Kindness for Weakness
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July 6, 2013

Kindness becomes weakness as boys become men in a place where violence is the solution to every problem. In Shawn Goodman’s new novel, 15-year-old James finds himself in an upstate detention center after his brother recruited him into drug trafficking. It’s a coming of age story set in a second chances plot. More Fight Club than Catcher in the Rye, Kindness for Weakness captures the… [Read More]

Summer Reading List
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June 8, 2013

Good writers read good writing. While you are writing your work-in-progress, keep reading great books. Here’s our recommendations for a super summer reading list. Non-Fiction Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan Death in the Baltic: WWII Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by Cathryn Prince Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction… [Read More]

Prose: Good, Better, Best
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June 4, 2013

Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd have co-authored Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction and opened a window into writing and editing, writer and editor. Author of Strength in What Remains, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, Tracy Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1981 non-fiction narrative, The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder established… [Read More]

Interview with Cathryn J Prince, author of Death in the Baltic
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May 14, 2013

Jill Swenson: Cathryn Prince, this is your fourth book of historical non-fiction. Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is a featured selection for the Military History Book Club this spring, advance reviews are positive and Amazon sales rankings impressive.. How does your experience working towards publication on this fourth book compare to a decade ago with your first, Shot from… [Read More]

Death in the Baltic: WWII Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
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April 9, 2013

Horst Woit, a young boy, snatched his uncle’s jack knife from the kitchen table as he and his mother walked out the door of their home.  They trudged through the snow  and freezing weather toward the Baltic harbor where they boarded a ship named the Wilhelm Gustloff to flee from Nazi Germany while Stalin’s soldiers advanced on the Eastern Front in January 1945. When Alexander… [Read More]

Spring Seeds on Saturday
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April 6, 2013
Heirloom flower, Brooktondale, NY 2012

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonder,” Henry David Thoreau. Heirloom pink poppy seeds sprouted this week indoors. I am prepared to expect blossoms this July. Much depends on what happens between now and… [Read More]

Homegrown Honey Bees: Book to Buzz
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December 15, 2012

So it’s cold outside. Steep a cup of tea and put in a teaspoon of pure, local, raw honey. Then take a sip, close your eyes, and feel that warm golden glow. Give thanks for the angels of agriculture: bees. Homegrown Honey Bees: Beekeeping Your First Year, from Hiving to Honey Harvest by Alethea Morrison is an introduction to beekeeping and a recruitment tool for… [Read More]

Queen of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanguay by A. Erdman
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October 9, 2012

Before Lady Gaga, before Madonna, Cher, Lucy. Even before Mae West. In fact, Mae West started out in the shadows of the original cyclonic comedienne, Eva Tanguay (1879-1947). Andy Eerdman unearths the lost legacy of  one of the most famous women in her day in this compelling history, Queen of Vaudeville, just released by Cornell University Press. Raised in a typical New England mill town, Miss… [Read More]

Agorafabulous: Dispatches from my Bedroom
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October 6, 2012

“When I was seventeen years old, I met the hottest guy…,”so begins Sara Benincasa‘s memoir about a boy who would never pick her as his girlfriend. “Kevin entered a new high school in a new town and was immediately nominated for Best Looking, Most Likely to Succeed, and Best Personality – stunning trifecta of high school laurels… Then, one night in the spring, he walked… [Read More]

Familiar by J. Robert Lennon
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September 22, 2012

J. Robert Lennon makes the surreal perfectly plausible with his eye for details from observed everyday reality in his new novel, Familiar, to be released on October 2, by Graywolf Press. The clarity of his prose offers the reader a fresh, stark, and swift opening that situates the reader’s sympathies with the main character, Elisa Brown. Driving across Wisconsin, she recalls her sons’ early years… [Read More]