Category: E-Books

Soul Food

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Caldo, Enzio. Soul Food: Simple Lessons Served Warm: Kitchen Stories and Life Lessons from Chef Enzio Caldo’s Table. Lucent Trail Press, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to review cool books. This is one such book.

While there are no recipes in Soul Food, Chef Caldo draws comparisons between cooking and navigating life. It is a really cute, whimsical book. Starters such as bruschetta and garlic bread; Comfort foods like soups and stews; mornings of pancakes and eggs; dinners, desserts, and left overs: they all become the vehicles for simple life lessons. This is the kind of little book I would give to a casual friend or acquaintance as a holiday gift. Less than 122 pages with a great deal of blank space, it is perfect for someone who wants a little pick-me-up; someone who reads their horoscope daily and looks for answers in tea leaves.

Calisthenics for Beginners

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Pure Calisthenics. Calisthenics for Beginners. 2026

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I am privileged to review interesting books.

Calisthenics for Beginners, although a mere 186 pages long, includes appropriate quotations from influential people, cool illustrations of the targeted areas of the body to be worked, and photographs of each exercise in action. Because the word ‘calisthenics’ has fallen out of fashion I appreciated the definition. While you won’t need weights or machines, you will need some equipment usually found at the gym or in some parks:
1) Long bar
2) Pullup bar
3) Parallel bars or a dip station
4) Jump box
5) a wall
You will be introduced to a variation of pushups, muscle-ups, chin-ups and pullups along with variations of pushups and other exercises which do not need equipment such as squats, bridges, and lunges.
As an aside, I did a doubletake on the section on handstands.
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to start a fitness program. It is easy to follow and the exercises are straightforward.

Victorian Gentlewoman

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Foote, Mary Hallock. A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West: the Reminiscences of Mary Hallock Foote. Edited by Rodman W. Paul. Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 1972.

Reason read: February is Women’s History Month.

Rodman W. Paul opens Victorian Gentlewoman with a promise that he has tried to recapture Foote’s autobiography in its “fullest form.” Quotes have been verified and corrected wherever possible. Misspellings and typographical errors have also been corrected. The substantial introduction to Victorian Gentlewoman also covers in detail Mary Hallock Foote’s capacity as a wife to an engineering husband whose drinking escalates out of control. All photographs and illustrations are Mary Hallock Foote’s.
Confession: as the book went on I felt Rodman mansplains a great deal. He was determine to fact check every detail of Mary Hallock Foote’s memoir. He corrects Foote’s inaccurate memories, explains geographical locations, and rights every inconsistency. I did appreciate his mini biographies. Rodman supplemented more detail to Foote’s casual reference to a person.
The first one hundred plus pages of A Victorian Gentlewoman lay the genealogic foundation of family ties, remembering dress and hair color of more notable people. Foote even includes the histories of some of the houses. In addition to Foote’s autobiography she paints a clear picture of the politics and religion (she was raised Quaker) of the time. Abolitionism and constitutional republicanism are the discussion of the day. She is well read and cultured. So, how does a “delicate” woman with a Quaker background from a farm on the Hudson River decide to travel to the western side of the country? By following her wayward husband, of course. She displays remarkable talent as a illustrator, even being commissioned to illustrate The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Following her husband around the country as he went from failed job to failed job afforded Foote time to become a popular author in addition to being a mother and wife.

As an aside, I think it is remarkable to think that Rudyard Kipling lived for a short time in Brattleboro, Vermont. The town is not that far from me.

Lines I liked, “I have always regarded phantasmoria of idealists and propagandists and military cranks and dreamers as one of the great opportunities of our youth shut up as we were and cut off and “laid down”!” (p 54), “We women were eaten to our souls with the horror of debt” (p 87), and “And the etchers, not being peacocks, did not view me with proud eyes because I was in borrowed feathers” (p 365).

Personal connection: I have something in common with Ms. Mary Hallock Foote. We “hide” our precious belongings so well we cannot find them again. She hid a photograph of a dear friend and I cannot find my favorite photograph of Papa.

Music: “Der Freiscutz,” and “Robert le Diable.”

Author fact: Foote was a wife, mother, novelist, artist, and insomniac who suffered from anxiety. Book trivia: Rodman W. Paul provides an extensive list of supporters, contributors, and editors.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 62). I am supposed to be reading Victorian Gentlewoman with Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegman. By reading the biographical note in Victorian Gentlewoman it became clear why these books were paired together. Wallace Stegner based his book Angle of Repose on the life of Mary Hallock Foote.

Views Afoot

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Taylor, Bayard. Views Afoot, Or Europe Seen with a Knapsack and Staff. Sampson, Low, Martson, Low, and Searle, 1872.

Reason read: Taylor was born in January. Read in his honor.

As a teenager, Bayard Taylor was fascinated with the microcosms around him as well as the greater world he could not see. On January 1844 he got the opportunity to travel with a cousin to Europe. Sailing aboard the Oxford they traveled abroad to Europe. Once in Bruges, Taylor wrote about visiting the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I think he was referring to Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk. Taylor went on to have so many unique adventures like witnessing a burial by torchlight, dancing with friends on rooftops across Germany, traipsing through the Black Forest, and after nearly a year in Germany, moving on to Switzerland to visit an exiled poet named Freiligrath. Italy become a love of his when visiting the Royal Gallery in Florence. He spent four glorious months in Tuscany. As an aside, it was fascinating to hear Taylor’s descriptions of the same art I experienced two years ago. Most stunning is his description of an area I plan to see this May: “Colossus of the Apennines” by John of Bologna outside Florence. I wonder if you can still climb on the rocks of his back, enter his body and peer out of his ear?
Since Views Afoot is comprised of journal entries and letters sent during Taylor’s first two years of travel I did not expect to find a sense of humor, but Taylor is funny. After a night’s stay in a posh establishment Taylor was surprised by the bill and quipped he was charged three francs for “the honor of breathing an aristocratic atmosphere” (p 52).
Despite the title of his book Taylor was not always on foot. Sometimes he and his companions traveled by boat and carriage whenever necessary.
The best part of Views Afoot was the section on travel advice. You must be content to sleep on hard beds. You must be willing to partake of course fare. You must be comfortable traveling for hours in hard rain or worse. Watch your traveling expenses closely. Sounds pretty reasonable for the 1800s.

As an aside, I love it when my books collide. I am reading a book by Kavenna called The Ice Museum in which Kavanna goes searching for the mysterious land of Thule. In Views Afoot Taylor mentions a poem called “The King of Thule.”
Another aside, I want to know if the Christmas market in Romerberg Square still exists. Because if it does I would like to go.

Line I liked, “We breathed an air of poetry” (p 160). I am not even sure I know what that means, but I liked it.

Author fact: Taylor has a sense of humor. He wrote a book called Blah, Blah, Blah. Too bad I am not reading it for the Challenge. I am only reading Views Afoot.

Book trivia: my copy of Views Afoot costs eighteen pence and was first published as a “boy’s record of first travels” in 1847.

Natalie connection: Bayard visited Loch Lomond and I couldn’t help but think of the song of the same name that she sings with Dan Zanes.
Confessional: when Bayard reached Scotland and met with the McGregor family I wondered if they were related to Ewan.

Music: “Hail Columbia,” “Exile of Erin,” the Mountain Boys, Mendelssohn, “Walpurgisnacht,” “Landsfather,” Schubert, Strauss, Beethoven, “Ave Maria,”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the fun chapter called “Explaining Europe: The Grand Tour” (p 82). Confessional: I keep wanting to call this chapter Exploring Europe.

Composting Simplified for Beginners

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Weimer, Anissa. Composting Simplified for Beginners: A Complete Guide to Fix Common Compost Pitfalls, Create Fertile Soil and Enjoy a Lush Productive Garden. W4 Publishing LLC, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often get to read interesting books. This is one such book.
Why I Requested This Book: I have a very modest raised garden and a few containers where I grow tons of herbs, tomatoes, jalapenos, and the occasional tomatillo. I would like to expand the annual bounty.

This book is true to it’s title. Simple and to the point. Despite its beginner language and content I did learn a few things. For example, never heard of Bokashi composting before. I also never considered composting to have its own mythology, but I am glad Weimer separated fact from fiction. Additionally, I appreciated Weimer mentioning browns and greens and making sure there is an even balance of the two, but she mentions this a lot. There is a little repetition to Composting Simplified for Beginners. Weimer mentions landfill methane gas more than once and don’t get me started on how many times odors or smells were covered. She spends a lot of time addressing the potential smelliness of composting.
The most useful section (for me) was the pest prevention information. I currently deal with woodchucks, squirrels, racoons, chipmunks, rabbits, coyotes, deer, bears, voles, mice, foxes, stray dogs and cats, snakes, skunks, opossums, and even a mountain lion has been in my yard once. Knowing how to keep these critters away from my composting is critical.
The second section most useful to me was the 30 Day Checklist. Knowing when and how to start being spelled out makes the process less daunting. Watching for the different colors of mold was also helpful information.
Less helpful was all the information about involving family members. What if the reader is a single male with no children or even roommates? Least helpful were the testimonials by fellow composters. They seem to reiterate the information already given. Despite the book only being 160 pages long, I skipped these sections.

As an aside, I wasn’t sure of the purpose of the QR code to scan for the supply guide. If the information is included in the book, why do I need to download the information as well? The list of supplies looks pretty straightforward and logical: outdoor bin, indoor bin, pitchfork, thermometer, and tarp.

Author fact: Kasey Bayr’s name is on the cover while in the copyright Anissa Weimer “has the moral right to be identified as the author.”

Book trivia: there are some great photographs and illustrations to emphasize the information.

Stray

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O’Brien, Shannon. Stray. Roam Light Publishing, 2025.

Reason: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read fun books. This is one such book.

When her ex-boyfriend John committed suicide in 2006, his sudden death prompted Shannon O’Brien to live her life a little differently: she became more fully aware of life passing her by. She decided to see the world with eyes wide open and a promise to be ready for anything. For more than fifteen years she has been doing exactly that. As a Lonely Planet enthusiast she planned to to spend six months in South America, traveling through Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia.
Shannon kicks off Stray with her best friend and a tour of La Paz’s famous prison (and tourist attraction) where the prisoners give tours and rule the prison. In Bolivia the pair volunteer for Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi – a nonprofit deep in the jungle which cares for exotic animals of all kinds. Fun fact: O’Brien was in charge of feeding twenty spider monkeys. Next, she and a new travel companion named Noah get lost hiking in a canyon without food or water. They celebrate their survival with a trip to Argentina to rent bicycles and drink Malbec and fernet con cocoa before moving on to the Australian Outback for a year. After Noah came teaching in Nepal and experiencing the Teej festival. After meeting Xander, it’s to India in time for the Diwali festival. Her experiences in Thailand are harrowing. Then she meets Blake in Cambodia. They travel to Thailand before partying and paying for it in Portugal. Where she ended up is anyone’s guess. The story ends there.
What I appreciated most was that throughout Stray Shannon displays a deep knowledge about the cultures and histories of each region she visits. While it took me a very long to finish Stray is/was enjoyable.

As an aside, some of Shannon’s details didn’t make sense to me. For example, it seemed as if she and her family (father and sister) were staying in a little town two hours south of Bangkok. When her sister and father had a tragic swimming accident Shannon traveled between Hua Hin and a Bangkok hospital to see them. Does that mean she spent four hours a day going back and forth between the two Thai towns?

Music: The Doors, The Who, U2, Dark Angels, Los Blinkers, Fleetwood Mac, Arctic Monkeys, Backstreet Boys, “Sexual Healing,” and Keith Richards.

Valleys of the Assassins

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Stark, Freya. Valleys of the Assassins, and Other Persian Travels. Century Publishing Company, 1936.

Reason read: Stark was born in the month of January. Read in her honor.

There is no doubt that Freya wanted to live a life full of adventure that was challenging, rewarding, and more than a little dangerous. While she carried letters of introduction to give her access to key people, Freya relied heavily on her own wits to maintain her safety while in Persia. She recognized villains when she saw them. She played upon her novelty, knowing no European woman had ever been in various regions before. She would further confound the natives by putting the fragments of a skull in a jar as a keepsake or best them at their customs of all possible polite greetings and the responses one could go through. Freya demonstrated her sense of humor even when she was in sticky situations. Her attempt to find hidden treasure in a cave was both heroic and hilarious.
When people asked Freya why she wanted to travel the way that she did she blamed “the trouble” on an aunt after this relative sent Freya a copy of Arabian Nights for her 9th birthday. Freya was instantly bitten by the adventure bug. Most children would snuggle down in their beds and dream of spitting camels and endless sand, but Stark’s dreams took her to ride real camels across real deserts. Confessional: Freya never mentions camels. Her mode of transportation was a mule.
Part One takes the reader through Luristan, as it was a country where one is less frequently murdered, but the threat is not completely out of the question. As Freya maps the area for British Intelligence her actions put her in constant danger of being thought of as a spy. At the same time, Freya becomes a healer of sorts; being called upon to parse out quinine and castor oil; administer care for for snake bites, broken limbs and mysterious ailments.
Throughout Valleys of the Assassins are wonderful full page photographs. My favorite is of Keram Khan with his majestic horse and magnificent coat.

Lines I loved, “…looking at me with the calm innocence of a Persian telling lies” (p 38), “This would have proved a perfectly sound and successful theory if a buried treasure had not come to complicate my plans” (p 62) and “The study of history necessarily leads one into lonely places” (p 136).
Who knew Stark had such a sense of humor, “The great and almost only comfort to being a women is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one in and no one is surprised” (p 67). She says this while trying to argue the truth about a lunar eclipse.
Here’s one more, “So kind is fortune if you trust her” (p 195).

Author fact: Stark wrote a plethora of books about her various adventures. I am reading a total of five for the Challenge. I have finished all but one.

Book trivia: the reprint of Valleys of the Assassins coincided with Freya’s 90th birthday and the cover is of a Garabagh carpet in detail.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Lady Travelers” (p 142). Pearl says this is the one to read if you are only going to read one Freya Stark book.

Wrong Kind of Son

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Peace, Jeff. The Wrong Kind of Son: Salty Driftwood Publishing, 2025.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I get to read heartwarming books. This is one such book.

Jeff Peace wanted nothing more than to purge the past to “[name] what it felt like.” It took real courage for him to lay it all out in the pages of Wrong Kind of Son. What started as a letter to his father turned into a book about surviving abuse. [Confessional: I also wrote a letter that turned into a publication. I only wanted my parents to understand where I was coming from without having the necessary confrontation.] Wrong Kind of Son opens with Peace wanting to connect with his father during the holidays. I say wanting because there is a sense of family obligation that cannot be ignored no matter how one tries. Father and son live thirty minutes from each other but hadn’t seen each other in a year. The connection goes badly as it always does. That is the pattern. Throughout Wrong Kind of Son Peace illustrates the anatomy of neglect without being overly dramatic or playing the martyr. There is a difference between stating simple fact and hurling blame. Peace sticks to the former. By the end of Wrong Kind of Son Peace finds the strength to break the patterns of abuse. Through other avenues of love he is able to forge a new path. His courage is astounding.

As an aside, this is my third early review book about a narcissistic parent. By reading the stories of backhanded compliments, off-color jokes, and empty promises my own story has become clearer.

Author fact: Peace is a thoughtful author. He has a disclaimer about the abuse depicted in Wrong Kind of Son, urging his readers to take care.

Book trivia: there were so many brilliant lines I wanted to quote. Intelligence without empathy is a good one. Hope being a habit is another.

Music: Nickelback

Children of the Mind

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Card, Orson Scott. Children of the Mind. Tor Books, 2002.

Reason read: started in October in honor of Science Fiction Month.

Children of the Mind is the second half of Xenocide which explains why the residents of planet Luistania are still looking for a way to escape the decimation of their planet. This is also the final book in the Ender quartet. The survival of the children of the mind hinges on Computer Jane’s ability to move the humans, buggers, and pequeninos to a more hospital planet for colonization without overtaxing her bandwidth. Every jump takes her down a notch. Meanwhile, Peter Wiggin, Ender’s older brother, travels to meet with the Starways Congress to convince them to stop their campaign to destroy Lusitania. Only Peter isn’t Peter. He is another entity of Ender. In fact, Ender has three bodies: his own, Peter’s and Young Valentine’s. Children of the Mind, like the other books in the series gets a little didactic and preachy.
I have to wonder how many people freaked out when they got to the demise of Ender as we know him.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 224).

Downbelow Station

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Cherryh, C.J. Downbelow Station or the Company Wars. Daw Books, 1981.

Reason read: January is another science fiction month.

Confessional: I felt like Cherryh was speaking directly to me when she said she wanted to write a book for readers who love to detect connections between books. Cherryh called Downbelow Station a “novel of interstellar conflict and ambition” as part of the Alliance-Union Universe series. Above all else, it is a human story, a love story even. Cherryh wanted to create a wider universe that would be consistent in a series set in the future a few centuries from now. Her story is populated with tribes of spacefarers and groundlings. We begin Downbelow Station with Book One Earth and Outward between the years 2005 and 2352 but most of the action is nestled comfortably between the years of 2352 and 2353 on a space station orbiting the Downbelow in the Tau Ceti star system. During this time space is not explored by NASA or the like. Private corporations rule the galaxies with their exorbitant wealth. Sound familiar? Old River is angry and the mill is not to be lost. The surviving companies need to plot an attack against the Union or else become refugees and, if that happens, where would they go?
Downbelow Station is packed with action, but as I mentioned earlier, hidden amongst the sci-fi is a human story and maybe a little romance. I appreciated the friendship Damon and Elene extend to Josh Talley, the prisoner who had his memories erased. He becomes the unlikely hero in the story. More human emotion is displayed when Elene Quen goes missing.

Author fact: C.J. Cherryh is Carolyn Janice Cherryh. I loved, loved, loved C.J. Cherryh’s advice at the end of her introduction – go out to where city lights don’t block your view and look up. Interesting fact about Downbelow Station – the stars are in real locations. Another fact – Cherryh worked with multiple cardboard clocks to make the multiple timelines agree.

Book trivia: Downbelow Station won a Hugo award and the story was so popular it was made into a board game.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Space Operas” (p 210).

Three Doors To Death

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Stout, Rex. Three Doors to Death: a Nero Wolfe Threesome. Viking Press, 1949.

Reason read: I first started the series fifteen books ago in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month.

Man Alive (published in December 1947) – A man once thought to be dead of suicide is found dead again.
Omit Flowers (published in November 1948) – as a favor to a friend, Nero Wolfe takes on the wrongful accusation of murder. Virgil Pompa, a restaurant chain manager has been fingered for the crime.
Door to Death (published in June 1949) – my favorite of the bunch. Nero’s caretaker of over 10,000 orchids, Theodore Horstmann, has taken leave indefinitely to care for his ailing mother. This abandonment is absolutely unacceptable to Wolfe. The travesty forces him to leave his beloved brownstone to recruit a replacement who has, of course, been charged with murder.

As an aside, for as many times as Archie says Nero never leaves his brownstone, I wonder if someone has actually counted up all the times he has and why.

Author fact: Stout passed away at the age of eighty-eight.

Book trivia: to track Stout’s publications one has to be pretty savvy. Three Doors to Death is comprised of three novellas which were published as stand alone stories. The three stories were republished in a collection called Five of a Kind.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Reinvention Playbook

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Wozniak, Bruno. The Reinvention Playbook: Self Published, 2025.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program from LibraryThing every once in awhile I get to read interesting books.

In a nutshell, The Reinvention Playbook is about navigating the loss of a job and all that that end entails. It is about rebuilding a new identity outside of what the job made you. Is it possible to find meaningful employment and emotional connection after ending a self-defining career? Wozniak urges his readers to try, try, try. It is all about moving forward, one baby step at a time. At times I found the advice to be a little repetitious with emotional signatures: disorientation, low energy, aligned with the adverse of curiosity and confidence.
I appreciated his phrase “identity earthquake” for when a job ends, it truly is a restructuring of everything you knew about yourself. Think about it. You spend a solid eight hours a day as one entity. That is a good chunk of time. Routines are established; a rhythm solidified. You need to reconcile the inside voice with the outside noise. Do not let the fear of urgency create chaos before you have had a chance to heal. You have to let go of who you were before you lost the job and take note of what remains after the work is gone. The diagnostics are sometimes hard to decipher if you do not know how to read the emotional cues or cannot resist the urge to stay busy. Wozniak’s book enables you to navigate those efforts to rebuild.

Author fact: I instantly connected with Wozniak’s example of running. Without the analytics to “prove” the effort, is it worth it? Can you go for a run without tracking pace, distance, heart rate, route?

Book trivia: The Reinvention Playbook is best read after losing employment as a tool for grounding yourself in reality, but what happens if you read the book with one eye on the approaching cliff you just know you are going to fall from? Would you read the book differently if you were secure in your employment or foresaw no immediate danger?

Something Else

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Simko, Lukas. Something Else: Words that Remember, Stories that Awaken. Independent Publicist, 2025.

Reason read: as part of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read books that sometimes move me. This is one of those books.

The fastest review I could write about Something Else is to say it is a memoir about an individual wanting to find true love. Lukas Simko’s story begins when he is a thirty-two year old graduate looking for work. He meets a girl who over time showed all the classic signs of an abuser. She was controlling and manipulative and I found myself wishing he would have seen the signs earlier. Right away I felt Simko is someone who has the potential to fall hard and fast for a romantic relationship. He believes in taking chances and embracing adventure wherever it may take him.
Then there was Macy. She was clear she did not an emotional relationship, but Lukas started to like her more and more “without permission.” Interesting choice of words. This time around Simko noticed the signs of a relationship dying as Macy started to distance herself from him.
Next came Jaya. Lukas felt an instant connection with her for they had a great deal in common and almost seemed to be soul mates. She even took him in as a roommate without really knowing him. Once again Lukas became involved with a woman who did not want to be tied down with anything emotional. To say Jaya was complicated is an understatement. She often sent mixed signals and seemed to be confused about what she really wanted from Simko. One minute she was communicating as if she cared deeply; the next she felt it necessary to block Simko on social media (twice).
In the end, Simko emerged a stronger person. He was able to see the beauty in each failed relationship. As an aside, I think of it as the particle theory. You get what you need from each relationship whether that relationship withstands the test of time or not.

Confessional: I did not understand Ireland’s employment situation. Lukas requested three weeks off under the guise of taking care of a grandmother. Instead, he was rewarded with 3 1/2 months off, but the kicker was he had to go on leave when they told him to. I thought he was working in a remote IT position.
A more personal confessional: Simko went four months without talking to Jaya. Try five years! That’s how long I went without speaking to someone who meant the world to me.

As an aside, I learned a new word, “craic.”

Music: “Misty Mountains” by Leyna Robinson-Stone.

Piecework

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Shimshon-Santo, Amy. Piecework: Ethnographies of Place. Unsolicited Press, 2025

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program I get to read really interesting books. This is one such book.

There are four themes to Piecework: the classroom, community, migrations, and conversations. In the beginning, Piecework is comprised of essays that encourage collective action as an extension of social justice, but by the end you have an intimate portrait of the author and her ancestry. For the first part of Piecework Shimshon-Santo provides a clear blueprint for how to bring key people together to form a productive interdisciplinary team to tackle common social problems. For example, the first she addresses is transportation. [As an aside, if anyone has seen Natalie Merchant’s storytellers show you will know that she called Los Angeles a “car culture” because of its massive highway systems. Walking around is out of the question for some parts of the metropolis.] Shimshon-Santo approaches a dilemma with creative innovation by viewing it through multiple lenses. She believes in compassionate leadership and the value of listening to children. By the end of Piecework the reader has a clear understanding of Shimshon-Santo thanks to a revealing essay about her grandmother and a couple of interviews in the conversation section.
It goes without saying that Piecework is thought provoking, but what I wasn’t expecting was the plethora of gorgeous photography. The entire book was exquisite to read.

Author fact: Shimshon-Santo has a background in dance. She also wrote Catastrophic Molting. I think she win a prize for the most interesting titles.

Music: Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Book trivia: the bonus to Piecework is the photography and poetry.

The Last Shepherd’s Dog…

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Sunderland, John. The Last Shepherd’s Dog and Other Stories From a Rural Spanish Village High and Hidden in the Costa Blanca Mountains. Shilka Publishing, 2025.

Reason read: for LibraryThing’s Early Review Program.

There is this phenomenon where AI can take every essay, short story, blog, personal letter, Christmas card, and term paper and turn it into a mishmash of a novel. I am not saying this is what happened with The Last Shepherd’s Dog and Other Stories From a Rural Spanish Village High and Hidden in the Costa Blanca Mountains, but I bet if you look hard enough you will find a blog or newspaper column with much of the same content. I sense it by the number of times Sunderland explains why he moved with his wife from New York City to Spain and from the rambling commentary. I sense it in the brevity and random subject matter of each of the chapters. They are entertaining stories in and of themselves, but they don’t convey life in Spain specifically. Sunderland writes about painting a portrait of a man so lifelike the deceased’s loved ones are moved to strong emotion. He writes another story about a perpetually closed grocery store that has him baffled. All in all it was a fun read.

Author fact: John Sunderland has been a writer, graphic designer, filmmaker, animator, and a museum designer. No wonder he was looking to retire somewhere far away and remote as possible.

Music: “New York, New York.”