reviews

Quoth the Raven... Author:  Paul Collins Featuring the most famous bird in American literature, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven has even served as the inspiration for a National Football League franchise.  Published in 1845, the poem received instant widespread acclaim and propelled its author to fame, if not fortune.  Although he continuously struggled to achieve financial success as a writer, Poe would go on to become one of the most influential authors in American history.  Widely acknowledged as the founder of the detective fiction and science fiction genres, he was also one of the earliest American writers to focus his [...]

Growing Up Black In America: A Man's Letter to His Son Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates For our impending May discussion, my book club selected Ta-Nehisi Coates’ award winning non-fiction narrative, Between the World and Me, which is a heartfelt stream-of-conscious letter from a black man to his son warning of prejudice and the continual fight for the safety of the black body in America. For Coates, an esteemed writer for The Atlantic this is his second published book and it won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. Even more imminently (to [...]

Bog Bodies and Irish Mystery Author: Erin Hart In the heart of rural Ireland the ancient and the modern commingle. Peat harvested from bogs is still used to heat homes and despite the government’s decision to protect this natural, depleting resource, the residents are more interested in following the thrum of tradition. When Brendan McGann and his sister Una discover human remains while cutting springy turf, tradition transitions to violence, deceit, and lies that are centuries old. Called in to investigate the remains which turn out to be the ceremonially decapitated head of a beautiful, red-haired girl, Irish archaeologist and [...]