Book Review: “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Cultural Crisis” by J.D. Vance Reviewer: Mark D. Walker June 7, 2017 As someone with a Scottish/Irish background, I was fascinated to learn that so many of us ended up in the Appalachian area in dire poverty and how difficult it was to get out of their situation. The author movingly recounts the travails of his family, the terrible toll that alcoholism, drug abuse and an underlying code of honor took his family—neither excusing or judging their actions and decisions. I also found the book timely after the election of Trump […]
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Book Review – Non-fiction: Henry: A Polish Swimmer’s True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America by Katrina Shawver
Henry: A Polish Swimmer’s True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America by Katrina Shawver Reviewed by Mark D. Walker Henry tells his story as a champion swimmer and swimming coach, interrupted by three years of imprisonment in Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a Polish political prisoner. He had an exceptional memory and an impressive cache of original documents and photos. I ran across this fascinating story when I met the author, Katrina, at an Arizona Authors Association event. She was a local journalist who’d written hundreds of newspaper columns for the Arizona Republic. She met eighty-five-year-old Henry Zguda in 2002 […]
Continue readingBook Review – Travel: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar By Paul Theroux Reviewed by Mark D. Walker Follow Theroux as he embarks on a 25,000-mile epic journey through Asia retracing the steps of a trip he’d taken thirty years before. Since then, Theroux records phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India grows, while Burma is mothered by a military dictatorship and, most interestingly, Vietnam flourished despite the havoc the United States had unleashed on it. No one describes the texture, sights, sounds and the flavors of this changing landscape better […]
Continue readingBook Review – Non-fiction: FROM FREEBORN TO FREETOWN & BACK
BOOK REVIEW “FROM FREEBORN TO FREETOWN & BACK” By Patrick R. O’Leary Reviewer, Mark D. Walker This is a well written memoir that brings back many memories, as I worked in Sierra Leone for three years. When twenty-two year old Patrick O’Leary stepped off the plane in Sierra Leone, West Africa in January 1967, he was dressed for the snow storm he had left in Freeborn County, Minnesota a few days earlier, so it didn’t take long for him to realize his rural Catholic upbringing, training for Tanzania, his original Peace Corps assignment and an earlier road trip to Key […]
Continue readingBook Review – Travel: Figures in a Landscape: People and Places Essays: 2001-2016
Figures in a Landscape: People and Places Essays: 2001-2016 By Paul Theroux Reviewed by Mark D. Walker The “Godfather of contemporary travel writing” has probably chronicled more places in the world than almost any other author. The second page of his book lists the forty Theroux publication which gives one a sense of what a prolific writer he is. This is his third volume of essays, following Sunrise with Seamonsters (1984) and Fresh Air Fiend (2001) for a total of 134 essays written over 53 years. This new collection of essays is a veritable cornucopia of sights characters and experiences […]
Continue readingBook Review- Travel: The Farm on the River of Emeralds
The Farm on the River of Emeralds By Moritz Thomsen Reviewed by Mark D. Walker While perusing my favorite books above my desk I realized that I’d never reviewed a book of my favorite Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Moritz Thomsen. Although he is best known for probably the most read Returned Peace Corps Volunteer book, Living Poor, published in 1969, it is correctly rated as one of the best Returned Peace Corps Volunteer memoirs of all time. my favorite is The Farm on the River of Emeralds, is the sequel and tells a tale of endless reverses as a part […]
Continue readingBook Review – Travel: Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range
Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range By William deBuys Reviewed by Mark D. Walker For years, I’ve taken my children from Santa Fe to Taos on the “high road” (highway 76), stopping off at the “Rancho de Chimayo” for traditional New Mexican food, including those light “sopapillas” the kids would fill with honey, and from there we’d visit the Santuario de Chimayo, one of New Mexico’s most beautiful adobe chapels It is said to be built on a site where the earth itself has the power to heal ailments and infirmities of […]
Continue readingBook Review – Fiction: Drop Dead
BOOK REVIEW DROP DEAD by Dick Lipez writing as Richard Stevenson (Ethiopia) Nov 25 2016 KickAssQueer is a gay Web site thousands go to for news, gossip, and as a forum to exchange often heated opinions about GLBT life in America. When one of KAQ’s editors is savagely murdered, it’s PI Don Strachey’s job to uncover whether one of the site’s many harsh critics, gay or straight, is responsible for this young man’s death—and possibly for other brutal assaults on gay men in and around New York City. What Strachey is soon forced to confront is a side of the […]
Continue readingBook Review – Non-fiction: Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is leaving everyone else in the dust, why that is a problem, and what to do about it
Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is leaving everyone else in the dust, why that is a problem, and what to do about it By Richard V. Reeves Reviewed by Mark D. Walker This is the perfect companion book to J.D. Vance’s, Hillbilly Elegy: “A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis,” which I reviewed almost a year ago, as both authors provide examples and quantifiable, sociological analyses on how extensive the gap between the wealthy and poor continues to grow here in the U.S. Although it is well known that the top 1 percent are concentrating their […]
Continue readingBook Review – About Writing: DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? WHY WRITING WELL MATTERS
BOOK REVIEW OF “DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? WHY WRITING WELL MATTERS” By Harold Evans Reviewed by Mark D. Walker June 12, 2017 After writing my first book I felt it was time to return to the “classroom” and sit by the side of one of the best editors and authors of our time and continue working on my art. I was not disappointed. The insights on good writing permeated the entire book, and as an added benefit the book was filled with insightful commentary on our times presented with both cutting humor and satire, and the graceful charm the […]
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