Southern stories for summer reading
Perhaps like many people, summer is a time for me to finally read those books I’ve been wanting to get to. While this summer began with determination to dwindle the stack of my “to-read” books, that stack has ended up bigger than smaller.
Sebastian Junger on death, visits and physics
Every once in a while, I find myself engrossed in a book that suddenly delivers my ignorance to me on a silver platter.
A remedy for the spring-time blues
There are always seasons in life when you feel the need to get away from your day-to-day, and I have found myself in just such a season.
Two fine novels for spring reading
Two novels, one a classic Western set in 1885 Nevada, the other centered on Barcelona and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil war, snagged my attention this past week. I was busy, but every time I caught a break, I was on the front porch, enjoying the May weather and turning the pages.
Building a world beyond
Having just recently written a review for these pages of an anthology made up of multiple writers published in 2023 with a similar title that was edited by Ervin Laszlo, I am taking the liberty to review the much more singular and shorter primer that Laszlo wrote in 2022 prior to putting together his large anthology.
Molon Labe: A review of ‘Gates of Fire’
A little over three years ago, a stranger in a coffee shop with whom I’d struck up a conversation excused himself from the table, walked to his car and returned with a copy of Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire.”
Good medicine and Mother’s Day — a book, a poem
All of us, to one extent or another, make our way through a world of unexamined phenomena.
It’s a complex world, and we generally glide through it without thinking too much of its parts and machinery. We all carry mini-computers in our pockets, but ask us to explain how we can look at the screen of our phone and read a newspaper from New Delhi, and the best most of us can do is shrug.
Two faces of war: America 1861, Spain 1812
Anyone interested in the history of our country will benefit by reading “The Dogs of War: 1861” (Oxford University Press, 2011, 128 pages).
The path toward a brighter future
Ervin Laszlo (Nobel Peace Prize nominee, science philosopher and founder of the Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research) and David Lorimer (chair of the Galileo Commission and editor of Paradigm Explorer) are the authors of the anthology “The Great Upshift” (Light On Light Press, 2023, 384 pages), a book that author Gregg Braden says “… reveals practical steps to awaken a heartfelt world based in love rather than a bleak future born of fear.”
The books I didn’t read
As often as not, I check out books from the library I never read. They sit on my dining room table or in a special pile of library books on the floor nearby, waiting to make my acquaintance.