San Juan Solution, R.E. Derouin, Western Reflections Publishing, 2000
Like Water on Stone: The Story of Amnesty International, Jonathan Power, Northeastern University Press, 2001
Conversations With Cuba, C. Peter Ripley, University of Georgia Press, 1999
New Hampshire vs. Vermont: Sibling Rivalry Between the Two States, Lisa Shaw (ed.), Williams Hill Publishing, 1997
What’s Come Over You?, Marian Thurm, Delphinium Books, 2001
Tierra del Fuego, Sylvia Iparraguirre, Curbstone Press, 2000
Twilight Dynasty: Courting Evil, Barry H. Smith, Erica House, 1999
The More You Watch, The Less You Know, Danny Schechter, Seven Stories Press, 1997
The Crime Studio, Steve Aylett, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 2001
A Deadly Exchange, Sheryl Jane Stafford, Writer’s Showcase (www.iuniverse.com), 2000
Faith, Love and Overcoming: My Battle With Addiction, Dr. Dale, American Book Publishing Group, 2001
Voices on the Stair, Elizabeth Routen, Xlibris Corporation, 2000
Qualiens: The Prolusion 1, Michael Brown, Xlibris Corporation, 2001
Things get very interesting when, the next day, the man, whose name is Glick (but not really) is found in a car at the bottom of a ravine, quite dead. The woman, named Claudia, is found by the Dean’s living in the woods by herself, with a story that she was almost forced into the trunk of that car.
The bed and breakfast, called Bird Song, is suddenly invaded by a very motley group of characters. Claudia’s mother lived in a small Midwestern college town. She was the sort of person who would go to bed with practically anybody. An entire frat house full of guys was happy to oblige, so Claudia doesn’t know who her father really is. Claude, the man who probably was her father, wrote a will making her heir to an electronics company which may be worth nothing or 100 million dollars, an amount in which Claudia is extremely uninterested. There are a couple of pompous attorneys from back east. Of course, a second will is found, with totally different instructions for the money. A conniving older woman named Veronica, with three sons who can charitably be called jerks, has found another young woman who she loudly proclaims is the real heir to the company. Add in a male gigolo, and the Dean’s and O’Connor have a very confusing mystery on their hands.
At times, one needs a scorecard to keep track of everyone in this book. Derouin does a fine job throughout. It’s an interesting tale, the settings are well done, and it’s an excellent mystery. Well worth reading.
This book looks at the difficulties faced by AI in its work around the world. Nigeria is the home of AI’s most famous political prisoner, Olusegun Obasanjo (now President of Nigeria). Amnesty’s attention to detail and fine detective work exposed the massacre of more than 100 children in the Central African Republic. Political freedom in China seems to go through phases of openness, only to be slammed shut again by the government. The book also deals with death squads in Guatemala and attempts to bring former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice.
The author also explores human rights in America. Around the world, America is the first one to say something to other countries whose human rights records are less-than-perfect. But, looking at America’s domestic record of capital punishment, police brutality, racial profiling and unwillingness to ratify various international human rights conventions and treaties, the word “hypocrisy” comes to mind.
This is a fine piece of writing. Those who are already active in the human rights field, and those who just want to know something about AI (before they become members) will learn a lot from this book. Highly recommended.
Throughout the period, life for the average Cuban was characterized by a huge lack of consumer goods, so people made do as best they could. Whatever consumer goods were available went to the “special” stores, the ones that are only for foreigners and that only accept dollars, and the rapidly growing number of tourist hotels springing up all over the country. Built by non-American companies, they too are forbidden for the average Cuban, a policy enforced by tourist police. The thriving black market also helped cause the creation of a whole subculture of teenage and young adult street hustlers. They would hang around hotels and offer their services at anything to anyone who comes out, hoping for dollars at the end, or dinner in one of the hotels, or something from one of the “special” stores.
Ripley travels from one end of Cuba to the other. Among the places he visits in Santiago, birthplace of the Cuban Revolution, which started disastrously in 1953 and culminated six years later in victory. He meets a number of people along the way, some of whom are very cynical and apolitical, and others who are as patriotic and loyal to the Revolution as a person can be.
In Cuban society, there are periods when Fidel Castro eases his grip on the people, allowing, for instance, farmers to sell produce for dollars at local farmers markets, and periods when he tightens the screws, forbidding all street hustler activities.
This is one person’s look at a country about which most Americans know almost nothing. It’s easy to read, it feels “non-partisan” (for want of a better term), and it is very much worth reading.
Vermont has its liberal political outlook and its statewide ban on highway billboards. New Hampshire, on the other hand, is very conservative and its first-in-the-country Presidential primary makes it the center of the American political universe every four years. People in Vermont wear funny sandals and talk about world peace. New Hampshire residents sell liquor at toll booths and drive without seat belts. The one thing they agree on is their hatred of Massachusetts.
Every weekend the roads are full of European sedans in custom colors packed with casual clothing and the latest sporting equipment bearing Massachusetts plates. Every driver is in a major hurry to relax, so woe to anyone who gets in front of them on the road. But, once they get outside of Massachusetts, they stop at every stone wall, covered bridge and quaint country store quickly enough to activate their car’s air bags. The other thing that people from Massachusetts do on their weekends is shop at outlet malls. Seeing (or more accurately, hearing) several women wearing noisy nylon jogging suits heading for the nearest sale rack is something to behold.
Vermont looks like a postcard. New Hampshire’s largest city, Manchester, has a main street that concludes in a dead end. People in Vermont go out to eat and listen to National Public Radio. The first thing one sees in New Hampshire is a toll booth where the attendant has a hard time making change from a $5 bill, followed by a state liquor store.
This book is hilarious and a little eye-opening for this native New Englander. It equally insults the people of both states, it’s very easy to read, and is highly recommended.
A male Rabbi is shocked when his wife announces to the congregation, during services, that they are splitting up, something that is news to him. A man is depressed because his ex-girlfriend (they had been “thick as thieves” for the previous ten years) is marrying someone else. A single mother and her eleven-year-old daughter are in Florida visiting the woman’s mother and stepfather. He has Parkinson’s Disease and she thinks that spending her time and money on cosmetics to hold back the ravages of time is more important than things like housekeeping. A suddenly-divorced man with a seven-year-old daughter finds a female college student in his building making extra money by sending long-overdue thank you notes and weekly letters to the parents. His mother is very happy at the news that he is taking a cooking class and has a girlfriend, things the college student decided to add to give him a “life.” A husband-and-wife house cleaning team, with a very strange nine-year-old daughter named Princess, has a major argument while cleaning a woman’s apartment. A Jewish woman, whose husband found out that she was cheating on him, is served with divorce papers on the day of her grandfather’s funeral. Two people in New York City get married, but neither one wants to give up their apartment to move in with the other, so they have a sort-of long distance marriage.
I was really impressed with these stories. Thurm does a first-rate job with a variety of different narrators, with the dialogue and the poignant humor. These aren’t your average tales of modern-day life, they’re much better than that.
One of Guevara’s voyages is to the southern tip of South America, to map the Tierra del Fuego. Along on the journey is a British naturalist working on a biological theory of evolution, a man named Charles Darwin. While there, the Captain of the ship, Robert Fitzroy, kidnaps a couple of local indigenous people, called Yamana, one of them named Jemmy Button, and brings them back to England with the intention of “civilizing” them.
The theory is that having spent a year among “superior” English society wearing clothes and eating with utensils, the Indians, when brought back home, will spread the “joys” of civilization among the other Indians. Guevara, also an outsider, is about the only person to establish a relationship with Button, and the only one to foresee the experiment’s outcome.
Later, Button is arrested by the British and brought to trial on the Falkland Islands. He is accused of being the leader of an Indian massacre of a ship full of British missionaries who had arrived to convert the Yamana to Christianity. Guevara is there, if only to see Button, his friend, and to lend some moral support.
Based on a true story, this book is part seafaring story, part European colonialism, and part cultural tale of human nature (like Heart of Darkness) and it succeeds on all these levels. It’s a rather “quiet” story that may take some effort on the part of the reader, but, by the end, it is very much worth reading.
Twilight Dynasty: Courting Evil, Barry H. Smith, Erica House, 1999 Set near present-day Toronto, Canada, Kyle Morrow is a hot-shot private attorney who has become involved in past-life regression. He has been searching his previous lives looking for answers to the usual contemporary problems: women, money and a stagnant career. His niece, Mandy, comes to him with a story that she was chased, and almost killed, by some sort of demonic entity. A series of unsolved murders point to the estate of Victor Janus, extremely rich media mogul, and his spiritual guru son, Thomas, who has started a local spiritual college. Mandy was a student at that college. Father and son are the type who have the money, and power, to buy and sell judges, politicians and members of the media, so they are practically untouchable. Thomas is also going through past-life regression, through the same beautiful female psychic as Morrow; she is also being stalked by an unknown person. Thomas has learned a lot about using demonic forces and hypnosis to get what he wants; it seems that he and Morrow were enemies back in Atlantis. As Morrow gets too close for comfort, he learns first-hand just how good Janus is at long-distance hypnosis. Thinking that he was back in Atlantis, about to murder a female captive, Kyle learns, too late, that he has just murdered Jennifer, his common-law wife, on the grounds of the Janus estate. It becomes a battle for Morrow, not just against evil, but, for his life, his soul, and ultimately his sanity. There is a considerable amount of violence in this novel, including several human sacrifice murders. There is also a considerable amount of New Age thinking here, along with a large amount of Christian theology. This isn’t for the faint of heart, but it has something for everyone. It’s well done, thrilling, thought-provoking, and very much worth reading.
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Schechter started his professional journalism career as news director and “news dissector” in the 1970s at WBCN Radio in Boston. He later entered the world of TV producing, including a local issues talk show and the first, late-night, live variety show. He joined an upstart network called CNN, producing a daily, night time talk show. Moving to ABC, he spent the next eight years on the show 20/20 as a producer and investigative reporter. Going on his own, he started the company Globalvision, and produced the acclaimed shows South Africa Now and Rights & Wrongs.
Along the way, Schechter makes many observations about the state of TV journalism. Foreign news has been cut way back, because people supposedly aren’t interested, and because it lessens profits. The range of “acceptable” political opinion is from A to B. “Juicy” stories like O.J. or JonBenet Ramsey are pumped up to increase profits. The recent spate of media mergers have accelerated downsizing and cost-cutting that have hurt the quality of TV news. Entire research departments have been replaced by the Lexis-Nexis research service.
As an independent producer, Schechter saw, firsthand, the difficulty in getting his shows, or films about South Africa, on the air, including on PBS, the network that was supposedly designed for such things. Globalvision was forced into an almost constant journey through the world of philanthropy, looking for funding to stay afloat. Today, Schechter is still dissecting the news at www.mediachannel.org.
Perhaps a little better as My Life in TV News than as media analysis, this is still an excellent and easy to read book from someone who spent years on the inside. It’s especially recommended for that large number of Americans who call TV their main source of news.
Tony Endless had gotten a job working for a local pest exterminator. On his first job, he took out the firearms carried by everyone in Beerlight and wiped out the dog, cat and aquarium full of fish in the house, not realizing that they were not the pests in question. Word got around town, and now Tony has a thriving business breaking into house, at night, quietly removing pets that the owners want gone, and, just as quietly, giving them to owners that do want them. Ben Stalkeye and chance don’t go together very well. The strangest and unlikeliest things would happen, only on the condition that he didn’t want them to happen. This presented problems for his criminal career.
Joe Solitary loved the rush from false accusation and, therefore, did everything possible to be arrested and jailed for crimes in which he was not involved at all. He would go to the local police station all the time and confess to anything and everything, just to be in jail.
In a place where paranoia is part of daily life, Carl Overchoke went back for seconds and thirds. One day, he is told that “they” are on to him. Carl is an average guy who suddenly feels important. He starts acting more self-assured, knowing that he is being watched, and eventually does gain the notice of the police.
Jesse Downtime was not good at robbing people, so he experimented with smaller and smaller thefts. He tore the stalk from an apple at the local deli. He would swipe lint from strangers. He broke into the state zoo at night to steal an ant, then return it to the authorities. He would bump into people on the street, acquiring dozens of their atoms without suspicion. After his release from prison, his thievery was refined to such a point that the thefts occurred only in his mind.
Think Raymond Chandler on hallucinogenic drugs when reading this book. The stories are short, postmodern, surreal and well worth reading.
Matt takes the cocaine to one of the islands, intentionally not telling Alex where he is going. As long as the cocaine is missing, they’ll stay alive. Alex is kidnapped, and taken to the private island of Raoul, a Colombian drug lord. Alex is treated very well, except for being held prisoner, but Raoul makes it very clear that if Alex is lying about not knowing the whereabouts of Matt, and the cocaine, after Raoul is finished with her, she will be handed over to Jorge, his chief torturer.
Meantime, Matt, getting increasingly desperate and worried about Alex, runs into Dwight and Jeremy, a couple of undercover DEA agents assigned to keep an eye on Raoul. They take Matt to Raoul’s private island. Despite Matt’s care in looking for Alex, he is captured, and, when he won’t talk, is handed over to Jorge, who nearly beats him to death.
Matt and Alex escape from the island, and make it back to the DEA agents and their boat. One old cabin cruiser doesn’t have much chance of making it back to US territory against several ultra fast cigarette boats, especially since, during a refueling stop, Jeremy, who secretly works for Raoul, calls to reveal their location and course.
This is a fine piece of writing, worthy of any of the Major Bestseller thriller authors. Stafford does a first-rate job from start to finish. It’s plausible, exciting, an easy read, and one of that rare breed of stories that is not easily put down. It’s well worth the reader’s time.
Dale (his last name is not mentioned) tells of living in a dysfunctional family in Ohio. They were the “poor” family in town. Their house didn’t have indoor plumbing, and Dale slept in a crib until he was ten years old. He was one of six children, all of whose first names started with the letter D. His father was physically large, and abusive, physically and emotionally.
Despite the domestic troubles, Dale did well in high school and entered Wilmington College in Ohio with a strong interest in medicine, specifically in being an athletic trainer. Like many college freshmen, he got very involved with alcohol. He then met a woman named Michelle, with whom he became totally obsessed. She introduced him to narcotics; he spent every cent he had on her and her three kids, convinced that Michelle would marry him and they would live happily after. Michelle didn’t see it that way.
Dale spent several months homeless in Cincinnati, while Michelle was seeing other people; college had long since been abandoned. After a suicide attempt, he cleaned himself up and tried school again.
Over the years, there were a couple of more attempts at medical school, which he eventually passed, he met a woman named Carla through a Quaker ministry (they have been married for 15 years, and have four daughters), and Dale discovered the “joys” of prescription painkillers, his new addiction. He also discovered a talent as a teacher in medical school, and became a very popular professor. His teaching career was halted, and he almost lost his family, because of his addiction.
For anyone who thinks that they aren’t really an addict, or they can quit anytime, read this book and find out it isn’t so easy. Addiction to anything isn’t just a “phase” in life that one grows out of, and it can happen to anyone. This one is worth reading.
A group of women meet monthly in a restaurant and talk about their relationships with men, or, more likely, the lack thereof. A man meets a woman in a diner. He apparently says the wrong thing to her, and she walks off in a huff, leaving an untouched cup of coffee. The waitress, and then the cook, insist that he pay for the coffee, something he refuses to do. The situation deteriorates until the man pulls out a small knife, just so he can get out of there. The waitress falls into the knife, and the cook starts screaming, rather loudly. There is a story about a trip to a palm reader.
In her introduction, the author says that these stories are not intended as a Great Contribution to Literature. But if they can get the reader to forget, for a while, about the dishes in the sink that need washing, or the colicky baby that will wake up at midnight, then that is all that matters. In that respect, she succeeds very well. This is a first-rate group of stories that is well worth reading.
A native of Indiana, he grew up in a very dysfunctional home. A gunshot wound to the head in his youth left him with acalculia, or a problem with numbers. He moved out West, and made it his mission to find aliens. The aliens, called the Qua, come to him through his computer. Marland asks all sorts of questions about science, philosophy, etc.
The second novella is about Leah, living in the same town in Indiana. Leah wants to have a baby very, very much. Problem 1: Leah, a struggling writer, is also a lesbian. Problem 2: Bekke, her lover, took off one day with several major appliances. Leah goes to the Biology Department of the local college, where her father was a professor, under the guise of working on a science fiction story, to ask about reproduction alternatives. She also has a relationship with a male midget involved in a very strange performance of Shakespeare.
The third story is about Connie, a school bus driver, who moved from Indiana to the tourist part of South Carolina with her boyfriend, who then abandoned her. She and her friends, Doris and Stephanie, start to get messages from an unknown source through those CD-ROMs that advertise so many free hours on the Internet. The messages are in the serial numbers that have to be entered in the computer when signing up.
This one is really good. There is a considerable amount of weirdness in it, so it isn’t for everyone. These are fine stories of love, and relationships and contemporary life. I am looking forward to the sequel.