I’m not normally a music-recommending sort of person. Honestly, I have a hard time keeping up with what’s new. But I’ve been in sort of a music slump lately – you can only listen to the Hamilton soundtrack so many times -- so I did some digging around for new albums that sounded interesting. And…
The News of the World recalls a simpler time when news from afar was not instantaneous. Before tweets and posts, televised stories and radio broadcasts, people got their information from newspapers, often weeks or months after the events occurred. In post-Civil War Texas, residents of small towns looked forward to visits from a tall, distinguished…
Eleanor Flood is a crackpot. Well, she’s not, really, but that’s what I thought when I started reading this brilliant, funny story of a day in this character's life. In a direct, quirky, first-person narrative, Eleanor tells us that she’s not happy with her life. “Today will be different” is her mantra. Everything seems great…
“One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother Beverley, thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.” Thus begins Commonwealth, Ann Patchett’s seventh and most autobiographical novel to date. Like its first…
This past Saturday, October 8th, was the First Annual National Indie Author Day. Libraries and authors across the nation celebrated the Indie movement. At Cook Memorial Public Library we hosted a viewing of the Indie Author Day Live Panel, and a short discussion where Local Indie Authors were able to network and share tips. Professionals…
I am a huge fan of television legal dramas, and am still mourning the fact that "The Good Wife," one of my all-time favorite television series, has concluded its run after seven great seasons of epic courtroom battles, office intrigue and politicians run amok. Alicia Florrick, high-powered attorney and wife of the disgraced Governor of…
I have a weakness for compelling, lyrical writing. I also have a weakness for page-turning, character-driven suspense. Sometimes I am lucky and find authors who can do both really well. Two writers who come to mind are Dennis Lehane and James Lee Burke. And now I can add another name to that list: John Hart.…
U.S. Rep. John Lewis I lived a sheltered childhood in a small, virtually all-white Wisconsin town in the 1960s. The tumult of the decade reached me only when my parents had the television turned to the CBS nightly news with Walter Cronkite. I was 11 when the country was torn apart by the assassinations of…
Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis opens with this chilling line: “This is how I kill someone.” Alex is a senior in high school on track to be valedictorian. She does her homework, but stays in the background of her small town. Alex is known as the girl whose sister was brutally murdered a…
J.D. Vance’s fascinating memoir about growing up with his hillbilly relatives offers glimpses into why so many Americans in the white working class are angry and pessimistic. Vance is a conservative, young Republican who survived a tumultuous childhood. His family started out in Kentucky’s Appalachia and migrated to Ohio to find work at growing factory…
