Dr. John H. Krahn Reviews THE SECRET WAR OF HENRY REBBENOFF
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Labels: 3rd edition, carolyn howard-johnson, Carolyn Wilhelm, Modern History Press, reviewers, the frugal editor, The New Book Review
TITLE OF BOOK: Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor
AUTHOR: Karen Moe
REVIEWER: Daniel Gawthrop
REVIEWER’S BYLINE: The British Columbia Review Publisher and Editor
ASSURANCE TO SATISFY COPYRIGHT LAW:
X Yes, I have received permission from the reviewer to reprint their review in its entirety.
REVIEW:
For any new author seeking a large audience for a polemical work, the self-declared “manifesto” is a risky undertaking. Driven by the urgency of singular purpose, a manifesto in the wrong hands can result in the most artless of writing: self-righteous, tone-deaf in its didacticism, utterly lacking in irony, or all three. In a book title, the word “manifesto” combined with “feminist” and “victim” calls up all sorts of red flags that will turn off certain readers: one might well assume that what’s between the covers will be drearily predictable and all too depressing.
Fortunately, this “manifesto” is nothing of the kind. To the contrary, the reader is in good hands with Karen Moe: her first book, a memoir about rape and recovery, turns out to be creative non-fiction of the most readable, if gut-wrenching, sort. Much of this has to do with the author’s self-deprecating humility, which shines through in every chapter. In turning the narrative lens toward herself, Moe—an art critic, visual/performance artist, and feminist activist—employs a high degree of self-awareness in deconstructing not only a traumatic event in her own life but also the misogynistic ideas and behaviours that produce rape culture, constantly examining her own assumptions while doing so. She has clearly done her homework, too, coming to this project armed with all the feminist theory she needs to build her case. ...Now fifty-five, Moe says she was emotionally incapable of writing this memoir until now. And that’s a good thing, for Victim is a much better and wiser book than it would have been had she published it within a short time of her terrifying abduction. As a memoir charting the author’s decades-long recovery, Victim is a rich and soulful testament to the power of human resilience that redefines the meaning of victimhood itself. It confirms the power of art as a source of healing while offering rape victims a time-tested roadmap for recovery, self-empowerment, and—in response to reactionary political events like the overturning of Roe vs. Wade—resistance.
MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Daniel Gawthrop is the author of five non-fiction books including The Rice Queen Diaries (2005) and The Trial of Pope Benedict: Joseph Ratzinger and the Vatican’s Assault on Reason, Compassion, and Human Dignity (2013), both published by Arsenal Pulp Press. His first novel, Double Karma, will be published in Spring 2023 by Cormorant Books. Editor’s note: Daniel Gawthrop has also reviewed books by Keith Maillard, Hassan Al Kontar, and Cheryl A. MacDonald & Jonathon R.J. Edwards for The British Columbia Review.
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A Wish For Home
(Secrets of Bliss Valley Book 1)
Jo Ann Brown
March, 2021
Love Inspired Pub
Women’s Fiction
Reviewed by Elise Cooper
A Wish For Home by Jo Ann Brown is a wonderful read. It delves into love, forgiveness, and second chances, something every reader can relate with. The heroine, Lauren, must reconcile her anger and resentment toward the Amish community for shunning her parents but also must deal with the boy who bullied and tormented her as a young teenager.
“Two of my children are adopted. About two years ago my son’s birth mother reconnected with him through his adoption agency. She was looking for him for a long time. It was wonderful to see the connection they made and to see how the family came back together. I am fascinated with those who are adopted and how their birth family finds them.”
The book opens with Lauren driving her 1966 VW Beetle through her old hometown of Bliss Valley Pennsylvania. Now part of the English world, she no longer goes by the Amish name Laurene, wanting nothing to do with the Amish community she belonged to. She planned on just driving through it on her way to Lancaster to meet with developers who want to build a casino. Unexpectedly, Lauren gets caught in an ice storm and hits a pothole that damages her car. At the local garage she must deal with the mechanic, Adam Hershberger, the boy who bullied her all those years ago. Life’s circumstances have changed him considerably. Now a widower and raising a four-year-old daughter, Mary Beth, he regrets how he treated Laurene. But she must also come to grips with her past and is helped by her Great Aunt Sylvia Nolt. To make matters worse, she is also dealing with the fact that she was adopted, a bombshell her parents just laid on her.
“Amish romance is incredibly popular the last five to ten years. Writers of this genre realize that the simpler and quieter life of the Amish is attractive. Of course, there is the illusion that the life is simpler. I live in a small town and have Amish neighbors, so I understand that feeling. But when I lived in larger cities, I realized you do not know your neighbors. Readers of Amish stories also like the sense of community and how the Amish want to keep the family and community together. I live in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. There are casinos here. One is being built in the city of York. Because they pay taxes the Amish can go to meetings and have a say.”
The other piece to the story is a gripping mystery. Someone is starting fires at Amish homes, a serial arsonist. Since Adam is a volunteer firefighter, he intends to find the person behind the fires. Although he and Lauren are reconnecting and having some romantic feelings toward each other they must overcome the past and the present, where he resents her for encouraging a casino in the area.
Labels: author jo Ann brown, Reviewer Elise Cooper, The New Book Review, women’s fiction
TITLE OF BOOK: JACK SH*T: VOLUPTUOUS BAGELS AND OTHER CONCERNS OF JACK FRIEDMAN (JACK SH*T VOLUME 1)
AUTHOR OF BOOK: JACK FRIEDMAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
An essayist, reporter, standup comedian, and political columnist, his work has appeared in Esquire, The Progressive Populist, Inside Media; The Las Vegas Review-Journal; and AAPG EXPLORER, a magazine for petroleum geologists, which is all the more noteworthy, considering he knows little about petroleum geology and has hurt himself pumping his own gas, Barry does radio commentary on Public Radio Tulsa and appeared in UHF with “Weird Al" Yankovic, a movie which still provides him with $3.76 residual checks every time it plays at some Lithuanian drive-in.
X Yes, I have received permission from the reviewer to reprint their review in its entirety.
REVIEW:
This is the relationship, including many trips to many 2-for-1 buffets in many different cities, between a 90-something father and his 60-something son over the last 20 years of the father’s life. Through carefully prepared decaf, trips to Florida to see the relatives, hearing loss, dementia, VA visits, playing “Crap” at Indian casinos, and living at “The Hebrew Home,” the father, a Purple Heart recipient (maybe) and a CPA (maybe), wrings every ounce out of life that he can. And a son takes notes throughout it all.
REVIEWER’S BYLINE:
Barry is also the author of Jacob Fishman's Marriages, Funny You Should Mention It, Road Comic, Four Days And Year Later, and The Joke Was on Me.
AUTHOR'S EMAIL ADDRESS:
AUTHOR'S FAVORITE LINKS:
www.amazon.com/Barry-Friedman/
AUTHOR'S EMAIL ADDRESS:
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Labels: Author Betty Jo Tucker, Author Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Casablanca the Movie, Cloris Leachman, Jack Lemmon, Lost Films, Madeline Kahn, Openly Gay Comedian, Reviewer Betty Jo Tucker, The New Book Review
This summer I searched for stories that would help make sense of the upheaval we are facing. I read three books that were wildly different, Lydia Yuknavitch’s novel Thrust, Sharon Heath’s novel, The Mysterious Composition of Tears, and Dick Sclove’s nonfiction book, Escaping Maya’s Palace—an analysis of the madness of modern civilization based on a close read of the Mahabharata. What they had in common was to take seriously what Ursula Le Guin calls the “carrier bag of fiction” (and I would add of nonfiction stories). Le Guin says, “I would go so far as to say that the natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.” Nonfiction stories can also be carrier bags of essential medicines…
Sharon Heath’s Mysterious Composition of Tears is a sci-fi/magical realism story set in the future that has physicists grappling with climate change. Heath incorporated…work on the precautionary principle in this fictional setting by describing scientists taking seriously the possible negative consequences of extremely novel technologies. I wonder when some future scientist might read her novel and change her approach to incorporate precaution. Medicine!
Labels: Author Sharon Heath, Fiction: Eco-Fiction, Fiction: Fantasy, Fiction: Sci Fi, Reviewer Carolyn Raffensperger, Science and Environmental Health, The Mysterious Composition of Tears