Book Review

 

Notes on a novel and a collection of verse

The day before my June getaway to the beach ended, I developed a bad case of bookshop lust.
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A deep dive into darkness and redemption

In a novel that hauntingly mirrors much of my own pre-teen and teenaged life growing up in rural Western North Carolina and Virginia, Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize winning book “Demon Copperhead” (Harper Collins, 2022, 548 pages) definitely got my attention.  
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The amazing life of Teddy Roosevelt

There are plenty of reasons why Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) is included along with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. 
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A look into the future from 40 years ago

These days on the internet news there is a plethora of information about sightings and filming of UFOs. With that in mind, I went back to the scientific source of much of that exploration and information — to the work of Carl Sagan (1934-1996) and the SETI organization with which he worked.  
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‘Do not open the window or sing’

When I read certain online commentaries about the possibility of war with China, I smile. Not happily, but grimly. It’s a smile that shakes its head, baffled and in disbelief by the innocence and naivete of the commentators. They’re generally referring to a hot war with China, most likely to occur over the sovereignty of the independent nation of Taiwan, yet they seem oblivious to the…
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Off-target: A Review of ‘The Bullet Garden’

In his 1897 travel book, “Following the Equator,” Mark Twain wrote , “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”
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Escaping into a world of books

Most of us are always on the look-out for a means of escape from this crazy old world or from our personal trials and tribulations.
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