets.
Carl Logan
Reviewer
Clint Travis' Bookshelf
The Little Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine
Angela Renzetti, author
Amanda Key, illustrator
Sasquatch Books
www.sasquatchbooks.com
9781632175991, $16.99, PB, 256pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Encyclopedia-Herbal-Medicine-Remedies/dp/1632175991
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-little-encyclopedia-of-herbal-medicine-angela-renzetti/1147142201
Synopsis: "The Little Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine: 100 Common Remedies for Everyday Ailments" by herbalist Angela Renzetti is an essential home remedies book, offering 100 classic, natural alternatives to common over-the-counter medicines.
Designed for quick, intuitive use, this compact herbal medicine book organizes trusted home remedies alphabetically by ailment so you can immediately find the support you need. Inside, you'll discover 50 widely available North American herbs and 100 common remedies for everyday ailments, each paired with clear illustrations that highlight the plant and its active properties.
"The Little Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine" features:
100 Common Remedies for everyday ailments, organized alphabetically for fast lookup
50 familiar North American herbs with detailed illustrations
Practical guidance for building a simple, natural home apothecary
Easy-to-follow instructions for creating safe, effective herbal remedies
Critique: Beautifully illustrated by the art and artistry of Amanda Key, "The Little Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine: 100 Common Remedies for Everyday Ailments" is thoroughly user-friendly resource and reference for those new to alternative medicine, as well as experienced herbalists and natural medicine practitioners. This compact compendium is especially and unreservedly recommended for home apothecary collections, and students/practitioners of alternative medicine on the employment of herbal care. An impressively organized, presented, and indispensable DIY guide that is appropriate for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Herbal Medicine and Alternative Medicine collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists, it should be noted that this paperback edition of "The Little Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine" from Sasquatch Books is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $13.99).
Editorial Note: Angela Renzetti is an acupuncturist, herbalist, and teacher with a private practice called Moonlight Medicine (https://angela-renzetti.squarespace.com). Her work is rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine, plant medicines, and folk magic. Before becoming an acupuncturist, she lived in China and worked as a translator.
Clint Travis
Reviewer
Fred Siegmund's Bookshelf
Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and his Disastrous Choice to Run Again
Jake Tapper, & Alex Thompson
Penguin Press
https://www.penguin.com/penguin-press-overview
9798217060672, $32.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Original-Sin-President-Cover-Up-Disastrous/dp/B0DTYKCJC9
I was given a copy of Original Sin and read it wondering what it could tell me of the Biden saga that I did not already know? We know Joe Biden was 82 for the 2024 presidential election and would be 86 at the end of a second term. How much more information did I need since I could see he had aged just looking at him on television and then he accepted a debate with Trump, which ended any doubt about another term given the blank pauses and fumbling speech.
In the Author's Note they tell readers "Our only agenda is to present the disturbing reality of what happened in the White House and the Democratic presidential campaign in 2023-2024, as told to us by approximately two hundred people, including lawmakers and White House and campaign insiders..."
The book has 19 chapters and runs 314 pages and I can testify the authors did an impressive job organizing the material from all those interviews and writing a clearly worded narrative. The primary story they tell shows Joe Biden, his wife Jill and his loyal White House advisors unable to face the very real doubts of a second term; there was denial and a loss of objectivity but nothing Joe Biden did could be called a cover up, a term that connotes legal misconduct. Since presidents have to be visible, their family and advisors have no duty to offer any doubts they might have to the public; the public must expect to make up their own mind.
The authors interviewed Democratic and Republican office holders, party officials, pollsters and other journalists, both necessary and appropriate, but they added related personal and family history to the primary story. I tried to connect the discussion of the Biden family troubles of sons Beau, and Hunter and daughter Ashley, but that discussion always felt tacked onto their stated purpose: "Our only agenda is to present what happened in the White House and the Democratic presidential campaign."
I found it difficult to construe the loss of son Beau to cancer and Hunter's legal missteps as part of President Biden's Decline, or his decision to press on for a second term. The discussion of these matters feels especially callus and unnecessary given just the facts the authors provide. They explain "The Plea Deal." Hunter would plead guilty to evading $200,000 in income taxes and illegal possession of a fire arm. Biden opponents howled their objections and the federal judge in the case, Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, refused to accept the plea deal, dragging out the case further.
As I recall President Biden promised to allow his appointed Attorney General, Merrick Garland, to go ahead and prosecute Hunters case as part of his general promise to avoid interfering with federal law enforcement, but that was before losing the 2024 election and listening to Trump make repeated threats to him and his family with claims the Biden's were part of an "organized crime family." Recognizing the harassment Trump would create for his family he used his pardon power to protect them at the last moments of his term. In doing so, he was defensive and suggested toxic politics had something to do with the outcome of the case and his need to give blanket pardons. For this decision, the author's make sweeping condemnation; they quote the prosecutor characterizing the pardons as "gratuitous and wrong" and that Merrick Garland was "tremendously disappointed" and that "To many Democrats, this was another ignominious act by a president who repeatedly put the interests of his family ahead of those of this party and country." These conclusions feel sanctimonious and hypocritical given Trump's pardons of hundreds of the January 6 felons. To some of us Hunter Biden's crimes feel trivial compared to assaulting the U.S. Capital and refusing to accept the 2020 election results.
I struggle to find a purpose for writing the story of Joe Biden's Decline. A four page conclusion chapter asks "What if a president is unable to discharge their duties but doesn't recognize that fact?" The authors admit those close to President Biden were always ready "to attest to his ability to make sound decisions if on his own schedule." There is a suggestion Congress could legally require the president's physician to certify to Congress the president is fit to serve, but so far in U.S. history only death assures a president will be unfit for office; there is no mention that anyone in Congress has offered such legislation. The authors mention several other questionable presidents, but offer no solution to future presidents and evaluating their qualification for office.
If there was a lessen for the future in the Joe Biden case I could not find it in Original Sin. I make note that both authors have worked in corporate media and wonder if they could keep their jobs writing a similar book about Donald Trump?
Fred Siegmund, Reviewer
www.Americanjobmarket.blogspot.com
Jack Mason's Bookshelf
The Other Almanac: Calculated for the Year 2026
Ana Ratner
OR Books
https://www.orbooks.com
9781682196533, $19.95, PB, 193pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Other-Almanac-Calculated-Year-2026/dp/1682196534
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-other-almanac-ana-ratner/1147043816
Synopsis: A sparkling new take on icon publication "The Farmer's Almanac", Ana Ratner and OR Books has published "The Other Almanac: Calculated for the Year 2026", bringing together contributions by writers, artists, and scientists on topics including environmentalism, botany, grief, seasonal savvy, and off-the-beaten-track curiosities, all presented in brilliant color and eye-popping design.
Highlights of this 2026 edition of "The Other Almanac" include a guide to foraging in NYC, checklists for signs of the seasons, a tide chart for NYC, obituaries for recently extinct animals and plants, and a list of objects left on the moon.
Of special note are the contributions to "The Other Almanac: Calculated for the Year 2026" by A.K. Burns, Alicia Kennedy, Al-Wah'at Collective, Brian Brown, Claire L. Evans, David George Haskell, David Kennedy Cutler, Day Brierre, Diana Hubbell, Diana Sofia Lozano, Elijah Anderson, G. Peter Jemison, Isabel Ling, Jerry Lue, Jordan Casteel, Julie Rossman, Katherine Bradford, Kay Kasparhauser, Kris Rumman, Larissa Pham, Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri, Marie Viljoen, Mary Mattingly, Mel Chin, Michael Yarinsky, Mohammed R. Mhawish, Morgan Lett, Nate Dorr, Raven Halfmoon, Sabrina Imbler, Sally DeWind, Shannon Lee, Tideland Prints, TJ Shin, Who Tattoo, and Zoe Lescaze.
Critique: A fun and informative resource of miscellaneous information, trivia, and data, "The Other Almanac: Calculated for the Year 2026" compiled and edited by Ana Ratner is a unique and inherently fascinating compendium of facts that is thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. This paperback edition from OR Books is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Almanac and Encyclopedia collections.
Editorial Note: Ana Ratner has compiled and edited the last three editions of "The Other Almanac". She is an artist who works in clay, mostly. She also co-runs Sister Divine's Farm: a farm, farmstand, and event space in Krumville, New York.
Jack Mason
Reviewer
John Burroughs' Bookshelf
Dead in the Water
John Marrs
https://www.johnmarrsauthor.com
Thomas & Mercer
c/o Amazon Publishing
9781662527708, $16.99, PB, 400pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Water-John-Marrs/dp/1662527705
Synopsis: When Damon survives a near-drowning, his life flashes before his eyes. Every memory is crystal clear -- except one. A dead boy. A face he can't place. A moment he doesn't remember living. At first he tells himself it's a trick of the mind. But everything else he saw was real. So why not this?
With his waking life stalked by the disturbing scene, confusion quickly turns to obsession. Desperate for answers, Damon digs into his fractured past, and becomes convinced that the only way to remember... is to die again. And again. And again. When he meets a perfect stranger who's all too willing to help, the stage is set for his dice with death.
But if this is what it takes to uncover the truth, maybe some memories are better left buried...
Critique: A riveting, unique, deftly crafted, and original psychological suspense thriller of a read from cover to cover, "Dead in the Water" is one of author and novelist John Marrs' best yet! A 'must' for his growing legions of fans, and an unreservedly recommended pick for community library Contemporary Suspense/Thriller collections, it should be noted for personal reading list that this paperback edition of "Dead in the Water" from Thomas & Mercer is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $3.99).
Editorial Note: John Marrs (www.johnmarrsauthor.com) is an author and former journalist based in Northamptonshire, England. After spending his career interviewing celebrities from the worlds of television, film and music for numerous national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time author and "Dead in the Water" is his fourteenth book. He can be followed on Instagram @johnmarrs.author and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/johnmarrsauthor
John Burroughs
Reviewer
Julie Summers' Bookshelf
The Sovereign Self: Emotional Mastery for Women in Their Sixties and Beyond
Stacey Dutton
Zen on the Hill
9798993139708, $14.95, PB, 160pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Self-Emotional-Mastery-Sixties/dp/B0FYLXPC95
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-sovereign-self-stacey-dutton/1148681206
Synopsis: By the time most of us have reached our sixties, we will have lived a multitude of lives -- witnessing history, heartbreak, and countless personal revolutions. We've been daughters, lovers, mothers, professionals, creators, and caretakers. Now, standing at the threshold of a new era, we are free from old expectations and ready to claim a life that is truly our own. Yet change can bring uncertainty.
If you have wondered what lies ahead or how to thrive in the years to come, "The Sovereign Self: Emotional Mastery for Women in Their Sixties and Beyond" by Stacey Dutton will prove to be your essential companion.
In its pages you will discover how the mental, emotional, and physical shifts associated with aging can become sources of power, clarity, and freedom. With practical wisdom and heartfelt encouragement, "The Sovereign Self" will help you:
Reclaim joy and vitality, no matter what society expects.
Build self-esteem rooted in authenticity and lived experience.
Release old roles and embrace new measures of freedom.
Lead a life that is intentional, rewarding, and uniquely yours.
Critique: Impressively informative, motivationally inspiring, and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "The Sovereign Self: Emotional Mastery for Women in Their Sixties and Beyond" is an extraordinary and seminal study that will be immensely appreciated reading for anyone with an interest in the aging process as it affects (is affected by) interpersonal relationships, personal goals, quality of life, personal transformation, and more. Simply stated, "The Sovereign Self: Emotional Mastery for Women in Their Sixties and Beyond" by Stacey Dutton is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, Senior Center, and college/university library Self-Help/Self-Improvement collections for senior citizens. It should be noted that this paperback edition of "The Sovereign Self: Emotional Mastery for Women in Their Sixties and Beyond" from Zen on the Hill is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $3.99).
Editorial Note: Stacey Dutton is an entertainment executive, creative producer, and strategic talent consultant with over three decades of experience across the music, television, and film industries. Her multifaceted career spans producing, casting, talent management, brand development, content creation, and on-air hosting - earning her a reputation as a visionary with both creative intuition and business acumen.
Bows and Ties
Kavya Thakrar
Independently Published
9798271755682, $6.99, PB, 170pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Bows-Ties-Kavya-Thakrar/dp/B0FYDJ696S
Synopsis: "Bows and Ties" is a collection of interviews and reflections from 19 women exploring what sisterhood means today. Written by 16 year old author and aspiring journalist Kavya Thakrar, "Bows and Ties" brings together conversations from women who are redefining leadership, creativity, and connection in their own ways. From entrepreneurs and designers to writers and founders, each story reveals how ambition and empathy can coexist and how women continue to inspire one another through honesty and shared experience.
At its core, "Bows and Ties" is also about community. It celebrates the moments that tie us together, advice about relationships to starting a business, the courage to start something new, or the confidence that comes from being seen and supported. "Bows and Ties" blends personal reflection with storytelling, giving readers a chance to see the many ways sisterhood shows up in both everyday life and big accomplishments.
"Bows and Ties" starts with an interview, and the theme that emerges influences the set of questions for the next woman. This captures what "Bows and Ties" is all about: weaving stories and voices together to create a beautiful and connected narrative.
More than just a book, "Bows and Ties" represents a movement toward open, authentic connection. It reminds readers that success is not a solo journey but a shared one, built through trust and the stories we choose to tell.
Critique: Original, seminal, and groundbreaking, "Bows and Ties" is an extraordinary, thoughtful and thought provoking read from start to finish. Thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "Bows and Ties" is a unique and especially recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library Women's Self-Reliance and Relationship collections, It should be noted that this paperback edition of "Bows and Ties" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $3.99) as well.
Editorial Note: There is an informative interview with teenage author Kavya Thakrar online at https://highschool.latimes.com/featured/column-how-i-wrote-a-book-at-16-and-found-my-voice-along-the-way
Julie Summers
Reviewer
Margaret Lane's Bookshelf
Having A Kink in the 'Tale'
Margrit Dahm, author/poet
Vanguard Press
https://www.vanguardpressbooks.com
c/o Pegasus Publishers
https://pegasuspublishers.com
9781836711780, $15.55. PB, 60pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Having-Kink-Tale-Margrit-Dahm/dp/1836711786
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/having-a-kink-in-the-tale-margrit-dahm/1148934011
Synopsis: "Having A Kink in the 'Tale'" by Margrit Dahm offers her readers a truly rich and eloquent exploration of life's moments through the lens of poetry. Margrit Dahm's collection of verse deftly weaves together reflections on her everyday experiences ranging from the anticipation of a social gathering to the quiet solitude of illness.
Dahm's engaging verse is crafted with humour, warmth and a touch of wit as her the poetry identifies and captures the nuances of the human connection, the beauty of simple pleasures and the complexity of emotions.
Each individual verse comprising "Having A Kink in the 'Tale'" offers a unique perspective, inviting her readers to pause and reflect on their own journey through life and what it offers.
Critique: Deftly crafted and original verse that conjures up a tapestry of a distinctive and inherently fascinating poetry that is both individually personal but having a universal resonance among her readers, "Having A Kink in the 'Tale'" is an extraordinary, memorable, and unreservedly recommended pick for personal, community, and college/university library Contemporary American Poetry collections.
Editorial Note: Margrit Dahm grew up in Germany, spent her early adult life in Hong Kong, and then moved to London where she studied for her master's degree. She began writing poetry as a student and published two books of German poetry. Her later discovery of meditation inspired her poetry in English and two of her books being published. She has also published her autobiography. 'The Lockdown Diaries' was written during the long weeks and months of the COVID-19 crisis. (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15449457.Margrit_Dahm)
The Recruitable Dancer
Kathy Hain-De Jong
Purple Parasol Press
https://purpleparasolpress.com
https://danceintocollege.com/therecruitabledancer
9798999643025, $29.99, HC, 262pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Recruitable-Dancer-Essential-Navigating-Admissions/dp/B0FXJFD7KP
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-recruitable-dancer-kathy-hain-de-jong/1148539659
Synopsis: Without NCAA oversight of college dance team recruitment, dancers, parents, and coaches struggle to navigate a flawed system, with each college and team making its own rules. Worst case, the dancer ends up at the wrong college and not on a dance team. It's easy to get lost and disappointed.
With the publication of "The Recruitable Dancer: The Essential Guide to Navigating College Admissions and the Dance Team Journey", college counselor and dance education specialist Kathy Hain-de Jong presents an ideal preparation road map that every dance team recruit needs. This is a true insider's DIY plan to manage the admissions process and the dance recruitment timeline. It's designed to put you in control, armed with crucial information and custom resources.
"The Recruitable Dancer" covers:
The realities of a college dance team experience.
The hidden challenges facing dance recruits today.
How to build a compelling application narrative for college success.
How to analyze and evaluate best-fit college and dance team options.
A training and recruitment framework and audition strategies that make coaches say yes.
In a competitive environment, "The Recruitable Dancer" is comprehensive and effective guide that will maximizes your chances of dancing on the nationals floor or under the stadium lights.
Critique: Comprehensively informative, thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "The Recruitable Dancer: The Essential Guide to Navigating College Admissions and the Dance Team Journey" by Kathy Hain-De Jong is an essential and unreservedly recommended resource for anyone with an interest in college admission and dance team recruitment issues, policies, and procedures. Highly recommended for personal, professional, community, highschool, and college/university library College Admission Guide/Dance Team collections. It should be noted that this hardcover edition of "The Recruitable Dancer" from Purple Parasol Press is also available in paperback (9798999643001, $22.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).
Editorial Note: Kathy Hain-de Jong is a college counselor who specializes in helping dancers navigate the challenges of college admissions and dance team recruitment. With a unique niche in the field, a background in consulting, and her experience as a mother of two Division I collegiate dancers, she provides families with practical, expert guidance and support to find the right fit and prepare confidently for this demanding process.
Margaret Lane
Reviewer
Mark Walker's Bookshelf
Rio and Buenos Aires: My Twin Cities
Steve Kaffen
Privately Published
B0FLW8FK2X, $5.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Rio-Buenos-Aires-Twin-Cities-ebook/dp/B0FLW8FK2X
This book caught my attention as it focuses on two of my favorite cities in South America and fond memories of my own trek through the region in the early 1970s. Buenos Aires always felt like a little piece of Italy and merited the nickname, "The Paris of South America." The author brings the insights of a veteran writer with over a dozen travel books to his name so far, and his photographs add color and culture to everything he does. The book is not just a guide; it's an immersive experience combining cultural observations, historical context, and hundreds of original photographs.
The author focuses on three exotic locations: Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Iguazu Falls. He knows Rio exceptionally well and wrote a book about its iconic celebration, Carnaval. His photos capture the dramatic natural beauty - its beaches, Sugarloaf Mountain, and the statue recognized worldwide, Christ the Redeemer. He also captures the city's street life in its vibrant neighborhoods such as Copacabana and Ipanema, samba rhythms, and bustling cafes serving the never-to-be-forgotten bold Brazilian coffee.
Kaffen brings out the best of Buenos Aires with its elegant neighborhoods, such as Recoleta and Palemo, grand coffeehouses, and its cosmopolitan arts scene. And of course, one of my favorite musical and dance scenes is the tango clubs, which are far more than a performance. This living tradition breathes cultural ritual rooted in emotion, expression, and history.
The author takes us outside these two spectacular urban settings and crosses the border into the country to the magnificent falls of Iguazu, describing them as "a mesmerizing display of nature," with panoramic views and trails that reveal the falls' raw power and lush surroundings.
Initially, I thought the extensive appendices at the end, especially the "Travelogue," were excessive. Until the author explained that he was responding to a growing interest among his readers in asking for assistance in organizing their own visits, making this valuable for both armchair travelers and those preparing for their dream trip.
And I'll have to admit, although fifty years have passed since I first trekked through Latin America, I've been contemplating a return trip to Santiago, Chile, via the Lake District, to Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, and Rio. A lot has changed for global travelers, so Kaffen's Travel Tips were a good reminder:
Embrace Local Transport: His books 'Europe by Bus' and 'Australia by Bus' champion buses to see landscapes up close and interact with locals - advice that applies to Brazil and Argentina. [peacecorps...ldwide.org]
Take Risks & Learn Languages: Kaffen often advises travelers to take calculated risks and learn basic phrases in local languages for richer experiences. I never had that problem, but a Spanish/Portuguese phrase book or app is a good idea.
Document Everything: His habit of keeping pocket notebooks underscores the value of recording impressions for future reflection or creative projects. Kaffen filled over 100 pocket notebooks for his four-year journey across Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Kaffen adhered to Paul Theroux's philosophy by traveling to maximize spontaneity and cultural immersion. He appreciated solitude as the "great teacher," echoing Theroux's ethos that independence fosters authenticity. Evidently, he appreciated the South American Handbook, the legendary guidebook for independent travelers, to plan his travels. It was my favorite companion on the Road as well, and it is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
About the Author:
Steve Kaffen has written 19 books to date, covering destinations from Asia Without Borders to Europe by Bus, Australia Adventures and Encounters, Escape to Alaska, and thematic works like The 2024 Paris Olympics and Rwanda and the Mountain Gorillas. Several have won Peace Corps Writers Awards for Best Travel Book and have ranked among Amazon.com's most popular titles in regional travel, photography, and sports. Steve Kaffen is a seasoned traveler and writer whose life reads like an adventure novel. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Russia (1994l-96) and later as the organization's audit director, visiting 35 posts worldwide. He is a long-time member of the respected Explorers Club, nominated by Sir Edmund Hillary after meeting him in the Himalayas. His adventures include climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and voyaging to Antarctica with Chile's Navy. Kaffen publishes under SK Journeys, a boutique imprint specializing in experiential travel books. SK Journeys emphasizes high-quality production, rich photography, and practical guidance for independent travelers.
Mark D. Walker, Reviewer
http://www.MillionMileWalker.com
Mark Zvonkovic's Bookshelf
The Hired Man
Sandra Dallas
St. Martin's Press
c/o Macmillan
www.us.macmillan.com
9781250352408, $28.00 HB, 320 Pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Hired-Man-Novel-Sandra-Dallas/dp/1250352398
A thoughtful young woman navigates provincial prejudices during Dust Bowl times in Colorado.
In December of 2025 great waves of Arctic air swept down across the plains, threatening a hard permanence that one could easily fear would never depart. But memory of the year's earlier spring brought hope to all except, perhaps, those with apocalyptic dispositions. Such hope was scarce during the Dust Bowl years, which kicked off in 1930. Memory of spring rain faded annually year after year, as one "boiling wall of grit" after another blew through southeastern Colorado.The dust storms were indistinguishable except for the color of the dirt that drifted against and through every structure, yellow from Kansas, brown from Oklahoma, and red from Texas. By 1937, hope was buried beneath these multicolored dunes.
The Hired Man is a story told by Martha Helen Kessler, a high school student struggling with her mother and father and younger brother, Henry, on a farm in Burke, Colorado during Dust Bowl times. After one storm Otis Hobbs, who Martha Helen fears is a tramp on account of his appearance, appears at the Kessler farmhouse carrying Kevin, a local boy lost during the latest dust storm and being searched for by the townspeople from Burke. While one would expect great relief at finding Kevin, what emerges immediately is suspicion, actually outright disdain, of Hobbs by Kevin's family, who characterize him as a "bum." Sheriff Gant then labels Hobbs as a hobo and a vagrant, telling him "you'll have to move along," or be arrested under the town's vagrant law. At this point Ruth, Martha Helen's mother, proclaims that the Kessler's will hire Otis to work on the farm for food and lodging. And so begins the novel's primary setting of small town provincialism exacerbated by the hard financial times arising out of the Dust Bowl environment.
Technically, Martha Helen's story and the plot are presented by a first person narrative, commonly used in coming of age novels, a category into which The Hired Man certainly fits. The hard times are the backdrop for her personal confrontation with the world around her. The dust storms act as an accelerant for moral and social choices heaped upon Martha Helen, making her journey through adolescence into a sprint. While there is a plot, and many characters taking part in it, Martha Helen's coming of age is not mysterious. She says it plainly at the end of the first chapter: "The Dust Bowl changed us. Mr. Hobbs did, too. During that time he lived with us, I grew up. I was barely more than a girl when he joined our family. By the time everything was over, I'd become a woman."
As with all Sandra Dallas novels, the story is about the characters. And the plot is the plow that pushes their development forward. Hobbs is the novel's antagonist, although the prejudices, bad deeds, and gossip displayed by the townspeople make a clear picture of him as difficult to see as a barn during a storm of swirling dirt. Unlike Martha Helen's character, Otis is revealed to the reader only by exterior means: his arrival during a storm with a nearly dead boy; his mysterious past; his competence as a hired hand; and his ongoing presence being a focal point of town prejudice, the most notable being his arrest and trial for the murder of Frankie. At no point in the story is there any indication of a transformation for Hobbs. Martha Helen is the opposite. She undergoes moral learning, her experiences during the plot being ethically transformative. Hobb's self at the end hasn't changed.
Followers of Sandra Dallas will not be disappointed by The Hired Man. Her ability to deliver a character driven morality story amid hard times and social upheaval is again a showcase. Tension is high during a dynamic created by community instability and murderous wrongdoing. The end of the story may raise some eyebrows. But the heart of the story is pure Sandra Dallas.
This novel will be published in March 2026. This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy provided by St. Martin's Press in 2025.
Mark Zvonkovic, Reviewer
markzvonkovic.com
Matthew McCarty's Bookshelf
After the Fire: Richmond in Defeat
Nelson D. Lankford
University of Virginia Press
upress.virginia.edu
9780813953366, $32.95, $26.69 Kindle, 356 pgs.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/After-Fire-Richmond-Divided-Studies/dp/0813953367
The American Civil War is the defining period in a rich history that belongs to all Americans. No city personifies the Civil War like the capital of the Confederacy. Richmond is both the image of dignity and manhood for the Confederacy and the very seat of rebellion and insurrection for the United States. Richmond would survive the war relatively unscathed only to become the epicenter for what Reconstruction would look like. Author Nelson Lankford, former editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, has written an excellent history of post-war Richmond titled After the Fire: Richmond in Defeat (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2025, 356 pgs., $32.95). After the Fire is a volume in the A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era series from the University of Virginia Press,
Richmond is the quintessential southern city. Its' history goes back to Virginia's colonial era. Presidents visited Richmond. Famous Virginians such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Robert E. Lee all knew Richmond as a place where they could feel that their work was important. However, Richmond also exhibited dehumanizing slave auctions, extreme racial segregation, and a desire to celebrate figures such as Lee, who many believed had committed treason. Richmond was cast aflame on April 3, 1865 in what many thought was a signal for the proverbial phoenix to rise from the ashes.
Lankford uses a wide variety of primary sources to describe life in Richmond immediately following the end of the war through the first years of Reconstruction. His prose is an excellent narrative that flows smoothly from that fateful day in April of 1865 through the end of the 1860s and the emergence of the white supremacy inspired government of the many ex-Confederates pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. After the Fire is an excellent social history. It serves a welcome need for a volume that explores the impacts of the Civil War on everyday citizens, former Confederates, and government officials striving to reshape modern America. After the Fire deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of any reader interested in the Civil War and American history.
Matthew W. McCarty, EdD
Reviewer
Michael Carson's Bookshelf
Her Cold Justice
Robert Dugoni
www.robertdugonibooks.com
Thomas & Mercer
c/o Amazon Publishing
9781662524622, $28.99, HC, 399pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Her-Cold-Justice-Keera-Duggan/dp/1662524625
Synopsis: In a quiet South Seattle neighborhood, a suspected drug smuggler and his girlfriend are murdered in their home. When a young man named Michael Westbrook is accused of the brutal double homicide, his uncle JP Harrison turns to Keera Duggan to defend him. JP is Keera's trusted investigator, and he desperately needs Keera to save his nephew against escalating odds.
The evidence is circumstantial -- Michael worked with one of the victims, drugs were found in his possession, and he bolted from authorities. Ruthless star prosecutor Anh Tran has gotten convictions on much less. With the testimony of two prison informants, the case looks grave. But Keera never concedes defeat. To free her client, she must dig deep before Tran crushes both of them.
As the investigation gets more twisted with each new find, Keera is swept up in a mystery with far-reaching consequences. This case isn't just murder. It's looking like a conspiracy. And getting justice for Michael could be the most dangerous promise Keera has ever made.
Critique: A deftly crafted and riveting read from start to finish, "Her Cold Justice" by novelist Robert Dugoni is a truly extraordinary suspense thriller with memorable characters and an inherently fascinating storyline. While this hardcover edition of "Her Cold Justice" is a strongly recommended pick for community library Contemporary Mystery/Suspense collections, it should be noted for the personal reading lists of dedicated murder mystery fans that it is also readily available from Thomas & Mercer in paperback (9781662524639, $16.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $5.99).
Editorial Note: Robert Dugoni (www.robertdugonibooks.com) is the author of several series, including Tracy Crosswhite, Charles Jenkins, David Sloane, and Keera Duggan. His stand-alone novels include A Killing on the Hill, Hold Strong (coauthored with Jeff Langholz and Chris Crabtree), Damage Control, The 7th Canon, and The World Played Chess.
Michael J. Carson
Reviewer
Robin Friedman's Bookshelf
Baby Driver
Jan Kerouac
NYRB Classics
https://www.nyrb.com
9781681379739, $17.95 pbk / $11.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Driver-Jan-Kerouac/dp/1681379732
New York Review Books
https://www.nyrb.com/products/baby-driver
Jack Kerouac's Wild Daughter
Jan Kerouac (1952-1996) was the child of the famous beat writer Jack Kerouac and his second wife, Joan Haverty. Jan was born when the couple had already separated and divorced. Jack Kerouac denied paternity until his fatherhood was proven when Jan was nine through a blood test. He had little contact with his daughter, and saw her only twice in her life. Joan Haverty was left to raise Jan alone.
In 1981, Jan Kerouac published an autobiographical novel "Baby Driver" about the early years of her life. Two more novels would follow. "Baby Driver" received little attention and was long out of print. Fortunately, "Baby Driver" has just been reissued by New York Review Books Classics. It is valuable and deserves to be read. Amanda Fortini wrote an insightful Introduction to the reissue which describes "Baby Driver" as "at its core a picaresque novel, and possibly the truest example we have of what I would call the female picaresque."
The story is narrated in the first person by Jan Kerouac. It begins when, just before turning 16, she is pregnant and living in rural Mexico with her husband, John, and gives birth to a stillborn child from another man. The novel then describes Jan's life in New York City with her mother and with three siblings from her mother's relationship from a marriage following her marriage to Kerouac. These chapters alternate with chapters describing Jan's life on her own, from the time in Mexico with John through a series of wild adventures that take her through Washington State, San Francisco, the American Southwest, Mexico, and South America.
The most memorable scenes in the book are those set in Manhattan's Lower East side during its declining days in the 1960s. Jan Kerouac describes a life of poverty in the tenements and the streets and the diversity of the residents at the time of this fabled area. Jan led a troubled life, moving in and out of reform schools and juvenile prisons as she became involved with drugs, alcohol, and older men. She also cut a record, age 12 in 1964 as part of a short-lived girl group called the Whippets. These sections of the book show a gritty picture of Jan Kerouac as a troubled, delinquent girl and of her relationship to her mother.
The alternating chapters of the book show Jan Kerouac living the live of a vagabond and a wanderer, never staying in the same place for long. She drifts and goes from one man to another, often at great risk to her life. She is heavily involved with drugs and works a series of odd jobs to get by. Most notably, she works extensively as a prostitute and exotic dancer. She travels and takes a lengthy trip to Peru in the company of a psychotic before returning to Washington State and her mother and to reconciliation and an uncertain future.
The book is written in short scenes. The writing is heavily descriptive with a great deal of detail and particularity combined with metaphor. It is often effective and striking but occasionally bogs down. The reader wants to root for her as she goes through her troubled life. Jan meets her famous father only twice in the book and also has a phone call or two with him. Late in the book, when she is institutionalized in the Bronx, her doctor discovers she is Jack Kerouac's daughter and brings her a copy of "On the Road" to read. Jan writes: "I read it all in one night instead of ringing for a Seconal. And I was happy to know that my father's thought patterns were so similar to mine. Also now that I had a picture of what he had been doing all this time, all over the country, it made more sense that he hadn't had the time to be fatherly."
Jan Kerouac's wanderings were much harsher and more dangerous that the wanderings Jack Kerouac romanticized and spiritualized in "On the Road" and other writings. As Fortini writes in her Introduction, "Baby Driver" is instead " a jagged excursion into an underworld the elder Kerouac only skirted." Fortini writes that Jan's novel shares certain themes with the works of her father including "restless journeying, experimental prose, rejection of traditional or materialist values, and a commitment to freedom and spontaneity as vital principles of life and art."
"Baby Driver" is moving and difficult. There is little in the book of social criticism or of criticism of others or oneself. Instead, the book shows a young woman engaged with her own experiences and under difficult circumstances trying to enjoy and to live her life. As Fortini writes, Jan Kerouac "refuses to play the victim, even when it seems plainly justified. She writes without bitterness or blame, either refusing resentment or immune to it. She owns her experiences, decisions, and flaws, without reservation. Fate sent Jan Kerouac down a difficult road, but she travelled it as if she'd chosen it."
New York Review Books has done a service by reissuing "Baby Driver".
Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir
Joyce Johnson, author
Penguin Publishing Group
https://www.penguin.com
9780140283570, $13.78 paperback
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Minor-Characters-Memoir-Joyce-Johnson/dp/0140283579
Because They're Young
After reading a review of Joyce Johnson's biography of Jack Kerouac, "The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac", I read the book, together with "Minor Characters", Johnson's 1983 memoir of her relationship with Kerouac years earlier. Upon its publication, "Minor Characters" won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Johnson (b. 1935) has written three novels and other works of nonfiction in addition to the Kerouac biography and "Minor Characters."
Born Joyce Glassman, Johnson had an on-again, off-again love affair with Kerouac between 1957 -- 1959. When the relationship began, Glassman 21, had attended Barnard for four years, beginning when she was 16 but failed to graduate. She was working as a secretary for a publisher and writing her first novel, for which she had received a $500 advance. Kerouac, 34, had published one novel, "The Town and the City" and had written several other books, including "On the Road" which had not found publishers. He had already knocked around a great deal, with two failed marriages, stints in the Merchant Marine, and travels across the country that "On the Road" would make famous. He had the problems with alcohol and drugs that would get worse with time.
When she wrote "Minor Characters", Johnson looked back upon her younger life with a sense of wisdom, detachment, and loss, as she endeavors to understand her life and the "Beat" era. The tone is wistful, sad, thoughtful, sometimes ironic, but unapologetic. Concluding her memoir, Johnson writes, "I'm a forty-seven-year-old woman with a permanent sense of impermanence. If time were like a passage of music, you could keep going back to it till you got it right."
The book begins in 1945 when the Glassman family had moved to New York City. Joyce Glassman's parents were Jewish immigrants of modest means. Her parents had high ambitions for their daughter, with her mother urging Joyce to pursue a career as a composer, to study, and to defer involvement with young men. As an adolescent, Glassman developed a double life, sneaking away from homes during the evening to attend radical and cultural gatherings in Greenwich Village. Looking back on these years, Johnson describes herself as in search of "Real Life", which she proceeds to define with candor:
"Real Life was sexual. Or rather it often seemed to take the form of sex. This was the area of ultimate adventure, where you would dare or not dare. It was much less a question of desire. sex was like a forbidden castle whose name could not even be spoken around the house, so feared was its power. Only with the utmost vigilance could you avoid being sucked into its magnetic field. The alternative was to break into the castle and take its power for yourself."
The book alternates passages describing young Joyce Glassman's own life, with the parallel lives of the individuals who became formative of the Beats, including Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and more. Glassman's story and Kerouac's delve together when Allen Ginsberg arranges a blind date, months before Kerouac achieves the fame which hastens his demise with the publication of "On the Road".
Johnson's book offers a beautifully described sense of place of New York City Bohemia in the years following WW II through about 1960. She describes the East Side and Greenwich Village, the bars, cafeterias, streets, and tenements where young people breaking away tried to live. The portrayals of Kerouac and his books, and of people such as Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, Neal Cassady, LeRoi Jones are highly perceptive. Johnson emphasizes the women who became part of the Beat movement and their frequently unhappy lives. They were often shabbily treated. The title "Minor Characters" is sometimes thought to refer to the Beat women. I think it refers to the Beats as a whole. Centered around Kerouac, they were a group who seemed marginal and "minor" at the time but proved to have cultural influence.
For the most part, Johnson resists reading cultural developments from the late 1960's and 1970's into her memoir. She seems less than fully comfortable with these developments as she remembers her life and her largely unrequited love for Jack Kerouac.
For the shock value it had at the time, there is a near universal character in the story of young people and Bohemia. Johnson comes to understand her parents and their hopes for her. The Beat movement was a product of youthful skepticism and rejection of received standards of conformity. I am not sure if a Bohemia could thrive today because of the lack of standards on which young creative individuals could push back.
"Minor Characters" is a sadly lyrical book that helped me understand Joyce Glassman, Kerouac, the Beats, and the culture in which they were formed.
The Awakener: A Memoir of Kerouac and the Fifties
Helen Weaver, author
City Lights Publishers
https://www.citylights.com
9780872865051, $25.00, paperback
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Awakener-Memoir-Kerouac-Fifties/dp/0872865053
Helen Weaver And Jack Kerouac
A good deal of the extensive writing on Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) has been done by the women in his life. In 1983, Joyce Johnson published a famous memoir, "Minor Characters" centering upon her relationship (as Joyce Glassman) with Kerouac from 1957- 1959, the years of his notoriety surrounding the publication of "On the Road". Johnson has recently published a biography of Kerouac's early life,"The Voice is All" which covers the years up to 1951.
After reading Johnson's books, I discovered Helen Weaver's "The Awakener: A Memoir of Kerouac and the Fifties" (2007). Weaver, (b. 1931) had a relationship with Kerouac just before Johnson, in late 1956 -- 1957. Weaver's memoir discusses her understandably icy early relationship with Johnson, which slowly turned to friendship late in the lives of both women. Weaver has had an eventful life in her own right. She became a translator of many important works in French, the best-known of which is her translation of Antoine Artaud, with Susan Sontag, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Weaver is also something of a famous writer on astrology, an interest she developed late in life. She discusses, but for good reasons does not emphasize, her astrological endeavors in her Kerouac memoir, which remains the book for which she will probably be best remembered.
In "The Awakener", Weaver offers a reflective look at her life and of Kerouac's place in it. Although much of the book takes place later, it centers upon, as the subtitle indicates, a portrayal of bohemian life in the Greenwich Village of the 1950's with its music, art, cold-water flats, and young people trying to escape convention. Weaver herself was the product of educated, upper-middle class American life. Her family lived in Scarsdale, and her father was for many years the Director of Natural Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation. (Weaver's father was at first shocked by his grown daughter's interest in astrology before becoming against his better judgment intrigued.) She was a precocious child who spent much time alone. Weaver portrays herself as rebelling against her family's conformity, 9 to 5 work ethic mentality, and especially sexual repression. After an unsuccessful short marriage following college, she settled in Greenwich Village, sexually experimented with both women and men, and worked for various publishing houses. She met a young woman named Helen Elliott who became her roommate and, interrupted by long quarrels and silences, life-long friend.
The two Helens were interested in rock and roll and psychoanalysis, both of which receive much attention in Weaver's memoir. In 1956, Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, and the two Orlovsky brothers arrived at the Helens' door after a trip to Mexico looking for a place to crash. The young men had earlier been friends with Helen Elliott. Kerouac and Weaver quickly developed a relationship. Although she loved Kerouac, Weaver soon developed doubts about him due to what she understood of his Buddhism and his alcoholism, among other things. When a drunken Kerouac stormed into the apartment late one night with a friend, Weaver physically attacked him and ordered him to leave. That was essentially the end of the relationship. About a week after the breakup, Allen Ginsberg set up a blind date for Kerouac with Glassman. Kerouac avoided Weaver thereafter, although the two had lunch together and a reconciliation as friends in the early 1960's. When Kerouac tried to contact Weaver over the phone in the last sad years of his life, Weaver avoided him.
Looking back at the relationship from the passage of many years, Weaver tries to make amends. She writes:
"I asked Jack to leave not because my analyst told me to and not because of some proto-feminist declaration of independence on my part. I rejected him for the same reason America rejected him: he woke us up in the middle of the night in the long dream of the fifties. He interfered with our sleep."
Weaver ultimately comes to see Kerouac as her "Awakener" from her early life of conformity, denying and avoiding what she wanted from life, and sexual unresponsiveness. (She says she was unable to respond fully to a man until the mid 1960's.) In the years following her relationship with Kerouac, Weaver became involved briefly with Lenny Bruce and worked to assist Bruce's defense in the obscenity trial which left him broken and poor. She traveled to Europe before settling into her own path as a translator and a writer.
The latter chapters of her memoir describe her reconciliation with Kerouac after his death, as Weaver travels to Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, becomes involved in many scholarly and popular tributes to his memory, and rereads his books. Weaver describes the gradual rise in Kerouac's literary reputation, and she writes perceptively about his books, including "Dr. Sax", "Visions of Cody", and Kerouac's own biography of the Buddha, "Wake Up!". Late in her life, Weaver became highly sympathetic to Buddhism and the the understanding of it which Kerouac tried to express when they were together. She writes insightfully about Kerouac's and her own relationship to Buddhism:
"In his early enthusiasm for Buddhism and his eloquent transmission of its teachings he showed us a path he couldn't take himself. The bridge doesn't get to the other side: it remains suspended, a bridge for others to pass over."
Weaver has written a thoughtful portrayal of Kerouac for the many readers who remain interested in his writings and his times. The book is also an engaging autobiography, as Weaver comes to understand her life, her friends, her relationship with Kerouac, and to find a degree of peace with herself.
A Teacher's Dilemma: Balancing High Expectations with Evidence
Jennifer M. Morton, author
Marquette University Press
https://www.marquette.edu/mupress
9781626001022, $15.00, hardcover
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Teachers-Dilemma-Balancing-Expectations-Philosophy/dp/1626001022
Jennifer Morton In Milwaukee
Ever since 1937, the Philosophy Department of Marquette University has sponsored an annual lecture, the Aquinas Lecture, given by a distinguished philosopher. Marquette University Press has been publishing the annual lectures in small, uniform volumes. I am interested in the Aquinas Lectures because I have long been a student of philosophy and they are part of the intellectual life of my old hometown.
In October, 2025, Jennifer M, Morton delivered the annual lecture. Morton is a philosopher of education who serves at the University of Pennsylvania as the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Philosophy and as the Graduate Chair of the Philosophy Department. She also holds a secondary appointment at the Graduate School of Education. Morton's publications include an award-winning book, "Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility (2019) which discusses ethical questions that first-generation and low -income students face in pursuing upward mobility.
Morton's Aquinas Lecture, "A Teacher's Dilemma: Balancing High Expectations with Evidence" focuses on a broad ethical question faced by teachers. On the one hand, teachers are expected to be optimistic and to believe in the potential of each of their students. The teacher's role is to encourage students and their ability to learn. On the other hand, teachers also are faced with what Morton calls the "evidential requirement". The teacher must recognize that students have different motivations, skills and abilities. Their learning is also influenced by persons and situations outside the classroom, especially in matters such as income, race, or gender, that affect learning and classroom performance. Morton writes about the tension between optimism and evidence and summarizes her conclusions as follows:
"To see ourselves as agents we must recognize the future as open, but we are also creatures subject to limitations imposed by our abilities, circumstances, and the society in which we are embedded. This tension takes on a different cast in education, in which we have a relationship between at least two agents, the student and the teacher, as well as a rich social and institutional context, the school, the family, and the society, which structures and limits the educational possibilities. I suggest that one way of responding to this tension that attends to both its ethical and epistemic dimensions is to conceive of teaching as involving ethically-motivated inquiry." (pp. 11-12)
In her lecture, Morton discusses both the "optimism" and the "evidential" requirements for teaching and their rationales and limitations. She offers many telling specific examples of the teacher-student relationship, and she draws heavily on contemporary scholarly literature in education and philosophy. She explores various suggestions for balancing optimism and evidential and in the conclusion of her lecture develops the concept of "ethically-motivated inquiry" that she had earlier suggested would help resolve the dilemma. What this means is that the teacher has to try to understand the student as an individual before reaching tentative conclusions on the evidential requirement. The teacher should not rely only on generalities, such as standardized test scores, or stereotypes, but should draw evidential conclusions only after understanding each student in his or her individuality. This is difficult to do in practice, but it is the ideal and goal of the educational process. Morton makes a reference to the great American philosopher of education, John Dewey (65-66) and concludes:
"I have suggested that the tension facing the teacher can be recast by reflecting on the inquiry at the heart of teaching. If a teacher arrives at an expectation without contextualizing the evidence, paying attention to her specific students, or based on stereotype and prejudice, she is failing to engage in the kind of responsive inquiry essential to good teaching." (64)
Morton's thoughtful, detailed lecture is a worthy contribution to the Aquinas Lecture series. It made me reflect on my own educational experiences in Milwaukee, from kindergarten and primary school through college long ago.
Mathematics in Plato's Republic
Sarah Broadie, author
Marquette University Press
https://www.marquette.edu/mupress
9780874621952, $15.00, hardcover
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Platos-Republic-Aquinas-Lecture/dp/087462195X
Plato In Milwaukee
The philosophy department of Marquette University, Milwaukee sponsors an annual Aquinal Lecture presented by a distinguished philosopher. Marquette University Press, in turn, publishes the annual lectures in a series of small, uniform volumes. The series, which began in 1937, is valuable both for its individual lectures and as an ongoing project. I studied philosophy as an undergraduate in Milwaukee and am interested in the Aquinas Lectures as an example of the intellectual life of my home town.
Sarah Broadie is a scholar of Plato and Aristotle who enjoys an international reputation. She is Professor of Philosophy and Wardlaw Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She has written extensively on ancient philosophy, and her books include "Nature and Divinity in Plato's Timaeus" (2011) and "Plato's Sun-Like Good" (2023). In February, 2020 (just before the pandemic) Broadie delivered the annual Aquinas Lecture on the subject "Mathematics in Plato's Republic".
Broadie's short, provocative lecture examines two passages in Plato's most famous book in which he discusses the relationship between mathematics and the difficult concept of dialectic. The first passage occurs in Plato's image of the Divided Line and the second occurs a little later in the Republic (525a -- 531d) and discusses the importance of mathematics in the education of the ruler's of Plato's ideal state. Broadie explores each passage separately and tries to show how they are related.
Broadie argues that in the Divided Line passage, Plato seemingly downplays the importance of mathematics. In that passage, Plato distinguishes between visibility and intelligibility, finding the latter far superior to the former. Mathematics is on the "intelligible" side of the Line. Broadie's point is that mathematics is far inferior to dialectic and in fact is inferior to dialectic in the same ratio that visibility in the Divided Line is inferior to intelligibility . The result seems to be that Plato is downplaying the importance of mathematics in comparison to dialectic while offering little in the way of understanding what precisely dialectic is.
In the second passage, Plato discusses how, beginning at the age of 20, the future rulers of the ideal state must undergo a rigorous educational process that includes ten years of training in mathematics up to the most advanced level. She explores the reasons why Plato gave such strong importance to mathematical training for his rulers, particularly since he had earlier some that downplayed mathematics. She explores and rejects a number of explanations offered in the literature on Plato, which basically argue that the knowledge required by rulers is mathematical or meta-mathematical (explaining the nature of mathematics and why it leads to truth) in character. Broadie offers instead a much broader explanation. Human beings from their youth tend to follow the evidence of their senses and the unexamined beliefs of their peers, including their parents and friends and the society in which they are raised. They need to learn how to think clearly and without bias, and Plato thinks extensive mathematical training is essential to this end. Mathematical training will give the rulers the ability to think in an unbiased, balanced way about the nature of the Good and to act wisely in ruling the ideal state.
Broadie writes eloquently and sympathetically about Plato's commitment to the Good and to an objective understanding of truth. At the conclusion of her lecture, she suggests that Plato's commitment to a rigorous mathematical education may have been a product of Plato's own time when mathematics was the only field of study which had been highly developed and in which lengthy training of the mind was possible. She writes that in the modern world we have available "lengthy training in highly developed difficult disciplines such as history, philology, legal theory, economics, or technical philosophy itself." (53) In this way, Broadie tries to capture what is of value in Plato's understanding of the importance of mathematical training and rationality while moving beyond Plato's own historical context.
I learned from thinking again about Plato with Broadie. I appreciated her approach to the historical and the universal aspects of his thought. Her approach reminded me of my study of Plato in Milwaukee long ago and of its influence on me. Her lecture suggests how Plato's thought remains embedded in its time and also of lasting significance.
Robin Friedman
Reviewer
Suanne Schafer's Bookshelf
The Secret Chord
Geraldine Brooks
Penguin Books
https://www.penguin.com
9780698411487, $8.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chord-Novel-Geraldine-Brooks-ebook/dp/B00SI02CHS
In The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks expands what little is known of the Old Testament biblical hero, King David, through the first-person lens of his seer, Natan. From vacation Bible School, I was familiar with the story of the young David using a sling to kill the giant Goliath. Brooks's use of character and place-names in the Hebrew transliteration, rather than the usual spellings, helped me distance the Biblical story from her work and let me read it more judiciously.
Natan, on David's orders, interviews the king's wives and others which Natan then combines with his own observations to write a biography. Thus, the reader gets multiple perspectives on the life of a very complex, ambitious, yet wholly human man: at times a loving father and friend; at others, a warrior capable of brutal, inhumane acts, a man ruled by lust; at still others, a superb musician, composer, and poet. We also learn Natan's story who, as a boy, witnesses his father's death at the hands of David.
Though many of the details have come purely from Brooks's imagination, they work together with what is historically known to flesh out the story of King David.
Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man
Dale Peterson
Mariner Books
c/o HarperCollins
https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/marinerbooks
9780547525792, $17.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Goodall-Woman-Who-Redefined-ebook/dp/B00PF2891A
With the recent death of the world-renowned anthropologist, Jane Goodall, I decided to tackle Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man by Dale Peterson, a 755-page biography that has been on my to-be-read pile for eons. I have followed Goodall's life since I was in my teens and considering becoming an archeologist and working in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. As much as I adore Jane, I had mixed feelings about this encyclopedic biography. First, it begins way back in 1785 and continues through the family's playing-card business and her father's race car driving career, so there is far more verbiage leading up to Jane than I was really interested in. Second, there were numerous excerpts from Jane's childhood diaries, one or two of which would have been sufficient. Third, Peterson spends an inordinate number of pages giving the history of ethology - (the study of animal and human behavior and social organization from a biological perspective) with its roots in the works of Charles Darwin and other scientists in the late nineteenth century and the modern discipline beginning in the 1930s with scientists like Konrad Lorenz - and positioning Jane within that milieu. Having studied experimental psychology and read extensively on these subjects, I felt they got in the way of my learning the psyche of the "real" Jane.
That said, once Dr. Goodall meets Louis B. Leakey and later arrives in Gombe, Tanzania, where she studies chimpanzees, I could scarcely put the book down. I found the development of Gombe and other African centers for the studies of chimpanzee, gorillas, bonobos, and baboons fascinating. I also enjoyed reading of Jane's gradual movement into conservation, her own vegetarianism and spiritualism interesting. Overall, with a fair amount of skimming, I enjoyed the book.
El Paso
Winston Groom
Liveright
c/o W.W. Norton
https://wwnorton.com/books
9781631493409, $16.95
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/El-Paso-Novel-Winston-Groom/dp/163149340X
This is not-quite-a-western novel, though it has cowboys (Tom Mix) and a trail drive. It's a historical novel that spans the ritzy East Coast and the wilds of Mexico with a cast of characters ranging from a fictional railroad robber baron to real-life personages such as Pancho Villa, reporter/socialist John Reed, an aging Ambrose Bierce, and a young George Patton. Tossed in are upper crust essentials (a "cottage" in the Newport and a yacht), a plane vs. train contest, a kidnapping of the robber baron's children, bullfights, and run-ins with Mexican Federale troops, Pancho Villa's ragtag army, and attacks from nature (rattlesnakes, gila monsters, jaguars and bears).
With typical American arrogance and the conceit that his money would protect him, railroad baron John Shaughnessy, in severe financial straits, takes his family in his private railroad cars and journeys to Mexico to keep their cattle from being "requisitioned" by Pancho Villa. There, the men decide to drive the cattle north to El Paso, leaving behind wives and children. Pancho Villa kidnaps the boy and girl, and Shaughnessy and his son pursue the general through the wilds of northern Mexico. The events depicted are violent, cruel, even brutal, at times.
This book has a lot in common with My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende, which follows a female war correspondent handling similar situations in Chile, and The Hot Country, which is also about Pancho Villa and Mexico during the same time frame but set in Veracruz, Mexico. I found Emilia del Valle unlikeable on many levels, but enjoyedEl Paso. For me, The Hot Country falls somewhere between the two. It's better than Emilia del Valle but not as much fun to read as El Paso. While the characters in El Paso lack the depth of Larry McMurtry's Gus and Call from Lonesome Dove, but I enjoyed reading El Paso.
The Hot Country
Robert Olen Butler
Mysterious Press
https://mysteriouspress.com
9780802193995, $11.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Country-Christopher-Marlowe-Cobb-Thriller-ebook/dp/B008DYIGR4
Robert Olen Butler begins a new series in the vein of the noir novels written in the 1920s, the Christopher Marlowe Cobb thrillers, which follow the war correspondent who gives his name to the books. In The Hot Country, Cobb goes to Veracruz, Mexico, in 1914 to cover the United States' invasion of Mexico in an attempt to keep the Germans from shipping arms to that country. He stumbles upon a nefarious plot which requires all his resources to verify. In doing so, he rides with Pancho Villa and falls in love with soldadera, a female soldier and sniper, all while chasing the story of a lifetime and juggling three identities.
Christopher Marlowe (Kit) has a complicated relationship with his actress mother, and themes of it run through the novel as they trade cables and letters. This background in theater gives him many of the skills with which he carries out his journey: fencing, boxing, and acting.
This book has a lot in common with My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende, which follows a female war correspondent handling similar situations in Chile, and El Paso by Winston Groom, which is also about Pancho Villa and Mexico during the same time frame but set in Texas and northern Mexico. I found Emilia del Valle unlikeable on many levels, but enjoyed El Paso. For me, The Hot Country falls somewhere between the two. It's better than Emilia del Valle but not as much fun to read as El Paso.
Blood Sisters and The Bone Thief
Vanessa Lillie
Berkley
https://www.penguin.com/publishers/berkley
9780593550120, $19.00 pbk / $4.99 Kindle (Blood Sisters)
9780593550151, $30.00 hc / $14.99 Kindle (The Bone Thief)
Amazon (Blood Sisters)
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sisters-Vanessa-Lillie-ebook/dp/B0BR4XS4J2
Amazon (The Bone Thief)
https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Thief-Vanessa-Lillie-ebook/dp/B0DVB9KGFP
Blood Sisters and The Bone Thief are the first and second in Vanessa Lillie's Syd Walker thrillers about Native American women. While both can be read as a standalone novels, readers will get more out of the series if they read them in order. In both, Lillie takes on important contemporary issues: (1) The ongoing disappearance and/or murders of indigenous women and the fact that they count so little in modern society that they rarely are searched for nor receive justice. (2) Misappropriation of tribal history. (3) Theft of tribal land and belongings. (4) The effects of the drug epidemic on Native populations. Lillie weaves these hot topics seamlessly into her plots.
At the beginning of Blood Sisters, protagonist Syd Walker, suffering from PTSD after a traumatic family event, has moved from Oklahoma to Rhode Island near Narragansett tribal lands where she serves as an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She's temporarily reassigned to Oklahoma to investigate newly-discovered remains near her family's home. Her return reignites her memories from the event and heightens her loss of connection with her family who feel she abandoned them when she moved East. Her investigation uncovers lies, deceit, and violence going back generations as Whites have systematically stolen from the Indigenous people there and uncovers a "bone yard" of Indigenous female bones, the lost and missing who were never investigated. She also looks at the Oxycodone and methamphetamine epidemics and its effects on Oklahoma.
In The Bone Thief, Syd wraps up the Oklahoma investigation and returns to Rhode Island to uncover the bones of an Indigenous woman buried several hundred years earlier. Those remains, on the property of the Founders' Society, disappear overnight. The Founders' Society is an exclusive group of Whites who trace their ancestry to the early colonists and thus claim ancestral rights to land stolen from the original Indigenous people. They are determined their side of history is the only correct one and will kill to protect their views. Another Native girl has vanished, and police are not investigating, insisting she merely ran away.
Both books are interesting and fast paced. That said, I did not like them as much as I liked the Firekeeper's Daughter series I reviewed recently. Lillie's prose doesn't seem quite as cohesive nor the plots as tight as those of Angeline Boulley.
Keeper'n Me
Richard Wagamese
Anchor Canada
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/imprints/AC/anchor-canada
9780385674775, $13.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Keepern-Me-Richard-Wagamese-ebook/dp/B005PRF4ZE
In Keeper'n Me, a semi-autobiographic novel, Garnet Raven is stolen from his aboriginal family by the twentieth-century Canadian government and placed in residential schools and a string of foster homes until he ages out of the system. Finding people like himself - Indians - are universally disliked and feared, Garnet becomes anything not-Indian that his physiognomy can possibly accommodate: Hawaiian, Latino, even Black, while trying to avoid his past. When befriended by a Black family, he adopts the persona of a with-it soul brother, even sporting an Afro. Eventually, when he's left holding a packet of drugs, he lands in jail. After a twenty-year search for this child, his long-lost family writes and asks him to come home. Though he has "no idea of how to be an Indian," he agrees to return to White Dog Lake.
There, Garnet meets Keeper, an elder taught by Garnet's own grandfather, who takes the younger man under his wing. What ensues is a loving relationship with Keeper serving as a teacher of Indian ways and philosophy, guiding Garnet back to nature, to love, to family, to an aboriginal culture that with its simplicity coupled with richness, should engender envy from white folks. His growth from despising himself to acceptance of his past, his present, his future, his family is beautifully detailed. The novel relates a belated coming-of-age story, delayed for years because of Garnet's forced removal from his roots.
Richard Wagamese is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I am slowly working my way through his entire oeuvre. In Keeper'n Me, he doesn't disappoint. His prose is lush, yet simple, and his descriptions of Native American life are heartwarming. This should be required reading in high schools and colleges.
Tom Lake
Ann Patchett
Harper Perennial
c/o HarperCollins
https://www.harpercollins.com
9780063327535, $15.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Lake-Novel-Ann-Patchett/dp/0063327538
Reading Ann Patchett's Tom Lake is like taking a breath of fresh air scented by cherries from an orchard. It's a fascinating revisiting of Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, to boot.
Lara, a teenager who tries out for the part of Emily in Our Town on a whim, goes on to become an actress in Los Angeles. At age twenty four, she has a brief affair with an actor who goes on to become a great actor while she realizes she is simply ordinary. She later falls in love with a cherry farmer, her great true love. During the pandemic, her three grown daughters return home to self-isolate. The family owns a cherry orchard and is trying to harvest their cherries, but due to the pandemic, they are missing many of their usual workers. As they pick, the daughters encourage their mother to tell them the story of her life in Hollywood and her affair with Peter Duke. The kids think they know the real story, but their expectations have led them to draw different versions of what happened to their mother. Lara manages to tell her story while keeping some parts an absolute secret and censoring the sex.
This is a sweet, tender, quiet book in a bucolic setting that still deals with major issues: motherhood, family, the pandemic, and the fates of the world, their orchard, and all humanity in the midst of climate change.
The Magician's Assistant
Ann Patchett
Harper
https://www.harpercollins.com
9780547548791, $11.49
HarperCollins
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/magicians-assistant-ann-patchett
I loved Ann Patchett's Bel Canto and Tom Lake, so I can't figure out why it took me so long to get around to reading The Magician's Assistant. Guy Fetters is an abused teenager from Nebraska who leaves home. After erasing his past, he becomes a successful magician, renaming himself Parsifal. Sabine has been the assistant in his act for years, loves him in an unrequited romantic way. He finds love with Phan, a Vietnamese man. Both develop AIDS. Eventually, he marries her to ensure that her future is ensured. After Parsifal dies, his lawyer reveals that the magician still has family in Nebraska.
Sabine, who has wondered for years about Parsifal's past, is intrigued by the news. Two of the family members come to Los Angeles to visit, and she eventually goes to Nebraska as well. The trip provides her a way of getting to know the boy who turned into the man she knew, but didn't really know, despite their years together. She becomes a bit of a detective to piece together his life. The reveal of the family is gut-wrenching yet heart-warming.
The story is low-key, but the writing hypnotizes you, and you keep reading. As always, Patchett's prose is mesmerizing and gorgeous.
Suanne Schafer, Reviewer
www.SuanneSchaferAuthor.com
Susan Bethany's Bookshelf
Chinese Patchwork: Ancient Origins, New Expressions
Nancy Berliner, author
Lois Connor, photographer
MFA Publications
c/o Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
www.mfa-publications.org
9780878469079, $45.00, HC, 240pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Patchwork-Ancient-Origins-Expressions/dp/0878469079
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chinese-patchwork-nancy-berliner/1147333274
Synopsis: Patchwork design has a long history in China, dating back almost two thousand years to the arrival of Buddhism in the region. Across millennia, a thread can be followed from spiritual practitioners embracing patchwork textiles as a visual expression of their beliefs to patchwork's use in secular culture, where it was prized for its protective powers.
Eventually, patchwork became a form of domestic decoration (and an outlet for artistic ingenuity) that continues in some areas of China's countryside today.
"Chinese Patchwork: Ancient Origins, New Expressions" by author Nancy Berliner and photographer Lois Conner explores the creativity of 20th- and 21st-century Chinese makers who stitch fabric remnants into functional, decorative and auspicious articles for use in their homes and by their families. These objects display a wide variety of designs, patterns and techniques, and reflect both local tendencies and the individual aesthetics of the makers.
Through a series of scholarly essays, Berliner (a museum curator) illuminates the tradition and history behind the art form, as well as its links to Chinese visual culture; these texts are illustrated by Conner's stunning reproductions of lively and colorful patchwork examples. Interviews with contemporary makers offer readers firsthand insight into the practice and its intricacies.
Of special note are the additional photographs of the artists, their families and their works in situ beautifully illustrating patchwork's bold visual presence in rural China today.
Critique: This large format (9.2 x 1 x 11.2 inches, 3.2 pounds) hardcover edition of "Chinese Patchwork: Ancient Origins, New Expressions" from MFA Publications is a quite original, truly extraordinary and impressively informative study that will be of immense and particular value to readers with an interest in Chinese textiles, costumes, and fiber arts. Deftly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation -- making it an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library Needle Craft & Textile History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note #1: There is a comprehensive listing of books by Nancy Berliner online at GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/19611421.Nancy_Berliner
Editorial Note #2: Lois Conner (https://www.loisconner.net) is an American photographer. She is noted particularly for her platinum print landscapes that she produces with a 7" x 17" format banquet camera.
Redeemed - A Journey from Darkness to Light: A Memoir of Extraordinary Lives
Bianella Orozco-DeLaHoz & Alain Orozco
BookGo
www.bookgo.pub
9798998535789, $32.00, HC, 230pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Redeemed-Journey-Darkness-Light/dp/B0FZDSWJ98
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/redeemed-a-journey-from-darkness-to-light-bianella-orozco-delahoz/1148673166
Synopsis: Shortly after seeing her children off to school, their mother is murdered in their family home, along with Kiko, her brother and the twins' much adored uncle. How did this happen? What would happen next? How will Alain and Nella survive?
With the publication of "Redeemed - A Journey from Darkness to Light: A Memoir of Extraordinary Lives", co-authors Bianella Orozco-DeLaHoz and Alain Orozco tell the extraordinary story of the journey that Alain and Nella make as they navigate the world without their beloved mother. They live in a world of danger, as their father is a drug dealer, involved with other Colombian dealers. Money, millions of dollars, come and go. Violence is everywhere, and the world of crime provides a powerful lure for Alain, who winds up selling drugs with his father.
Nella and Alain lose almost everyone and everything. And then Nella loses her beloved brother for ten years while he is in prison for drug dealing. But in prison, Alain uncovers his family's deepest, darkest secrets, including the murder of their mother. Alain and his sister Nella might never recover from the truth. But with faith, hard work, the love of their families, and the love of God, they can be (and are) REDEEMED.
Critique: A deftly crafted and riveting biography that reads like a vividly portrayed crime novel, "Redeemed - A Journey from Darkness to Light: A Memoir of Extraordinary Lives" is one of those true life stories that lingers in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book has been finished and set back upon the shelf. Extraordinary, unique, and ultimately inspiring, "Redeemed" is especially recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community and college/university library American Biography and True Crime collections.
Editorial Note #1: Bianella Orozco-DeLaHoz was born in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up in Miami, Florida, she went on to earn her Bachelor of Science from Miami Dade College and is nationally certified as an expert Inpatient Obstetric Nurse. She has worked as a Labor and Delivery nurse for over 25 years at Baptist Hospital of Miami. A three-time marathon runner and proud mother of three, she considers her greatest accomplishment to be the loving family she built with the love of her life, Anthony.
Editorial Note #2: Born in Brooklyn, New York, alongside his twin sister Bianella, Alain Orozco's early life was shaped by hardship. After relocating to Florida, he faced the harsh realities of growing up with a father involved in drug dealing. Though that path led Alain to spend over a decade in federal prison on drug-related charges, it was there where he began his path to redemption. Upon his release, Alain rebuilt his life from the ground up, becoming a Certified Residential Property Appraiser, a career he's pursued for more than 24 years. His journey is a testament to the power of redemption, resilience, and relentless determination.
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Theresa Werba's Bookshelf
The Odyssey, Illustrated Edition with Commentary
Homer, author
Translated with commentary by Michael Solot
Illustrated by Aedan Kennedy
The Society of Classical Poets
https://www.classicalpoets.org
9781737551362, $36.09 pbk / $9.98 Kindle, 672 pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Odyssey-Illustrated-Commentary-Homer/dp/1737551365
The Society of Classical Poets
https://www.classicalpoets.org/scp-edition-of-homers-odyssey-now-available
Michael Solot has offered the bountiful fruit of ten years of scholarship in this immanently readable and contemporary translation with commentary of Homer's The Odyssey.
In previous readings of The Odyssey, I found the translations I read from to be dull, plodding, and uninteresting, no matter how hard I tried to "like" them, because it is expected of educated people to know, read, and like Homer. I was also often bogged down by the use of archaic language, such as the use of "thou"s and "-est" endings, which for some reason translators often feel the need to use when translating ancient poetry. This has always vexed me and made reading translated ancient poetry a chore and a drudgery.
As soon as I started reading Michael Solot's translation of The Odyssey, I felt instantly connected to the text. It felt so alive, so "modern," so contemporary, so immediate. It was like reading Homer composed in my native English. Solot uses a conversational register yet it is replete with both elevated and ordinary language with a wide, dynamic range. The story was not only clearly understandable, it was compelling, urging me onward to read to the next chapter. I have never read 400 pages so quickly! I was truly interested in the outcome of the story, and yet I was enjoying the process of how Solot's translation made the ancient epic fresh and contemporary while remaining universal. I hardly felt like I was reading an ancient story at all, but rather some kind of crazy modern story of human (and divine) actions and foibles. I was delighted and surprised how readily I was able to be immersed in Odysseus' world, and yet how much that world was like my own today. I was never bored! It was like I finally got it! In fact I was looking forward to getting back to the story each day, it is that compelling, relatable, and readable! Michael Solot truly has done some magic with his translation! Rather than archaisms, Solot uses modern contractions such as "don't" and "let's," bringing even more immediacy and relatability to his contemporary English translation. Solot also puts Odysseus' thoughts in italics, so that we can more clearly distinguish his inner monologues from conversations with others.
Michael Solot has translated Homer's ancient Greek poetry into blank verse (without rhymes) using the rhythm of dactylic pentameter, which feels similar to the more familiar iambic pentameter of Milton and Shakespeare, but possessing more of an undulation, a current flowing in the background of the ear and mind. This ends up creating a unique background canvas that the story is painted upon, much like the waters of the Mediterranean sea which frame the story itself! Although I did initially read some of the lines aloud, to get the feel of the rhythm in my mind's ear, I tried not to be consciously aware of it as I was reading. Yet interestingly, I could sense the undulating rhythm in the background as I read, framing the story in in a subtle way which does not override the storytelling at all. As a poet myself, I feel that a really good poem is so good that you don't think too much of the structure at first - you feel something poetic happening, but the essence of the poem comes through first. I felt that way reading Michael Solot's translation - it is done so well that you truly are hardly aware of the structural components through which the translation is formed. The poetic structure keeps the translation from becoming prose, elevating the words while grounding it, like a soft underlying echo. In a sense, it is a work of art about a work of art! The translation didn't get in the way of the original poetry!
Besides Solot's translation itself, is the addition of wonderful illustrations by Aedan Kennedy. I absolutely love how Kennedy managed to capture the essence of these funny or dramatic moments in the story, so that your eyes have a treat, providing you with visuals you can synthesize as you read. The illustrations remind me the way children's books have illustrations, integrating into the story-telling, enriching and interpreting the story being told. It truly creates an immersive experience! This addition alone makes Michael Solot's edition of The Odyssey well worth the purchase!
But there is more. Not only does Mr. Solot provide a pronunciation glossary of all the names and places in the text and a series of maps, but he has included over 200 pages of commentary, aligned by chapter, referencing words and phrases in italics, so it is easy to find the commentary to whatever you are seeking information or clarity about. I was particularly happy to see that the entire commentary is in the back of the book, not at the bottom of the page, as it is in many translations or research works - I absolutely hate it when the text itself is interrupted by someone else's ideas. So much better the way Mr. Solot has done it! It does not obstruct the story-telling with footnotes or end notes. I found it easy to find the reference point in the chapter I was reading - it was reassuring knowing I had something to refer to if I had questions or thoughts about a particular character or situation as it was coming up. The commentary alone is well worth the cost of the book! I am sure that scholars would find illumination in Mr. Solot's commentary, but I can speak for myself as an educated layperson, that Michael Solot's commentary would be very helpful for first-time readers, or a student of Greek poetry at any level. Professors, teachers, educators, and homeschoolers will be rewarded by student engagement potential and interest provided by the fresh, contemporary translation and the companion commentary.
In the same way that operas and plays and musicals are done and redone with new casts, we read ancients texts via new translations as they come to us. We have been afforded such an opportunity now in Michael Solot's new translation of The Odyssey. The quality and comprehensiveness of the entire work reflects the ten years of labor he put into it! I am very happy I had the enjoyable experience of reading Michael Solot's translation and happy I have his excellent commentary to aid my understanding. I am the richer for both. Michael Solot's worthy translation with commentary of Homer's The Odyssey is an excellent reference work as well as a work of literature, a book that would have pride of place in the shelf of any student, scholar, or Homer aficionado. Come, hear and read about Odysseus, and come and view the Dawn, rising with her "rose-petaled fingers".
Theresa Werba is the author of eight books, four in poetry, including What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse (Bardsinger Books, 2024) and Sonnets, a collection of 65 sonnets (Shanti Arts, 2020). Her work has appeared in such journals as The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Spindrift, Mezzo Cammin, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, The Art of Autism, The Jewish Writing Project, Serotonin, The Road Not Taken, and the Society of Classical Poets Journal. Her work ranges from forms such as the ode and sonnet to free verse, with topics ranging from neurodivergence, love, loss, aging, to faith and disillusionment and more. She also has written on autism, adoption and abuse/domestic violence. Find Theresa Werba at www.theresawerba.com and on social media @thesonnetqueen
Theresa Werba
Reviewer
Willis Buhle's Bookshelf
Naming Your Little All-Star
Scott Rubin
Familius
www.familius.com
9781641709637, $24.99, PB, 402pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Naming-Your-Little-All-Star-Greatest/dp/1641709634
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/naming-your-little-all-star-scott-rubin/1146960356
Synopsis: From quarterback Aaron Rodgers to windsurfer Zara Davis, "Naming Your Little All-Star: Baby Names from the World's Greatest" is packed from cover to cover with a variety of names drawn from sports figures and legends from around the world. Each entry includes the name, the etymology and meaning, and the athletes who made the name even greater. Including men, women, and nonbinary athletes, this unique baby-naming guide is just what every sports-loving family needs when it is time to decide what to name their baby!
Critique: Unique, original, comprehensive, and thoroughly 'parent friend' in organization and presentation, "Naming Your Little All-Star: Baby Names from the World's Greatest", compiled and edited by Scott Rubin, is a very special baby name resource and is unreservedly recommended pick for both personal and community library Parenting reference collections. "Naming Your Little All-Star" will hold immense interest for Sports fans and Sports Trivia collectors. It should be noted for prospective parents that this trade paperback (6.35 x 2.05 x 8.25 inches, 2.75 pounds) edition of "Naming Your Little All-Star: Baby Names from the World's Greatest" from Familius is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99).
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
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