Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

A review of Finding Inner Peace by Alice Hocker

We have to alter how we perceive ourselves. We need to stay in balance with who we are and our real source. We should also live from a place of gratitude instead of always expecting more and more. When we change our attitude from wanting to gratitude, we will be much happier and much more content. This gratitude will help us to exude more love towards others. And when we give love to others, we will also receive it abundantly.

A review of Full Blooded by Amanda Carlson

Ms. Carlson’s debut novel, Full Blooded, is refreshing and dynamic; this is the first time that I’ve been inside the head of a female werewolf, and I love the way the wolf is characterized as a separate entity from Jessica, the fundamentally-human, who is trying to get a grip on her change, the ramifications of what she’s become, and this blasted animal in her head who keeps nudging into her consciousness and demanding ridiculous things, like eating people and jumping the hottest guy in the room.

A review of The Girl in the Basement by Dianne Bates

I read a lot of books and the downside of this is that it’s rare to find one that hooks me so completely that I feel I’m living it. This is one such story. Not since, Stephen King’s, Misery, have I cared so much about the fate of a character. Part of the reason is that this story isn’t entirely fiction. It’s on our television screens and in our newspapers.

A review of Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson

One of the main premises of the book is that we can always change, and that we not only deserve to enjoy our lives and live creatively and powerfully, it’s our responsibility to try and do so.  If that seems facile or new-agey, it certainly isn’t.  It’s very easy to go down a specific career path and begin building up an image that is self-limiting and unsatisfying.  Doing the exercises will take readers through a range of life areas including one’s career, one’s social life, one’s financial needs, one’s physical well-being, spirituality, and the community. 

Lisa Gorton on Hotel Hyperion

The author of Hotel Hyperion talks about and reads from her new book of poetry, the relationship between memory, dreams, appropriation and art, the book’s origins including the nature of a storm glass, Titan, Keats, multiverses and rooms, art and imagination, and…

A review of The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett

Peter’s healing develops naturally through the chapters, and ultimately makes The Bookman’s Tale an immensely satisfying and pleasurable read that combines a range of genres and above all else, celebrates the beauty and wonder of the literary word.

A review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane has been touted as Mr. Gaiman’s first book for adults in eight years. True, it does not quite fall into the “All Ages” category that separates his works from “Adult”  because a six-year-old would probably be scarred for life reading (or listening) to the scene where our hero (a seven-year-old boy) is almost drowned in his Safe Place (the bathtub where he reads) by his own father.

A review of The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice

In this reader-friendly, accessible novel, two parents from different cultures and social classes bond because each has lost a child. Yet The Lemon Orchard is more than a romance between a modern-day star-crossed Lady Chatterley and a Mellors, however, for it involves a not issue in the United States – illegal immigration.

A review of Hotel Hyperion by Lisa Gorton

Though each of the poems stands alone and indeed many of the poems in the collection were published individually, there is an underlying story that links the work together. This is a story of memory, loss, history and hubris. It’s a story about a new future and about the relics of the past that travel with us and are left behind as we transform – individually, and as a species. The poems are self-referential, memetic – with cultural ideas and motifs travelling from one poem to another, and metapoetic in a way that is somehow both humorous (at times) and profound.