Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life by Anya Foos-Graber. Written in 1984 when the conscious birth movement was gaining ground along with the conscious death movement, Anya Foos-Graber provides us with a vivid case study combined with a manual for preparing for our own death or being a loving and skillful…
BUTTERFLY WARRIOR by Juan Blea. Juan Blea’s world view was a Spanish one up to age five. In order to translate across cultures, he creates a metaphoric token that can be understood by both cultures. In Butterfly Warrior Blea gives us an allegory taken from an Aztec myth of soldiers killed in battle who then…
Angels Unaware, by Priscilla A. Maine takes its title from the Hebrews Biblical text 12:2. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” The themes in Maine’s book serve this homily well, as her characters learn what it means to untangle old hates and prejudices in order to extend their…
“S” IS FOR SILENCE (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries) by Sue Grafton. Okay. So Milhone lives in the 1980s. But the cold case she is working on–and that she draws her alternative point of views from–is set in the 1950s. And, boy does Grafton ever nail the 1950s, when TV was just set to burst into our…
BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA by Dorothy Allison. In this powerful book of suffering, strength, and grace, family love provides all of the above. The most powerful aspect of Allison’s book for me is her ability to remain loyal to truth, and Bone’s ability to remain loyal to a family ripped through with flaws, and that…
CRATER COUNTY: A LEGAL THRILLER OF NEW MEXICO by Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller writer a sort of court procedural tale, quite in keeping with his lawyer-self. Add romance, a pinch of creepy suspense, interesting characters, and a marvelous New Mexican backdrop and it makes for good entertainment. Don’t forget to look for the humor in…
Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserman. I narrowly missed attending a Seven Sisters College, but this play shows me everything I might have missed–for good or ill. It’s a time capsule, most forcefully, of the 1970s Women’s Movement Early Days–thoughtfully and comically presenting relationships between women, personalities and choices, while probing the question, “What…
INSPECTOR MORSE: THE DEAD OF JERICHO/THE MYSTERY OF MORSE–DVD I appreciated seeing the first episode of this long-running series adapting Colin Dexter’s fine novels. Seeing how the characters and their relationships were introduced and begun to be developed is helpful to as I now catch-up with the rest of my Morse education. The accompanying documentary,…
THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE–DVD. Novels, the source material, are best and most complete. I watched the performances in this DVD, not having read the novel or seen the original movie in some years. Still…so much is here, regardless of the material deleted. How marvelous to see the younger Oprah Winfrey of 1988 when this…
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST–DVD We get what we bring. This principle is brilliantly illustrated in the responses to Daughters of the Dust in its Amazon reviews. Julie Dash’s brilliant and ground-breaking independent film is too good to dismiss. True, Dash’s film takes some effort because it uses non-traditional story-telling techniques rather than the ones we…