The twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq seemed a fitting time to review this impressive examination of how the U.S. military has impacted the entire world and the prominence of violence at home. 32,000 Americans were injured, and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians died at the cost of $806 billion. To grasp the scope of U.S. wars and other combat actions abroad, one should reference the list provided in the appendix—eight pages long with some 30 battles or actions listed on each page! One of its many maps is filled with symbols of U.S. Wars and other U.S. combat […]
Continue readingJanuary February 2023 Special Edition of the Million Mile Walker Dispatch!
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, I’ll start the year off with news of my latest interview on Global Connections TV, the growing movement to make the U.S. a Theocracy in Culture Watch, a book review of a Dystopian world which reflects the direction we’re taking, My Writing and Reviews, What Others Are Saying, an insightful Voices in Action plus an updated Calendar. Fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and Host of Global Connections TV, Bill Miller, interviewed me for a second time. He focused on […]
Continue readingThe Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I decided to read this book after I saw the author promoting a fundraiser for PEN America to combat book banning. She partnered with Penguin Random House to create an unburnable version of her often-banned novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. She is depicted with a flame thrower. Margaret Atwood is among the top twenty authors banned, with three titles and fifteen bans in eleven districts. One of the positive results of book banning is that many readers will read them to find out why they’re being suppressed. She’s also an accomplished author with over fifty books translated into 35 languages. This […]
Continue readingBeloved by Toni Morrison, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
What better time to review this influential novel than the first day of Black History Month? Although a piece of fiction, it accomplishes the objective set out in the introduction, “I wanted the reader to be kidnapped, thrown ruthlessly into an alien environment as the first step into a shared experience with the book’s population—just as the characters were snatched from one place to another, from any place to any other, without preparation or defense.” She provides an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery. Published in 1987, set after the American Civil War, the novel tells of a dysfunctional […]
Continue readingThe Best of the Million Mile Walker Dispatch, December 2022
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, In this year in review issue, I’ll highlight my new book and share the most compelling stories from the Culture Watch. My Saddest Pleasures: 50 Years on the Road was published by Cyberwit.net. and was announced in the May issue of the Dispatch. It was inspired by a quote from Paul Theroux from his Picture Palace, which put my fifty years of travel into perspective and allowed me to appreciate the miscues, disasters, and disappointments. https://millionmilewalker.com/2022/06/million-mile-walker-dispatch-launching-my-new-book-my-saddest-pleasures-may-2022/ The response from fellow travel writers was immediate: “Walker delights in this chapbook with amusing […]
Continue readingKnulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp, by Hermann Hesse, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I became enamored with Hesse’s work in Crested Butte, Colorado, where I managed a dozen houses that paid for my schooling at Western State Colorado University. Those were the days of “Counterculture.” The bookshelves of most of my student renters inevitably included Hesse classics like Siddartha, Demian, The Glass Bead Game, and the iconic Whole Earth Catalog—displayed in smoke-filled living rooms. By the early1970s, Hesse had become a cult figure, and in 1968, the California rock group, Steppenwolf, named after one of Hesse’s other classic books, released “Born to be Wild,” which was featured in the film Easy Rider. The […]
Continue readingWriting on the Edge: A Borderlands Reader, by Tom Miller, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I’ve gotten to know the author over the years based on a shared appreciation of iconic writer Moritz Thomsen, whom Tom met in Ecuador. He accompanied me to the University of Arizona Library, which acquired his archives, including six boxes of materials on Thomsen that I used to research and write several articles. With Tom’s help, I’d write my anthology, Moritz Thomsen: The Greatest American Writer Nobody Knows About. Tom and I also share a love of travel and travel writing. His best-known book, The Panama Hat Trail, is one of my all-time favorites, and I was impressed to learn […]
Continue readingMillion Mile Walker Dispatch, Talking About Racism in the U.S. November, 2022
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, Ever since the killing of Floyd and the global response known as Black Lives Matter, I’ve been thinking about how much of this reality I’ve ignored over the years, although it was right in front of me. So, in Culture Watch. I’ll share my personal experience and highlight three books, which will help us better understand and deal with racism in its many forms. I’ll, announce an upcoming TV interview and a new role as contributing writer for The Authors Show in My Writing, Interviews, and Reviews. I found several timely quotes for […]
Continue readingAll Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto About Growing Up Black and Queer, by George M. Johnson, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
This book caught my attention for several reasons, not the least because I was brought up in the same community as the author, Plainfield, New Jersey, a bedroom suburb of the New York Metropolitan area. We even went to the same elementary school, Fredrick W. Cook. Although I was 15 in the early 60s and the author was that age in 2004, missing each other by some 40 years, but understanding how communities change over the years to benefit some at the detriment of others is essential to recognize. My grandfather worked for Mack Truck, one of several manufacturing companies […]
Continue readingThe Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
I came across Pico Iyer while reading and reviewing Ronald Wright’s Time Among the Maya, published by ELAND Press, as he wrote the introduction. His overview was insightful and concise, and I learned he’d written over 50 such openings. Initial research revealed that he was a revered travel writer and that he’d written a book about his fascination with one of my favorite writers, Graham Greene. The book is a meditation about Graham, as well as the author. Greene is the virtual man in Iyer’s head, raising the question, what causes a particular writer to resonate in our souls? I’d […]
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