tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-97136312024-03-13T00:56:27.550+02:00Zinta ReviewsBooks, movies, music.
<a href="http://www.blogarama.com" title="The Blog Directory">Blogarama</a>Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.comBlogger257125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-66707499412474837942016-03-23T20:48:00.002+02:002016-03-23T20:48:19.373+02:00Love and Vodka: My Surreal Adventures in Ukraine by R. J. Fox<div class="MsoNormal">
Book Review by Zinta Aistars</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Paperback:</span> 286 pages</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Publisher:</span> Fish Out of Water Books; 1 edition (October 29, 2015)</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">Price:</span> $16.99</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">ISBN-10:</span> 0989908704</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">ISBN-13:</span> 978-0989908702</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQreEEqtg-8OweYcu26ZiHbyqxmKqXzIK8ARNsMlrOhip7tB_9wLS3VO-N8pS7QtpabcyLFYHCpx4aID1j7YtN34T_njdIgQC4qb7LC7L91eZM3LWVWgP4FGv7EgwKaku_QC-yxA/s1600/Love_the-Vodka-cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQreEEqtg-8OweYcu26ZiHbyqxmKqXzIK8ARNsMlrOhip7tB_9wLS3VO-N8pS7QtpabcyLFYHCpx4aID1j7YtN34T_njdIgQC4qb7LC7L91eZM3LWVWgP4FGv7EgwKaku_QC-yxA/s320/Love_the-Vodka-cover.png" width="218" /></a></div>
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Love, science reveals, is really just another form of madness. The brain undergoes similar changes, from the rational into the irrational, and the resulting pheromone chemical soup tastes like insanity. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Dearborn-native (Michigan) and author <a href="https://rjfoxwriter.wordpress.com/">R.J. Fox</a> would probably not debate any of that. It took all of twenty minutes for him to fall in love with a foreign exchange student he spotted in a line for an amusement park ride. When she returned to her native Ukraine, he followed her, engagement ring in his pocket. And more madness ensued.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In his memoir, <a href="http://www.fowbooks.com/about-love-and-vodka/"><i>Love and Vodka: My Surreal Adventures in Ukraine</i></a> (Fish Out of Water Books, October 2015), Fox recounts that initial meeting with Katya and the trip he took to Ukraine a year later to bring her back to the States again—as his wife. His adventures on foreign soil as he works up the nerve toward a marriage proposal and earn the blessing of Katya’s family are both outrageous and hilarious. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Babushka-wearing old women curse him, snarl and chase him, threaten to splatter him with bleach. Well-meaning hosts force vodka on him in toast after toast that he finds he cannot deny, resulting in drunken stupors, cold outdoor showers, and barefoot walks across sharp-edged rocks in his underwear. And so the story unfolds as Fox learns about a culture and a world far different than his own. Within its traditions and people, he finds himself in comical situations, but he also learns lessons about himself, love, and home.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What has remained with him from that mad and maddening journey these many years later, Fox says, “is the immersive experience of being in a whole other world than the one I know. Out in general public, people had a distrust toward me because I was not from Ukraine. This was in 2001, so not too far removed from the Soviet years when Ukraine was the center of missile-building during the Cold War. The distrust—it was the closest to feeling discriminated against that I’d ever known in my lifetime.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In inner circles of what would increasingly become family, however, Fox found warmth, love, and family connection, not unlike what one would find in any family anywhere, and all liberally christened with yet more vodka. Although the resulting marriage would last only eight years—Fox is now remarried and has two children—he holds his memories of his Ukraine adventure close to his heart. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The memoir is the first publication of a new Ann Arbor-based publisher, <a href="http://www.fowbooks.com/">Fish Out of Water</a>, run by Jon and Laurie Wilson. <o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-91943398412296225582014-06-09T23:24:00.001+03:002014-06-09T23:24:53.694+03:00One Oar: A Journey with Alzheimer’s, poetry by Marie Bahlke<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Book
Review by Zinta Aistars<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paperback:
38 pages<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Publisher:
Christmas Cove Press, 2004<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Price:
$11.95<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">ISBN-10:
0975383302<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">ISBN-13:
978-0975383308 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now in her 90s, writer and poet Marie Bahlke began her
writing career when she was in her 70s. She is living proof that it is never
too late to chase and catch a dream. Alas, her poetry collection <i>One Oar</i> was inspired by the painful and
difficult experience of living through her husband Harold’s struggle with
Alzheimer’s and eventual demise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Writing is often likened to therapy for its healing
powers, and that refers not only to the writer, surely, but to the attentive
reader. Bahlke’s courage in sharing her and her husband’s journey allows us to
enter their intimate world, the world of a caring marriage, where one partner
must gradually learn to let go of the other. With her poetry, her skill, her
open heart, she allows us to feel along with her the bewilderment, the frustration,
the grief, the loneliness, the desire to go on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the poem “Balancing,” Bahlke writes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Half there, half gone<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">one oar in the our boat<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">what do I do—crawl to the bow<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">and paddle from there?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Move my pillow<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">to the middle of the bed?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How do I deal with<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">faucets that weep,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">too many potatoes,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">the Christmas tree stand,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">a stranger’s kiss,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">that shoebox full of foreign coins?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Filling out medical forms, the poet hesitates before
checking off: widow. She sleeps in a half empty bed. Her damaged heart spreads
its pain through her chest and catches in her throat. As we read, we know these
emotions and sensations, too, and we know them in direct transfusion from her
clear and unsentimental, brutally yet beautifully honest writing. One poem
leads into the other to tell the story of this journey, and it is done with the
rich beauty of a successful marriage, wife to husband and poet to words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Interspersed between the poems are the black and white
photographs of Steve Bahlke, lending poignant images of nature that offer both
metaphor and healing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One
Oar</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
was the winner of Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards.
Bahlke continues to write, currently at work on her memoir. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-9058509405744134392014-06-02T22:34:00.002+03:002014-06-02T22:35:30.125+03:00Tea in Heliopolis, poetry by Hedy Habra<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjtdv2eLNVty55SiHK0gD-Cj-wzKeyI_ZNh9hsa6-Bwmr4tbaq_XBLBSNQvyJSCxGak9uWW9-awQjDL9QBYh6xF9NZhg_TopnO8AKslbVnxNiX581QhPzheVPt6cgtN_79FMCfQ/s1600/Tea_in_Heliopolis_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjtdv2eLNVty55SiHK0gD-Cj-wzKeyI_ZNh9hsa6-Bwmr4tbaq_XBLBSNQvyJSCxGak9uWW9-awQjDL9QBYh6xF9NZhg_TopnO8AKslbVnxNiX581QhPzheVPt6cgtN_79FMCfQ/s1600/Tea_in_Heliopolis_cover.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a></div>
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Paperback:
100 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
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Publisher:
Press 53 (2013)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$14.95<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
1935708767<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13:
978-1935708766 <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve met the delightful Hedy Habra at local poetry readings,
and I have gotten to know her, and her work, through several submissions I was
thrilled to publish in a literary magazine I manage<i>, The Smoking Poet</i>. Indeed, one of the poems there published makes
an appearance in her new poetry collection, <i>Tea
in Heliopolis</i>, called “Adagio for a Forgotten Viola d’Amore.” I have also
read and reviewed her short story collection, <i>Flying Carpets</i>. Every bit of this crossing of paths has been a
pleasure. Call me a fan. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So I found myself in the first poem of the collection, “Bricolage,”
expecting poetic pleasure—and I found it. Reading Habra’s lines, “Go every day
a little deeper/into the woods, collect acorns,/twigs, thorns, fallen
leaves,/pine needles, a fern’s curl,/a bird’s nest, a lost feather,/spring air,
hot, humid air, a raindrop,/a touch of blue, a ripple,/and why not the hush/of
your steps over moss,/the trembling of leaves/at dusk against black bark?/,” I
found myself on a familiar path, knew myself at home in Habra’s world, and
immediately settled into her pages like one does into a comfortable chair,
molded already to one’s own shape. Poetry like an old friend, walking side by
side into new discoveries. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Habra weaves her different homes into her poetry. Of
Lebanese origin, she was born in Egypt, has traveled across the world and
called other countries home before settling down in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where
she now teaches at Western Michigan University. It is helpful to know this
about the poet, because her experiences of different cultures, different
languages, different perspectives on the world around her, imbue her work on
countless levels of lush nuance as well as vast life experience. Some would
call it exotic, and it is, but it also as simple as a woman growing up anywhere.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Consider her opening poem, “Bricolage.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Go every day a little deeper<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>into the woods, collect acorns,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>twigs, thorns, fallen leaves,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>pine needles, a fern’s curl,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>a bird’s nest, a lost feather,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>spring air, hot, humid air, a raindrop,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>a touch of blue, a ripple,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>and why not the hush<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>of your steps over moss …</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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She is the every woman that perhaps only a woman of
international knowledge can be, finding the common in the uncommon that lives
everywhere and in every heart and experience. The reader can feel at home,
whatever Habra’s landscape, in communion with a close friend. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In “How the Song Turns into a Legend,” Habra shares her
light as a poet, shining it on the importance, indeed the necessity, of telling
our stories. Not in whispers to ourselves, but “in tongues, in parables, uttered
in public squares,/whispered in corners/in sotto voce,/from mouth to mouth.”
Engraved in stone or on paper, told or written, her gorgeous poem encourages
all our many stories to be told and so made enduring. Her own need to tell her
story comes through with a tender yet fiery passion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Habra also crosses art forms, her poetry connecting with her
painting (note the book cover by the poet) in a delicate blend—painting about
her words, painting with words. In a tribute to her mother, “To Henriette,”
also a painter, Habra writes: “You dream the painter painting his
model,/merging dreams, erasing distances.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Habra writes in various forms, and her poetry can take
traditional form, to free verse, to haiku verses tucked into larger poems, to
experimental and prose poems, such as “Amber Daum.” In whatever form, as a
multi-lingual poet, she imbues language with a quiet power that seeps inside
and blooms, at first almost imperceptibly, but then in breathtaking and near
overwhelming beauty. If in “Vision” she mourns how a beautiful line can
sometimes evaporate like water, this collection is as near perfection as any I’ve
read, with not a drop evaporated. In her delicacy is her power, in her light
touch she delivers great and powerful messages, in a whisper she produces
longing, and with each poem a growing satisfaction in a body of work that can
be read again and again, with each time new discovery. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Tea in Heliopolis</i> is
a finalist for the 2014 International Book Award and finalist or semi-finalist
in a number of literary competitions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Hedy Habra was born in Egypt and is of Lebanese origin. She
is the author of a short story collection, <i>Flying
Carpets</i>, and a book of literary criticism, <i>Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa</i>. She has an MA and an
MFA in English and an MA and PhD in Spanish literature, all from Western
Michigan University. Her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and
anthologies. <o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-32795351996292189882014-06-02T00:38:00.001+03:002014-06-02T00:40:12.647+03:00Bad Apple by Kristi Petersen Schoonover<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paperback:
194 pages<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Publisher:
Vagabondage Press, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Price:
$13.95<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">ISBN-10:
0615683894<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">ISBN-13:
978-0615683898 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In reading as in life, it’s always a good idea to push
one’s comfort zone, break routine from time to time, and try something new or
different for the purpose of discovery. Reading within the horror genre is that
for me, although I’m not sure I would classify Kristi Petersen Schoonover’s
novel, <i>Bad Apple</i>, in that category.
It certainly does send the occasional shiver of delightful creepiness up and
down the spine, but it’s not the sort of story that gives one nightmares.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bad
Apple</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> is the story of teenage Scree, growing up in a Maine
apple orchard among an intriguingly dysfunctional and broken family. She is
burdened with household chores that never seem to end, among them the raising
of her brother’s baby, Beckitt. Fascinated with patterns, Scree allows dishes
to pile up because she enjoys the patterns food and mold make on dirty dishes,
and household debris accumulates as a kind of funky art form. Her obsessive
behavior seems to indicate unhealed psychological wounds, and rightly so. Deep
in Scree’s psyche is a childhood memory of pushing her mother down a well, and
the memory surfaces in her life and her choices in surreal ways throughout the
story. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rather than allow the baby she grows to love to follow in
her life path, Scree escapes the orchard to a colorful resort. It seems to hold
within its walls all that Scree has dreamed for her own life, but facades begin
to melt and tapestries of story lines unravel to increasingly reveal the odd,
the freaky, the inexplicable, the haunting in her surroundings as well as Scree’s
inner landscape. Reality becomes ever more meshed with dreamlike scenarios, and
the baffled reader must hang on until the ending for a stunning revelation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Schoonover is a writer who loves her art and is practiced
at it. <i>Bad Apple</i> is not her first novel,
and her dedication to excellence in the written word shines here. Descriptions
are vivid and tense, reeling the reader into her character’s ever more twisted
world: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“My
fingers went numb, my toes stiff, my teeth chattered, and my breath came in
white puffs: I was instantly freezing. I sat up, and for some reason, I was
embarrassed as Adam and Eve in the Garden the second they’d discovered they
were naked. I marathoned across the icy broken cabana cement to the door that—strangely—was
stuck and took three yanks to open. The wallpaper glared, each stripe a crowbar
threatening to bash in my skull. I ran up the stairs, down the hall, tripped
over something—what, I didn’t know—and crumpled against a wall mural depicting
gnarled, shadow-dark trees under an igniting sky. It made me miss the orchard. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The
orchard that was no longer my home. The mural’s tree limbs swayed and called to
me, cursing me for leaving behind the bobbing Gingergolds, the incinerating
summers, the raw spring, the moon-indigo winters, the November afternoons when
the gray sun was an omniscient eye.” (pg. 150-151)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kristi Petersen Schoonover is the author of the short
story collection <i>Skeletons in the
Swimmin’ Hole—Tales from Haunted Disney</i>, and her short fiction has appeared
in <i>Carpe Articulum Literary Review, Full
of Crow, Eclectic Flash, The Adirondack Review, Barbaric Yawp, The Illuminata,
Macabre Cadaver, Morpheus Tales, Citizen Culture, MudRock: Stories & Tales,
New Witch Magazine, Spilt Milk, Toasted Cheese,</i> and a host of others,
including several anthologies. She hosts the paranormal fiction segment on The
Ghostman & Demon Hunter Show broadcast and serves as an editor for <i>Read Short Fiction</i>. An interview with
the author is featured in <a href="http://thesmokingpoet.tripod.com/summer2014/index.html" target="_blank">The Smoking Poet’s Summer 2014 Issue #26</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-6223569228771623462013-10-21T22:24:00.001+03:002013-10-21T22:24:55.364+03:00The Whiteness of the Whale by David Poyer<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Print
Length: 333 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN:
1250020565<o:p></o:p></div>
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Publisher:
St. Martin's Press (April 2, 2013)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yet again, I watched another news story on the evening news that
matched almost exactly the story David Poyer tells in <i>The Whiteness of the Whale</i>. This may be a novel, but it is based on
factual scenarios, happening all too often on the oceans. As in real life, the
novel tells a story of activists in pursuit of a Japanese whaling fleet they’ve
observed killing whales and processing the whales for meat. That has long been
illegal for all but scientific research purposes, yet the Japanese still hunt
and kill whale in the Antarctic waters, hiding behind the banner of “research.”
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The activists in pursuit are a motley crew. A primate
behaviorist, a Hollywood movie star, a double-amputee Afghanistan war veteran,
and others, each adding their own storyline and colorful personality as they
sail together on the <i>Black Anemone</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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They are not the only ones in pursuit. After an altercation
with the Japanese whaling fleet, described with unnerving detail that makes the
suffering of the whales uncomfortably memorable, the <i>Black Anemone</i> picks up a castaway. More, they pick up a tail. At
this point, the story takes on echoes of Moby Dick, as a whale turns on the
boat and goes out of its way to destroy the ship and the crew. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Poyer writes from a base of experience. He has a 30-year sea
career on which to base his many sea novels. That kind of first-hand knowledge
adds all kinds of subtle layers of nuance that bring scene after scene alive,
some terrifyingly so. There are sections of the book that, when read, leave
what feels like an uncanny splash of seawater on the reader’s face. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The activists don’t always come off as heroes. They appear
human. Characters show their weaknesses as well as their heroic moments. The
whale recognizes none, in dogged pursuit, seemingly enraged by the slaughter
those very activists tried to prevent. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Poyer’s strongest characterizations are, in fact, the whale
and the primate behaviorist, Dr. Sara Pollard. It’s not often one reads such
accurate and effective cross-gender writing, but Poyer captures her female
voice precisely. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I enjoyed the book enough to want to know more, and asked
the author to do an author interview in the <a href="http://thesmokingpoet.tripod.com/summerfall2013/" target="_blank">Summer/Fall 2013 Issue of TheSmoking Poet</a>. My hope is that such novels take on a life outside of the fiction
world and enter into the movement to save whales from the kind of barbarous
scenes of slaughter Poyer describes and evening news show all too often. <o:p></o:p></div>
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David Poyer’s naval career included service in the Atlantic,
Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific.
His thirty-plus books, including twenty sea novels, have been translated
into Italian, Dutch, Japanese, and other languages. He’s also written sailing,
diving, and nautical history articles for Chesapeake Bay, Southern Boating,
Shipmate, Tidewater Virginian, and other periodicals. His work has been
required reading in the Literature of the Sea course at the U.S. Naval Academy,
along with that of Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville. He lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with
his wife and daughter, with whom he explores the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic
coast in their sloop, <i>Water Spirit.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-40406930071263400532013-09-28T03:21:00.000+03:002013-09-28T06:13:57.787+03:00The Psychiatrist, poetry by Mariela Griffor<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRUMxxo9usGCYFPIL3qll8jjP4wHlge2weXBE0XWUmN2CiKNVdInfQFyKtypcOTfpRq5qZCSY3cmvLfse9D5EN5tJEhlIOqaOUdDvpRJeGN_O3r5KgdCXj78BCnI7IKEE6sEkAhA/s1600/psychiatristbookcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRUMxxo9usGCYFPIL3qll8jjP4wHlge2weXBE0XWUmN2CiKNVdInfQFyKtypcOTfpRq5qZCSY3cmvLfse9D5EN5tJEhlIOqaOUdDvpRJeGN_O3r5KgdCXj78BCnI7IKEE6sEkAhA/s320/psychiatristbookcover.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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Publisher:
Eyewear Publishing (October 23, 2013)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price: $24.00<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
1908998113<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13:
978-1908998118<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve had the privilege to read the galleys for Mariela
Griffor’s third poetry collection, <i>The
Psychiatrist</i>, which will be published in late October 2013. The experience
is mesmerizing, even healing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My introduction to Griffor’s work came through <i>Exiliana,</i> her first collection. Thirteen
poems from that collection are included in this one, only two from her second, <i>House</i>, and twenty-one poems are new. In
them all, Griffor allows us windows into her remarkable life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Born in Chile, Griffor was a Chilean opponent to the military regimen of General Pinochet in love
with another such opponent. Their love story is a tragic one; he was
assassinated, and Griffor, expecting their child, was exiled to Sweden.
Eventually, she married an American and moved to the Detroit area in Michigan.
Much of this life story appears in her work, in the tender ache of a lost love,
in the fierce love of a mother for her child, in the love for her ancestral
home left behind. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In these poems, we step into Chile, Sweden and, finally, the
streets of Detroit. We visit Griffor’s broken and patched-again heart. We step
into her life. Griffor exposes her vulnerability with courage, but then also lets
us see her resilience, her street smarts, her determined survival. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“I should have died
but the devil/did not want me,”</i> she writes in the poem, “Code Names.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Griffor does not write dense poetry. I say this as a
compliment. To call her an accessible poet, too, is meant as a compliment. Her
images are clear, in almost plain wrapping, and nothing stands between the
poet, the poem, the reader. It is as if
the poet has unzipped her skin and put her core self on the page, the
experience of her life, and allowed us entry. And not just us, but also a kind
of alter ego, an invented friend: <i>“I
invent a friend to pour out/remembrances of the old country” </i>(from
“Prologue I”). She finishes that poem so: <i>“As
I invent you, I invent myself</i>.” With that, Griffor states plainly and
clearly the truth of all writers, that literature is an unveiling of self, and
in so doing, a kind of therapy, an easing of loneliness, a word-balmed healing,
an invitation to the reader to come inside and connect, if even for just an
instant in time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And we connect. Griffor holds up no barriers. There is a
disarming sincerity to her poetry. She asks the questions we have all at some
time in our well-lived lives asked. <i>“What
do we do with the love if you die?” </i>(from “Love for a subversive”). She
births grief like she births new life, and in that birthing of a grief, its
slow laboring, it’s painful entry into the light, one realizes just how alike
these two processes are, and the prizes for enduring both: new life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“Maybe just poets can
understand each other, /even bad poets have another language. It is like/the
words are invented only for those who love them,”</i> Griffor writes in the new
poem, “Death in Argentina.” To some degree, that may be, but no one is left
standing outside Griffor’s gate. If not all of us have experienced exile, most
all of us have known rootlessness, being lost in the sea of life, and to that
part of us that we keep hidden, protected, denied, unloved, shamed, wrapped in
secrets and lies, to that part Griffor reaches out and gives a healing touch.
Much like a psychiatrist. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0epXTGI7Jqf3V9bXm0nOkeLfOmLRKubWPaCaSewy1Xz3S25f_vgTlqvhVIwj-9DfbO5p0CK9jBnm0ANmM7iFGIwBRXLzubHerQTdGIabZ4q58XZWGYr9Zj-sJGCMnk1-prEdiCA/s1600/mariela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0epXTGI7Jqf3V9bXm0nOkeLfOmLRKubWPaCaSewy1Xz3S25f_vgTlqvhVIwj-9DfbO5p0CK9jBnm0ANmM7iFGIwBRXLzubHerQTdGIabZ4q58XZWGYr9Zj-sJGCMnk1-prEdiCA/s200/mariela.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
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Mariela Griffor is the author of Exiliana (Luna
Publications) and House (Mayapple Press). She was born in the city of
Concepcion in southern Chile. She is co-founder of The Institute for Creative
Writers at Wayne State University and Publisher of Marick Press. Her work has
appeared in periodicals across Latin America and the United States. Griffor is Honorary Consul of
Chile in Detroit, Michigan. <o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-65607807350436226792013-06-08T01:26:00.001+03:002013-06-08T01:26:13.081+03:00Booklover: A One-Year Journal of Reading, Reflecting and Remembering by Timothy James Bazzett<div class="MsoNormal">
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Publisher: Rathole
Books, 2010<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$18.00<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10 0977111946<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13 978-0977111947 <o:p></o:p></div>
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I met Tim Bazzett—virtually but not yet in person—through an
email exchange about books. Of course. We exchanged thoughts about the novel of
a Michigan writer that he felt, by reading some of my reviews, that I perhaps
understood better than he. That got my attention. How many people do you know
who have approached you to say you may just get something better than they do? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sharp guy. Actually, I’m not sure I did get that book better
than Bazzett, but we got a good conversation going, and one book leading to
another, he sent me one of his own books: <i>Booklover</i>.
Is this going to be a very long, elaborate listing of all the books this book
addict has ever read? I wondered. Well, something along those lines. Only
Bazzett adds in plenty of his own lines, managing to tell his story while
talking about the stories written and told by others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Booklover</i> is one
of several memoirs Bazzett has written. He begins by expressing his disdain for
the reading fare that kindergartners are given, if the children are given
books to read at all, and with that introduction, he had me on board. (I, too, am an admitted book addict.) From
there, this memoir describes Bazzett's moves from Michigan to California and to
Europe, part of that being his military service. It is also the story of his
marriage and the family.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's a down home story, and Bazzett tells it in a friendly,
easy style that makes you feel like you are sitting on the front porch with him,
making friends. He can be charmingly self-deprecating, willing to open his door
to the reader in a frank manner, if sometimes perhaps a bit too frank. There
are times that I don't want to know where his guy's mind wanders, moments that
tingle on my feminist bone when he muses on the female gender, but in the next
moment I've forgiven him, because, well, he just comes off as a genuinely nice
guy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could also do without the repeated "but no
matter" continuously inserted into the telling of Bazzett's story, but
that's it, those are my only complaints. Bazzett is a classic. He excels at
being himself, no pretenses, rather than trying to outdo someone else among the
literati. He has a fun way of inserting his sense of humor, even while building
up the reader's desire to go to the nearest library or book store and bring
home a mountain of books to read that Bazzett has recommended. It is with his
insights into literature and authors that we realize just how sharp-minded he
is. I hope I do get to sit on his front porch, or mine, with him sometime. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bazzett lives in Reed City, Michigan, with his wife and his
books. He has published five memoirs and a biography. He is a book reviewer for
<a href="http://thesmokingpoet.com/" target="_blank">The Smoking Poet</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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<br /></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-2993686309617397272013-06-07T19:57:00.002+03:002013-06-07T19:57:33.841+03:00The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBkuwLV7GU5x3HGS-OMCadvSKG3PE2aYyI1Gdo5m0VTavtoJOIgcVapl-x82U76Xd7yJ2o4PbkZr1_f4WsdJOkj2ZywjXqPXHb9bDNbxF_7Jbmqo8vBxU6lx7P4dOhI5AELzLJQ/s1600/watch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBkuwLV7GU5x3HGS-OMCadvSKG3PE2aYyI1Gdo5m0VTavtoJOIgcVapl-x82U76Xd7yJ2o4PbkZr1_f4WsdJOkj2ZywjXqPXHb9bDNbxF_7Jbmqo8vBxU6lx7P4dOhI5AELzLJQ/s1600/watch.jpg" /></a></div>
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Hardcover:
304 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Publisher:
Hogarth, 2012<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$25.00<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ISBN-10:
0307955893<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ISBN-13:
978-0307955890 <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I avoid war novels. Until I find a really, really good one.
In recent weeks, <i>The Watch</i> is one of
those that qualified. I have a difficult time reading about human cruelty, and
that is, after all, what war is about, in excess and in extreme. I make
exceptions, however, when the writing is exceptional and the subject matter can
teach me something I don't yet know and should. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even as the war in Afghanistan has been going on for too
many years, I realize that I don't really have a strong understanding of it—and
honestly, I'm not sure this novel has changed that. Let's face it: war is
beyond understanding. It's madness. But author Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya has
captured something of the essence of every war and revealed it to us in this
novel, including the human spirit that survives it and even overcomes something
of the madness. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><i>The Watch</i> is the
story of a Pashtun woman who has lost her legs during the war, approaching a
U.S. Army base in Kandahar to demand the return of her brother's body. Weary
from battle, the soldiers have no idea what to do. The woman, in part based on
the myth of Antigone, positions herself in the desert outside the base and
refuses to move. Maybe she's a terrorist, wired with a bomb the moment she is
approached. Maybe she's lost her mind. Maybe she is in disguise, not a woman at
all. The soldiers debate what to do, as the intensity of the situation
escalates and reveals what war does to those on both sides of the battle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After reading the book, I had the privilege of interviewing
the author in the Spring 2013 issue of <a href="http://thesmokingpoet.com/">The
Smoking Poet</a>, and Roy-Bhattacharya spoke of the philosophy on which he
built his novel, the ways in which he did research to paint a realistic scene
without ever visiting Afghanistan himself, the role of women in war, and his
feelings about passivity when encountering war. It makes for fascinating
insight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a writer, though, it is the level of quality in writing
that gets my attention most. Roy-Bhattacharya wields a skillful pen. His story
drew me in instantly, his characterization brought these people alive to me,
and his literary talent added beauty to what is the ugliest part of human
nature—our lust to kill each other. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya was educated in politics and
philosophy at Presidency College, Calcutta, and the University of Pennsylvania.
His novels The Gabriel Club and The Storyteller of Marrakesh have been
published in fourteen languages. He lives in the Hudson Valley in upstate New
York. <o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-57596703780443274042013-02-22T23:08:00.000+02:002013-02-22T23:08:00.917+02:00Atlanta: A Novella by Loreen Niewenhuis<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwviZhBlqNWyLf5EWtmgBjuqjl7Ic55ZrtAwrcCsOXNd82a2B22kn2EJVB9SamqvVadH7WhFR7c-1aM0JAxISCDJo_7ANHt_nlnD3odT2gNL5ZIzgO9oVW8gGUQcBJV4YBb38_wQ/s1600/atlanta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwviZhBlqNWyLf5EWtmgBjuqjl7Ic55ZrtAwrcCsOXNd82a2B22kn2EJVB9SamqvVadH7WhFR7c-1aM0JAxISCDJo_7ANHt_nlnD3odT2gNL5ZIzgO9oVW8gGUQcBJV4YBb38_wQ/s1600/atlanta.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Paperback,
129 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Publisher:
Main Street Rag Publishing, 2011<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Price: $9.95</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ISBN-10:
1599482916<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ISBN-13:
978-1599482910 <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is embarrassing. I'm about to confess to judging a book
by its cover. And I knew better, I did! I knew the author, Loreen Niewenhuis,
from her previous travelogue/memoir, <i>A 1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach</i>, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I knew this author is a skilled writer …
and yet, and yet, I let this book sit on
my table for a very, very long time. Unread. Because of the cover. Let's face
it, it looks like a travel guide to Atlanta. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I've been to Atlanta, and perhaps it was the circumstances
surrounding me at the time, but I didn't particularly enjoy the trip. I'd look
at this cover and feel not one degree above lukewarm, and I would end up
picking another book to read. You know, with a more enticing cover. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, enough already about the unexciting cover. I finally
did get past it to the first page. And from then on, gasp, I kept paging until
the very end, completely enthralled. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The scene opens with Bruce the janitor. He is preparing to
buff the floor. While doing so, he lights up a joint. Soon, he gets off work to
pick up a street walker, Janine, pays her $50 to hold his hand, nothing more,
just hold his hand. What Bruce really wants, aside from having his hand held,
is to buy a puppy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And off we go, one interesting character of another, as if
disconnected, yet all dotting Atlanta and bringing it to life, like one light
going on after another throughout the city, until it is all aglow with the
shimmer of humanity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An intricate weaving forms the fabric of Atlanta. Mothers
and daughters, brothers and sisters, neighbors and people in passing, all expose
their most vulnerable places to Niewenhuis's light—and to the reader. These are
the residents of the city, different social and economic classes, races,
backgrounds, and gradually their paths intersect, as they must. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Niewenhuis shapes her characters with such care and detail,
that we do not doubt that they live. They do live. Long after the last page is
turned, with only the regret at end that this is a novella instead of a novel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do me a favor. Just read. Suddenly you see the many lives
living inside that city on the cover. These are lives that matter, if only
because they live so true. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Loreen Niewenhuis is a scientist, adventurer and writer. She
holds a MS degree from Wayne State University and a MFA from Spalding
University. Her short fiction has appeared in many journals including <i>The Antioch Review, Red Wheelbarrow</i>, <i>The Smoking Poet</i> and <i>Bellevue Literary Review</i>. Her short
story collection, <i>Scar Tissue</i>, was a
finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. In 2009, she took
on the challenge of walking all the way around Lake Michigan<i>. A 1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach</i> is the
book about her adventure. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-43142880623982088572013-02-22T21:44:00.003+02:002013-02-22T21:44:59.615+02:00Rotary Phones and Facebook by Meg Eden<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix0v_VWUIfbMFWtnSOcWDjUTuizzKdwpHOUd38itsOpAgzMV7jproFl1o3BIGM2nFk1OwwqfsLwea8iPWIL53kDyCuMR0RowO81yMJGRY5brNM2fLhwADSZphxjTexJVCl_cqe8Q/s1600/rotary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix0v_VWUIfbMFWtnSOcWDjUTuizzKdwpHOUd38itsOpAgzMV7jproFl1o3BIGM2nFk1OwwqfsLwea8iPWIL53kDyCuMR0RowO81yMJGRY5brNM2fLhwADSZphxjTexJVCl_cqe8Q/s320/rotary.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Chapbook, 25
pgs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dancing Girl
Press, 2012<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Price: $7.00<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First impressions count. When I took in hand the chapbook of
poetry by Meg Eden, printed by Dancing Girl Press, I was underwhelmed. The
pages were roughly cut and not numbered. No table of contents. The back cover
had an edge not cut in line with the rest, leaving a paper tag. No ISBN number. Not the heavier
stock of paper that might indicate quality …<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
… but it is what is inside a book, or chapbook, that counts,
right? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first typo I encountered was on the acknowledgement
page. <i>"Do I need to chose?"</i> Really? If a publisher can't take the
time to proof and do at least light editing, an author should. Or ask a
literary friend to do so. I counted 15 such errors, misspellings and grammar
glitches in the book, and then I stopped counting. Arguments that content
counts more than presentation don’t move me. Take pride in your work, or I
won't take any in putting your work on my bookshelf.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just a few examples:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"make due with
what you've got"<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"there's books to
read"<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>"there's more
girls"</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><o:p></o:p></i><i>"I think of
Sayori and I in Tenjin station"<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The serious reader won't return to an author or a press that allows this sort of thing to slip by. It's ugly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On to the poetry. Eden is not without talent. She's been
published in a few literary mags and lists several honorable mentions and
awards. That should mean something. And it does. Eden writes a good poem frequently
enough that at moments I can lose myself in her images and well-formed lines
and leave the warped wrapping behind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p>In many of the poems, as Eden is still a young woman, she
writes about her mother, about growing up, about the discovery of love, and
self, and first heartbreak. Mother paints her daughter's nails in the poem "ritual" as a subtle way of moving her daughter past a breakup with a
boyfriend. She shares her vintage aprons. She chastises her daughter about
brushing her hair. She gathers crowbars and hammers to bust through a wall to
find the source of a terrible smell—dead rodents. Her influence is great upon
the poet, and when the poet gives Mother her due, both are at their best. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Poems such as "the silk flower" show real promise,
a poet taking root. This time, Father takes a prominent
role. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>There! father pointed to the scrawny bud,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>like a fern, beginning its infestation.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>pull it by the roots. do not let it spread
its spores.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I point out their pink feather duster
flowers,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>the beauty they are capable of producing,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>but he is not won over. these things, once
they grow<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>old enough, their trunks get thick,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>their cambium cumbersome, get them<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>while they're young. I think of young<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>girls and mothers armed with kitchen knives<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>and scissors. take the legs and peel the
pleasure<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>like sap from bark. grow into a woman-<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>shape. we will take your feet and prune them<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>into little dolls. set root into the floor
boards.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>little mimosas shrink in the cover<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>of the woods. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suspect that there should be an apostrophe in "dolls"
to indicate "doll's feet," but perhaps not, perhaps just feet into dolls ... and I do wish that tired old gig of
leaving out capitals (except for the word "I," as if ego was all that
stands above the rest) would die already, but the poem itself touches me. It
has weight, it carries a message, and the image is sharp. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And there you have it. With room for improvement, I still
end up liking this poet. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-73630122686644119952013-02-14T23:44:00.000+02:002013-02-15T00:04:59.840+02:00Flying Carpets by Hedy Habra<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpe5DG7QPhOvFWbhSS1g6UyzRn4H8OtGrm0JGLW5JIQLqqnor5QRW1vEK7t3cx7dNjqbuWVqHShtlCATFaXUqugIatJvpsfWcI2QnG58PUQeWqVs_OnDHgxmqhwCehTMNx44LVw/s1600/flying.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpe5DG7QPhOvFWbhSS1g6UyzRn4H8OtGrm0JGLW5JIQLqqnor5QRW1vEK7t3cx7dNjqbuWVqHShtlCATFaXUqugIatJvpsfWcI2QnG58PUQeWqVs_OnDHgxmqhwCehTMNx44LVw/s1600/flying.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Paperback: 203 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Publisher:
March Street Press, 2012<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$15.00<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
1596611685<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13:
978-1596611689<o:p></o:p></div>
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I grew up reading Latvian folk tales, and as an adult, I have
often experienced that a-ha moment of realization that much of my value system,
my work ethic, my life outlook, has been developed by those enchanting tales of
my childhood. Oh, how I loved to read as a little girl! And still do. So when I
opened up <i>Flying Carpets</i>, and
immersed in the world on the page before me, I felt myself as if traveling back
in time to that sweet world of long ago. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Initially, I couldn't quite understand why I was so drawn to
these tales of exotic lands, magic and fantasy, but then I realized that
childhood connection. That's it! We all love going back, back to our past of
innocence and wonder—and Hedy Habra masterfully waves her writing wand and
brings us there with this collection. <o:p></o:p></div>
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These are stories influenced by the author's Middle Eastern
background in Egypt and Lebanon. From there fly and float these magic carpets,
as we read about temples and mountain villages, gliding boats and fragrant
kitchens, flaming fish and rich tapestries. Traditions surface to conflict with
contemporary issues. The further into the book one reads, the more fantastical
the stories become. </div>
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<o:p></o:p>Habra's language, which no doubt is only enriched by the
fact that the author speaks several, lulls with a powerful magic of its own:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>"Calm down,
child. Fear is a gust of cold wind you must not allow in your mind or heart. The
way torrential storms ruthlessly invade fragile houses, fear's whirling eddies
will possess you, penetrating through the least fissures … Look closely and see
how tightly woven is the braided wheat wreath framing her, protecting her from
all winged creatures, stallions, falcons, lions, even from angels. Like her,
retreat into your center."</i> (Page 175)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Habra's language alone is enough to transport. These are
fairy tales for the adults who still believe—and those who need awakening from
forgetting how to believe. These stories tell tales of love and loss, of a
longing to leave the known behind and enter something greater and more
universal—and surely that is the echo of the universal human heart. Each story
builds an intimate world around the reader, often, but not always, with strong
women in leading roles, even when they are struggling against cultural
constraints demanding conformity. Through magical realism, these characters
reflect the inner voices many of us hold deep inside. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Flying Carpets</i> is
a story collection in the grand tradition of storytelling. For those who know
Habra's poetry, discovering her equal expertise in prose will be a treat. </div>
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<o:p></o:p>Hedy Habra, born and raised in Egypt, is of Lebanese origin.
She received her M.F.A. and a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from Western Michigan
University where she currently teaches. Her poetry and fiction in French,
Spanish, and English have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies,
including The Smoking Poet, Puerto del Sol, The New York Quarterly, Cider Press
Review, Nimrod, Poet Lore, and Dinarzad's Children Second Edition. Her critical
essays have appeared in literary journals such as Chasqui and Latin American
Literary Review. Her newest title is Tea in Heliopolis, a poetry collection
published by Press 53.<o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-74882019689147558992013-01-14T18:04:00.000+02:002013-01-14T18:04:05.331+02:00Sportuality: Finding Joy in the Games by Jeanne Hess<br />
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<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuxd0xuAY_k5YHebQoeD4Kk8EUCh_QNFCTjTqAhM2fO1C9kto3YwM3NRwCVrgVJ3HnzmDqPS8TCTn-nHJz7TQ1lTvH3iH4C09h5zYjlbUEaDzUzb5mjDaax5Bmcrr94GvhHr44w/s1600/sportuality.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuxd0xuAY_k5YHebQoeD4Kk8EUCh_QNFCTjTqAhM2fO1C9kto3YwM3NRwCVrgVJ3HnzmDqPS8TCTn-nHJz7TQ1lTvH3iH4C09h5zYjlbUEaDzUzb5mjDaax5Bmcrr94GvhHr44w/s320/sportuality.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Paperback:
248 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
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Publisher:
Balboa Press, 2012<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$17.99<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
145254381X<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13:
978-1452543819<o:p></o:p></div>
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I listened to the news sportscaster and thought of Jeanne
Hess. I wondered, what would she think of this fierce language? "Our team
will annihilate them," the newscaster swore, lifting a fist of victory in
the air, referring to the local football team doing battle with the opposing team.
The news anchor tossed her comments into the swirl, using phrases like: beat
them into the ground … grind them to dust … smash them to smithereens … flatten
and destroy.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>One might think this was the language of war. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>"When we peel
words back to the original meaning, they provide us with an intent that often
differs from current cultural thought and offer a level of understanding that
enlightens the soul."</i> (Page 32)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I read the pages of <i>Sportuality</i>
with increasing interest. If I entered with doubts, I emerged with none. Mind
you, I'm not what one would call a sports fan. I played center on a girls'
basketball team in school, and I wasn't bad in track, and now and then I've
tossed a ball with friends. But a fan? Not really. My remote control never
stalls on ESPN. It's possible that the violent factor in sports has something
to do with that. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly enough, even though I don't usually watch
sports games (I enjoy being at the actual games, not watching them on
television), it occurred to me that quite a few of my favorite movies were
sports stories. How does that make sense? Reading <i>Sportuality</i>, I realized why. </div>
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Sports movies are about a hero's quest. An athlete is on a
quest to achieve his or her own personal best, against all odds, rising above
all obstacles, enduring through all conflicts, fulfilling potential. All the
elements of a great story are there—and I'm a writer. I love a good quest. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In fact, if I started reading <i>Sportuality</i> with skepticism, that was soon why I found myself
immersed and enjoying the read. Hess isn't citing sports statistics here. She's
talking about a hero's quest, and she writes about the roots of language. She
tells great stories, memorable and inspiring ones, and she leaves
"time-outs" for reader introspection, offering questions for
exploration.<o:p></o:p></div>
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"Sportuality" is a concept of blending sports and
spirituality. Dividing the book into sections that have the reader contemplate competition,
community, communication, spirit, humor, enthusiasm, education, religion,
holiness, sanctuary, sacrifice, and victory, Hess begins by examining the roots
of the words. As it turns out, more times than not, contemporary sports-loving
society has so mangled these common words and concepts that their original
meaning has been, well, annihilated. Hess resurrects them to accuracy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sports, she writes, is actually a means of human
communication. Sports "is a vehicle for life." As for the spiritual
aspect, Hess states that God intended us to play and have fun in life—and thus,
her mission to restore the fun in games. Hess discusses the spiritual, even
religious, aspect of sports (from this comes the word, and the concept of sportuality),
and anyone who does watch sports will attest to the constant call to prayer
before games, references to team spirit, and the similarities in spiritual
pilgrimages to an athlete's quest for excellence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The parallel quests for the divine and for excellence in
sports are not at all far-fetched, although some readers may chafe a little at
the idea of worship as applied to sports. It is certainly something that has
bothered me, and perhaps has something to do with why I have not become a
sports fan—so many such fans really do seem to worship sports and athletes,
taking it to a level that may belong more in a house of worship than a ball
park. Hess gives us another look at these parallels.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Considering that God refers to the physical body as a
"temple," Hess may just have a point here. We have taken sports too
far into the physical realm alone, and Hess is calling us back to consider its
spiritual side. Competition, she writes, is not a word that means to annihilate
or grind to dust or beat to smithereens. When we take it to its roots, it is
actually a concept that means playing with another in a manner that brings out
the best in both. <o:p></o:p></div>
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That gave me pause. As did much of what Hess discusses in <i>Sportuality</i>. By book end, I understood
my resistance to sports was a resistance to violence, not to the game. Hess had
indeed restored the joy. More, she has a call to all of us to reconsider how we
play the game. Not to "sissify" that game, because her call is to
achieve excellence, overcome obstacles, learn endurance and persistence in the
pursuit of our quest, but without taking it down to us vs. them, and debasing
sports to the ugliness of violence. </div>
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<o:p></o:p><i>Sportuality</i> is an
important book. In a society immersed in sports, we must take a second look at
our approach to the games. At a time when football, for one, is being
reexamined as so violent that athletes are sustaining life-threatening damage
to their bodies, we would be wise to step back to consider the part we left on
the bench: true team spirit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Jeanne Hess is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and was a
varsity athlete at the University of Michigan in the 1970s. She has been a volleyball
coach, professor of physical education, and college chaplain at Kalamazoo
College for nearly 30 years, and is the wife of a coach and the mother of two
professional athletes. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, Jim,
whom she met in a gym. <o:p></o:p></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-91520711569181707962013-01-13T23:14:00.001+02:002013-01-13T23:14:07.075+02:00Devil in the North Woods by Walt Shiel<br />
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<i>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwSDHFJ2zjrjgyel2DFQ44OEzFPkZ_ayWs3PvB6o1ccuIFEUOBXGivHqhCFOVA7vqsByxKF27af-9F5yVexI9WF_EsLC_tSQHlKYeUtQHcj_vOnjVYurlanfD_8VKAFBdD1C-YA/s1600/devnorthwd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwSDHFJ2zjrjgyel2DFQ44OEzFPkZ_ayWs3PvB6o1ccuIFEUOBXGivHqhCFOVA7vqsByxKF27af-9F5yVexI9WF_EsLC_tSQHlKYeUtQHcj_vOnjVYurlanfD_8VKAFBdD1C-YA/s1600/devnorthwd.jpg" /></a></div>
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Paperback:
246 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
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Publisher:
Slipdown Mountain Pubns, 2005<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$14.95<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
0974655317<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13:
978-0974655314<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like any
wildfire, it begins with a spark. A small flame, and at first it is hard to
tell if it will take off and blaze, or end in a whisper of smoke. <i>Devil in the North Woods</i>, a historical
novel based on the 1908 fire that destroyed the town of Metz, Michigan, and
left 43 dead and 4,600 residents suddenly homeless, begins just that way. A
spark, a simmer, a lick of flame, and then, increasingly, the novel blazes with
its storyline. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Author
Walter Shiel based his novel on research that includes oral histories and
various reports. He chose as his main character the real person of Henry
Hardies, who at the time of the Metz fire was a 10-year-old boy who lost his
mother and three sisters to the fire. Photos bring reality to the story,
reminding the reader that fire destroys without mercy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Aside from
the Hardies boy, however, are intertwined the many stories of other Metz
residents. A school teacher, a young and rattled woman looking for her fiancé,
a husband and wife battling for their farm who are burned nearly to death, yet
survive with a remarkable endurance and will to live. And others. Together,
they bring the reader straight into the flames, sensing the rising heat of the
steel walls of a train that Metz residents hope outruns the wall of flame, or
into the woods where exhausted runners fall to the ground for a breath of less
smoky air at earth level, going so far as to press their faces into holes they
scratch into the soil that work like air filters. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sometimes,
all one can do is run, run for your life:</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>"Henry found himself in the lead,
running furiously with his arms stretched out to knock the brush aside. The
forest seemed to tilt and whirl around him. He crashed into a tree trunk,
rolled away from it, and ran into the prickly needles of a small pine. He
bounced off the pine, twisted around, and slammed face-first into another tree.
Something sticky ran down his forehead and into his right eye. He wiped it with
the back of his right hand and looked at it. Even in the uncertain, flickering
firelight, he recognized it. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Blood. My blood."</i> (Page 132)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here is
tragedy, families burned alive, homes held over generations turned to ash, but
here also is a story of the human spirit that rises from that ash to build new
lives. By end of the novel, the reader will be flipping pages quickly to find
out who survives and who does not, and how. Some endings are predictable, no
less interesting. Shiel does an excellent job of bringing history alive. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-78803991352335929042013-01-02T00:09:00.000+02:002013-01-02T00:09:09.054+02:0025 Lessons I've Learned About (Photography) Life by Lorenzo Dominguez<br />
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<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUd3Vjqp_hc1lftzKBLdxyAKcmBfeDdDLsRSjlIdTrbltrZ2pQHbE-X0USNra25D4XsGzm0mjGbq7HNd6WurfSuQZE3Q_c0j4pLQb5LKl4vbRC9QvEyXPg22ripVcguV4t6gwBYA/s1600/25lessons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUd3Vjqp_hc1lftzKBLdxyAKcmBfeDdDLsRSjlIdTrbltrZ2pQHbE-X0USNra25D4XsGzm0mjGbq7HNd6WurfSuQZE3Q_c0j4pLQb5LKl4vbRC9QvEyXPg22ripVcguV4t6gwBYA/s1600/25lessons.jpg" /></a></div>
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Paperback:
146 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
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Publisher:
CreateSpace, 2011<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$19.99<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
1456574485<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13:
978-1456574482<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the spring of 2005, writes Lorenzo Dominguez, he and his
wife became separated, and he found himself looking for a roof to put over his
head. He eventually found a small room in a Manhattan church sanctuary, and
while living there, going through the introspection that most of us do when
going through traumatic events in our lives, he took up photography. <o:p></o:p></div>
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His hobby soon became much more than just a hobby. Photography
was in itself the vehicle of his life introspection. Through images taken
throughout New York City, mostly at night, Lorenzo gets a new perspective on
life and realizes that many of the lessons of photography apply to life. These
25 lessons begin with "everything is beautiful" and then go on to
incorporate lessons of perseverance, learning to let go, telling the truth,
experimenting, being yourself, striking a balance, and many more.<o:p></o:p></div>
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None of these lessons are earth-shatteringly original or
surprising. Indeed, most if not all are cliché. Still, the way Lorenzo presents
these lessons, and doing so through the lens of camera, does lend them some
originality. His narrative voice is pleasant, even comforting, and his journey
is one with which many can identify. The places he arrives are good ones, even
if he does sometimes practice rather risky behavior to get his shot. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>"…I knew only
failures gave in after failing the first time. Too many people just quit after
failing the first try because they immediately lose their self-confidence.
Winners never concede to circumstance, they just keep on trying and continue to
believe in themselves and in their aspirations. And ultimately, they become
whatever it is they believe to be true. For faith in oneself is the first step
toward truth." </i>(Page 92)<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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What these lessons might look like in photography, however …
well, that's the disappointing part. In my hands was the paperback version of
the book, and in its pages were just a few, small photos, not particularly
sharp in reproduction, none of which particularly corresponded to the text. It
seems that to fully enjoy the author's artistry, the reader is required to
visit various sites online to view his work. That's not particularly
reasonable. As enjoyable as the author's story could be, had it been a real
photo essay would have made a world of difference.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lorenzo's photographic journey of introspection doesn't
necessarily end up with a neat conclusion, or even a predictable one, but he
does stay true to himself. By end of the slim book, it's been an enjoyable enough
read (and he tells of commercial success as a photographer), albeit missing the
view his lens might have provided. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Lorenzo Dominguez has been called an "Internet
photography sensation" by Time Out New York and is considered a
"Flickr star" by Rob Walker, Consumed columnist, for New York Times
Magazine. His work is represented worldwide by Getty Images.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-51732201909927098002013-01-01T21:34:00.001+02:002013-01-01T22:06:43.974+02:00Don't Cry, Daddy's Here: One Woman's Journey to Recovery from Incest by Brinda Carey<br />
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<i>Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5pQN-Ihrh6dHuzrq1SJmEIPIT98vxAqxE8sHYceGtaC_YU3_MkGi0AFLfx4gINsdMFytgrJ9fCRrjIV4Mkb3X9ALn1lG5j4_3kGBwIWayDrXIuJewi-Bjh3rm4-8R53a5eRP_Vg/s1600/carey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5pQN-Ihrh6dHuzrq1SJmEIPIT98vxAqxE8sHYceGtaC_YU3_MkGi0AFLfx4gINsdMFytgrJ9fCRrjIV4Mkb3X9ALn1lG5j4_3kGBwIWayDrXIuJewi-Bjh3rm4-8R53a5eRP_Vg/s1600/carey.jpg" /></a></div>
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Paperback:
256 pages<o:p></o:p></div>
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Publisher:
White Bird Publications, 2011<o:p></o:p></div>
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Price:
$14.95<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-10:
0982802463<o:p></o:p></div>
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ISBN-13: 978-0982802465<o:p></o:p></div>
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The moment I
opened <i>Don't Cry, Daddy's Here</i>, I
knew this was going to be hard to read. It's difficult to think of any subject
matter more difficult to stomach than incest, the sexual molestation of a child
by a family member … let alone her own father. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yet
sometimes we need to plow ahead, read and bear witness to this now grown
child's story. There is tremendous healing in storytelling, and there is great
healing we who listen to that story can offer to the story teller, by hearing
her out and acknowledging her life experience. So I read.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is
Brinda Carey's story of her growing up years, from the time she was hardly more
than a toddler to the time that she was a young adult woman. No longer a
victim, but now fully a survivor, Carey would later earn a degree in criminal
justice and work as a probation officer, and she would marry and have children
of her own. No doubt much of this was possible because she was able to share
her horrendous experience, talk about it, and she also had her husband to lean
on—the story of how they met and how he persisted in supporting her even when
she resisted help is part of this story. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Not
untypical in this kind of story is that Carey's mother knew what was happening,
at least to some degree, but turned her back on her child and failed to protect
her. Indeed, at times, she acted like a jealous wife angry at the threat of her
husband's "affair" with his daughter. It is hard to read about this
without having to swallow the bile coming up at the thought alone. The
challenge here is to stretch the mind to encompass the thought that this woman,
too, was to some degree an emotionally battered woman. With time, there was a divorce,
and eventually, even a reconciliation between mother and daughter. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I will not
repeat here the events of this story. Suffice it to say that a child is
coerced, tricked, overpowered, overwhelmed by adult mind games, threatened,
and, yes, repeatedly, over all of those years, raped. Again, again, again.
Finally, to the point of being impregnated, sometimes to have her pregnancy end
in miscarriage, but another time to result in the birth of a child who would
eventually die due to genetic oddities caused by two so closely related people as
parents. It boggles the mind and breaks the heart.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tragedy
piles upon tragedy, until Carey is finally able to mature and break free, once
and for all, in spite of her father's threats to commit suicide, using this as
emotional blackmail in his attempt to keep her in his life. It is at this point
that it would have been powerful to read more about how this breaking free
happens. The author might have shared more of her inner thought process and
emotional processing, to the point where she finds the strength and wisdom to
escape her abuser. It would also have been powerful to read more about how
Carey achieves recovery—arguably much more powerful than the pages of quotes in
the second half of the book that, I would guess, few will bother to read. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The book is,
in fact, in great part comprised of biblical and other quotes, lists of
resources. Carey's story, dotted with a few black and white photographs,
comprises only about half of the book. Since this doesn't appear to be a part
of the book's marketing or description on the cover, that can no doubt lead to
disappointment for some readers expecting more of a full-length book. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bottom line:
this is not necessarily a gracefully written book, but it carries weight as an
addition to the resources available for the too many children growing into
damaged adults, trying to regain emotional health after being abused and
molested by those they trust most. It is important for all of us to be aware
that this is a problem in our society, and that the perpetrators can very well
be the man next door, the one you wave hello to when outside mowing the lawn. I
acknowledge the tremendous courage required of this author to speak up and go
public with her own story. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-46117568876284889042012-11-03T23:04:00.001+02:002012-11-03T23:04:14.827+02:00A Mind Like This, poetry by Susan Blackwell Ramsey<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7kfBqzv1FwdRfIsEypnzIo8PAmSyGrEFSXJWvNE-_Gwb6HYjgZcZgpQcviYD86go-GexR9rmU29CoHRE_VryjyoKhfvHYjLYMU0nWsfw0n935oPFLdOFL5BYD1ILWyUI6EKv_Q/s1600/mindlikethis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7kfBqzv1FwdRfIsEypnzIo8PAmSyGrEFSXJWvNE-_Gwb6HYjgZcZgpQcviYD86go-GexR9rmU29CoHRE_VryjyoKhfvHYjLYMU0nWsfw0n935oPFLdOFL5BYD1ILWyUI6EKv_Q/s1600/mindlikethis.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Paperback: 112 pages</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (September 1, 2012)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Price: $17.95</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ISBN-10: 0803243383</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
ISBN-13: 978-0803243385</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Susan Blackwell Ramsey's first poetry collection, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Mind Like This</i>, is rich with humor.
Read it and weep, probably with laughter, sometimes with a wince, but never
because she missed the mark. It is humor knit with wit, laced with the
outrageous, intertwined with the meticulous and wonderful detail that makes up
life. Because we all know life is in the details. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First collection, sure, but Ramsey is already well known in
her community, and in the literary community far beyond the geographical one, for
her poetic skill. This collection, after all, has been some 20 years in the
making, revised so many times, the poet says, that she's not sure anymore
what's in it and what's not. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I bet she knows. Ramsey's mind is crammed with detail,
dates, places, odd but fascinating tangents, one branching off into another,
and another, and another. She likens her mind to a junk drawer, but don't be
fooled. These aren't the scraps; these are the poems that matter. Between the
lines of seducing Jimmy Stewart, and pickling heads because we want to make
things last, third wedding receptions and scarlet bird houses and useless beads
that indicate an equally useless civilization, thawing turkeys and picking
apart names like Kalamazoo, children in church and Pablo Neruda at Water Street
Coffee Joint, Ramsey weaves pure and complex ideas, the deeper understandings
of, yes, life. She gets it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her mind is like that. It's like this poetry. Witty, clever,
sharp, precise. The poets among her readers will recognize the forms she uses
as skeletons to build upon, layering muscle, flesh, skin. Sestinas, pantoums,
sonnets, villanelles, iambic pentameter, yet nowhere does the poetry bog down
with form. The flow is easy, even between chortles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And honest. She writes about Bell's Palsy, her own coping
with it, and bladders that are forever too small to bear the hour-long wait.
It's the honesty that makes the humor work. Yet for all the grins, this lacing
of words is never without beauty. It's all in there, all of it. "Joy,
daughter of the difficult," Ramsey writes in a poem called "Washing
My Husband's Kilt Hose: A 32-Bar Reel." Light requires dark, and such keen
humor requires a knowledge of suffering. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ramsey's mind, never missing a thing, is just as likely to
make a quiet observation that haunts long after the reading (from "Why I
Hate Storytellers"):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Good stories sneak up, they're
glimpsed, overheard</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the booth behind you at the
diner,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from the back seat, six hours
into the trip,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on the radio, half over when you
tune in.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Real storytellers are quiet, even
reluctant.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Casual is their camouflage. After
a long</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">march, supper cooked, night
coming down,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the conversation passed around
like a pipe,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one voice starts ambling down a
path that forks</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in unexpected directions and you
feel</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the great beast purring next to
you in the dark,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">its bristly chin on your
shoulder, its breath in your ear.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ramsey's voice of poetry is the one with its chin on your
shoulder, its breath in your ear, and it is a voice you will want to listen to,
again and again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Susan Blackwell Ramsey is the winner of the Prairie Schooner
Prize in Poetry for 2011. Ramsey earned her bachelor of arts at Kalamazoo
College, and her MFA at the University of Notre Dame's Creative Writing Program,
where she received the department's Mitchell Award. She has taught high school,
gardened for hire, worked as a horticultural transparencies librarian, and for
many years as a bookseller. She is now an instructor of spinning, knitting and
creative writing at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Ramsey lives in Kalamazoo,
Michigan, with her husband, Wayne, with whom she raised three children, her
knitting, her garden, and with her Kalamazoo College writers' group closely
circled in around her. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-47178900376288047632012-10-23T19:10:00.000+03:002012-10-23T19:10:16.648+03:00Nothing More to Tell, stories by George Dila<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguu8pIB3t3Ub5mgVovYFfuOIFzJJdlKT9ycc1Esnh4xD2xCPztFhUZ2koj6D_XcfSdqZyVVieVqvv_f62qVI-VP5jdq7oTHHxSedhEd7vNi3Q68iYx0y1KlJ87JGK1lpXcH-7uNg/s1600/DilaLG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguu8pIB3t3Ub5mgVovYFfuOIFzJJdlKT9ycc1Esnh4xD2xCPztFhUZ2koj6D_XcfSdqZyVVieVqvv_f62qVI-VP5jdq7oTHHxSedhEd7vNi3Q68iYx0y1KlJ87JGK1lpXcH-7uNg/s320/DilaLG.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Paperback: 100 pages</div>
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Publisher: Mayapple Press, 2011</div>
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Price: $15.95</div>
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ISBN-10: 193641905X</div>
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ISBN-13: 978-1936419050</div>
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Nothing more? After reading the nine stories in this story collection
by Michigan author George Dila, I'm betting he has plenty more to tell! At
least, one hopes. Each story has a satisfying twist, an unflinching turn, and
more times than not, an element of surprise. Good reading.</div>
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Then again, maybe we shouldn't be surprised. After all, Dila's stories
are good reading because they are all so … real. These aren't the quests of
heroes. These are stories of the average Joe, the middle-class guy with
middling experiences and views, the guy next door with the door closed—until Dila
opens that door for us to get a closer look. Unflinchingly authentic, even as
one hopes that there are more heroes out there between these men that can often
be difficult to like. </div>
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Each of the nine stories is set in a Michigan city, large or small, and
they do have Michigan flavor, but could just as well be set anywhere. Main
characters are all men, with the exception of "Four Letters to Angelie
Jolie," which is just that, letters, written by a female maid who is
trying to pull a fast one on a celebrity in an attempt to get adopted along
with her children. Letters get nastier and baser as the only response received
is a photograph signed by Jolie, apparently no longer adopting.</div>
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<br /></div>
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First up in the collection is "Lessons My Father Taught Me."
The lead is a winner, instant hook:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"During the summer I was
fifteen, on a muggy July night with nothing much else to do, my father and I
began working together, stealing from our neighbors."</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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While this may not be the story of the guy(s) next door (hopefully), it
has the element of the average in these two characters, father and son. The tensions
in that relationship, the occasional power play, the coming apart and coming
together, the hidden skeletons that finally surface. As in reality, it can be
hard to know for whom to cheer. Life is never black and white, good and bad. Those
we think we know, including ourselves, are never completely knowable. Shadows
streak everywhere.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Title story, "Nothing More to Tell," is arguably the most
difficult to read yet deserves its title status. Middle-age men lusting after
teen girls is an increasing problem aligned with and encouraged by the rise of
Internet porn and the general objectification of women in ads and other media.
This story's character, Vincent, can't keep his eyes off two scantily-clad teen
girls walking along the road, and becomes so distracted while driving that he
hits and kills a small boy who runs out into the street. The story follows the
inner turmoil of Vincent, through to its stunning ending. </div>
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Other stories deal with aging, with family relationships including
divorce, with the prejudices many claim to not hold but nevertheless have, and
even—a janitor with a second life of being a hit man. "Pizza Pie" may
have been one of my favorites, as the hit man who always insists on last words
from his hits, to eventually have to say those words himself. </div>
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Dila hasn't reached bottom of this barrel. The ease of style in each
story indicates the barrel is still full of more stories, and I look forward to
their surfacing. While I couldn't like any of these main characters, hope not
to meet any of them even as I am sure I have met at least some of them, I am
intrigued by the author's sharp eye and willingness to tell that which makes us
uncomfortable. There's truth in that. </div>
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George Dila's stories and personal essays have appeared in <i>North
American Review, Driftwood, Third Wednesday, Current, Traverse, Literal Latte,
Christian Science Monitor</i> and other publications. A native Detroiter and
graduate of Wayne State University, George now lives with his wife Judith in
the Lake Michigan coastal town of Ludington, where he directs the activities of
Ludington Visiting Writers, a literary program he founded in 2001.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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To hear my radio interview with George Dila, visit <a href="http://wmuk.org/arts-and-more/select/312287/George_Dila_s__Nothing_More_to_Tell__makes_human_beings_out_of_anti_heroes" target="_blank">WMUK 102.1 FM</a>,
Kalamazoo, Michigan's NPR affiliate, for a listen. </div>
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<div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://wmuk.org/arts-and-more/select/312287/George_Dila_s__Nothing_More_to_Tell__makes_human_beings_out_of_anti_heroes" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;">Zinta Aistars talks to author and founder of Ludington's Writers Program George Dila</span></span></a>, August 20, 2012</span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
<div>
</div>
<div>
<a href="http://wmuk.org/files/1713/4548/4376/Dila_Full_Interview.mp3" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;">Full Interview</span></span></a> (17:02)</div>
</span><br />
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-44038506412749497632012-09-21T20:37:00.002+03:002012-09-21T20:37:56.609+03:00Red Jacket: A Lute Bapcat Mystery by Joseph Heywood<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Book Review by Zinta
Aistars</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2fuCiD5mGkcjrF4tA-fD7sYA4SDal-TobndrGqTSGL9th2SloYDtYFmzjsxQ4ZC4IeOnDJ0JcZHJUmeMUgO74qDoOrEJGr7YN3jwFwYJ5HNL414lSGYw9GDLoIuGXDNzU08Rug/s1600/redjacket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2fuCiD5mGkcjrF4tA-fD7sYA4SDal-TobndrGqTSGL9th2SloYDtYFmzjsxQ4ZC4IeOnDJ0JcZHJUmeMUgO74qDoOrEJGr7YN3jwFwYJ5HNL414lSGYw9GDLoIuGXDNzU08Rug/s1600/redjacket.jpg" /></a></div>
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Hardcover: 432 pages</div>
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Publisher: Lyons Press (September 18, 2012)</div>
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Price: $24.95</div>
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ISBN-10: 0762782536</div>
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ISBN-13: 978-0762782536</div>
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Sure, I’ll admit it. I’m a Woods Cop groupie. You know, that gritty
mystery series by Joseph Heywood about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Grady
Service and his sharp wit and expert moves through the woods, catching up with
the eccentric bad guy(s). So now there’s Lute Bapcat—and author Joe Heywood is still
in good form picking odd names. There’s a story to this one, this odd name, but
that’s in the book pages for your own reading.</div>
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Is Lute Bapcat a predecessor of Grady Service? Who knows where this new
series will go, or if it might connect to the woods cops of today, but I rather
hope so. Bapcat has his beginnings as one of Michigan’s first civil service
game wardens. The story opens fast in 1898 with Colonel Theodore Roosevelt
shouting for his sharpshooter. That would be President Teddy, and the man with
the sharp eye and precise trigger finger—Lute Bapcat, Rough Rider, beaver trapper
in the Keweenaw (the peninsula off the Upper Peninsula, stretching its crooked
finger into Lake Superior) and cowboy. </div>
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In the early 1900s, the Keweenaw was a bustling industrial center with
its fortune-making copper mines. Today, the area is quiet, drawing mostly only
tourists and history buffs, and some of the mines are now open for tours.
Having lived in the Keweenaw myself for a while, I have long been fascinated
with the history, imagining the lives that were lived out in those old mining
towns, and the lives that were lived out in the dark, far below the ground, in
those mile-deep mines. Bapcat gives us a window to see into that time and
brings Michigan U.P. history to vivid life.</div>
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Heywood’s trademark is always to bring a colorful cast of characters to
the pages of his novels, and he does so again in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red Jacket</i>. Along with Bapcat himself, a loner from Copper Harbor, now
pushed back into a messy civilization of corrupt village leaders and mine
owners, there is his love interest, Widow Frei, suspiciously something like a
Madam in town and who requests regular payment on Bapcat’s “debt” by visits to
her bedroom; the hilarious Pinkhus Sergeyevich Zakov, who becomes Bapcat’s
sidekick and “wife”; George Gipp, the ballplayer from Laurium (you’ll recognize
him from “one for the Gipper” fame); and Big Annie, a character based on
history who played an important part in the bloody miner strikes, and many,
many others. </div>
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The characters are placed within well researched historical events:
labor strikes that escalate into horrific violence that finally conclude with
the Italian Hall disaster in Calumet, where 73 lives, mostly women and
children, family members of striking miners, were lost. An arc and monument
from the Italian Hall can still be found in Calumet (once called Red Jacket)
today. And part of the mystery trail is traversed by one of the newest
contraptions of the time—a Model T from a man named Henry Ford in Detroit.</div>
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Bapcat and his sidekick Zakov try to bring some order to the Keweenaw
as countless deer are found decapitated and rotting in the woods, and water
streams are poisoned, killing fish and making well water undrinkable. All of
this is meant to force the miners to return to the mines or die of starvation,
but survival in the mines means coping with inhumane conditions. The Michigan
governor seems to be turning a blind eye, while the local law enforcement is
riddled with corruption.</div>
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Heywood is as sharp as ever in his storytelling skills. His sense of
humor is ever present, and his characters come alive in Technicolor, a movie
playing out before the reader’s mind’s eye. The dialogue is always realistic
and spare and often laugh-out-loud funny. Although there was a midpoint in the
story where I thought it might be edited back a bit with a bog of historical
detail, it didn’t take long before I realized I would be making the switch
easily enough from a Grady Service groupie to Lute Bapcat fan. Heywood remains
my favorite author when I crave a good mystery, set in northern wilderness. Just
enough hints were laid out for future stories in this new series, and I am
eager to follow the trail. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Joseph Heywood is the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Snowfly, Covered Waters, The Berkut, Taxi Dancer, The Domino Conspiracy</i>—and
the eight novels comprising the Woods Cop Mystery Series. Featuring Grady
Service, a detective in the Upper Peninsula for Michigan’s Department of
Natural Resources, this series has earned its author cult status among lovers
of the outdoors, law enforcement officials, and mystery devotees. Heywood lives
in Portage, Michigan, but spends much of his time riding with the real woods
cops in the Upper Peninsula. For more on Joseph Heywood and the Woods Cop
Mysteries, visit the author's web site at <a href="http://www.josephheywood.com/">www.josephheywood.com</a>.</div>
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-34937762835065262582012-08-03T21:20:00.001+03:002012-08-03T21:43:25.569+03:00The Whipping Club by Deborah Henry<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrlhqaIFjY14uXg-AMBBDScoRVmj5HuxiEUiVKBfTj9Z0cgmQktHPjhkPpV6V4-w2LK6FmJFtSAg7KaOklz6XTB6fhmX3xwhQY2wjwvVGn_X8kcDxxBcVrBP-f4s5erxh8XhyI2A/s1600/whippingclub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrlhqaIFjY14uXg-AMBBDScoRVmj5HuxiEUiVKBfTj9Z0cgmQktHPjhkPpV6V4-w2LK6FmJFtSAg7KaOklz6XTB6fhmX3xwhQY2wjwvVGn_X8kcDxxBcVrBP-f4s5erxh8XhyI2A/s320/whippingclub.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hardcover: 312 pages <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Publisher: T. S. Poetry Press (February 10, 2012) <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Price: $32.00<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">ISBN-10: 0984553185 <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">ISBN-13: 978-0984553181<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Author Deborah Henry has said about the writing of her debut novel:
“I wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Whipping Club</i> because
what I found hidden, I needed to uncover.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An understatement, no doubt, as first novels of this scope aren’t
written by merely turning over a rock. That had to be at very least a sizeable
boulder, and the courage to write it equally so. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Whipping Club</i> is a story about Marian McKeever, a teacher and a
Catholic, and the man with whom she falls in love, a journalist and Jewish, in
Dublin, Ireland, of 1957. It is about the child she carried at the time of
their engagement, but felt she couldn’t keep. It is the story of an unforgiving
society that would rather look the other way than to face its troubles, about churches
corrupted by power, about the dark secrets of orphanages and homes for unwed
mothers, and the abuse so prevalent in these institutions.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With that premise comes a great deal of suffering, and for no one more
than the abandoned child. In 1957 Ireland, to marry out of one’s faith was
unacceptable enough, but to carry a child as a young, still unwed mother was
beyond forgiveness. The young Marian made the heart-wrenching decision (or
perhaps, more accurately, was forced into this decision by the norms of that
time) to give birth to her child, but then give it up to what she hoped would
be a better life than the one she could offer. She entered a home for unwed
mothers, keeping her secret even from her fiancé. After all, his family was
already up in arms about their inter-faith marriage.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Based on extensive research, including a trip to Ireland, Henry delves
deep into the horrors behind closed doors of power and privilege. Henry is
herself Irish-American and born of inter-faith parents, Jewish and Catholic. A
seed for a novel may be born there, but Henry has created a story from that
seed that touches all hearts that can still be touched, and shakes up even those
who would rather be unshaken and remain asleep—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Whipping Club</i> whips up emotion that is difficult and painful. Few
things can be more painful than the loss of a child, let alone facing up to the
abuse of that child. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The home for unwed mothers is a cruel place of forced penance on
pregnant girls, no matter the circumstances of their condition. The girls are
sent out to “mow” the lawn by pulling up sheaves of grass with their hands.
They are taunted and punished and humiliated without and beyond reason, yet
their suffering is shadowed by what happens to many of their children. Rather
than being adopted by families, many of the children are placed instead in
orphanages where sexual abuse is rampant, beatings are an everyday occurrence, and
ever thicker and darker lies are told to maintain cover. Children die, and no
one flinches. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When Marian and Ben come full circle to confront the reality of the
child left behind, by then having a 10-year old daughter, any fantasies Marian
may have held as comfort that her child was better off are shattered. Her
unwavering search for her son is perhaps not nearly as mesmerizing as her
struggles to connect with him once she finds him. A great many doors come bursting
open, and a great many shadows are drawn into near-blinding light. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If ever the story becomes almost too heavy to bear, it is lightened
again by the characters that do the right thing, overcoming fear and threats
and societal pressure. Throwing lifelines to the reader are the resilience and
will to survive of the children. Children are a powerful force, and in spite of
the sins of the adults, enough of them survive to give a corrupt society hope
for a more tolerant and compassionate future. Classic moments of reunited mother
and child, even if only momentarily, brighten the storyline enough to keep the
suffering from becoming overpowering—yet just weighty enough to stay with the
reader long after the book is done. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“</i>Adrian.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The child she had never forgotten stood there, in between Father
Brennan and Nurse, and to Father Brennan’s left, the short and strapping Sister
Agnes, but they could all disappear into thin air. Except for him. The yearning
had never diminished. All these years, all she had ever wanted was to see him
again in the flesh, and dreamed that he would be returned to her and their home
where he could be safe and happy.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Marian crouched down so that she
could gaze into his eyes. She desperately wanted him to feel her love for him.
She wanted him to know that she was sorry, wanted to tell him that she hoped
they could make up for lost time. </i>All this time<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. Still, she could have never found him. How many times had she
secretly daydreamed about him since he was ripped from her life? How her da
would have wanted him, too! She must remain calm in front of the fat Sister. He
was a big boy, a beautiful boy. He had the map of a McKeever on his face. She
reached toward him and brought him into her arms. She felt her body shaking,
the heat of shame scouring her.”<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Deborah Henry’s first short story was published by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Copperfield Review,</i> was a historical fiction finalist for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Solander Magazine</i> of The Historical
Novel Society and was long-listed in the 2009/10 Fish Short Story Prize. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Whipping Club</i> is her first novel and
was chosed for Oprah’s </span><a href="http://www.oprah.com/book/The-Whipping-Club?editors_pick_id"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">Summer 2012
reading list</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. She lives in Fairfield, Connecticut, with her husband and
their three children. She is currently at work on her next book. Visit her at
deborahhenryauthor.com. Henry’s work has also been published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://thesmokingpoet.com/"><span style="color: blue;">The Smoking
Poet</span></a></i>, where an author interview will be featured in the Fall 2012
issue.<o:p></o:p></span>Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-34936053041366107232012-07-10T17:01:00.000+03:002012-07-10T17:01:03.730+03:00Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow: Living in an Elephant-Controlled 2010 Election DioramaA Collection of Political Poetry Musings by Jennifer C. Wolfe<br />
<br />
<em>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</em><br />
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• Paperback: 115 pages <br />
• Publisher: BlazeVOX books, 2011 <br />
• Price: $16.00 <br />
• ISBN-10: 1609640578 <br />
• ISBN-13: 978-1609640576 <br />
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Another election looms, and while this collection of political poetry musings by Jennifer C. Wolfe is dated for the 2010 elections, little has changed; they apply just as well today, if only with a few updated news headlines. <br />
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If you are a conservative in political leaning, duck. Wolfe doesn’t hold back, doesn’t mince words, isn’t shy about going for the Republican jugular. Her poetic musings take on not only the election that handed control of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Republican Party, but addresses many of the headline events of the past few years—the Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Gifford, the 9/11 responders’ battle to receive ground zero health care reimbursement, Sarah Palin’s hold on God’s ear, Rush Limbaugh’s tantrums over the airwaves, George W. Bush from every sorry angle, the election of America’s first African American president, and more. Much more. No elephant dropping is left unturned, and Wolfe comes in blazing, and turning, and blazing some more.<br />
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<em>Ah, vitriol—the new Geritol.</em><br />
<em>Swallow two pills and bash your opponent’s head in, in the morning.</em><br />
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To be fair, bashing happens on both sides, and Wolfe bashes away with gusto herself. And that’s where I give her high marks. How refreshing! How rejuvenating to hear someone care so deeply, so hotly, about current events and all that goes on in our body politic. Apathy has been too long a national cancer, and if one thinks it doesn’t matter—vote or don’t vote, pay attention or don’t, follow current events or change the channel—oh, it does. We are where we are precisely because too many of us have had our blinders on and couldn’t be bothered. <br />
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If you lean right, even a little, this collection will rile you—and that’s good. Will it inspire you to toss out a bit of vitriol yourself? Good. The important thing is to care enough to blink an eye, because that’s when change really begins to happen. If government isn’t what it should be, look in the mirror. We the people, you know? <br />
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What earns my respect most is passion, and Wolfe brims with it. I’m not sure I would use the word “poetic” to describe this collection; I see little of poetry here. The closest we get to poetry is the occasional beat of a steady rhythm in line pairings. I would cross that word out of the title and leave in, simply, musings, because that is what these are, and Wolfe muses loud and clear. Vitriol alone, however, while crucial to get the fire burning, won’t be enough. Caring must inspire action, and there are plenty of ways to create change, become involved, do the work, build the dream you want to see. If this collection moves any reader to that, I thunder applause. <br />
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Jennifer C. Wolfe grew up in Maplewood, Minnesota, and studied fiction writing and poetry at Century College in White Bear Lake. Wolfe has been published in the Century College (White Bear Lake, MN) Spring 2008 Student Lounge literary magazine; <em>Scrambler Magazine</em>; and has had three e-books published by BlazeVOX: <em>Kick the Stones: Everyday Hegemony, Empire, and Disillusionment; Yukon Rumination: Great Fun for All in the Land of Sarah Palin's Joe Sixpack Alaska</em>; and <em>Healing Optimism, and Polarization</em>. <em>Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow</em> is Wolfe's first print published book.<br />
<br />Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-9102618417365774292012-07-08T00:18:00.000+03:002012-07-08T00:18:00.995+03:00Sarabande by Malcolm R. Campbell<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></b>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Book Review by Zinta
Aistars<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paperback: 238 pages <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Publisher: Vanilla Heart Publishing, 2011 <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Price: $13.95<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ISBN-10: 1937227758 <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ISBN-13: 978-1937227753<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Matter of taste, and mine has never led me, not easily, to fantasy or
science fiction reading—yet Malcolm R. Campbell, with his fantasy novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sarabande</i>, easily pulled me in. The main
character, our mythic heroine, is Sarabande, and she appeals in every way to
the female reader. She is street smart at the same time that she is savvy, and
even as she enters a world unknown to her, she is sharp and strong enough to find her way
through challenge after challenge, disaster after nightmare. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sarabande’s quest is to find her own peace—she has been haunted by her
dead sister for years. Her quest takes her into the past to settle the
unsettled with her sister Dryad, an anti-heroine, or to take her place in her sister's
grave. She travels through Montana and Illinois and across time to accomplish
her mission, but encounters a nightmare along the way in the shape of a man,
Danny Jenks, a brutal truck driver without conscience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Campbell describes a rape scene that is difficult to read, yet at the
same time, earns my respect with his skill in describing this scene, and its
aftermath on the woman. Indeed, I had to keep reminding myself I was reading
the writing of a male author. It is rare to find this ability in an author to
cross genders even in everyday basics such as conversation, mannerisms. To do
so in describing the effect of rape on a woman’s body and psyche is nothing
short of amazing. Campbell nails it: her anger, her pain, her humiliation, her
ferocity that eventually takes her from victim to survivor to avenger. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Blending the fantasy world near seamlessly with reality, Campbell
takes the reader from one world into the other and back again with such ease
that the reader can easily enter the world of suspended disbelief required to
read fantasy. Flying horses vanish and reappear. The dead rise from their
graves. Magical beings intermingle with humans. And, not least magical,
Campbell avoids cliché deftly, finding new ways to express scenes that could
easily fall into the former category:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>“Sarabande pushed the hood back and let the wind seize her hair and
jumble it with the stuff of clouds.”<o:p></o:p></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">See? Dipping one toe into an image that could make one wince, he
manages to dance away with fresh expression. It works. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sarabande is a satisfying read. We are given a heroine we can
understand and with whom we can sympathize. We travel alongside her through conflict
and challenge, cheering her on. She suffers and endures, and finally rises
above. How she does this … you’ll have to read for yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of two other fantasies, <em>The Sun
Singer</em> (who returns in this novel) and <em>Garden of Heaven: An Odyssey</em>, also a
comedy satire called <em>Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire</em>. He lives in
Georgia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-20292270099726479892012-05-25T22:06:00.003+03:002012-05-25T22:06:53.637+03:00Keepsake by Kristina Riggle<br />
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<br /><em>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</em> <br />
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• Paperback: 384 pages <br />
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (June 26, 2012) <br />
• Price: $14.99 <br />
• ISBN-10: 0062003070 <br />
• ISBN-13: 978-0062003072 <br />
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A mother’s fear: a knock on the door from family protective services talking about taking away your child. What good mother wouldn’t turn somersaults to keep her child home and her family intact? Any good mother would—but in Kristina Riggle’s novel, <em>Keepsake</em>, doing just that is especially demanding. The reason that social worker is standing at the door ties directly into her addiction—hoarding. Hoarding is the inability to throw anything out, to the point of filling one’s living space with items until there is no room to live within that space. <br />
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Trish really is a good mother. It’s a pleasure to read about her interactions with her little boy, Jack, contrasting against the twinge of reading about her disorder. Addicts can still love, but it’s their behavior that is out of control. Riggle does a wonderful job of showing the reader that an addiction does not define a person. It’s a symptom of something buried deep inside that the person has not yet confronted and resolved.<br />
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Adding another interesting element of contrast to this story about hoarding and families is another member of the family, Trish’s sister Mary. The two women are actually the daughters of a hoarder, but while one has followed in the cluttered steps of her mother, the other has veered to the other extreme. If not quite an obsessive compulsive disorder, Mary is a neat freak who can’t seem to stop cleaning, wiping, vacuuming, ordering everything in her spotless home. <br />
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Riggle’s novel handles these elements without any clutter on the author’s part. The story cleanly moves toward a suspenseful ending: will this family be torn apart or brought together by the damage done by hoarding? Ex-husbands return, therapists sneak in disguised as friends who somehow manage to add elements of romance, and family history is unearthed to reveal deep secrets held over generations. <br />
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<em>Keepsake</em> is a fascinating read about a growing affliction in modern American society, giving readers insight into how intelligent, competent people can fall into behavior patterns with the potential to ruin lives, break apart families and endanger not only themselves but those that are close to them. It also brings up the question of why we are seeing more hoarding in our society. Insight into this phenomenon of living in clutter, unable to throw out anything, let go of any object in one’s home, can only help us take a hard look at ourselves and how we live. <br />
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Kristina Riggle is a novelist and freelance writer living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. <br />
<br />Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-49895096284712134862012-03-14T20:05:00.000+02:002012-03-14T20:05:40.403+02:00Into the Rumored Spring by Joannie Stangeland<em>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</em><br />
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• Paperback <br />
• Publisher: Ravenna Press, 2011 <br />
• Price: $11.95 <br />
• ISBN-10: 0983598274 <br />
• ISBN-13: 978-0983598275 <br />
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There’s a reason, oh many, why Joannie Stangeland is the poetry editor on my masthead at <a href="http://www.thesmokingpoet.com/" target="_blank">The Smoking Poet</a>—she knows, lives, breathes poetry. <em>Into the Rumored Spring</em> is her gift to a friend who had, but did not succumb to, cancer. From such a poet, it is nothing short of reverence, and so we know, by reading these tender words so lovingly wrought, that she honors her friend. <br />
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What can one do when a dear friend suffers? We cannot follow anyone into death, if that should be the final outcome. We cannot follow anyone into life, either. It is the aloneness that draws that invisible line between us all that none of us can cross. Yet somehow, through her poetry, Stangeland manages to prick holes in that delineation. She communicates understanding, watchfulness, honor. <br />
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The poems of this collection follow the journey of her friend through illness and surface into recovery. Each line is as gentle as the touch of a nurse over the stricken, bringing the balm of healing. Even so, there is the undercurrent of empathy with the tediousness of illness, with “the keening that wants to come out” and with the “raw gasp” of suffering. I use the word gentle, however, for even these descriptions are untainted by sensationalism. They are all deeply empathic observations, almost like the rocking motion one takes on while waiting, waiting, waiting alongside a beloved patient. <br />
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Ongoing themes, images, touch points in Stangeland’s poetry are the touch points of her friend’s illness. Her daughters who sometimes roll their eyes but bring her their blossoming; her dog Friday who brings her a chew toy; the moths that flutter about in near silence; and the water, an ongoing metaphor for life itself, and a call to life. All of these appear repeatedly in the poems in a steady rhythm like a heartbeat.<br />
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If illness makes us hold our breath in waiting, musical exhalations are regularly interspersed in the collection by verses titled “Intermezzo.” Each one is a poem of non-illness. These poems are interludes of a bowl of soup brought to her, or the staccato of tiny creature feet in the attic, or is it rain, or plum petals drifting on water. Each one is a reprieve, yet always a reminder of how life is beautiful, regardless. <br />
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In the many details of life observed from a bedside, nonetheless rich with dreaming and memory and hopes for a future, Stangeland conveys how time nearly stops when we are ill, sometimes draws out impossibly long, yet peels away one day from the next, moving us forward almost imperceptibly—and back toward life. <br />
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<em>Time starts its tick again …</em><br />
<em>the story picks up its threads—</em><br />
<em>some days a tangled mess,</em><br />
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<em>sometimes a tapestry,</em><br />
<em>brocade of gold as bright</em><br />
<em>and rich as petals in a room.</em><br />
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Joannie Stangeland, who teaches writing at Richard Hugo House and other venues and works by day at Microsoft, lives in Seattle with her husband and any grown kids who alight for a night or longer. This is her third poetry collection. Her first, <em>A Steady Longing for Flight</em>, won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her second collection, <em>Weathered Steps</em>, was published by Rose Alley Press. Joannie’s poems have also appeared in <em>Midwest Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly Online, riverrun, Tulane Review,</em> and other journals. Joannie is poetry editor for <em>The Smoking Poet</em>. An interview with her appears in the Spring 2012 issue of <a href="http://thesmokingpoet.tripod.com/spring2012/" target="_blank">The Smoking Poet</a>.Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-64032598486178752732012-02-06T21:53:00.000+02:002012-02-06T21:53:22.932+02:00Not Famous Anymore by Michael Loyd Gray<em>Book Review by Zinta Aistars</em><br />
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• Paperback: 260 pages <br />
• Publisher: Three Towers Press, 2011 <br />
• Price: $14.95 (Kindle: $9.95) <br />
• ISBN-10: 1595981578 <br />
• ISBN-13: 978-1595981578 <br />
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Elliott Adrian is famous. Very famous. And he hates that. He hates <em>that </em>and he also hates <em>it</em>—the mystical qualities with which some are blessed (or cursed, depending on one’s perspective) and that propel such people toward fame. There are entire chapters in Michael Loyd Gray’s new novel, <em>Not Famous Anymore</em>, devoted to explaining what<em> it</em> is and what <em>that</em> is. Good for a chortle. <br />
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As the story opens, we see Elliott as a 10-year-old boy, not quite holding his own against a group of adolescent bullies, in mid-swing with a Samurai sword. A horrible accident is about to happen. It’s a stunning opening and pulls the reader instantly in for the ride, although the results and ripple effects of the accident with the sword become undertext in the rest of the novel, a reminder of who Elliott is outside of the limelight, and what he still needs to do to become a man. Because<em> it</em> does not make the man. <br />
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The Hollywood scene is appropriately tacky, even distasteful. When we see Elliott in Hollywood, he’s really nobody you want to know. Ironically, that seems to be the way of stardom—the people who throw off glitz like an encumbrance are not particularly likeable once you are in the same room and get to know them close up and personal. <br />
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So is Elliott Adrian a character to whom I never was quite able to warm up to. I didn’t like him much better when he left Hollywood. He was perverse and shallow and arrogant in the glitz, and he didn’t acquire much more substance as he ran away from fame. He just became a tad less annoying. He complained about the world that made him wealthy and provided a life of ease, looking for ways to return to the more or less normalcy of the non-famous, but the whine wasn’t entirely convincing. <br />
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Something about that premise didn’t sit entirely well with me. One sees the complaining star waving away the paparazzi, even occasionally throwing fists at them, but it all seems a bit of extended showmanship. This was, after all, the fame the celebrity craved at some point? How many screen stars would pursue acting without it? Civic theatres abound, join the troupe. As for losing fame, I suspect it’s easy enough. We live in a world of attention deficit disorder and short memory spans. The next big thing, please. Walk away from the money, walk away from the lights and cameras, and I am pretty sure the world will forget you soon enough if you really are interested in being a regular guy—mind you, without the Hollywood attitude.<br />
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That said, I found Elliott most likeable when he was mostly alone in the woods with a cat. Camping in some remote southern spot, befriending a lonely cat that wanders by his campfire and watches him fish, both man and animal become, well, almost endearing. It’s hard to resist a guy who lets a cat curl up in his lap.<br />
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Soon after, the still famous actor goes home to Argus, Illinois (a fictional town we have seen in other Michael Loyd Gray novels). It’s at least a little predictable that he will run into a long lost love there who really doesn’t want to have much to do with him. While cameras follow to record some of this (Elliott still agrees to allow them to shoot film for a “reality” show), they vanish pretty conveniently when the story does better without them. <br />
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Elliott’s long lost love is single again. She has a daughter. When Elliott shows an inexplicably intense interest in meeting the daughter, it’s pretty clear to the reader how this storyline will end. No surprises here. <br />
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Best moments: Elliott reunites with a brother who has had a very different life indeed. His brother is fresh out of prison, in fact, and the two have some unresolved emotions to explore and settle. These interactions are when we get to see Elliott from his more human side, entering the world of the “regular guy,” which, in fact, can have far more meaningful drama than Hollywood will ever see. <br />
<br />
Gray is a strong writer, no question, but I have enjoyed some of his other work more than this novel. <em>Well Deserved</em>, another novel set in the town of Argus, showed a sharp skill in both telling a good story and telling it well. Gray’s skill at turning a sentence is evident in <em>Not Famous Anymore</em>, too, although the story is less intriguing and the characters less colorful. Perhaps it’s the bleaching effect of the klieg lights. <br />
<br />
Regardless, watch this author. I suspect he may achieve some fame of his own. There’s always room on the shelf for another skilled writer. The balance of reading more than one of his novels convinces me to pick up the next one to come. <br />
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.Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9713631.post-90740217751934138942011-12-22T04:24:00.000+02:002011-12-22T04:24:48.251+02:00Prelude: A Novel about Secrets, Treachery and the Arrival of Peak Oil by Kurt Cobb<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></b><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Book Review by Zinta Aistars</span></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WtuxQe9UEJo/TvKUw7WIZTI/AAAAAAAAFgs/pstitC3wKpM/s1600/prelude.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WtuxQe9UEJo/TvKUw7WIZTI/AAAAAAAAFgs/pstitC3wKpM/s320/prelude.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"> </span></i></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 6pt 18.75pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;"><span>·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="color: black;">Paperback:</span></b><span style="color: black;"> 272 pages </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 6pt 0in 6pt 18.75pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;"><span>·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="color: black;">Publisher:</span></b><span style="color: black;"> Public Interest Communications, 2010 </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 6pt 0in 6pt 18.75pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;"><span>·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="color: black;">Price:</span></b><span style="color: black;"> $14.95 </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 6pt 0in 6pt 18.75pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;"><span>·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="color: black;">ISBN-10:</span></b><span style="color: black;"> <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1324520462_1">0983108900</span> </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 6pt 0in 6pt 18.75pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;"><span>·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="color: black;">ISBN-13:</span></b><span style="color: black;"> <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1324520462_2">978-0983108900</span> </span></span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">Before I’d even opened the cover of <i>Prelude</i>, the novel about peak oil by Kurt Cobb, I knew this was going to be a good read—and an unnerving one. After all, I had heard the author speak before; we live in the same Michigan city of Kalamazoo. I knew him to be a mesmerizing speaker about all things energy and global resources, something of our local Al Gore, and I also knew that every time I heard him speak, I went home feeling shaky about our planet’s future. Shaky, but also resigned to do my part to make things better.</span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">I’ve also been a long time reader of Cobb’s intelligent and meticulously researched blog, </span><a href="http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1324520462_3">Resource Insights</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">. Every time I log on, I learn something new and find myself yet again rethinking how I use energy. Now, Cobb has put his research and insights into a novel, calling it fiction, yet this story of intrigue and espionage is based on what he has learned about how we use energy.</span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i>Prelude</i> is a story about <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1324520462_4">Cassie Young</span> during 2008, employed at an important Washington D.C. energy consulting firm. Her firm is forever making announcements about how deep go our energy reserves, but then Cassie discovers a report hidden from public scrutiny. The report reveals a looming energy crisis based on manipulated figures by major world oil exporters, and the crisis is not at all at a comfortable distance. Peak oil is a reality to which society is turning a willfully blind eye. After all, we live in a world where oil is our lifeblood, and if we should run out of this limited resource, the world as we know it would come to a screeching halt. </span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">The fast-paced story takes Cassie to Canada to take a closer look at tar sands, about which we are hearing today as another resource for oil. She meets Victor Chernov, a former oil trader, who reveals yet more damaging data to her. Forget about Cassie’s career … she is soon running for her life. This kind of information is too big for one person to carry. </span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">Who will listen? What does this mean for civilization as we know it? Consider this excerpt:</span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Suddenly for Cassie the whole world had now become one big manifestation of energy, much of it in the form of oil. Humans were not builders any more. They were just the guiding hands for the flow of petroleum that came from deep underground and then went deep into the life of society. Petroleum, she knew, was doing the lion’s share of work for the world.</span></span></i></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i>“Cassie had understood all this intellectually before. She even knew the energy industry was </i>the<i> key industry in society. Nothing got done without energy. But she had never before understood it so concretely as she did today. She wondered if she could ever go back to looking at the fountain in Dupont Circle and not think of the energy needed to pump the water, or see a farm field and not think of the oil that goes into the tractors and the combines, or even enjoy simply reading a book without thinking about the energy used to cut the logs that were moved to the mill and made into pulp and then into paper that was then shipped to the printer and bound into books that were shipped to the bookstore.”</i> (Pgs. 153-154)</span></span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">I’ve passed <i>Prelude</i> along to others interested in doing something about ecology and especially those who aren’t, and recently sent it to my son as a gift … even as I considered the energy expended to do so. The novel is well written, packed with fascinating information, and concludes with a glossary and questions answered by the author for those who wish to learn more. </span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" id="yui_3_2_0_1_1324426421854206" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span id="yui_3_2_0_1_1324426421854205" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">Kurt Cobb is an author and columnist who speaks and writes frequently on energy and the environment. His column appears on the Paris-based science news site <i>Scitizen,</i> and his work has been featured on <i id="yui_3_2_0_1_1324426421854204">Energy Bulletin, The Oil Drum, 321energy, Le Monde Diplomatique, Common Dreams, EV World</i>, and many other sites. He is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas—USA, and he serves on the board of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions. He maintains a blog called <i>Resource Insights.</i> </span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">An author interview appears in the Winter 2011-2012 Issue of </span><a href="http://thesmokingpoet.tripod.com/fallwinter20112012/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">The Smoking Poet</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">. </span></div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div><div class="yiv456890691MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.</span></div>Zinta Aistarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14047861403285268505noreply@blogger.com1