Category Archives: General

Twilight’s End

Star Trek: Twilight’s End© 1996 Jerry Oltion279 pages Somewhere in space lies a planet that’s not spinning, and that just shouldn’t be so.  Tidally locked, it poses a great inconvenience to the colonists who occupy the permanent perimeter between frozen … Continue reading

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This week: fiction, the writing and reading of

Dear readers:             The past few weeks have been taken up with National Novel Writing Month, of course. I got off to a roaring start, 20,000  words in the first week, before slowing down to the recommended average of 1667 … Continue reading

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Life, Death, and Growing Up on the Western Front

Life, Death, and Growing up on the Western Front© 2013 Anthony Fletcher352 pages In 1914 Britons marched to war, and with them they took their hearts. Life, Death, and Growing Up on the Western Front takes in the experience of … Continue reading

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A Short History of Byzantium

A Short History of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich© 1997 John Julius Norwich431 pages             Rome fell in a.d. 474? Tell that to the Byzantines, who for centuries persisted in being an afterimage of the classical world, … Continue reading

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NaNoWriMo 2014

It’s National Novel Writing Month again, and I’m once again tasking myself with the challenge of writing 50,000 words before November is out. The challenge starts on November 1st, of course.  I have an idea in mind that’s a quasi-fantasy … Continue reading

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The Unknown War

The Unknown War© 1931 Winston Churchill396 pages The war to end all wars, what Sir Winston Churchill aptly described as the world crisis, began when a Serbian partisan assassinated the heir of Austria-Hungary’s throne, setting into motion a Rube Goldberg … Continue reading

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Remembering

Remembering© 1988 Wendell Berry112 pages             Andy Catlett is a man far from home, wounded in spirit and in body. His right hand was eaten and destroyed by mechanized farm equipment,  and in attending an agricultural … Continue reading

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Inch by Inch: A Reading

“If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked — but of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all … Continue reading

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This week: airplanes with Jesus, Kurt Vonnegut, and Voltaire

            This past weekend I read through A Day with a Perfect Stranger, not a difficult task given that it’s less than 100 pages. A sequel to Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, which featured overworked businessman … Continue reading

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The Fellowship of the Ring

The Fellowship of the Ring, being the first part of the Lord of the Rings© 1954 J.R.R Tolkien570 pages Not many birthday gift involves a life-threatening quest to defeat a Dark Lord and prevent the enslavement of all living creatures, … Continue reading

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