Blogroll

Book Review: Let There Be Pebble by Zachary Michael Jack

There are reasons certain sayings persist. Take, for example, the overused and abused saw, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It survives because it is true. Some things words just cannot adequately describe: Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” or a tropical island. Even describing the effect such sights have on us is woefully insufficient.

Applying […]

Book Review: Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi

First-rate literature needs to succeed on more than one level. Regardless of the issues or themes a book may explore, they are irrelevant if the author doesn’t draw in and keep the reader with the story, characters or writing. Italian author Antonia Tabucchi’s Pereira Maintains, set in Portugal in the summer of 1938, succeeds on […]

Book Review: The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz by Jules Verne

You’re likely to get an odd look when someone asks what you’re reading and you tell them it’s the “new” Jules Verne novel. After all, Verne died 106 years ago and all of his work has been published. Yet therein is a tale itself.

The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz is a novel Verne hoped would […]

Book Review: Enigmatic Pilot by Kris Saknussemm

Perhaps book reviewers are meant to relegate themselves to commenting on what’s inside a book. Yet there are times the publishing process plays a role in a book. Unfortunately, that process damages Kris Saknussemm’s latest novel, Enigmatic Pilot: A Tall Tale Too True. (Full disclosure: Saknussemm is a “Facebook Friend” of mine but I know […]

Book Review: First Contact by Marc Kaufman

Imagine the proverbial search for the needle in the haystack. Fortunately, anyone searching knows what a needle is. Multiply the strands of hay billions of times and you’re approaching one of the haystacks in which those in search of extraterrestrial life are working. Yet their effort struggles with a fundamental question: How do you define […]