World War II novels typically focus on Europe. Few look at the anti-Semitism that existed in other parts of the world at the time. Peter Simon Karp’s fictionalized memoir, "Time Chords", is an exception. The protagonist of Karp’s... Read More

At the beginning of "The Year My Mother Died", Sherry Scott reflects on her relationship with her late best friend Gail: “We were in a yellow Monte Carlo coupe with a brown rear-quarter vinyl roof, an early ‘70s model that had seen... Read More

“Architects cover their mistakes with vines; doctors with soil.” This is just one of the many pithy jokes that appear in the book Laughter Is the Best Medicine: Medical Epigrams of J.H. Goldfuss. Packaged in a canary-yellow cover... Read More

“Fall down seven times, get up eight,” goes the Japanese saying. In The Priceless Gifts of Personal Failure: 13 Triumphant Thoughts on Turning Your Life Around, Barry Forbes uses this type of wisdom to encourage his readers to turn... Read More

“Death can be a destabilizing force,” Mary Paterson writes. “And when it touches you closely, you must somehow discover a way to find and rebuild your secure home.” When Paterson’s mother dies, she turns to yoga and meditation... Read More

There is an irony to moving: while the primary change seems to be an external one, it is often the subtle, internal one that is the most profound. The more exotic the locale, the more exotic the inner change. Canadian poet P.K. Page... Read More

Sometime around 2 a.m. I finally put down Karen Spears Zacharias’s A Silence of Mockingbirds: The Memoir of a Murder. Still, sleep would not come. My mind kept returning to the characters and the events, searching for understanding.... Read More

In one passage of her memoir, "Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon", Mary Albanese recounts coming across a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with her brother. At his request, they camp out there for the night. The next morning the sound of a truck... Read More