A walking tour of Paris and the arts
Every once in a while I like to go back and read the classics, especially those that have managed to bypass my attention and my gaze.
A story of immigrants gone missing
Asheville’s own Terry Roberts is back again with another page-turner in the form of a brand new novel just released late last month.
Imagining Bob Dylan’s fictional youth
As a reader, I tend to get on jags with authors whom I admire. Recently, I’ve discovered the work of Baron Wormser and have reviewed his nonfiction memoir of living off the grid in New England for 25 years in these pages. An amazing story, an amazing writer. I wanted to read more of his work.
A shiner’s tale, a woman’s perspective
In a literary genre (Appalachian noir) dominated by men, Amy Jo Burns’ new novel Shiner breaks through barriers and the unspoken publisher-induced rules of the genre — conflict, conflict, conflict — and comes out on the other side with a compelling story that has an interior rather than a dark, action-driven or plot-driven narrative.
Neanderthals were smarter than we thought
Toward the end of 2020, I reviewed a book here titled The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron. This was fiction and a novel based on actual anthropological research giving the reader a camera-eye look into the lives of the last full-blood Neanderthals to inhabit Europe. Cameron had done her homework and had written a captivating story.
The poetry of living off the grid
If the word “value” is to mean anything, it should at least apply to two or more things. First it should refer to monetary worth, and second, and more importantly, it should refer to appreciation of higher consciousness regarding human experience.
Pick up a book and travel
If you are like me and have been more than somewhat stranded by the pandemic for the past year or more and are succumbing to cabin fever and the isolation blues and are looking forward to getting out and about or even doing some traveling, then I have a suggestion.
Spilling words like a house afire
News flash: Buncombe County author Wayne Caldwell is also a poet! Evidenced by his just-released collection Woodsmoke (Blair Publications, Durham) we are treated to a life in the Western North Carolina mountains from the perspective of an elder gentleman who has lived, according to a multi-generational tradition, the old ways.
An earth-focused vision for the future
David Suzuki is an internationally renowned geneticist and environmentalist and is the author of more than 40 books and recipient of many national and international awards for his writing and his scientific work. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. His book The Legacy: An Elder’s Vision For Our Sustainable Future (Greystone Books, 113 pages) is part autobiography, part history and part basic science, but above all, it is a plea for the planet.
Honoring the old ways
“I make a prayer for words. Let me say my heart.” — M. Scott Momaday
As the winner of almost all of the major awards given to American authors, N. Scott Momaday has topped off a long and celebrated career this year with another landmark book, Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land (Harper Collins, 2020, 68 pgs), that to me seems like something of an epitaph with which to conclude his list of publications. It’s a small book you can hold in your hands and contains only 68 pages. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in quality.
