Fiction is a beautiful way to stick a finger in the eye of complacency, don’t you think? In a debut novel that is both funny and disturbing, Stephan Eirik Clark jumps feet first into a pool of what might be satire, taking a lingering look at how, as consumers of unnatural “food,” we might unintentionally be the makers of our own undoing. Is it possible? Is industrial food safe? Or is it just funny?
You decide. Read the review here.
It may be August but it’s still summer and there’s plenty of good vacation reading left to do. Start with Rosecrans Baldwin’s debut novel. It’s a bright shiny star in the firmament of new fiction.
As it turns out, the best way to get creative is to get out of your head. Simple? Yes. Easy? Maybe not so much . . .but totally worth it.
If you love Mozart and you love a good romance, you must read Vivien Shotwell’s Vienna Nocturne. Wait. What – romance? Yes. It’s summer –when thoughts turn to light, frothy literature, something to be consumed with lemonade poolside, or near the thundering shore. If you’re looking for a sweet, well-crafted historical romance and Mozart is your guy, this is the book for you. READ MORE HERE
Real Freedom is Never Free
With the penning of the Declaration of Independence on this date in 1776, and the ratification of the United States Constitution beginning in 1787, the Founding Fathers and their political and intellectual progeny set in motion one of the greatest social experiments ever undertaken by a society: a democracy of, by and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln recalled in his now famous Gettysburg Address. It has never been easy, this little love affair we have with individual vs. societal rights, and if events of the last few years are any indication, it’s not going to lighten up anytime soon. As we continue our forward roll into the 21st century where conventional definitions of all we have known and held dear seem to be rapidly falling by the wayside, we’d be wise to remember that the Founding Fathers didn’t have all the answers either. What they did have was the courage, the vision, and the tenacity of spirit to ask the right questions, and to strive for answers that would benefit the many, not just the few. United We Stand. It’s always been the best and brightest version of us. Happy 4th of July, America!
We love a good romance. And when you spice it up with high Texas culture, low down dirty scoundrels and illegal hooch, well then you’ve got Magnolia City. Here’s a shout out to our friend, Duncan Alderson. Way to go, D!
WINTER [notes from montana]
“It was early September and I was driving, literally, to the last road in the United States, a gravel-and-dirt road that paralleled the Canadian border, up in Montana’s Purcell Mountains. It was like going into battle, or falling in love, or walking from a wonderful dream, or falling into one: wading into cold water on a fall day.” – Rick Bass, Winter
Can Rick Bass help it if his Soul’s been on a nature walkabout for all of his life? In Winter [notes from montana], Bass’s wandering spirit is alive and well and living in the Yaak Valley in Montana without electricity, without heat, other than the wood-fired variety, and without much contact with civilization… To read more of this post, go here…
Just because Earth Day is done, doesn’t mean we are. Here, then, is another environmental warrior, pen poised in furtherance of the cause. If you haven’t read any of Carl Hiaasen’s environmental crime thrillers, you’ve been denying yourself. Read on…
“I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place Read more
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