Upbeat Book Talk

Book Recommendations the Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Han Beer with Susan Dworkin T o quote the Library Journal: "This book is destined to become one of the best Holocaust memoirs available.

Guest blogger Richard Trice author of Act of Contrition (see latest book recommendation)  ignoring my wife Typical Day of Productive Writing by Richard C. Trice 10 minutes opening windows and doors to let the cool air in 1 hour drinking coffee, eating breakfast, watching news, and checking social media 45 minutes working out 10 minutes to close all the windows and doors to keep the now hot air out 20 minutes sitting down at my computer and staring out the window to see what the neighbors are doing 1 hour rereading my book outline and marking it up in red ink.  5 minutes coming up with a brand new title to Chapter 26.  30 minutes staring at the otherwise blank screen 45 minutes for lunch 10 minutes checking social media again and posting pithy memes. 45 minutes to walk to post office and back 2 minutes tossing all the mail into the trash because it's all junk 45 minutes deleting unwanted emails 2 minutes reading the desirable emails 1...

Act of Contrition by Richard Trice,  A Trent Carter novel Introduced in 2018, this is the author's debut novel. Unlike anything else I've recommended or reviewed here, I have a personal connection with the author.  We know each other. Rick has been the pastor of a church, he's an accomplished musician, and he has a deep interest in history, including local history. Like so many of us he finally decided to fulfill a long time ambition and write something in a genre he personally enjoys, in this case a mystery thriller.  This is not your light mystery read. In soft cover format it's almost 490 pages long with a rather complicated plot line of several murders committed over a long period of time, involving more than two generations of people affected by them. The entire scenario swings back and forth between the end of WWII and the present day, takng place in an area Rick knows, loves, and researched in-depth; northern New Mexico.  It is gritty but not profane, wi...

What Works and What Doesn't   In order to be more specific, the above wisdom is going to be applied to one facet of my life, my yard. Most of us can relate to that.

Generation Gap.   A t my house our e-mail in-box often has a forward sent on from others with an amusing take on everyday life. These often relate to aging or the way different generations percieve a thing. You probably get these too. There are also the nostalgic ones with a heading something like, "remember when", or "do you remember....".

Book Recommendations The Girl With No Name by Marina Chapman       https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BNPI7FG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding   T his is Marina Chapman's astounding story of spending several years of her life being raised deep in the Columbian rainforest by monkeys. At about the age of 4 she was kidnapped from a remote village, then abandoned in a chase. If not for this species of amazing monkeys she would have perished. 

 Book Review: America's First Daughter   Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie                                      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZP4KE70/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding    P ublished in 2016, this work of historical fiction has been given rave reviews and become a top contender for book club choices everywhere.  The trouble I have is with the description of the book on the back of the title page, and I quote: "This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental." Yet the entire book uses letters and historical documents throughout as the basis for filling in huge blanks to write what they believe could have been the entire story of Thomas Jefferson's daug...