REQUIEM BY FIRE, by Wayne Caldwell

 

REQUIEM BY FIRE

(fiction)

by

Wayne Caldwell
(Author of CATALOOCHEE)

 www.waynecaldwell.com


ADVANCE COPY!

Published by
Random House
(www.randomhouse.com, www.atrandom.com)


Note:
Copyright 2010
by
Owlhead, Inc.,
Wayne Caldwell, prop.



Publication date:
March 2, 20010
On sale date:
February 23, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-4000-6344-4

Price:
$25.00 USA
NOTE: Canadian price unknown at review time.

 

Ah, Mr. Caldwell. I was not disappointed, as I have been so many times by the second novels of authors! I am indeed impressed. And I thank you for the dual read.

Mr. Caldwell has, in REQUIEM BY FIRE, produced another fine novel. It is a sequel to CATALOOCHEE. In REQUIEM BY FIRE, we follow once again the fascinating saga of family and home in the Appalachian region taken in as part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We're offered a highly realistic glimpse of what it must have been like for those who lived there, and what it must be like for their descendents to look back on their much-changed heritage.

I began reading about these families in CATALOOCHEE, and when I opened up the advance copy of this novel, I hardly dared hope for the same sure touch of a genuine storyteller. This book is a triumph of the art, but more so a triumph of a son of the land. We Appalachian folk are survivors, highly adaptable and tenacious.

All I can say to Mr. Caldwell is that I would be proud to have you -- or any of your cast of charactors, in fact -- as a neighbor. Folks like you write about are getting all too rare. Keep 'em coming. I'll read 'em, and gladly so.

This book is the genuine article. See for yourself. Read the first one, too!



Special thanks to The Random House Publishing Group, who provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

FERRADIDDLEDUMDAY, by Becky Mushko

FERRADIDDLEDUMDAY 

-- An Appalachian version of
RUMPLESTILTSKIN


(fiction)

written by

Becky Mushko
( www.beckymushko.com ,
http://peevishpen.blogspot.com )

&

illustrated by
Bruce Rae


ADVANCE COPY!

Published by
Cedar Creek Publishing
(www.cedarcreekauthors.com)

Released
February 2010


Copyrights 2009
by author and illustrator,
respectively.

ISBN: 978-0-9842449-1-1

Price:
Unknown at time of review.
Please look for updates later on.

.

While I almost never, even as a child, read children's books, I found myself talking to a very nice lady on Facebook one day, someone who shares my somewhat specialized interest in Appalachian literature (and art), who told me that she had a new book being released soon. Would I please review it? Certainly, I said, though I had my doubts about a children's book. After all, talk is where the market is, and books sell more from word of mouth than anything else. I'd at least give it a whirl.

I was in no way prepared for what I got. A few days after I talked to her, Ms. Mushko's book arrived in my mail box. I opened it, almost grimacing with low expectations... and got a delightful surprise.

Simply said, FERRADIDDLEDUMDAY is a wonderful work of art.

Ms. Mushko doesn't talk down to her audience, she just tells the story. It has to be a gift, because I've seen so  many children's books that came out in a pedantic, boring way, too simple and too unloved by the author to give it life in anyone's  eyes, let alone a child's. (Honestly, you can't fool most children. They'll lay the book down in a dusty corner and go turn on the  television instead.) Ms. Mushko's FERRADIDDLEDUMDAY is in no way such a boring thing ... it bounces! It rolls. It travels around the hills and in the mind of the reader with a magic seldom seen these days.

FERRADIDDLEDUMDAY is a brilliant retelling of the classic RUMPLESTILTSKIN, with a highly flavorful and rich Appalachian twist. The mountain plants and skills visited in the story are real and vivid, fresh from the pen of someone who knows their art well, and who knows genuinely the mind of an inquistive, interested child.

The illustrations, done by master Appalachian artist Bruce Rae, are absolutely not to be missed, either. By no means! They are charming, delightful, and done with absolutely sure hands, the kind of illustrations that are timeless and beloved by all ages.

There is a "Q & A" section in the back, a teaching aid. I was delighted to read that as well, as it offers a great deal of insight into the world of growing young minds. Ms. Mushko's skill with teaching is every bit as great as her skill with storytelling. Aided by Mr. Rae, the result is a highly enjoyable book.

This book is very highly recommended -- read it with your children. You'll love it too. I did, and I am one picky-eyed, tough cookie, especially when it comes to children's books.



Special thanks to the author, Becky Mushko, who provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

CATALOOCHEE, by Wayne Caldwell

CATALOOCHEE

(fiction)

by

Wayne Caldwell
( www.waynecaldwell.com )

Published by
Random House
(www.atrandom.com)


Note:
Copyright 2007
by
Owlhead, Inc.,
Wayne Caldwell, prop.

Released as
Trade Paperback Edition
2008

ISBN: 978-0-8129-7373-0

Price:
$15.00 USA
$17.00 Canada

.

When Mr. Caldwell sent me this book, I had no idea what the story itself was about, nor had I encountered Mr. Caldwell's writing before, so the style itself was a mystery. I had no idea what to expect. Then I started the book, just peeking into it a bit going down the road (having just extracted the bubble-enveloped package from our post office box with care) while my spouse drove. I read bits of it aloud to him from time to time... and it became addicting to both of us.By the time I'd gotten to the ending, I realized that I had rarely put it down -- I read it in only a couple of days. In short, I devoured it. (And I had to read more of it aloud, too. The problem would be if I wanted the spouse to drive me around again while I read books; he liked the story as much as I did.)

This is among the best Appalachian writing I've yet to read, and in fact is one of the best saga-type novels of any area that I've yet encountered. Not to say there isn't room for improvement, but then, none of us is perfect. I'm impressed with what I found as a problem much more than it is a real issue: there are a large number of characters in the book; I sometimes had trouble remembering who was who, at first. By the ending, that all changed. I was, in short, addicted.

Someday I'll have to travel through the area of the National Park that Mr. Caldwell set his novel in. I have a feeling I'd love the people there, since the people behind the characters ring true in his novel. I have a deep love of mountains and wild places, yet I too come from a region steeped in farming and closely attached to the land.

This book carries forth the music of souls, of people who set out to make a home, and did so without fear of sweat or blood shed in the doing. The concise telling of it is the kind that only comes from someone who could and did understand what the lives of the people of Cataloochee must have been like.

Generations of mountain people reside in this story. Get to know them a little through Mr Caldwell's fine novel. You may be very surprised at what you find between those pages.


Special thanks to the author, Wayne Caldwell, who provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

AMONG THIEVES, by David Hosp

AMONG THIEVES

(fiction)

by

David Hosp


Released as hardback
January, 2010


by

Grand Central Publishing
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-446-58015-1

Price:
$24.99 USA
$29.99 Canada

.

This book is one fine thriller! Add Mr. Hosp to the list of those writers you look for on the bestseller's rack in your favorite (and hopefully independent) bookstore. I'll happily tell you that it's recommended reading, if you love the genre.

While fine-art-related thrillers seem to have become a dime a dozen these days (for which we must obviously thank Dan Brown, I suppose), this one stands out for its smoothly-handled details and the realistic humanity of his characters.

Well-done, and thanks.



Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

THE LINE UP, edited by Otto Penzler

THE LINE UP

(fiction)

edited by

Otto Penzler


Released as hardback
November, 2009


by

Little, Brown and Company
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-316-03193-6

Price:
$25.99 USA
$31.99 Canada

.

Do any of these authors' names ring a bell?

• Ken Bruen
• Lee Child
• Lincoln Child
• Michael Connelly
• John Connelly
• Robert Crais
• Jeffery Deaver
• Colin Dexter
• John Harvey
• Stephen Hunter
• Faye Kellerman
• Jonathan Kellerman
• John Lescroat
• Laura Lippman
• David Morrell
• Carol O'Connell
• Robert Parker
• Ridley Pearson
• Anne Perry
• Douglas Preston
• Ian Rankin
• Alexander McCall Smith

Otto Penzler has, in this one book, brought together a heroic list of fine, top-of-the-industry mystery writers. Owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives, he has edited many mystery anthologies as well as co-authoring THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYSTERY AND DETECTION.

It was wonderful to hear where the seeds for some of the most memorable characters came from. I was interested to find, for example, that David Morrell wrote RAMBO* as a direct result of the aftermath of the Vietnam War. A Canadian teaching and living in the U.S. (Pennsylvania, to be exact), he saw the cause and effect of war on the returning veterans of active conflict and he also saw from a unique perspective the often perverse and illogical ways people -- especially non-veterans with no personal connection to those engaged in the conflict -- reacted to it all. From the emotional gardens of stone grown from human conflict, the character Rambo was born.

Simply said, I found this book to be fascinating. The variety and angle taken by the assorted authors/voices makes it both unique and valuable to the avid reader of the genre. To aspiring mystery or thriller authors, even more so.

Recommended reading!



Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .


*Reviewer's personal note:

The movie called RAMBO was very different from the book. In the book, Morrell based the story, not in the Pacific Northwest, but in "Madison", Kentucky. (There is a Madison County in Kentucky, but to the best of my knowledge, there is no town called that.) That's right: Rambo was originally a Kentuckian.

Mr. Morrell said in THE LINE UP, the book above reviewed, that his intent was to give the story "a slight Southern flavor and because that state has a wilderness area that some people call the 'Grand Canyon of the East', a dramatic setting for my novel".  The gods reside in the details: I live about 20 minutes' drive from the Red River Gorge, the aforementioned wilderness area. I know that area well, since some of my ancestors once lived there (for some generations), and it's a popular place to go walk, to shoot photos, to take a canoe trip down the usually shallow Red River (once known as The Warrior's Fork). Some of my own relatives still own land there. The actual place is very different from Mr. Morrell's description.

THE SWAN THIEVES, by Elizabeth Kostova

THE SWAN THIEVES

(fiction)

by

Elizabeth Kostova

(#1 bestselling author of
THE HISTORIAN)


Released as hardback
January, 2010


by

Little, Brown and Company
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-316-06578-9

Price:
$26.99 USA
$32.99 Canada

Art-related mysteries have become standard fare these days, thanks to Dan Brown books that have hit the market wide open, creating a new specific niche for readers to look for on the shelves. However, Ms. Kostova has a unique style -- and does concrete, believable research -- that carries her work far above the average mystery/thriller novel. She has a way of solidly grounding her stories in the here and now, which I adore.

THE SWAN THIEVES is an excellent piece of literature. If you like books full of honesty and intrigue in equal parts, Ms. Kostova has created a second work of art, this one about works of art itself, that will draw you in and keep you looking for more.

This is a book to curl up with, a book to keep you turning pages and looking for the what, the why, the reason and the solution to the mystery of the things of the soul that can never be too closely examined. The story has numerous twists, turns, and all of it smoothly twined into a solid, believable tale executed by characters whom one cannot help but sympathize with all along the way.

Make time for this one. And ... I'll be looking forward to the next Kostova novel, myself!




Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

ROSES, by Leila Meacham

ROSES

(fiction)

by

Leila Meacham


Released as hardback
January, 2010


by

Grand Central Publishing
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-446-55000-0

Price:
$24.99 USA
$29.99 Canada

Saga. That's a word to sit curled up before the fire with and enjoy ... usually. This one is a serious contender for the old television series, "Dynasty". Curling up before the fire with it put me to sleep, which is far, far from the usual case where I am concerned.

ROSES is a who-did-what-to-whom-behind-the-scenes-in-the-name-of-money-and-social-standing saga. Pardon me while I snore. I cannot bear such time-consuming stories which, in the end, really go nowhere. They're simply dramatized fictional rumor-mongering, the sort of thing one would hear in twisted dribs and drabs in some half-empty beauty parlor. Real life and real life stories, compared to a good, juicy rumor? Tell it. I'll take a nap.

My apologies to the author; this book is simply not among the sort of books I admire. Best of luck next time, Ms. Meacham. You do have a way with words, and a skill with carrying a complicated tale. It was the content where you lost me.


Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

KITTY'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, by Carrie Vaughn

KITTY'S HOUSE OF HORRORS

(fiction)

by

Carrie Vaughn

 

ADVANCE READER'S COPY!

 

Paperback issue

Released
January, 2010


by

Grand Central Publishing
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-446-19955-1

Price:
$7.99 USA
$9.99 Canada

Ms. Vaughn is the correct author to check into for those readers who love playful, if gory at times, stories buried deep in the supernatural. There is plenty of action, plenty of gore, and a fairly good story behind it all to be found in KITTY'S HOUSE OF HORRORS.

I loved the sense of humor that came shining through, and the author's obvious delight with her subject matter. She has a good grasp of lingual finesse, and clearly loves to write. However, I do think that if she had a bit more ambition, she could "break out" into hard cover, perhaps into a best seller.

The story is fine, yet I believe she could have made the reader care more about the charactors. The spark of vivid attention is simply not there.

Good luck, Ms. Vaughn. You have the key -- go see what's behind the mysterious golden door marked "Best Seller"!


Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

Death of a Valentine -- A Hamish Macbeth Mystery (#25 in the series)

DEATH OF A VALENTINE
-- A Hamish Macbeth Mystery


(fiction)

by

M. C. Beaton

* 25th in the Hamish Macbeth series *

ADVANCE READER'S COPY!

Released
January 12, 2010


by

Grand Central Publishing
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-446-54738-3

Price:
$23.99 USA

$28.99 Canada

.

For those who love a romantic romp disguised as a mystery, this book is perfect. It's a confection too sweet to be real. For me, in short, it was torturous. If this is the typical Beaton novel, then she and I, as writer and reader in that time-honored relationship, shall best part ways now. I found the story to be shallow, laden heavily with often goofy and unbelievable characters of the cardboard cut-out variety.

As I cannot truly offer a reader's blessing on this book, I offer my sincere apologies to the author -- and the grace of an honest reader, which is all that's left.



Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

EATING ANIMALS, by Safran Foer (nonfiction)

EATING ANIMALS

(nonfiction)

by

Safran Foer

(Author of the novel,
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED)

Released
November, 2009

by

Little, Brown and Company
(www.hachettebookgroup.com)

ISBN: 978-0-316-06990-8

Price:
$25.99 USA
$31.99 Canada

.

I'm disappointed. This man has a strong command of the language and has yet produced, not as I had expected, a violent rant against the food industry.

It is common knowledge that the "factory" farms often do not have compassion for the animals they produce, nor do they seem (in too many cases) to enjoy a pride in doing the job right. The essence of their business -- and business it is, just as the health industry is a business -- is profit. That's the bottom line, and the bottom line is all that is considered by most business people (regardless of business source).

In the food industry, like any other business, one attempts to buy cheap and sell high. Consumers demand this approach when they bargain shop, by default, forcing the same of the seller, who then must also bargain hunt in turn. Supply and demand raise the price as high as you and I (the consumers) will allow. As economic woes continue to deepen, so will the attempts to operate at lower costs continue on all of the farms. This means bad management in all too many cases. Compromise is, after all, a fast path to hell -- as the old saying goes.

Mr. Foer has not told the whole story, as you may now guess. An expose', compared to a rant, is like comparing a scalpel to a wood-splitter's maul. The result is not only unlovely, it's smashing in its misuse.

Small farmers are not mentioned either, their altogether different focus on survival is not offered as a comparison. (The more complete truth is a good reason to buy local -- which any research into the market will prove.) The best plan is for you to visit your local farmer's market on a regular basis. Ask your local university extension agent (or equivalent) how to choose and buy healthful, good food from someone who cares how it was produced.

My simple advice to you is free. Mr. Safran's book is not. That's the "bottom line" in this whole deal. You choose which one is a bargain.








Special thanks to Hachette Book Group, which provided this book for review free of charge to the independent reader.

For more book reviews, please visit The Fireside Reader at http://thefiresidereader.blogspot.com .

So... what are *you* reading these days?

Many folks have, in the past, asked me what I like to read. I've hemmed and hawwed, and generally danced neatly around the subject -- until now.You're about to see why. Finally.


When I was a child, I had serious sight deficiencies. (Still do, really. Got to have my 'specs' on.) No one noticed it or understood it for many years, despite a running total of bloody knees and hands, constant awkwardness with things like shooting rifles or throwing darts. I was starting into the third grade when the schools tested all of us for sight and hearing: I could hear things that were both above and below the normal human range, but I couldn't see the eye-test on the wall at all. My math skills still suffer for the lost instruction of second grade, I think. I was so afflicted with nearsightedness and astigmatism that I was already near legal blindness. As a result, I didn't run and play with the other kids (when around them, which was relatively rare). I was bored stiff, almost all the time.

When I was not yet five years old, I conned my teenage siblings to teach me the ABCs: shapes, sounds, alternate ways to write each one. They did it to keep me occupied and out of their hair for the long term, which was fine with me. By the time I was five years old, I was reading the regional newspapers on a regular basis. (That newspaper is now called the Lexington Herald-Leader, and is a Knight-Ridder possession.) Big words were merely little words strung together, for me, and so simple to decipher with minimal help. In the third grade, when I was tested, I finally got eyeglasses -- and 20/20 vision amazed me. I read faster and faster, understood more and applied it to the wild world outside, all by myself.

Eventually, I got past what my Dad could help me with (Mom said I'd 'end up just another educated fool' and refused to worry with me), he, in vague desperation, suggested that I read his large, comprehensive dictionary every night before bed every night. Hmm, says I. After a bit of thought, I decided it was interesting. So I did.


I found it educational on several levels.

There were things in there that I'd never heard of, and I began to follow those leads down, gradually thinning the ranks of the County's library shelves down to a narrow list of unread items. Magazines, comic books -- nothing was safe from me. I even -- still yet -- read the labels on food, signs along the road, and just about everything else I come across. It's a habit, now, one I don't think I could stop if I wanted to, and I don't really want to stop.

My brother, fourteen years older than I, paperback westerns lying around here and there. I started picking them up to read, and I discovered a world I'd never seen: places I'd never been, but in seeing on television, wanted to experience further. First Zane Grey, then writers like Luke Short and Max Brand... and then, the real treasure: Louis L' Amour. He'd really been there and seen (autobiography: "Education of a Wandering Man") -- and many times, done -- what he wrote about. He may never be celebrated as a classic author, but he was real. He was the grit between my bare toes and the dirt on my palms. I lay on piles of deep moss in the woods, listening to these words take me far away while a scraggly pony cropped maple leaves close by. It was my escape and my joy.


In much later years, I'd find the books of Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove" and others) and Tony Hillerman (the Jim Chee series and more) with that same virtual flavor of cactus, dirt, and horse sweat. I'd never seen a barrel cactus or an ocatillo in my life, but I knew what they were, and more, because I'd gone looking to find out.

The local librarians must have been worn to a frazzle by my constant requests for help and research.


I was nearly grown before I ever saw a Dr. Seuss book, and they still delight me with humor and wit. Rudyard Kipling came along late for me, as well, and stayed to smile.


Bram Stoker. Alexandre Dumas. Jonathan Swift. Mark Twain/Samuel Clemmons. Then later, Mary Stewart, Morgan Llewellyn, Sir Anthony Conan Doyle, Fannie Flagg. John Steinbeck. I traveled, swung swords, trained jumping frogs, and deciphered mysteries with them all.

Ernest Hemingway took me into battle, a thing I'd only barely begun to think about after reading a book called "The Red Badge of Courage" -- years before my classmates in school read it as a requirement.

I found, in my digging, the poetry of Robert Frost, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and many, many more. While the other kids my age were avoid reading as a punishment of homework, I found a path to other worlds, worlds created in print on paper and transferred to me almost by osmosis.


"A Stranger in a Strange Land" taught me that our perceptions aren't always recognized, that we have to think to find the real truth in humor, reality, and life in general."The Portrait of Dorian Grey" made me wonder if obtaining immortality was worth the fear of losing it.

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" showed me that dreamers make the world's innovations, and only then with the hands-on of someone who, glimpsing that dream, can take it into their hands and make it real for the rest of us: telephones, airplanes, automobiles, radios and television, and so much more have come from that. Doc Savage was one charactor who did both, a 'McGuiver' with mystical and athletic super-hero properties. I loved the idea. Still do.


I moved along to Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon, Jennifer Roberson, Orson Scott Card, C.S. Lewis, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Charles de Lint, J.R.R. Tolkein. Oh, so many more that I can't name them all ... many, many world-builders with something real to say. Don't forget "Buffalo Gals", by Ursula K. LeGuin, when you come across the science fiction and fantasy shelves. It's a keeper.


Anna Sewell ("Black Beauty") and Jim Kjelgaard showed me that not everyone, as those practical, hard-bitten Kentuckians around me, thought of animals as mere livestock, unlucky belongings with no feelings at all. I learned kindness and compassion for animals then and there.


Tarzan showed me that there is a way to cooperate with the world around us, and to be a part of it was possible. The possibility that animals can communicate with humans extended into such charactors as The Black Stallion, Fury, Rin Tin Tin, and Lassie. All in books; I didn't like the television for its limitations and blind spots, even then.

Trips to the local drug store as an adolescent found me coming back with a stack of comic books, not of the predictable girly-kid stuff like Archie, Snoopy, or Charlie Brown, though I know them well. I came back with things that made my mother's eyebrows raise to a worried level. "Rawhide", "Ghost Rider", "Real West". I wanted blood, gore, mystique and hard core story, not piddling peer pressure tales.


I began to ask questions about spiritual things somewhere along the line. And I read the Bible (my parents argued over Christian Church vs. Church of Christ, a thing I never thought made any sense), The Book of the Dead, Edgar Cayce's works (he was a Kentuckian too), and so many more that most have blurred into the past.


I even read Carlos Castenada's books, and they somehow yet left me unable to conceive of jumping off a sheer cliff in the name of spiritual control -- there are so many cliffs here in the land I grew up that I 'saw' it literally, and found it ... comical, to say the least. He was over-dramatic and largely unreal in his symbolic tales. Further, they got him very dead in the mere telling. Not my thing, I assure you.


Later I found Mercea Eliade and many others whose research into the roots of religion finally set me free of the urge to take part in it, yet the need for spiritual gratification -- to keep The Mystery in my heart. Finally, I found a Way and have followed it as best I can since then, decades and counting.


It's interesting that I came to admire Agatha Christie, not just because she wrote bang-up-good mysteries, but because she saved her community with her art. What was a dying fishing village soon became a tourist center, affluent and thriving, because in her books, fans saw the place as she did. And visited it.


Dick Francis's mysteries took me, by comparison, to the UK and into the different from our Kentucky Thoroughbred scene. I have had a giggle or two over things he wrote without doing complete research. (We don't feed 'horse nuts' to the horses in the US, we take those away when we geld a male animal. Here, we feed molasses-rich 'sweet feed' to our horses.) Yet his mysteries tend to ring true as far as horses in general go. So many other authors' horse-based works don't. Nicholas Evan's "The Horse Whisperer", while entertaining, let loose a flood of mostly fake trainers on the world, and I found both real and unreal (to me) aspects in that one. Also in his novel dealing with wolves and human acceptance or rejection, "The Loop".


John Grisham lost me in a world of papers and briefs and cut-throat head games. Politics was never one of my strong interests; people are like wolves, always looking for a way to go alpha in a pack too large to really care.

James Patterson, who writes the "Alex Cross" series, is good at his job. I've read several, and only felt let down on a couple of occasions. That's rare for me.

Books of other ethnic origin are vastly interesting. Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club". "Roots"... I could go on for hours along this vein -- all cultures and different views fascinate me. That's a large part of why I devour books on an often uncanny rate.


Annie Proulx -- "Brokeback Mountain". A view into a situation alien to me and to the majority of the world's people. But nonetheless a real one. Research following that verified what I thought was true: same-sex unions were accepted as normal in most historic cultures. Not in any dominated by the Christian or Islamic faiths, however. Since I know that such instinct appear normally in nature, I have to wonder what the issue really is... and thank Ms. Proulx for making me ask questions.


Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" shredded my soul for the lost and mutilated of an unarmed, innocent group of native people attacked by U.S. soldiers. Custer and his men paid for that at the Little Big Horn; they paid dearly, with their lives. History came alive for me, and prehistory as well. Empathy erupted.


Which led me to W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear. Their Anasazi Mysteries series and the other, much larger series, 'People', have me waiting constantly for a new one to come out. Three of my loves come together with them: anthropology, reading, and the pre-Americans.

For clarifications, I went to Bierhorst, who took me through "Native America and the Environment" and went on to John Ehle's "The Trail of Tears" -- where I learned more about my Cherokee/Tsalagi heritage than my parents knew to tell (the culture was deliberately let disappear to preserve The People in their native lands). From there to many more... it's a continuing quest.


In search of self once again, I found Appalachian literature, something that only began to be really rich when people weren't just content with managing basic living here in the hills and mountains. John Fox, Jr. ... Jesse Stuart... James Still (poet extraordinaire, novelist, and short story writer) ... Frank X. Walker (wow! a fine poet)... Crystal Wilkinson (poet and novelist, plus teacher). Barbara Kingsolver, who has abdicated (apparently) to Arizona. And never forget contemporary novelist Silas House: "A Parchment of Leaves", "Clay's Quilt", and "The Coal Tattoo". Voices from my homeland, rich and dark, shadowed like the hollers between the steep hills, all variances and contrasts, beauty when you least expect it. Those are the writers of the Appalachians and foothills thereof. My people. Poets and thinkers who see it all, light and dark, and revel in it.

"Cold Mountain", now a movie based on the (better) novel by a writer out of the Carolinas, made the aftermath of the Civil War come home to many of us. That same writer has since taken us to the time when the Cherokee managed to salvage a small portion of their eastern lands through hook and crook politics even as many of The People were forcefully removed (that was the Trail of Tears, which passed through Hopkinsville, Kentucky, along the way) to Oklahoma, an exodus of strange nations cast together in a land none knew. Death and misery, lost families, and ordinary day to day struggles came alive in those words. All of this is brought together in "thirteen moons". I look forward to the next story by the same author, Charles Frazier.


Another book, an anthology of action put together by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth made my flesh and soul alike ache. It's called "Missing Mountains" and it tells the real tale of King Coal. How the companies that own the big coal rights are tearing down the Appalachian Mountains at the incredible but real rate of about one per month. For profit, of course. Little of which the state --especially the coal regions -- sees. They're not using local labor as they claim -- just one man at a time on a gigantic machine made to destroy. Worse, they're upsetting the balance of the ecosystems one after another, in a land where it cannot be replaced. Reclamation is a joke (I've seen it personally, so I can say this is absolutely real). People in Pikeville and other communities have had their water supplies compromised by chemicals, both naturally and unnaturally occurring. Some are afraid to leave a child in the bath, for fear it will drink the poisoned water -- a very real danger. I could go on for hours about this. People have died, their homes and even gardens destroyed, in the name of mineral rights sold off for a pittance generations back. Just read the book, if you would please. Act on it as you see fit. I only want you to know that the writers who contributed to it did so as volunteers: they're all Kentuckians.


An online friend I've since lost contact with recommended a book that I have come to love: A Sand County Almanac. It spoke so clearly to me of things I had not the words to say for myself.

In future, I will miss new peeks into the humor and knowledge of Stephen Jay Gould (he died a few years ago), whose series of natural science books showed me parts of the natural world that I'd have never understood fully without his sharing of view and fact. Darwin's "The Origin of Species" led up to the Gould books. Necessary reading, if only for the point of exploration for information.


Novels like "Willow" and "Wolf and Iron" are packed away with all the rest. I have thousands of books in every description. Content matters -- not the cover -- to me. Also there are collections of Stephen King (including a well-worn paperback copy of "On Writing"... I can only laugh at his fiction work now excepting sales figures, and so rarely read it anymore --for some odd reason it strikes me as comical.), Anne Rice, Peter Straub,. J.A. Jance -- all of whom showed me the dark side of the human soul, the depths to which we can sink, and the heights we can aspire to -- and how art and writing, not merely something as ceremonial as religion, can lift us higher than we'd ever dare dream. And that we should dream; nightmares make daydreams all the sweeter.


William Zinsser and many others have been recently teaching me what it means to write for a life. Yes, I've been dabbling in how-tos... and how-whys and how-whens. And writing some myself, with an eye toward getting "it" (my 'voice'?) beyond this simple blog page.


Favorite magazines (no particular order of preference):

• * Smithsonian
• * National Geographic
• * Western Horseman
• * Equus
• * Mother Earth News
• * Outdoor Photography
• * American Photographer
• * Wildlife Art
• * Southwest Art
• * Arts Kentucky
• * American Scientific ... including MIND
• *Mother Jones
• *Archeology
• *Poets & Writers
• *Writer's Digest
• * (... and countless more)

I am an avid reader and an eclectic one, sure as you were born. Deciphering my reading habits would take an experienced psychologist years! At 43 years old, that's some 38 years of reading, by the way. And counting.


Yes, I still read the newspaper, though I don't often get any except the Sunday issue each week. Now, I mostly read daily news online. One can go to Kentucky.com for the Lexington Herald Leader's digital version, updated around the clock.


No, before you ask. Most of you know that I don't have much formal higher education, and probably won't have. No degrees for me. I've dropped full time classes twice due to chronic health problems and lack of health care. It is seriously unlikely that I'll ever go back to add to my nine hours of college (pre-veterinary studies, low items on the list) from the University of Kentucky, Lexington. I can't afford piecemeal education and can't get financial aid for it.


That all said... does anyone have a favorite author or book they'd like to share with me? I seem to be out of reading material at the moment. Now how did that happen, I wonder ...?

Robert Frost (1874-1963): Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

This is one of my favorite poems; I'm posting it in honor of our first real snow of the season, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I do.

Frost's grace of rhythm is sweet and smooth and cool. A jingle of sleigh bells, the soft glow of moonlight on snow, the steaming horse almost conversational, the absentee owner of the land missing out on the whole scene -- it speaks to me in a language dear. ~ R.

_________________________________________

Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep

GENETIC ROUNDS, by Dr. Robert Marion, MD

GENETIC ROUNDS

Nonfiction: memoir/medical
by Dr. Robert Marion, MD


Released: 2009

Published by:
Kaplan Publishing

Kaplan, Inc.
www.kaplan.com

ISBN: 978-1-60714-460-1

Price:

$24.95 U.S.
$30.95 Canada

As I (an "ordinary" reader, non-scientist) understand it, genetics is the study of a blueprint too immense and detailed for a single, however bright mind, to completely understand. Yet a single strand of DNA is too small to be seen with the naked eye. It carries in its double helix design complex secrets beyond the average person's wildest dreams. It is not, sadly, perfect. Errors in that tiny strand can cause horrible malformations of the body, as it holds all the keys of creation and therefore constant recreation of that body within itself. The human genome is being studied and mapped slowly; lives are being altered in the meantime, young, innocent lives.

Dr. Marion offers up considerable insight in this, his medical memoirs, a collection of essays dealing with his personal experiences caring for the victims of genetic error and their families. The experiences range from grim to glorious. From sorrow to transcendence, we go along with him. Seeing through his compassionate eyes as he makes his GENETIC ROUNDS, we're given a clear view of the children to often hidden beneath -- or because of -- the facade of the problems they bear. It seems the ultimate inheritance roulette.

It becomes clear that such a doctor must be more than a just a physician taking care of some mechanical, routine condition. Such a doctor must be a real, caring doctor with the soul of a philospher and the attention span of a legendary detective! Not only the patient, but also the family needs the kind of friend in the attending doctor who is capable, a confidant with solid, practical morals.

This and much more can be found in GENETIC ROUNDS. For the love of a child, for the lives of humanity, it's a round well worth taking. 


 

Reader's thanks to Dr. Robert Marion, and to Kaplan Publishing -- and also to Brett Sandusky, Marketing Manager at Kaplan Publishing -- for the opportunity to read, and review this book and pass it along to the world of readers. The Fireside Reader sincerely thanks you!


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