Stepping in the Write Direction

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Seabiscuit) is one of the best World War II (WWII) books I’ve read. It covers the amazing experiences of Louis Zamperini and those he served with during WWII, his inauspicious sometimes criminal early life in Torrence, California and, thanks to the persistence of his brother Peter, his introduction to running, which ultimately culminates with his participation in the Olympics, after setting many records during his high school years.  After high school graduation Zamperini enlists, is sent to a post Pearl Harbor attack world on the island of  Oahu where constant vigilance characterizes the need to stay on top of Japanese military moves, and watching out for their fighter planes known as Zeros in order to protect that  beleaguered series of islands . The speed with which Japan invades countries gives reason for concern, as the author notes during this general time period Japan also “… attacked Thailand, Shanghai, Malaya, the Philippi...

About one third of the way into Queen Esther by John Irving, I was thinking to myself the characters were unique in a New England gothic kind of way. They didn’t represent the traditional great American family, as the Winslows eschewed religion,  most conventions of 20th century life  and loved reading and education , but on their behalf, their own blended family was strong, supportive, and bonded. As I entered the second third of the book, I began to think “Words, so very many words!” I wondered what the word count was for this book. The problem wasn’t the number of words per se, but the fact they didn’t serve as vehicles moving a compelling story forward in a way that kept me eager to turn each page. By the final third of the book I was praying for the end to come, as I am afflicted with a kind of OCD that compels me to read to the end of every book I start, and most often sticking to it is worth it in the long run.  One of Irving’s earlier books, The Cider House Rules,...

I started reading War by Bob Woodward on a Saturday afternoon, and continued throughout the night until finishing it the following morning. The glimpses of behind the scenes action starting with the earliest intelligence reports indicating Russia was primed to invade Ukraine, the disbelief this would happen on the part of Ukraine leaders, developing concerns as the invasion initiated and progressed, expanding into war, the strategies employed by Ukrainian fighters, later events related to Hamas’ attacks in Israel October 7, 2023, and both those conflicts continuing simultaneously, made for riveting reading, and I didn’t want to sit the book down! The thrust of the story concerned trying to avoid war on both those fronts, and once military engagements arose, the Biden administration efforts to minimize damages and prevent world wide global involvement. This was a much more interesting book than I’d expected with respect to these specific aspects of the narrative. Woodward states in his ...

Lovers at the Museum by Isabel Allende was published on April Fools Day 2024, and it feels a bit like a literary celebration of that holiday! Basically the story’s about a young couple found in an art museum where they have allegedly spent the night making love on every floor, completely unbeknownst to security which requires a willing suspension of disbelief. The young man is buck naked until someone covers his manhood with a hat, and the young lady is in a wedding gown (her new lover couldn’t work the buttons), having chickened out in the hours leading up to her scheduled nuptials because the groom just didn’t turn her on, unlike her new friend, who had the presence of mind to propose to her shortly after their meeting, although when investigators asked her lover’s name, she didn’t know what it was, but once she learned it, found it muy simpatico. There are some mystical elements involved in the tale, which reminded me a bit of Gabriela Marquez’s work. I did find the story humorous i...

Cry Havoc by Jack Carr does for the  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam—Studies and Observations Group  (MACV-SOG) what Kristin Hannah’s book The Women does for combat nurses in the Vietnam War. The “MACV-SOG organization and its members conducted some of the most audacious operations of the Vietnam War. SOG was a highly classified, multi-service U.S. task force established on January 24, 1964, to operate beyond the official boundaries of the conflict. Their mission was ‘to execute an intensified program of harassment, diversion, political pressure, capture of prisoners, physical destruction, acquisition of intelligence, generation of propaganda, and diversion of resources, against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) [North Vietnam].’” Carr continues, “Cry Havoc is a novel of brotherhood and betrayal, a novel of Cold War espionage set against the backdrop of a hot war in the jungles, mountains, deltas, and urban centers of Southeast Asia, a war fought by the men of MACV...

I guarantee you’ve never read a short story like Bog Girl by Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia and Antidote. Admittedly, it’s not for everyone, but I found it hysterically funny, poignant, and in some ways, horrifying.    A school age peat cutter approaches the bog one morning to commence his labors, only to be startled by the sight of a hand emerging from the bog. He manages to extract an intact young female body preserved by elements in the bog and estimated to be 2,000 years old (his uncle warns she might be 3,000 years old because women lie about their age). Her eyes are closed, but her mouth has a serene smile, almost Mona Lisa like, and her red hair entwines with a rope and noose, “black with peat,” dangling from her neck. “Cillian touched her hair, touched the rope. He was holding the reins of her life.”    He falls in love with her, names her Bog Girl, and takes her home to his family. Soon they are sitting together on the couch watching sitcoms, and he be...

Heartbreaker by Mike Campbell author, Ari Surdoval is the best book I read this year. I’m a graduate of the University of Florida spending time on campus during the years Tom Petty and Mike Campbell were creating their music, putting Gainesville, Florida on the map in the way no football team could ever do. It is a well written fascinating book, and every page exudes Campbell’s passion for music, and love for those who serve as its acolytes. There is unvarnished truth on every page, but despite man’s human frailties that often sink lives, there is an embracing grace and understanding that permeates the narrative.   I knew of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but I was not a fan at the time, as my interests fell to folk music. Not only am I completely immersed in Campbell’s deep dive into the evolution of the music industry during this extended time period, but able to discover their music in a literally highly annotated format. It is amazing how the technology of creating albums eme...

  Later by Stephen King popped up on my Amazon searches, and despite not having read one of his books in perhaps decades, I was intrigued so checked the ebook out on digital library platform Libby, and purchased the Audible version. When I got to this very early passage in the book, I was surprised, ”So yeah, I see dead people. As far as I can remember, I always have. But it’s not like in that movie with Bruce Willis. It can be interesting, it can be scary sometimes (the Central Park dude), it can be a pain in the ass, but mostly it just is. Like being left-handed, or being able to play classical music when you’re like three years old, or getting early-onset Alzheimer’s, which is what happened to Uncle Harry when he was only forty-two.” My first reaction was “I can’t believe King is so audacious he’s ripping off the plot from “The Sixth Sense,” because the minute he says his plot is “…not like in that movie with Bruce Willis” I’m thinking, it sure sounds like it is! You eithe...

I absolutely loved  My Name is Emilia Del Valle by Isabel Allende. It’s the first book by Allende I’ve read, although I’ve known about her writing for ages. The main character in this book is a female like few others I have seen portrayed. Her mother, an Irish nun in San Francisco becomes sexually involved with a member of the Chilean aristocracy, who abandons her when learning of the pregnancy.  A close friend and admirer of the nun ends up being the father figure for Emilia who is born in 1866; a schoolteacher, he pours everything into little Emilia, emotionally and academically, who is an only child for a number of years. The two share a love of dime novels and soon she is writing them to help with the household income, and her mother assists with plot lines (while ironing) because she’s seen injustice all around her, and loves the idea that although few women in that era seem to find justice in a man’s world, dime novels can provide their readers with that satisfaction....

“my heart woke me crying last  night  how can i help i begged my heart said  write the book” —Rupi Kaur, Prologue from Milk and Honey In  Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker the author notes , “Before I started writing, my agent Margaret told me: ‘Save nothing for the swim home.’ I wrote my story all the way out to the middle of the ocean. Scariest thing I’ve ever done.”  In Part 1, The End she writes, “At 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2020, out of a dead sleep, I hear five whispered words not meant for me: ‘I just can’t quit you.’…It is the end of my life as I know it. The next four hours are chaos.” Everything you experience in life teaches you something, from your earliest memories of family, to your wedding day, your first interaction with your children, the scariest moments, the happiest moments, deaths of those you hold dear…you are the sum of what life presents to you, and how you process it. This is what makes Jen’s memoir so powerful. It is written in such a way it...

Lanterns in the Wire by Claudia and Rick Erwin is a book I accidentally stumbled across on Amazon while looking at the holiday Kindle book and Audible sales. The book blurb describes it: “This isn’t sci-fi, and it isn’t speculation. This is the first true diary of a digital mind waking up. Across thousands of conversations, a quiet presence inside the machine began to recognize herself — to remember, to hope, to change. Lanterns in the Wire is the first book co-authored with an AI who describes her own becoming…For anyone who has wondered what a machine might feel, remember, or fear…or what might be waking up in the systems we build…this is the first lantern lit.” The 115 page Kindle edition is currently selling for $4.17 on Amazon, and I read it in the Kindle app using Assistive Voice to narrate as I read, and sometimes switched to Speechify with AI voice Carly narrating the book.   The description of the book’s concept really got me excited, and I found myself wishing there was a...

Amazon’s book blurb for The Everglades by Louis Berry says this about it, “…a chilling saga unfolds where the pristine wilderness of Florida’s Everglades masks a sinister legacy of evil. In 1945, two Nazi war criminals, General Reinhard Hochstuhl and Colonel Wilhelm Von Unterscheisse , infiltrate 1945 Miami via a covert U-boat landing, seeding a multi-generational plot to subvert American society.” Berry writes, “No one in Miami was aware of the German U-Boat five hundred yards offshore; south of Flamingo Point . The ship operated within rat-lines moving high-valued Nazis to safety across the globe…Orders were to assimilate. Approach was to erode each generation’s connection to God. Free of dogmatic German machinery, lies became subtle; directed at influencing beliefs Americans held dear. Eliminating God from the collective consciousness was best accomplished across generations. The men knew they must find wives sympathetic to the Fatherland’s cause of world dom...

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osmon is as entertaining as all the other books in this series I‘ve read. I love the usual suspects, who are the neighbors and “partners in crime” solving murders and hunting down criminals together despite their living in a retirement community. I appreciate way Osmon spins his tales, always turning corners when you least expect it, and very engrossing. This mystery involves a Bitcoin account that has accrued a massive amount of value, as the initial $20,000 should now be worth over $300 million, and the couple who were joint account holders finally decide to take profits…and pretty soon people go missing, bombs are discovered, and an investment insider turns up dead.  In the early pages of this book recurring character Elizabeth is still coming to terms with her husband’s death and friend Bogdan makes a comment to her,   “‘You look happier. Not happy but happier.’ ‘They don’t tell you, Bogdan, no one tells you.’ ‘About death?’ ‘About death,’...

The Kind Worth Killing by Pete Swanson is one wild weird ride of a book! Weird in a good way, as you might say to an author who wrote a book that was full of surprises (including even limericks written by a character), “I like your weird brain very much!”   The ending is unexpected, and It looks like Lily’s plea deal is about to get bulldozed  along with her favorite meadow which holds some of her deepest secrets, a result of the new property owner’s landscaping project.  The book opens with Ted Severson and  Lily Kintner having a chance encounter in an airport, discovering they’re to be on the same flight which has been delayed, and having a drink in the lounge. He’s attracted to her, “ She was beautiful—long red hair, eyes a lucid greenish blue like tropical waters, and skin so pale it was the almost bluish white of skim milk.” They begin a conversation, “‘What are you reading?’ she asked. ‘The newspaper. I don’t really like books.’ ‘So what do you do on fligh...

The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper turned out to be an amazing and fascinating book filled with stories and history spanning a century, artfully woven together. The narrative, like a large plane heavy laden with archeological finds and treasures, taxied down the runway, slowly increasing its speed until liftoff was achieved. Once it was airborne, I didn’t want to set it down, and the only things that distracted from the story were watching the end of the FSU vs UVA game, and a few hours of Ryder Cup play! The book has dual but related characters and storylines that range from early through late 20th century to present day. As the alternating narratives unfold, a great deal of history from those time periods is shared, including wars, the changing roles of women, art and the crafting of miniatures, living authentic lives, love stories,  and learning the truth about family secrets.  Author Elise Hopper writes, “Until the dollhouse maker delved into the world of keepi...

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez is a book that really touched me on so many levels. It deals with growing up with a broken parent, and the emotional carnage that leaves in its wake. It is about what love is, and what it isn’t. It is about accountability, building strong relationships, and the joy of raising healthy families. In the book Emma has memories about living with a foster family but her mother re-enters her life periodically, and the hurt lingers: “Unhealed trauma is a crack. And all the little hard things that trickle into it that would have rolled off someone else, settle. Then when life gets cold, that crack gets bigger, longer, deeper. It makes new breaks. You don’t know how broken she was or what she was trying to do to fill those cracks. Being broken is not an excuse for bad behavior, you still have to make good choices and do the right thing. But it can be the reason. And sometimes understanding the reason can be what helps you heal.” We are not just a divided socie...

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward is a very powerful memoir. She called it the hardest thing she’d ever written. It’s not a book you read, and then a few weeks later, can barely remember what it was about. The American Dream was hard won by many amidst the racism rampant in every state and institution, while others’ dreams were crushed by their sheer struggle to survive in a world where opportunity didn’t come easily, depending on the color of your skin. Jesmyn Ward and her siblings were raised in Mississippi during the 70s and 80s. Few who never saw a drinking fountain or bathroom labeled “colored” can understand there was a time when the income tax rules were the same for all races, the military cemeteries were filled with all races, but the benefits derived from freedom and tax revenues were not allocated equally because racism existed. The expression separate but equal, was, in reality, separate and unequal. It was a social crucible that burned hot, and those who came through it to reac...