notanotherbookreview

THE NIGHT SHE SLEPT WITH A BEAR by Holly Anderson (Publication Studio, Portland, OR) is like visiting an alien country, you think you remember--from dreams you might have forgotten.  It’s a novel-like fiction made up of mesostics and flash fiction. I checked Wikipedia:   A   mesostic   is a   poem   or other   typography   such that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text. It is similar to an   acrostic , but with the vertical phrase intersecting the middle of the line, as opposed to beginning each new line. The practice of using index words to select pieces from a preexisting text was developed by   Jackson Mac Low   as "diastics". It was used extensively by the experimental composer   John Cage   (Walsh 2001). The Night She Slept with a Bear also comes with music by Chris Brokaw on itunes.  And since the fiction resembles a musical composition, with themes repeated and intersected, it’s probab...

Robin Hathaway was an original mystery writer. Her Doctor series was wryly funny and the Philly setting was used in very creative ways. Who knew in back of Jefferson Hospital there was an Indian burial ground?  Or that an herb garden in a hospital could have a nefarious purpose?  She was discovered in a St. Martin's contest, in her 60's, and had begun writing a decade before. Robin showed age is  irrelevant to writers and went on to develop another series. Here is a link to her obit. http://articles.philly.com/2013-02-21/news/37202639_1_mystery-author-mystery-writers-mystery-scene-magazine On a personal note, Robin was an inspiration to me. Through knowing her, I went on to finish writing I had lost confidence in,  respected my art work and became a better parent. Her message to me was have faith in yourself and move on.  I believe we are all in the process of becoming who we are. As people and our work, life seems to be about process. Success or failur...

This nonfiction work is a rare classic. There are lots of books on Communications, Public Relations, Public Affairs, Social Media, TV & Radio, Internet Marketing, Media strategy. But no other book I’ve seen looks at the permeable borders of these categories as they contribute to the big picture of political campaigns, national security—Strategic Communications.  In PERSUASION AND POWER (Georgetown University Press), James Farwell shows that skill in the use of images, words, and symbols, does not necessarily guarantee success. The end result often depends on the content of the message and its goal.  Deception is not as successful as truth, consistent, and persuasive. It also helps to remember that any success is within a specific time-frame.  With the speed and incessant change of the 24/7 news cycle, a permanent end result is a chimera. Yet this book analyzes the strategic communications embodied in our Declaration of Independence, a document of enormous i...

ARCADIA is a mish mash of yeanings, a misstopia In the utopian community in Lauren Goff’s novel, Arcadia, life is a mish mash of yearnings--for food and love, beauty and a human community perfect as nature. I take my utopias seriously and have some knowledge of religious communities, such as the Shakers and the Amish, as well as  ecstatic cults, like the one in Arcadia. Smartly, Goff gives them an Amish neighbor. This sober religious community helps their indulgent neighbors learn to farm so they don’t starve. And Arcadia returns the favor sending their midwives to aid the Amish, but the commonality is not just about mutual aid but love of the land and their people. Goff also shows in this story of a childhood on a commune, that sometimes there’s also a strong distaste of the same land and people.. The hero of Arcadia is Bit for Bit of a hippie, the miracle baby who survives, though born premature and weighing only three pounds. Through his eyes Arcadia is a physically b...

Peter Cherches’ LIFT YOUR RIGHT ARM, (March, Pelekenesis) Peter Cherches is a master of the conundrum, a poet of the nuance that makes nonsense of logic and meaning where it wouldn’t be caught dead.  Imagine the love-child of Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein, or the uneasy marriage of Archibald MacLeish and Harold Pinter and you may have an idea of the singularity of his style. Mr. Cherches' new book of minimalist prose, LIFT YOUR RIGHT ARM, is a novel with five movements or five novels--as you find it. Coincidentally, Cherches means to search for in French and his humor is found in unlikely places. Take the opening section with the adventures of Mr.Deadman. Here's an excerpt: “Life,” Mr.Deadman says, “is a death-defying stunt.”  And with some chill and much amusement, you accompany Mr. Deadman to a sushi restaurant, a barbecue, keeping up with the Joneses, and on a holiday.  The punch line is, as always, as you knew it would be, that life's different bec...

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, published by Farrar Straus Giroux, is a very smart novel that pits new technologies against old (think Google vs, Name of the Rose) and in the process, it examines what language tells us about meanings.  Is our consciousness transformed by the medium? Marshall Mcluhan, sage of communication, believed the medium is the message and that technology is the content. In Don DeLillo’s The Names, clashing languages form a furious Tower of Babel. Sloan has similar questions about the language of technology and how it’s shape shifting us in the 21 st century. But that may be his next, darker book. Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore is an entertaining mystery wrapped in a love for the miraculous tools of our 21 st century technological genius. Language, code, is the heart of this mystery, which begins in a strange bookstore of unreadable books. Clay Jannon, web site designer, is desperate after being laid off from his job. He’s walki...

A “Farewell” that’s really a hello to Dorothy Parker I’m a fan of Dorothy Parker’s story, Big Blonde, though she may be better remembered for her clever quotes, “I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it.” Though her heyday was 1920’s, Parker’s wit is still fresh and inspiring. So I cheer Ellen’s Meister’s novel, which brings her ghost to the rescue of a modern literary woman. Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Meister (Putnam & Sons, February 2013) is a thinking woman’s fantasy. Violet Epps, fearless movie critic for a national magazine, is a hopeless wimp in her personal life, crippled with anxiety not entirely of the neurotic variety. Recently, Violet lost her sister in a car accident, as well as custody of her beloved niece. To add to the turmoil, her loser boyfriend is set to move into her house and her snarky assistant wants her job. Feeling she needs inspiration, Violet, who thinks of Parker as a kind of literary alter ego, makes a rese...