Category Archives: Books

  The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway (2008. Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1-59448-365-3). I was asked to read Galloway’s novel of war torn Bosnia/Herzegovina’s capital city as a precursor to the book being selected for the area “One Book, One … Continue reading →

  Take All to Nebraska by S. K. Winther (1976. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803258310) As part of my involvement with the blog, Rural Lit R.A.L.L.Y., an organization that has its purpose in preserving and studying rural-flavored novels from … Continue reading →

Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller (1994. Grove Press. This review refers to the Kindle version of the book.) Maybe I should just let the words of a seventeen year old reviewer on Amazon say it for me: I am … Continue reading →

I’m not a businessman. I am a husband, father, grandfather, judge, outsdoorsman and, during my “spare” time, a pretty fair writer. But as the owner of a small press, I am as clueless as a Bedouin on skis when it … Continue reading →

Bossypants by Tina Fey (2011. Little Brown. ISBN 978036056861) Understand this: I love Tina Fey. She’s pretty, smart, has a great sense of humor, and, if all reports are accurate, a great mom and wife. Juggling being one of America’s … Continue reading →

Camp Sights by Sam Cook (1992. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4184-6) While on my recent sojourn to Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in Ontario (see “Caribou” below for a full report on the trip), I cracked open Camp Sights by … Continue reading →

River in the Wind by Edith Pope (1954. Scribners.) My review of Pope’s seminal novel about race, which I liken to To Kill a Mockingbird in its tenor and complexity, appears elsewhere on this site. After being provided a copy … Continue reading →

Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (2012. Henry Holt. ISBN 978-0-8050-9666-8) This isn’t a great work of literature or a book that will make the critics proclaim that Bill O’Reilly is a great author. … Continue reading →

Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie (2012. Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-2039-7) Ethnicity plays a role in most of my writing. From my first novel, The Legacy, which dealt with my maternal grandfather’s Slovenian roots in a historical context, to Esther’s Race, where … Continue reading →

Thomas Jefferson:The Art of Power by Jon Meacham (2012. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6766-4) Previously, I read (but didn’t review) Meacham’s book about Jefferson’s Republican idealogical successor, Andrew Jackson, American Lion, a book that had a limited scope in that the … Continue reading →