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(For visitors using public computers contact us at Lgood67334@comcast.net) To purchase any pictured book at Amazon, just click on its cover.
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ULTIMATE BLOGS: Masterworks from the Wild Web Scientists, political analysts, photographers, cartoonists, soldiers, reporters, musicians, moms, and more share unstintingly in blogs collected by former New York Times critic and reporter Sarah Boxer, who has put together a fresh new collection called ULTIMATE BLOGS: Masterworks from the Wild Web. She culled the gems in this book from over 77 million blogs that have popped up worldwide Boxer based her selections on the quality of writing rather than the number of links each site collected. She discovered that “bloggy writing…is conventional and reckless, composed on the fly for anonymous intimates. It is public and private, grand and niggling, smart-assed and dumb-assed.” ULTIMATE BLOGS offers fresh, contemporary voices—educated, analytical, streetwise, opinionated, and unexpected. “In The Middle” gives a firsthand account of racial profiling in airports. “Old Hag” presents contemporary issues in verse. “Matthew Yglesias” digs deeply into politics, exposing what the media missed. So does “The Smoking Gun.” “Midnight in Iraq” is a soldier’s first-hand account of Iraq in 2006. “Cosmic Variance” looks at the structure of the universe and observes dark matter. “Click Opera” and “The Rest is Noise” present differing views of the music world. Each selection offers original subject matter and a distinct attitude. Unlike news stories, blogs are not expected to look at all sides of an issue. Ultimate Blogs, which includes photoblogs and cartoons, is cutting edge. All kinds of readers will enjoy the new voices and new worlds it offers. +++The View from Castle Rock
Alice Munro explores the mysteries of family history in her latest collection of short stories, The View from Castle Rock. Beginning with ancestors in the Ettrick Valley in Scotland, she mixes statistical accounts, the words on gravestones, and her own, rich experiences and imaginings in the lives of her characters. In Part One, “No Advantages” we see hardships firsthand as the family travels from a hardscrabble life outside of Edinburgh into the uncertainty of Morris Township, Blyth, and Huron County. They experience love and loss along the way. In Part Two, “Home” she explores relationships, maturing, moving away, coming home, and perceptions. As usual, her characters move through uncertainty, ambivalence, and contemplation, arriving at deep insights into human actions and relationships. Award winner Alice Munro is the author of ten previous collections of stories and one novel. Her luscious style and memorable storytelling mix well with research that began nearly fifteen years ago. The View from Castle Rock is her most personal work but is not quite memoir, as she explains in the foreword. Her stories are dramatic and the human truths they reveal are authentic. If you like fiction, don’t miss this collection. +++T IS FOR TRESSPASS T is for Trespass is the 19th in the Kinsey Millhone alphabet mystery series. I had not read Ms. Grafton prior, and was pleasantly surprised. From the Epilogue: "There will always be someone poised to take advantage of the vulnerable; the very young, the very old, and the innocent of any age. Though I know this from long experience, I refuse to feel discouraged. In my own unassuming way, I know I can make a difference. You can as well." And Sue Grafton does in T is for Trespass. The story begins with a malicious protagonist, one Solana Rojas, whose talents as a manipulative liar are skillfully crafted by the author. Rojas is one nasty personhood. The two main characters, Rojas and Millhone, are a captivating contrast of good and evil. The duo is perfectly suited to deliver Ms. Grafton's message of human nature's capability for wickedness, the preying on both the very young and very old. Grafton manages to, dare I say, entertain the reader. Unnecessary details and dialogue are kept to a minimum. The reader easily moves forward. I read "T is for Trespass in two days. I look forward to "U". Catherine Accardi has published numerous articles in a number of journals and magazines, including the Mystery Readers Journal, San Francisco Heritage and California Preservation Action. She is the Editor of the California Writers Club and the Walnut Creek Historical Society newsletters. Catherine is currently writing several short stories and a play with two other women. THE ROAD The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a story of a dark future. It is a post-apocalyptic nightmare of a final journey for a man and a boy. The tale is told without names. Anonymous. The prose is stripped of all embellishments, as the world would be after a nuclear winter. All is confusion and all that matters is survival. The value of life has cheapened. There are killers along the road and worse. The man and boy must make it to the coast. But for what and at what cost? There is nothing left of civilization except the irony of life amid death in the black and blasted terrain. This terrifyingly real possibility is a deep and haunting mine of sub-conscious fear, which McCarthy works expertly. Though the fear of vaporization is strong, the real terror is what happens after, if you're lucky(?) enough to make it through the initial blast. The Road is starkly and unrelentingly dark and dismal, yet through the ashes there is hope for humankind if we survive. Glimmers of light come from a perspective of foresight. There is hope that we won't self-destruct. Everyone should read this book. Perhaps it will help us we can move away from destruction and towards true love. Mark McKinnon is a new writer who studied creative writing while in college where he learned to love the art and craft of the discipline He came to pursue a career in writing full time and is now employed as content writer for a well-known Internet news site. THROUGH MY WINDOW: Poetry of a Psychotherapist
Linda Leedy Schneider looks at life, love, and the world that surrounds her in Through My Window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist. The well-rounded collection begins with “Five Minutes Between Therapy Clients,” (link to poem in A Reader Writes) in which she explores beauty and imperfection. She carries that theme through the chapbook, looking at nature, war, an Albanian orphanage, moments to reclaim, moments that can never be reclaimed and the intersections of nature’s and man’s imperfections. Her poetry often sings. The metaphors and discoveries are strong. Sometimes her realizations jar the reader into new awareness and understanding. This is not surprising when you consider that a T. S. Elliot epigram “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go,” precedes the collection. Author Linda Leedy Schneider is an award winning internationally published poet and writer, a poetry and writing mentor, a clinical social worker in private practice and an instructor at Kendall College of Art and Design. She leads writing groups for people living with cancer and is a Workshop Leader at the International Women’s Writing Guild Conference at Skidmore College. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines. Visit Amazon to purchase the book. MAD DASH
Middle aged and discontent? You are not alone. Dash Bateman is bored with the parties she attends as a faculty wife and dissatisfied with her own work as a children’s photographer. When an abandoned puppy shows up one night on the Bateman’s porch in Patricia Gaffney’s Mad Dash, Dash impulsively decides to keep it. Her husband, Andrew, insists she is crazy. Dash is as sick of his hypochondria and lists as he is of her impulsiveness. She packs up the puppy and walks out. Living on her own for the first time in years, she is free to explore her fears and frustrations. She can do whatever she wants, if only she could figure out what that is. Though Gaffney explores typical middle-aged fears, the situations and settings her characters find themselves in set the stage for unique introspection. Readers feel like a fly on the wall as they ride through Dash and Andrew’s roller coaster of emotions. Patricia Gaffney, a bestselling author of historical and contemporary romances as well as women’s fiction, has outdone herself in this witty and wise exploration of romance after forty. She sprinkles her story with poetic descriptions and heartfelt, layered discoveries about human nature. If relationships and human drama fascinate you, don’t miss Gaffney’s Mad Dash.
Unless otherwise noted, B. Lynn Goodwin is the reviewer. Site updated
Copyright , 2003 - 2008 All Rights Reserved. by B. Lynn Goodwin
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