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Evan Esar

Walking isn't a lost art: one must, by some means, get to the garage.

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Evan Esar

John Waters

It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.

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John Waters

Dante Alighieri

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

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Dante Alighieri

August 3, 2012

Confession: My suitcase is not unpacked from my last trip. The good news is that it’s actually in my bedroom instead of in the back hallway where it was standing like a little statue that we all walked around until Wednesday. You can see it above looking definitely well-traveled and tagged “heavy” as it carried a lot of books this trip. At the beginning of the week, I plucked what I needed out of it; what’s still in there I don’t need for the moment. What did I do instead of unpacking? I read, which is my personal favorite form of unpacking procrastination. For me, it’s all work-related, which absolves me of any guilt!

Jennie Fields, author of The Age of Desire

Anna Bahlmann was Edith Wharton’s closest friend --- that is, until Edith falls passionately in love with a dashing younger journalist. As Edith’s marriage crumbles and Anna’s disapproval threatens to shatter their lifelong bond, the women must face the fragility at the heart of all friendships.

Week of August 6, 2012

In Nicholas Spark'sTHE BEST OF ME, high school students Amanda and Dawson were deeply in love. But after unforeseen events tore them apart, the two followed radically divergent paths and became estranged. Now, 25 years later, the funeral of their beloved mentor, Tuck, brings them both back to Oriental, North Carolina. Following instructions Tuck has left for them, Amanda and Dawson are finally forced to confront their painful past.

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

August 2012

My older son, Greg, loves lighthouses and has visited more than 300 of them. It all started when he was nine, and we were in Georgia at the St. Simon’s Lighthouse. His most recent “light trip” was to Cape Lookout National Park in North Carolina, where he camped on the beach in April. As a result, we have spent a lot of time with him climbing --- and looking at --- lighthouses.

Thus, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M. L. Stedman drew me in with its cover as it brought back some nice memories. But as I started reading, my own thoughts faded into the background as I was plunged right into the story from the six-page prologue. The moral issue that will be at the heart of the book is there from the start as we meet Tom and Isabel, a young couple manning a remote lighthouse off the coast of Australia on Janus Rock, which is situated on the Indian Ocean. A boat washes up on shore with a crying baby and dead man, and from there, decisions are made that set up entirely what comes next.

Author Talk: Jennie Fields, author of The Age of Desire

Aug 3, 2012

In her latest novel, THE AGE OF DESIRE, Jennie Fields tells the complex story of Edith Wharton and her beloved governess, Anna Bahlmann. She charts their relationship through Edith's passionate affair with a young journalist and describes how even a lifelong bond can be threatened by the very nature of love. In this interview, Fields talks about Edith and Anna's troubled friendship, Edith's love of Paris and what the city meant to her, and how Edith herself influenced Fields' own writing.

Editorial Content for Off the Grid: A Monkeewrench Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

I would like to mention this up front, as you would never know it from reading OFF THE GRID: P.J. Tracy, the author of this fine book, is a mother-daughter writing duo. I have read a collaboration or two, and this one practically defines the term ”seamless” as applied to that  type of project. However they do it, they do it very well, and this installment in the Monkeewrench series stands as Exhibit A for that proposition. Read More

Teaser

 

As Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth struggle to link three gruesome crimes, they learn that there have been similar murders in other cities around the U.S. Piece by piece, evidence accumulates, pointing to a suspect that shocks them to the core, uncovering a motive that puts the entire Midwest on high alert and Monkeewrench in the direct line of fire.

Promo

As Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth struggle to link three gruesome crimes, they learn that there have been similar murders in other cities around the U.S. Piece by piece, evidence accumulates, pointing to a suspect that shocks them to the core, uncovering a motive that puts the entire Midwest on high alert and Monkeewrench in the direct line of fire.

About the Book

On a sailboat 10 miles off the Florida coast, Grace MacBride, partner in Monkeewrench Software, thwarts an assassination attempt on retired FBI agent John Smith. A few hours later, in Minneapolis, a 15-year-old girl is discovered in a vacant lot, her throat slashed. Later that day, two young men are found in their home a few blocks away, killed execution-style. The next morning, the dead bodies of three more men turn up, savagely murdered in the same neighborhood. 

As Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth struggle to link the three crimes, they learn that there have been similar murders in other cities around the United States. Piece by piece, evidence accumulates, pointing to a suspect that shocks them to the core, uncovering a motive that puts the entire Midwest on high alert and Monkeewrench in the direct line of fire. Before it's all over, Grace and her partners, Annie, Roadrunner and Harley Davidson, find themselves in the middle of a shocking collision of violence on a remote northern Minnesota reservation, fighting for their lives.

William Frederick Book

Learn to adjust yourself to the conditions you have to endure, but make a point of trying to alter or correct conditions so that they are most favorable to you.

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William Frederick Book