Last summer, I started reading Art & Physics on the recommendation of my son, who actually read it at the suggestion of a teacher a few years ago. Bottom line – get this book, even if you only look at the pictures. There’s a lot of great art in it, and the illustrations explaining the physics concepts are excellent. [Read more]
Holy maniacs, it’s Brian Doyle!
It took me a chapter or two to adapt to Doyle’s chanting blend of poetry and prose. Then I went crazy for it, wanting more and more. And I’m equally enthralled with his new novel, The Plover, which continues the saga of Declan O’Donnell, a hard ass with a heart of gold who sails off into the Pacific alone. The book is scheduled to hit the shelves tomorrow (April 8), just a few days ahead of Doyle’s keynote address at the annual Get Lit gathering in Cannon Beach. [Read More]
Well Spoken: A Review of Smart Mouth by Holly Lorincz
At the age of 23, Addy Taylor still feels too awkward and half-grown for adult responsibilities. Yet here she is on her first day teaching English at Oceanside High School, and she has already fallen prey to a trick chair that collapses under her, becomes drawn into adolescent dramas not too different from her own young-twenties troubles, and lets the bossy assistant principal inflict on her the role of reviving the school’s long-defunct speech and debate team. [Read More]
Multi-Generational Mystery: A Review of Whisper Down the Years by Elia Seely
It’s a blustery night on the largest of the Orkneys, a group of islands far off the northern coast of Scotland. Finn, a reporter from Ireland, plagued by ulcers and a moribund marriage, has taken temporary refuge in this remote agricultural community. Traveling on foot to attend a musical performance, he takes a shortcut through a cemetery and discovers the body of a murder victim… [Read More]
The Secret Society of Rain: A Review of Walking In Rain by Matt Love
Imagine a secret society devoted to rain, rooted in the rich, sodden soil of the Pacific Northwest. Members recognize one another by the soaked state of their outerwear, hair plastered to glistening foreheads, eyes wild with the prophetic water that they invite to run down their faces. They exchange secret handshakes with slick hands and wrinkled fingertips. They gather in cabins moldering beside rivers, where rain infiltrates through a fallen roof and slides down walls padded with moss. [Read More]
Peninsulas and Islands: A Tale for Coastal Communities
Charles Le Guin’s novel, North Coast, is a peninsula of a story. Set in the fictional community of Bridger Bay, the protagonists—Kim, the narrator, and Steve, who becomes his closest friend and briefly his lover—reach out between individuals, cultures, and elements.
How the World Can Be the Way It Is
I’m reading a book by this title, by Steve Hagen, published in 1995. The book has recently been revised and retitled Why the World Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense, published by Sentient Publications. Hagen is a Buddhist teacher with lots of credentials. Anyway, the book so far has been pretty repetitive, basically saying that Reality (with a capital R, the real thing) is different from what we think it is.
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Into Hellfire Via Portland Frost
From the first line, I love this book, and it’s not even the first line but the quote before the first line that jump starts the whole thing. See, it’s Flannery O’Connor.
I’m haunted by O’Connor. This southern woman with pheasants on her farm who died before forty and wrote short stories about serial killers shooting good Christian grandmas and four-year-old boys drowning themselves in baptismal rivers. [Read More]
Get Lit at the Beach, Cannon Beach
Gathering, surrounded by, story writers, story tellers and story readers is like bathing in lavender salts — lingering into contentment, absorbing a lifestyle, humming.
Cannon Beach honors the seer of Earthsea
“Our little house is a wonderful, quiet place to work. Also a very good house for dreams, many people who’ve slept there have told me that. Dreams and the kind of writing I do have some connection. One morning when I was waking up in our Cannon Beach bedroom, the whole idea of one of the “Earthsea” books came to me as the light grew. When I got up, it was daylight and I had a novel to write.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
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