Stepping in the Write Direction

  The Auction of Pierced Nostalgia by Sarah Mouffok is like a 50ish page short story that is definitely worth reading. It’s a wild, exciting ride into a future world where elites suck happy memories from the “have nots” who sell them for things they desperately need, while elites live in a pain free utopia created on the backs of those they dominate.   In this story when a memory is sold or removed, it is replaced by a temporary place holding filler. However in this instance the doctor performing the procedure knows this is not your usual garden variety filler, and it leads to a chase that will leave you breathless. I would definitely read anything else this author creates!   Run, do not walk, to get this in your favorite reading mode. If you love science fiction type stories, and even if you usually don’t, I can’t imagine anyone not being fully entertained by this storyline!!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

I really enjoyed This Book Made Me Think Of You by Libby Page, and I had actually bought it the day before it was recommended as a July reading choice for my Goodreads Kindle Book Club Forum group, since it sounded interesting, and now it is currently enshrined on Goodreads monthly list of Favorite Books of the Year (2026), occupying the March slot. I did feel it might have benefited from some editing (though some might disagree), as the last 20% of the book began to feel a bit repetitive, although still immersive. The book is about a young widow, Tilly, learning her husband Joe had set up a yearlong book of the month gift from a neighborhood bookseller to cheer her in the months after his death. Once it became clear to him his cancer diagnosis would not lead to recovery, he was concerned about doing something supportive to help his beloved during the initial year after his passing. Tilly had always loved reading and worked in the book industry coaching celebrities with memoirs her fir...

Through the Lens of a Monster by William A. Noguera grabs you within the first six minutes of reading, and doesn’t let you go until the last page is turned. It is a powerful, unblinking study of serial killer Joseph Naso, gleaned over countless conversations with him by the author who transcribed these interactions shortly following their occurrences when he returned to his cell in the same facility where they were housed. Noguera states, “Over the years, whenever Joseph Naso revisited a story, the core never shifted. That consistency convinced me I wasn’t hearing invention, but memory.” Decades of incarceration had instilled Noguera with deep compassion for the hell families go through when a member is suddenly missing, and potentially dead, in this case all women, many of a tender age. The author’s mission becomes determining if he can ultimately get answers for families of Nosa’s victims, a very dangerous proposition in a prison setting where any hint of snitching can lead to an ear...

Don’t start out reading This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone if you’re sleep deprived, as I did.  Nothing written in the book’s early pages seemed comprehensible to my brain, addled by lack of sleep, regarding what  I was about to embark upon. I actually felt angry, and was thinking, “What the heck am I reading?!” I got back to reading after a few hours sleep, and it was a game changer for me.   The Amazon book blurb tells us the book is “ Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers”  There are two main characters, Red and Blue; Max wrote all of Red, and Amal wrote all of Blue. Editors at  Vector, the critical journal of the   British Science Fiction Association, in their 3/11/20 author interview “This Is How You Produce The Time War Part 1: Powder Scofield interviews Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone”  describe the book: “It’s an intense, lyrical, tragicomic novella about two elite warriors, Red and B...

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston is like a vivid crazy quilt of a book. It starts out with a Foreword by Alice Walker, who states, “Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief. At the moment they show us our wound, they reveal they have the medicine. Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’ is a perfect example of this.” The book includes more than simply the description of her interviews with former slave eighty-six-year-old Kossola aka Cudjo Lewis, which lasts about 94 pages of the 210 page book. The balance of this narrative is followed by a 20 page Afterward which discusses many aspects related to the process of writing Barracoon, a controversy, and issues connected with the book. This is followed by a brief Acknowledgements. Also included is a list of Founders and Original Residents of Africatown where Kossola lived. Next is a very interesting Glossary that reads like a story itself, and the Bibliography of supporting and related books is a must read for anyone inte...

Awake Between Worlds: Understanding Hypnagogia and the Threshold Between Sleep and Wakefulness by Katerina Silin is a brief, concise, clear, and easy to understand book about  the psychological state of hypnagogia which she has personally experienced. She also mentions well known creative minds, including writer Charles Dickens who have literally imagined solutions or material for their work while in a state of hypnagogia, and acknowledges, “ hypnagogia can become an inexhaustible creative resource.” Silin describes t he hypnagogic state as, “…a very brief and specific moment that scientists describe as the boundary between wakefulness and sleep… Many people spoke about the sensation of falling at the moment of falling asleep—often accompanied by sudden muscle jerks. This, too, is part of hypnagogia … I see shadows—vivid images of strangers and animals—at the very moment I should be falling asleep…My brain, trained for logic, could not cope with the fact that these visions felt abs...