Your bags are packed. Yep, you’re headed for five days of sun, sea, and sand. Early-morning dips in the ocean, flip-flops, and little grains of beach in the sheets every night. But you won’t care, you’ll be on V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N. Might want to check first, though: read “The Last Resort” by Sarah Stodola to[Read More…]

After school and Saturday mornings were devoted to fighting crime. There you were, seven, eight, nine years old, hard-bodied, brave, and fireproof – at least, in your mind. Along with your ancestors and others with superpowers, you were invincible. And in “Black Panther” by Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, Stan[Read More…]

Fingers on the second, third, and fourth strings. Placed correctly, that’s how you make a chord on the guitar; the joke is that you only need to know three out of five chords to sing country music. Get ’em right, and you could be a star – unless you’re a woman and then, as in “Her Country”[Read More…]

A cemetery plot may feel like a lonely place. It’s quiet there, peaceful, solitary. Does it seem final, or is it the beginning of a new life in a Beyond you can’t yet know? Graveside or otherwise, they say we’re never alone, and that spirits are watching us. And in the new book “Every[Read More…]

You have a lot on your plate. What, with the kids and school, getting back to normal, pent-up socializing, paying bills and yikes, those food prices! You’re wondering if maybe it’s time for that diet you’ve been saying you’ll go on, or some old-timey recipes from Great-Grandma. Or maybe you should read “To Boldly[Read More…]

So you just received a million dollars. You won the lottery, hit the jackpot, married well, invested right, found a long-lost rich aunt, whatever. Congratulations, but now what? Throw a party for your hundred new besties at one of the mansions you’ll buy? Or is that money doing fine in a bank? Maybe you need[Read More…]

Flip a coin and watch. No matter how it lands, it’s still the same coin but only half of it’s revealed. Front and back, in and out, there are always two sides to everything, though you may never see them both unless you look. You never experience both unless, as in “Healing” by Theresa Brown, RN, you have no other[Read More…]

It was just here a minute ago. You had it in your hand, you put it down for a sec, and it’s not where you left it. This constant search for things you’ve misplaced is ridiculous; just having to admit it is embarrassing. At least, as in the new novel, “The Recovery[Read More…]

A quarter of an inch. Roughly, that’s the thickness between your scalp and your brain: a tiny fraction of bone between the world and your history, beliefs, your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. It seems insignificant, but that space – about the same as four stacked pennies – is everything. What’s beneath it, as in the new book “ShadowMan” by Ron Franscell, well, it’s complicated.[Read More…]

Were you born in a barn? In other words, get in here and shut the door. Take your dirty shoes off before you walk on the clean floor. You might call your cat your “baby” and your dog is your “best friend” but really, were you born in a barn? In the new book “Funny Farm”[Read More…]