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 readingCategory Archives: Book Reviews: Non-fiction
All 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 […]
Continue readingMillion Mile Walker Dispatch Some crazy Things are Going On in Arizona & Beyond, October, 2022
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, I’ll report on some crazy things happening in Arizona leading up to mid-terms and on a broader context in Culture Watch. I’ll talk about my next book and offer a movie review and a very timely book review in My Writing, Interviews, and Reviews. I found a timely quote for Voices of the Day, the latest in What Others Are Saying, and an updated Calendar. You can click on the poster above for my recent presentation for the Arizona Professional Writers group. Before sharing my thoughts on the craziness surrounding us, I’d like to share […]
Continue readingThose Who Are Gone: A Novelette, by Lawrence F. Lihosit, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
Over the years, I’ve read and reviewed several of the eighteen books of fellow author and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer “Lorenzo” Lihosit. He was a volunteer in Honduras and married a lady from Mexico, and I was a volunteer in Guatemala and married a señorita from there. I used his Peace Corps Experience: Write & Publish Your Memoir to write my own, Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond, proofed his Oral History from Madera, California, and agreed with the Madera Tribune, “The best of its kind in print. Like Volume 1, the author offers real-life stories […]
Continue readingSouth to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, by Imani Perry, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
This book is one of several I’ve been reading to understand race relations in the U.S. better and make sense of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. I was brought up in Plainfield, New Jersey, where I only saw a few Black American kids in the upper tier of classes that I was in during elementary school. Then we moved out West, and I remember turning on my television to the riots in Newark, New Jersey, which were part of the 150 riots around the country during the “Long hot summer of 1967.” Newscasts showed shattered storefronts, fires caused by arson, […]
Continue readingEntre Dos Mundos: Una Memoria por Victor Montejo, La Revisión por Mark D. Walker
Este libro es una autobiografía de un increíble antropólogo y escritor guatemalteco. Él cuenta la extraordinaria historia de un niño Maya quien busca mejorar su vida a través de la educación. Es una historia de sueños y metas que atraviesa el mundo Maya y el Occidental. Supe del autor por primera vez, hace unos veinte años, al leer su novela, “Las Aventuras de Míster Puttison Entre los Mayas,”. Esta otra novela es histórica y satírica, relatando las aventuras de un viajero norteamericano, que aparece en una aldea Maya aislada y la comunidad piensa que es un cura. La historia es […]
Continue readingMillion Mile Walker Dispatch, Special Book & Movie Reviews!, September, 2022
Dear Friends and Colleagues from Around the World, I’ll report lessons learned after celebrating Banned Book Week in Culture Watch. I have special book and movie recommendations in My Writing, Interviews, and Reviews. I will share some compelling Voices of the Day, some surprising What Others Are Saying, and an updated Calendar. You can click on the poster above for my Arizona Authors Association newsletter section, which highlights several of my latest articles and book reviews. Cultural Watch My daughter Nicky & her librarian hubby, Ed, joined me for the “Band Against the Ban in Arizona” gathering kicked off by our PEN America […]
Continue readingDemocrazy, version 2020 by Elizabeth Graham, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
The author attended a presentation I made at the Arizona Professional Writers Group in August, and I participated in a presentation she made to the same group’s “Book Club” the next month, which offered an excellent opportunity to get acquainted. Her book helped connect the dots between several circumstances around past President Trump many Americans, and I wondered about: The stunning comment he made at the Helsinki Conference where he ignored his own intelligence community’s reports of Russian involvement in our elections because Putin said it was a lie. And then the impact of Trump working with and […]
Continue reading“Perception and Deception: A Mind-Opening Journey Across Cultures” by Joe Lurie, Reviewed by Mark D. Walker
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. — Henri Bergson I learned of Joe’s work and book from an interview on the Global TV Talk Show—whose host, Ed Cohen, asked many revealing questions. I learned that Joe and I are contemporaries—he was in Kenya with the Peace Corps when I was in Guatemala, but he took his knowledge of cross-cultural communications to new levels, and we have a more tolerant world as a result—at least among those who have read his book or participated in one of his classes/courses. I contacted Joe through the […]
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