“Hands on a clock, numbers on a bathroom scale, weren’t they only ways of trying to measure invisible forces that had visible effects? A feeble effort to corral some greater reality beyond what mere humans thought of as reality?” “Elevation” by Stephen King doesn’t necessarily try to answer this weighty philosophical question but it is an interesting thought to consider […]
Book Remarks
Lessons Learned in Life’s Moments
BOOK REMARKS“But Willa knew what she meant. She had felt that way during her own childhood; she’d felt like a watchful, wary adult housed in a little girl’s body. And yet nowadays, paradoxically, it often seemed to her that from behind her adult face a child about eleven years old was still gazing out at the world.” “Clock Dance” by Anne […]
Nothing is as it Seems in WWII Espionage Novel
BOOK REMARKS“People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.” Truths are well hidden in Kate Atkinson’s latest novel, “Transcription,” a winding tale of espionage and counter-espionage during World War II. Juliet Armstrong is an 18-year-old file clerk who is reluctantly recruited into the world of spying by the British Security Service, or MI5, […]
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ – Only Truth is Stranger Than Fiction
BOOK REMARKS“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.” Imagine a story where a wealthy family succumbs to treachery from one of their own. Where family members die […]
A Florida Family of Yesteryear’s Epic Tale
BOOK REMARKSThe trials and tribulations the MacIvey clan face over 114 years is incredible. There are hurricanes (including the devastating 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane) and encounters with everything from wild boar to outlaws. “All I’m trying to tell you is to be strong. Don’t ever let nothing get you down. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to love, or to grieve when the […]
Short Stories Give Readers a Dark Look at Florida
BOOK REMARKSThe other words Groff uses to describe Florida: mold, slime mold, humidity, rot, gators, feral cats, tent cities, and snakes. LOTS of snakes. “Of all the places in the world, she belongs in Florida. How dispiriting to learn this of herself.” There are a number of books centered in and around Florida that do a wonderful job of making our […]
Novel Chronicles Syrian Journeys, Past and Present
BOOK REMARKS“It seems like people lose more than they can ever get back – a three-bedroom house, ten inches of hair, a whole color. But nobody ever says it. Does it make it easier to live with loss if you don’t name it? Or is that something you do as a mercy for other people?” This is just one of the […]
‘West,’ by Carys Davies
BOOK REMARKS“All I can say, Julie, is that they feel very real to me. All I can say is that the only thing in the world I want to do now, is to go out there, into the west, and find them.” “Them” are prehistoric wooly mammoths and the man obsessed with finding them is Cyrus Bellman. So begins “West,” by […]
‘The Book of M’ by Peng Shepherd
BOOK REMARKS“No one escaped – either because they were someone who lost their shadow, or because they were someone who loved someone who lost their shadow.” “The Book of M” by Peng Shepherd is an inventive end-of-world dystopian concept that is taken to the next level with the addition of magic realism. It could even be classified as a love story, […]
When Emotions Paralyze
BOOK REMARKS“The human brain is the universe’s most implausible science experiment.” What would you do if emotion paralyzed you? Not metaphorically or spiritually but physically. This is the premise behind “Daphne,” by Will Boast. Inspired by the myth of Daphne and Apollo, “Daphne” is based on a very obscure, but also very real, disease where any type of feeling or emotion […]
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