Stepping in the Write Direction

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...