Book Reviews

A rags-to-relative-comfort story with a fairytale ending.

This book all about being human, with all the danger, passion, energy, beauty, and danger that entails.

As I looked at Morris sitting next to me recently, I wondered how she had survived…but after reading her book, I now know.

This saga contains fodder aplenty for the mind to chew on…or maybe you’d just like to read it as a heckuva a good story.

These are cautionary tales in that they suggest that we should “awake, awake, take heed,” as the Buddhist evening mantra goes, and confront the destruction before it swells to flood stage. Failing that, these stories are also an affirmation that all is never lost. There is gold to be woven from the dross of persecution; we’ve seen it over and over again. Look inward to find it.

Antrim breaks all the rules in this just-published memoir, achieving a result that is unique and profoundly moving, fascinating, and informative. The story that holds it all together issues from an addled mind where reality is mixed with passion, memory, and illness. Of the classic storylines, this is a man takes a journey, or perhapsContinue reading “Review of ONE FRIDAY IN APRIL, A Story of Suicide and Survival, by Donald Antrim”

In assessing his worth, Hardy writes, “A man who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has to distinguish between two different questions. The first is whether the work…is worth doing; and the second is why he does it, whatever its value may be.”

Moss’s finesse turns this blood-soaked tale into comedy, or comedia. Life is happy and sad at the same time, or, more accurately, hilarious and heart-breaking.

William Least Heat Moon is the modern deTocqueville, traveling the country, observing America. The next few posts will be short excerpts from his book BLUE HIGHWAYS, published in 1982, called by some, including me, a masterpiece. Moon avoids main highways, and tiring of the desert, decides to head into the mountains toward Cedar Breaks, ColoradoContinue reading “Wise and Wonderful Words: William Least Heat Moon, BLUE HIGHWAYS”