Dystopian Novels Ring True and Traumatic! "Life As We Knew It" "Dead and Gone" and "This World We Live In" by Susan B. Pfeffer

 "THE DEAD AND THE GONE"   by  Susan Beth Pfeffer 

Library Journal Review:
An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and every conceivable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales's parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and food begins to grow. Then worldwide volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south. The wooden, expository dialogue and obvious setup of the first pages quickly give way to the well-wrought action of the snowballing tragedy. The mood of the narrative is appropriately frenetic, somber, and hopeful by turns. Pfeffer's writing grows legs as the terrifying plot picks up speed, and conversations among the siblings are realistically fluid and sharp-edged. The Moraleses are devout Catholics, and though the church represents the moral center of the novel, Pfeffer doesn't proselytize. The characters evolve as the city decomposes, and the author succeeds in showing their heroism without making them caricatures of virtue. She accurately and knowingly depicts New York City from bodegas to boardrooms, and even the far-fetched science upon which the novel hinges seems well researched. This fast-paced, thoughtful story is a good pick for melodrama fiends and reluctant readers alike.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

Listen Up Award
Publishers Weekly
Best Books for Young Adults
Young Adult Library Services Association
Teen's Top Ten
Young Adult Library Services Association

Meet the Author:   Susan Beth Pfeffer

I decided to be a writer when I was in first grade and I've been fortunate to have lived my dream. Among my books are Kid Power, About David, and The Year Without Michael and The Riddle Streak. I'm also the author of a trilogy of books (sometimes called The Last Survivors), Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In. My 77th book, Blood Wounds, is scheduled for publication on Sept. 12, 2011. I have a 99 year old mother and a 2 year old cat and many wonderful friends.

Book Cover Summary:
It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth’s climate. For Miranda Evans life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce.

Miranda and her two brothers spend their days scavenging for food and household items, while their mother stays at home and desperately tries to hold on to the ordinary activities of their previous life. But they all know that nothing is truly normal in this surreal new world they live in.

The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda’s father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomers is Alex Morales, and as Miranda’s complicated feelings for him turn to love, his plans for his future thwart their relationship.

Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.


My Reviews:
I found these two YA audiobooks while browsing my local library's downloadable media, recently.  I'd never really heard of Susan B. Pfeffer, so I had no idea what I was in for but the story premises sounded good.  Now that I've discovered her, there's no turning back for me!  I'm a huge fan.

Dystopian novels are my newest craving and I'm always looking for good ones. It seems to me that YA fiction is hitting that mark best.  The authors are rising to the challenge, and their work is stellar...interesting and engaging.  With historical foundations such as "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, which I reviewed last month, the young adult genre has a "grandmothered" path laid for them.

It's difficult for me to listen to audiobooks.  I find them sleep inducing for one thing, and they make me want to do something with my hands for another thing..."idle hands are the devil's workshop" my grandmother taught me...so I want to stitch or knit!  When I do find something to do it often distracts me from the book!  And, further, it makes me wish I were reading the book instead of listening.  Hence, a little anxiety accompanies these things for me and I don't often make use of them.

This time, I listened attentively while making jewelry and found I was lost in the books, hardly knowing what I was making!  These books are very special.  The narrator is perfect for the main character, Miranda.  Her voice reached to the heart and captured the true essence of Miranda.  This alone made the books more believable.

Ms Pfeffer clearly is a veteran writer.  Her dialog is perfectly pitched and her characterization is excellent.  It reaches an ordinary cadence to the listener/reader making each character both real and full-bodied.  They were individuals that I felt close to and loved knowing.  I was, of course, especially fond of Miranda, but I also found myself protective of her mother, who tried so hard to maintain a safe and "normal" existence for her children amidst the decay that leached life all around them.  All of the characters lend themselves to one's interest and concern.  I've rarely found this in novels of any genre. 

In these novels a meteor has crashed into the moon and set the Earth into a disaster of such proportions that life hangs by a thread.  The sun is hidden, ash and smoke covers everything, thousands of people die and continue to die from catastrophic disasters.  Without the sun the plants and crops are contaminated and fail, and such common things as running water and electricity become non-existent.  Food becomes rationed and is minimal.  Miranda and her brothers scavenge abandoned homes for such simple items as toilet paper, books and soap. 

Relationships take on a new significance in this uncertain new world.  People become more precious and a new baby becomes even more a treasure.  Sickness and any sort of medical condition becomes a disaster waiting to happen with no hospitals and no medical supplies.  When one of the family is seriously injured, Miranda is faced with a moral dilemma that could affect all of them. 

All of these books are very special reads or audiobooks, whichever your choice may be.  While I haven't read "The Dead and The Gone" yet, I hope to as soon as I can get a copy of it.

Ms Pfeffer is a very gifted writer who makes characters rise above the ordinary.  She is more than imaginative, she's able to create worlds that are so believable you could walk into them in a blink of the eye.  It was frightening at times to hear the struggles Miranda and her family were enduring...making me wonder if life after a horrendous disaster of such proportions would be viable for the elderly and infirm at all.

"Foretelling" and eye-opening, these are books you really
don't want to miss this year.  Dystopian books at their best.

5 stars

  Here is a cover preview of Pfeffer's new book to be released in September.  I can hardly wait, and am hoping for a copy to review.  Stand by!

Please take a moment to visit her site to see her other books.  She's quite a prolific author of YA fiction.  And, she has amassed considerable awards for the books above...

http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/

Happy reading!
Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

"The Fear Principle" ~ An Interesting Syfy Slant on Criminal Rehibilitation

The Official Book Summary:On Prison Planetoid Three, Jaguar Addams and Alex Dzarny rehab the worst criminals by telepathically making them face their fears. Their current case is hitwoman Clare Rilasco, emotionless, beautiful, and part of a death machine plot that threatens to take over the world.
Jaguar can’t tell who the bad guys are anymore, as she’s dragged into her own terrifying past by Clare’s telepathic tricks. While the search for the man behind the mirror continues, Jaguar and Clare are enmeshed in a relationship of seduction and trickery that makes Jaguar face her own deepest fears.

 

About the Author~Barbara Chepatis:
BARBARA CHEPAITIS is author of 7 published novels, including the critically acclaimed Feeding Christine and These Dreams, as well as the sci-fi series featuring Jaguar Addams. The fourth novel in that series, A Lunatic Fear was a finalist for a Romantic Times Bookclub award. Her first nonfiction book, Feathers of Hope, came out through SUNY Press in July.
She has optioned two scripts, and has recently been awarded a seed grant to develop a documentary titled Making Peace.
She is founder and director of the storytelling trio The Snickering Witches, and faculty with Western College of Colorado’s MFA program in creative writing.

Read an Excerpt:

“You’re way out of line, Dr. Addams,” he said coldly. “Whatever Nick’s doing, I’ll handle. You better keep track of yourself.”

“Oh, I can track myself. Don’t you worry.” She put her hands on his desk and her face level with his, leaning forward.
“I can track a cat under a new moon, or the smallest scent of death in open air. I can track last week’s eagle in a cloudy sky. And I can track you, Supervisor. Even you. So keep Nick away from me, or I’ll take care of him myself. My way.” She shifted her wrist deliberately, letting him see the tip of her glass knife, gleaming red at her wrist. She gave it a second, two seconds. Then she turned on her heel and left.

My Review:

I found "The Fear Principle" to be an odd book of good things and not so good.  While I thought the premise was fantastic and I chose to read this book as a part of my research on new and fairly unknown authors, the book fell somewhat short of my expectations.

There is no doubt that Ms Chepatis is an author whose books are published and enjoyed by many. I haven't read her other books, sadly, and perhaps that would answer some of my questions having to do with "The Fear Principle." This is one of the books in her series about Jaguar Addams, and to be fair...I don't think this is a stand alone book.

From my perspective, I found this book difficult to get into. I was not interested in the characters, per se. Even Jaguar didn't enlist my sympathies, nor did I feel an affinity to her, or a sense of her actual work. To me, the story seemed disjointed in terms of what was really happening and what was telepathically created for the criminals.

What I did enjoy about the book was the possiblitites...that is, I enjoyed the parts that made me think. I enjoyed the parts that kept me reading, wondering how Ms Chepatis would handle Jaguar's relationship with Nick and Alex.  I wondered how she would pull her relatively minor criminal out of his psychic-world to rehabilitation, and how she would use her very dangerous hit-woman to save herself and others.  It was the getting there that just wasn't well done in the writing, for me.

I recommend this book with some hesitations.
It gets a 1 star...meaning it's interesting but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to everyone.

Perhaps those who are familiar with Ms Chepatis' other books will be excited with this new series addition!

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

Elizabeth I : A Novel by Margaret George



First of all, I want to talk about the glorious cover of this wonderful book.  I'm one of those who is drawn to a book cover, and this one is simply irresistible.  The Rose of England is featured with the two colors of red representing Elizabeth's two ages she reigned...as a young girl until her elderly years.  Her picture shows her beauty at her prime...a woman of wisdom and wry humor in her eyes and mouth, dark red curly hair, the wealth of her dynasty displayed in her jewels an clothing, and hidden in the shadows...a courtier...a young man with the downcast eyes of one who defers to his Queen.  The title of "Elizabeth" is even a copy of her actual signature with the "Z" as she always signed her name.  A symbolic and fabulous cover that introduces us to the Rose of England.

Margaret George is an author of renown. Her books have ridden the best sellers list for years and justly so.  I remember carrying around "The Autobiography of Henry the VIII"...that heavy volume all through my trip to California in the late 1990's...even to Venice Beach!  I just couldn't bear to put it down. 


My Review:

"Elizabeth I: A Novel" is a lush book, filled with fabulous details and intrigue from the Elizabethan court and the life of a young woman who was born into a responsibility which challenge she was expected to rise.

Ms George's use of dialog and description draw us easily into her story.  It's as if we are the proverbial "little birds" sitting on the shoulders of her characters, seeing and hearing all the private and mysterious secrets of Elizabeth, Lettice, her Deliahish cousin, and her beloved men think and do.  Robert Dudley, Elizabeth's life-long love tugs at our hearts while we feel her longing and heartbreak over his loyalties, desires and, then betrayals.

With the experience and exceptional qualities of a seasoned author, Ms George writes a book that is reader friendly, completely enchanting and absorbing and historically acurate where important.  I had a very difficult time putting away ELIZABETH I even to go to sleep. 

A daunting book by any standards, with roughly 667 pages, this volume is thick and heavy. I happen to love that kind of book, personally. I find books of this ilk by tried and true authors ones I buy by sight...knowing it will be a reading experience and not just a quick hit

"Elizabeth I.." is a story that is so beautiful and historical that anyone who reads historical romance will be wise to read it to find the difference between formula novels and the real thing.  There is a concerted difference between literature and a written for the light, supermarket genre.

I highly recommend this book because of its story that is easily understood, its flow of storyline, its portrayal of characters of a generation of heroes, fabulous courts and masters such as Shakespeare; and finally, for its easy and understandable link between Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake, and the fantastic battles that placed England as the greatest nation of its time.

I have generally read Margaret George's books in the Summer because I wanted time to savor them.  It's a good time now to read this one.

5 stars...go get this volume for your library!

Deborah/The Bookish Dame

Read More

Vampire Gothic Opera in Poetry~"Ordeal" by T. K. Varenko



Truly this picture does not do the cover of "Ordeal" justice!  It's a gorgeous and shocking cover..grey as death, marbled with veins of red running randomly through it...so unusual. The title is scripted in old world and ornamented as an illuminated letter, each page is topped with a gothic swirl...haunting and beautifully packaged for a fairytale story of vampirish, unrequited love.

The Cover Summary:

It is a verse-ornated story
About love, betrayal, wrath,
Royal vampires' bliss and glory
Bringing them straight to their death.
Luella, fierce, strong vampire,
Falls for a pretty human catch
Sent on her fiancé's desire
To celebrate they are engaged.
This unexpected turnabout
Is doomed to come to a dead end:
Her human sweetheart's dead to shroud;
Her fiancé's avenged for that;
And she is punished for blood treason,
Banished into a mortal child,
Whose human body is a prison
For all her powers to bind.
Her memories obliterated,
She is to find her love at last
Who proves to be too much related
To the misfortunes from her past.

A picture of the lovely T. K. Varenko.  Who now guides students in English writing skills.  Here below is her bio.:

Tatyana's birth as human being
Took place in 1982,
In June, when weather was appealing
And sparkling with the morning dew.

As she grew up, too shy by nature,
Her friends were Pushkin, Dante, Wilde
Who wrote of love and of adventure -
She dreamt of the vampire kind.

As time went by, she took to versing
When she got hardly over ten,
And life was constantly coercing
Tatyana to employ her pen.

The Foreign Languages Department
She joined in 1999
Served as a very good incitement
For her verse writing to refine.

Then the first sketches were laid out,
When she was drawing to 18,
Ordeal began to come about
To lighten up her dull routine.

Now she's working as a teacher
Training her students' English skills
That her department has to feature
And help acquire in the drills.

Plans:

I'm working on my second novel
Where new skeletons emerge
From the cupboards of the story
Told in Ordeal and on its verge.

It will be more large-scale in action
And introduce the elfin breed
Describing their interaction
With the vampire kind amid.

The two most powerful races
Will meet in fateful intercourse
Unraveling deceitful laces
Woven in love, intrigues and wars.

* * *

I'm also planning on compiling
A book of poems I've composed
That I consider most beguiling
And feel like making them exposed.

My Review:
What a darling volume of poetry cum storytelling.  Reminiscent of vampire opera described in Anne Rice's Vampire Lestat books, Tatyana Varenko's book is immanently enchanting because of its theme and innocence.  I have to confess a special adoration for such little treasures that have a shelf in my library.

As noted in her own verse above, this is the tale of unrequited love between Alice, a past-life royal vampire, and her "pretty human catch," Derek. Fraught with the struggles and angst of young love and dangerous liasons, this little tome is meant for YA audiences, positively.

As an adult reader, I can only applaud Ms Varenko's attempts to put to four meter verse her frothy story of darkness and gothic doom.  While it doesn't quite translate in all circumstances, its naivety is charming and not to be underestimated.  It has much of the impact of Sleeping Beauty and a dark Rapunzel, both caught in a witch's sinister web and tangled in unimaginable dangers.

Her story is told, the gothic nature is preserved, the characters are fleshed out and visible to the reader and its quality is very good.  What's missing is a flow of verse which causes it to be often jarring, interrupting the pace of the story. Further, I felt that Ms Varenko would have been able to give us more of her lush descriptive art had she not be constrained by verse. It took some time to look beyond this mechanical problem to enjoy her book.  A good editor could have helped with this, however.

In addition, I lament that this darling poetry was splashed about with bits of slang and slippage of language.  It distracted, sadly, from the atmosphere I believe Ms Varenko wanted to create.  Again, an editor could have led her to see this. 

I give this example:

"When you were born as a vampire,
You seemed to be designed for throne,
Cruel and cold to all desire,
But then he came -- and all went wrong.

You fell in lovey-dovey frenzy
Not seeing clearly ahead,
Your instincts and your mind got hazy--
The change was definitely sad."

To my mind, the "lovey-dovey" played childish to what was otherwise in keeping with her gothic rendering.

While "Ordeal" is not perfect in every way, it is a perfection of sorts.  Like a strawberry shortcake whose whipped cream has slipped slightly askew, it's still delicious and tasty.  You don't want to miss having a bite, and you can't help savoring every bit of it.  That's what this book is like.  It would make the perfect present for your "Twilight" loving or vampirish collecting friends.

I liked it.  I see it as primarily  a YA book that will be akin to those who love Edgar Allen Poeish poetry in their teens.  And, for those of us who remember and love Poe, it's a skip back to those nostalgic days of Annabelle and the cliffside death.

Charming and darkly gothic...  3.5 to 4 stars.

For more information, please visit the author's site at:
www.elfineness.com/author.html    I found it most intriguing!


The Bookish Dame/Deborah

Read More

"The Killing Storm"~A new Sarah Armstrong series mystery~ by Kathryn Casey

Touted by reviewers as the best in the Sarah Armstrong mystery series, this book by Kathryn Casey is a page-turner you can't miss!
Watch this video for an outstanding preview...

Here's the plot from Kathryn Casey's perspective:

A quiet afternoon in the park, and four-year-old Joey Warner plays in the sandbox, when a stranger approaches looking for his runaway dog. While Joey’s mom, Crystal, talks on her cell phone, the stranger convinces the child to help search. By the time Crystal turns around, her son has disappeared. Yet her behavior is odd, not what one would expect from a distraught mother. Is Crystal Warner somehow involved in her son’s abduction?

Meanwhile, on a cattle ranch outside Houston, Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the hide of a slaughtered longhorn, a figure that dates back to a forgotten era of sugarcane plantations and slavery. Soon other prizewinning bulls are butchered on the outskirts of the city, each bearing a different but similar drawing. Before long, the investigations converge at the same time a catastrophic hurricane threatens. Someone very close to Sarah is brutally murdered, and the clock ticks, as the storm moves in. If Sarah doesn’t act quickly, the child will die.

Here's a picture of Ms Casey, unassuming as she is, her mind is a steel trap!  She's devoted to her little dog, Nelson.



My Review:
I've just finished reading The Killing Storm as a tropical storm of thunder and lightening grumbles and blitzes its way around me and the skies are dark with torrential rains.  I'm glad it's in this setting Kathryn Casey's book draws to an end for me because her story climaxes during a horrendous hurricane that wars demonically against her protagonist, Sarah Armstrong. I couldn't have asked for more atmospheric drama!

However, in this case, I didn't need the help of a storm at  home to experience her book because Ms Casey had me spellbound and muscle-strained with tension and suspense by itself.  She has the ability to create a tightly woven procedural of a kidnapping in which one feels drawn along moment to moment feeling the pressure to find a little boy before he's killed.  This atmosphere Kathryn Casey creates is exhilarating and realistic enough with all its symbols, loose gaps and questions.

Sarah Armstrong, the Texas Ranger who is the central figure of Ms Casey's mystery series, is intelligent, driven and womanly.  Not your typical pushy and sometimes offensive woman law enforcer, Sarah is a refreshing alternative.  I like her strength that comes from competence, self-confidence and a cooperative spirit of equality, a valuable sign of a woman's "coming of age" in a man's world.  It stands Kathryn Casey well for the creation of such an admirable and unique character.  I loved Sarah's winning ways and was inspired by her leadership and heroics.

Succinct and thorough, highlighted with family, friendships and love interests that make Sarah's life full and compassionate, I grew interested in adjunct characters who aren't over-played but who easily might work into future books.  I felt an ominous sense of their safety hanging over The Killing Storm.  Her mother, a rancher and bakery owner is also a strong, wise, silver-haired, very capable woman to be admired; and, her early teen-aged daughter is a trooper, too.

Kathryn Casey's years as a non-fiction crime writer (she's published several books in this genre), and magazine writer, are evident in her well disposed novel.  She leaves no rock unturned as investigative thought processes form, and she doesn't waste the reader's time by dragging the story on with unnecessary side commentary as if we were novices.  Ms C. respects the intelligence of her readers, obviously...another refreshing find in a mystery writer.  Some of this ability must come from her writing and researching of non-fiction murders.  She understands and conveys the facts at a pace that keeps us wanting more.  I believe she understands the psychology and mind of a killer and lets us in on that, too...an altogether enticing and proverbial "edge of the seat" experience.

What more can be said except this novel is one you who love a good mystery will not want to miss, and will want to collect along with your favorite authors.  I certainly see Sarah Armstrong's in my future...I'm absolutely reading the first books in this series.

I shudder to draw a comparison for you with another mystery writer.  Kathryn Casey is a singular writer whose characters will be read for themselves alone.

5 stars
Please see:  http://www.kathryncasey.com/  for more on this book and others, including a chapter or so to read!

Deborah/TheBookishDame



Read More

"A Doctor's Journey" A Collection of Memoirs by Fredric A. Mendelsohn, MD

BOOK COVER SUMMARY :

Practicing neurologist Frederic A. Mendelsohn takes you on an insider’s journey through the sometimes startling landscape of American medicine today. Inspired by his own encounters during thirty-five years of clinical practice, Mendelsohn’s stories range from the tragic to the droll, but each speaks in some way to the incredible strength of the human spirit.
Here’s a taste of the remarkable stories in A Doctor’s Journey: “Searching for Salvation” – A teenage boy is seriously injured in a boating accident, but the effects of his accident are even greater on the boy who injured him. “Casanova Complex” – A gifted surgeon who looks like Tom Cruise – “if Tom Cruise were on steroids” – gets an unexpected fifteen minutes of fame while romping with a hospital nurse. “Wally the Whale” – A tale about several epileptic patients, but mostly about Wally, an unforgettable character who tries to murder the good doctor. “Angela's Angel” – A young woman, critically injured in a motor vehicle accident, makes a miraculous recovery, but the infant daughter of her angelic sister – who has been part of that recovery -- suffers a heartbreaking medical tragedy of her own. “Mambo Mendez” – Part confessional, part memoir, part introduction to the author’s musical heritage, this story shows the struggle of blending family life with the rigors of a medical practice.
Mendelsohn also explores the notion that a strong background in Debussy, Ravel and Satie may do as much to prompt the mental creativity and flexibility essential to successful doctoring as does a comprehensive training in phrenic nerves and conversion disorders.

Dr. Frederic C. Mendelsohn, MD:

MY REVIEW:

Doctor Mendelsohn's journal is positively impossible to stop reading.  It is told from the perspective of a passionate and dedicated practioner of neurological medicine; but, just as importantly, it's told from the life experience of a sensitive and committed doctor.  All of this a rarity in today's practice of medicine, particularly in his chosen field of expertise, and in the writing of medical memoirs.

I could not help falling in love with Dr. M.  I loved his careful descriptions of his patients~the way he fleshed out each one so humanely and with such a caring hand.  With every attention to the respect and dignity he bases his medical practice upon, we come to see his patients through his eyes no matter how strange and horrendous their diseases and incapacities.  This careful attention and sense of the specialness of each patient makes Mendelsohn's memoirs stand out in any group.

The patients recalled in this collection are so interesting and unique as not to be forgotten.  I found myself telling friends and family about them.  They were heroic in the face of diseases, pain and earth-shattering news.  Dr. Mendelsohn handled each case with discretion and often a sense of humor that helped them cope, it seemed to me.  I was impressed with his willingness to correct doctors and nurses alike who failed to respect the dignity of his patients.

Interestingly enough, Mendelsohn attributes much of the finest of doctoring; the ability to diagnose through that "second sense" or what we often call that intuitive, gifted or natural doctoring...to a side of the brain's development enhanced by early exposure to music and/or art.  This hypothesis was a lightbulb insight to me, but stands to reason in terms of the life experiences I have had in raising children on the gifted spectrum. 

Music develops a different pathway to the brain, an area concerned with language, sensitivity, intuitiveness, and visualization of solutions "outside the box" that those who have not been exposed to it in early development do not experience to the same degree.  He sites the studies done on the "Mozart Effect" of which most of us have become familiar.

I quote:
"As so much of doctoring is listening, understanding, problem-solving, the ability to accept the details that don't quite fit, and to have a flexibility of mind--an ability to make meaning out of disparate symptoms (and sometimes hostile subjects)--wouldn't the brain sensitive to the forms that led Einstein to his most valuable scientific breakthrough be valuable in the practice of medicine? ...when Professor Einstein was asked how he came upon relativity theory, he claimed,

     "It occurred to me by intuition and music was the driving force behind that intuition.  My discovery was the result of musical perception."   (Saturday Evening Post, 1929)

All in all, this rather small book of 156 pages is one I could hardly stop reading.  I discovered it through Outskirts Press which you can find at:  http://outskirtspress.com   and which will give you more information regarding "A Doctor's Journey..."

Highly recommened book. For men, women, and college students considering a medical career.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

BACK IN THE STACKS:

I chose this classic, award-winning novel for my Bookish Libraria Blog as a "Back in the Stacks" review book this past week.

It's actually, unbeknownst to me prior to my reading it, a dystopian novel about the coming of age and the coming to wisdom and understanding of a young boy in a futuristic society. A book I missed reading in school, but which my children were exposed to in my own childrens' time, this is somewhat dated in spots, I felt, but held the same sort of message that we hear and see in our own world and society today through a plethora of young adult literature.  That alone makes it worthy of reading!

It's a small book, but every page is profound. Lois Lowry knows how to write exactly like my Rhetoric professor wanted us to write...with precision and acuracy. Her every word has a purpose and meaning. And, in that instance, we discover that we need to pay attention, acutely, to what she's telling us.
This is a serious book with a warning for young and old, alike.
 
I found it most poignant that Ms Lowry wrote "The Giver" for young people at their pivitol age.  It's a book that is meant to make them consider the society they are apart of without a doubt, but it's also meant to make them question the world and the ways of life they've taken for granted. It hopes, it seems, to help them shed the scales from their eyes and take the plugs from their ears...to have the courage to rise up again the norm.  For that alone, I found it worthy of the Newberry Prize.

It seems to me that as adults we fear young people. We want to corral them, to keep them in check, to make sure they don't skate board near the Library. There's alot about them that reeks of uncontrollable power and unhinged disaster. There's impulse on edge, and the half-here-and-half-there sense of what's going to really damage their lives and the lives around them, and what's not.  Because of this, teens and pre-teens have this magical quality to them...this freshness of vision coupled with this wildness of vision like the boys in "Lord of the Flies," like those vampires and psychics and witches they "wanna be" in the YA novels.

In "The Giver" we see such power in the young protagonist. He is pent up and on the verge of destruction in several instances. We see him risk breaking serious rules only to see him pull back and turn to the side of wisdom to protect those he loves.   This is the quality that Lois Lowry is telling the young to emulate, this is the hidden treasure that the Giver has to offer~this potential to create a new system lovingly, or simply to destroy mindlessly. 

Ms Lowry acknowledges the terrible strength and power of the young adult to be victorious or to vanquish and offers an instruction of vision, values and valor.  In a society where everything is ordered, equal, peaceful and happy...life is not valued, and people deemed less than fit for society are done away with like old newspaper.
"The Giver" is a book worthy of literary and humanitarian awards, and it's a book worthy of being the classic it's become.

I strongly recommend "The Giver" to everyone, young and old, who hasn't already read it...and even to those who have.  It's a good time to reread this book. It's an especially good time to read it...

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

Werewolf Nazi's in America During WWII~ POWs Housed~ "German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946"

German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946
Diversion Press, distributed by Ingram
$24.95
Pages: 228, incl. pictures

BOOK SUMMARY:
"German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass..." presents a case of American humanitarianism, adherence to international law, southern hospitality, and friendship and mutual respect between "enemies" in a brutal and bitter war. This academic work provides the first book length look at the housing of German prisoners of war in Kentucky during World War II. This book tackles the mysterious murals painted by prisoners at Camp Breckinridge, the Afrika Korps symbols left on chimneys at Fort Knox, and the issues of Nazi versus anti-Nazi at Camp Campbell. The impact of the "forced" German POWs on Kentucky's wartime economy cannot be underestimated. This important work tells Kentucky's story of housing, working, and entertaining over 10,000 German prisoners during the Second World War. German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass shows how the U.S. POW program uniquely affected an individual state with end results that had local, national, and international implications.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in World War II, the U.S. home front, Kentucky history, German history, or prisoner of war treatment.

AUTHOR'S BIO.:

Dr. Antonio Thompson is a native Kentuckian who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in History in 2006.  He began studying German POWs held in the US during WWII in 1998 while working on his Master's Degree at Western Kentucky University. 

From the Author:

Just a quick background that might help.  I am professor of history at Austin
Peay State University, I finished my Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky.  I
work on U.S. and German history, mostly World War II era, but my teaching and
research areas are a bit broader.

I just returned from a one year teaching assignment at the United States
Military Academy at West Point.  My second book, "Men in German Uniform," was
published in the fall.  I have a third book under contract.  I am married, with
three children.  I enjoy teaching and research.

Sincerely,

Antonio Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Austin Peay State University

MY REVIEW:

"German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass:..." was a complete revelation to me. I had no idea that the United States brought Nazi POWs to our country, housed them, fed them, taught them and used them for labor during the 2nd World War. In the 1960's, as an Army Brat, I lived and went to high school at Ft. Knox. According to this book, I was at school within a few hundred yards of a POW barracks, and yet, we were never taught, informed or led to the site for studies. I find that an astounding and appalling lack of teaching and a serious gap in American History!

Professor Thompson's comprehensive book of the years that German POWs were brought to the several US States, including KY, is fascinating. Rather than the dry and sometimes boring history books of so many other writers, his book is infinitly readable and draws one in as a novel would. I was captivated from the Preface forward.

With a concentrated and well-documented hand, Dr. Thompson leads us from start to finish through the story of how Nazi priosoners of war were transported on supply ships from Germany to the US, to their release and being shipped home at the end of WWII...apparently better for their having spent the time in the US than they would have been as soldiers for their Homeland. 

It was startling to find that Nazis replaced our men as laborers at farms, industrial plants and other home shops where needed, to continue the economic balance of the US during the war time. I had no idea! Not only were they paid for their labor and "non-labor" according to the Geneva Convention, but they were given a "better" protein (meat) diet than the American population who were rationed, until it was discovered and a hew and cry went up.

American families, ever the welcoming and forgiving Christian nation that we are, made of immigrant stock and stem, were kindly and caring of the Nazi workers. These US families were warned and reprimanded with threats of taking their priviledges of hiring German laborers away, against giving them treats and special favors. I found this a most profound issue, specifically since these very men and their nation were the ones killing our own boys overseas at the same time. Where opportunity presented itself, some even aided the Germans in escape plans and married them.

Dr. Thompson is an author of immense talent. He has the quality of a writer of fiction while producing a work of non-fiction so absorbing that it is nearly impossible to put down. It never feels heavy or like reading the proverbial academic history book. He writes as if one were reading a secret document discovered from the desk of a Commanding Officer "for your eyes only." I loved this book!

I most heartedly recommend "German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946" to both women and men. And, I especially recommend it to teachers of American History for themselves and their students. It's a national shame that we weren't apprised of this information.

Finally, I want to share with you that Nazi POWs were also housed and labored in other States such as: Oklahoma, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennesse, Mississippi, Arizona, and Louisiana...not just in Kentucky. 

Further and frighteningly enough, a large group of rabid Nazis maintained a sect calling themselves the "Werewolves." This group infiltrated the more compliant anti-Nazi contingency, who were the main laborers, and became life-threatening to them, both murdering and torturing them. The Werewolves were also intrepid laborers in our communities with little supervision from military guards. Horrifying by any standards...

This book is available at Amazon and other book retailers, as well as through Diversion Press at:  http://www.diversionpress.com/

Your Bookish Dame/Deborah

Read More

"More Than Good-Bye...As One Journey Ends, Another Begins" by S. Carol Crovo



What happens when we die? Have we been here before, and if we made mistakes in our lives, will we get an opportunity to make them up to our loved ones? This is the stuff of S. Carol Crovo's new novel, "More Than Good-Bye~As One Journey Ends, Another Begins..." She poses the questions and spins a story that will answer these questions in her own way.

Through the eyes and lives of her main character, Jane, who has died suddenly and is given a second chance at her own life, we see how one can become a more fulfilled person by experiencing life to the fullest with love, joy, acceptance of sorrows, forgiveness and sharing a spiritual kindness. Expressing love to others becomes a significant key to Jane's happiness and completeness. Her life and her connection to her loved ones is made more significant, infinitely more meaningful; and, she's able to "relive" it without feeling she's left messages to them undone. We learn along with Jane that love is the answer to life's meaning.

S. Carol Crovo writes her novel from a gentle and caring perspective. Her sense of timing in the character interactions is spot on, as is the fleshing out of her characters. We come to believe the people and places of the novel can actually be found somewhere in mid-America. Jane is an "everywoman" with the mind of any woman who has died without being able to say good-bye to her children and husband.

I was particularly interested in Ms Crovo's handling of Jane's connection with the spiritual. By means of "Golden Boy" who served as guide on her relived journey, there was less confusion and more a sense of clarity in the story as a whole. This clever device was one that was not intrusive, but fit the storyline perfectly.

"More Than Good-Bye" is a gentle and sweet book. Written by an author who has a message of hope and meaning. This is not a book for those seeking a deep literary experience, however, but for those seeking an answer to what it might be like to be able to "come back" and relive their lives. It is a sort of confirmation of life in another stage and dimension~life continuing on after this earthly existence. I must be clear that it is not a Christian novel, however, rather it's a book that works to transcent religions in a "what-if" manner in order to reach a wider audience.

If you're looking for a novel that's one to sail through and that may answer some of your musings about life after death, this one might interest you. It's a charming book that's light-hearted for the most part, as well as being a map of dealing with tragedy and loss. It might bring some comfort in the loss of a loved one to a sudden death without having time for final good-byes.

While I cannot recommend this book to all my readers, I can recommend it to those mentioned above.  I would rate this book a 3.5...I liked it, but it's not for everyone.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

"Inzanesville" by Jo Ann Beard~ My Top 10 Fav. of 2011

Published by: Hachette Publishing Group/Little, Brown & Co.

Book Summary:

The beguiling fourteen year old narrator of Inzanesville is a late bloomer.  Even in her small midwestern city, where modesty is prized and self-assertion is a faux pas, she flies under the radar--a sidekick, a third wheel, a marching band dropout, a disastrous babysitter, the kind of girl whose eureka moment is the discovery that "fudge" can't be said with an English accent.

Luckily, she has a best friend, a similarly undiscovered girl with whom she shares the everyday adventures--sometimes harrowing, sometimes embarrassing--of a 1970's American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed and character is forged.

In time, their friendship is tested--by their families' claims on them, by clique of popular girls who stumble upon them as if they were found objects, and by the first startling, subversive intimations of womanhood.

With dry, irrepressible wit and piercing observations, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America's innumerable Zanesvilles is a world of wonders, and that within the souls of the awkward and the overlooked often burns something radiant.

About the Author:

Jo Ann Beard is the author of The Boys of My Youth and the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.  She teaches nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Rhinebeck, New York.

 What Others Say:

"Sixty years after Salinger's portrait of a sensitive young man, we have a sensitive young woman that is every bit as poignant and powerful as "The Catcher in the Rye."

My Review:

"Inzanesville" is a steady walk through the mire and joys of insanity called adolescence while trying to navigate the delicate, treacherous landmines of a dysfunctional family.  Inzanesville, shortly recognized as a euphemistic "insanesville" quickly draws us into the place and time of what we understand is going to be a crazy ride and a gripping story.


Jo Ann Beard is enchanting and brilliant with an uncanning frankness that's irresistible to readers. She is an earthy writer, one who doesn't use flowery language and whose story packs more punch for it.  She's an author of grass roots. When she writes, she shows us descriptive moments and places we can  remember and see with flashbacks from our own lives.  This is a skill so rare in fiction today, it's a wonder to experience.


She had me laughing through my tears.  This timeless use of humor to cover pain is always piercing and effective.  Her prose is tight, as I mentioned, and she doesn't mince words to get across the  message she has for us.  There's no time wasted in gift wrap, but Ms Beard gives us her story in straight talk that magnifies its impact and hilarity.  It's an unfliching tale, one of angst and emotional suffering...life and circumstances inflicting pain and epiphanies that are the essence of growing up, survived through a warped sense of humor and a mind not given over to the wellsprings of "insanesville."


I asked myself how such a book could be both enjoyable to read and hold such childhood nightmares at the same time. I could only come up with this:  A writer of remarkable courage and gifts could only have written this through personal experience.


Ms Beard's protagonist, aptly and coincidently named Jo "after one of the "Little Women, but not the one who was (her) my favorite--Amy," is wise beyond her years.  As the narrator of her own story, Jo brings us along with her in a journey that leads her into an awakening and a growing up that she must do....her mother having told her it's time she gets beyond being a "late bloomer."  What seems sad is that she finally attains this putting aside of childhood, only to give up what's won in, what I felt was, a sort of acceptance of the inevitable.  But, this is generally the outcome of coming-of-age, isn't it?  In reality.  All childhood illusions are crushed, the barriers of innocence and disbelief are torn down and eyes are opened to the bare, naked truth for better or for worse.


I'm walking a tightrope here, being somewhat vague because this is a book that must be read to be grasped in its impact, which is both moving and lasting.  Along the difficult road she treads, Jo finds lasting friendship and its meaning, her personal calling, and a way to work out her emotional struggles and world-view through art. It's delightful to me that she stumbles upon Surrealism and chooses that as her artistic vehicle! She begins to understand her parents and  family dynamics, and that she has choices to make for her own life. I think it's hilarious that it all manifests itself to her in her surreal artwork.


"Inzanesville" is a book that will touch your heart, make you laugh heartily; one that will stop you dead in your tracks and open your eyes.  It will recall to you your own junior high years, absolutely, possibly including that late 60's-early '70's basement den where lots of partying took place!  And, if you happen to be one of those unfortunate children who had to tread (perhaps still tread) the inelegant, ugly and treacherous waters of a dysfunctional family, it will give you something to think through, again.  I was particularly impacted by Jo's constant worries nearly every day that her depressed and alcoholic father was planning and attempting suicide. I really felt like helping, myself!


This book will undoubtedly rank in my Top Ten Favorite Books of 2011.  Despite its blend of the tragic with the hilarious, ultimately, it is downright fabulous reading!   Jo Ann Beard is a truth-teller, and a court jester of a word spinner tossing out unexpected jolts of humor, catching us off guard; then, as the illusion of laughter begins to crumble, leaving us with a sinking feeling of contemplation and a sense of Jo's and her friends' and family's anxieties. 


I must add as an aside that Little, Brown and Co., does a tremendous job of chosing and publishing outstanding authors and books such as this one.  I am a fan of independent authors and their books, as well.  However, the caliber of author Hachette Publishing has been chosing is, bar none, excellent.   It's a given if you pick up one of Little, Brown's books, you're going to have a superior author with a book that is worthy of the title "literature."

 PS:  Little, Brown & Co. offers you this link to read an excerpt:  http://tinyurl.com/63mokr4




Please leave comments to let me know what you think once you've read the excerpt!  Or, if you have anything you want to share.

Your Bookish Dame

Read More