Category: Review
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Review: “The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood
In the last chapter of Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed novel The Handmaid’s Tale, time suddenly leaps forward to the year 2195, when a Professor Pieixoto delivers a lecture at the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies. Although the professor has been unable to discover the ultimate fates of the major characters, he makes it clear that the […]
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REVIEW: ‘The Silence of Darkness’
Nothing refreshes the spirit like a drive in the country. The car glides past green hillsides where contented cows graze, past broad fields where corn grows tall. Somewhere a farmer and his wife rest in their Adirondack chairs and bask in the sunlit beauty of the scene, their hearts and minds at peace. But in […]
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REVIEW: ‘Eleven Miles to Oshkosh’ by Jim Guhl
Delmar Finwick is the 15-year-old hero of Jim Guhl’s debut mystery novel Eleven Miles to Oshkosh. Delmar’s friends and relatives call him “Del”; everyone else calls him “Minnow.” Del is a sophomore at Shattuck High School in Neenah, Wisconsin, but he faces an array of problems that would make many a grown man shudder. He […]
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REVIEW: Dianna Hunter’s ‘Wild Mares’
Review by Terri Schlichenmeyer You were going to change the world. It’s true that you were one small voice – just one person with a vision – but you were sure it could be done. You were going to change the world, one corner at a time – starting with the one you called home. And […]
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Review: ‘The Doggedly Determined’
by Bob McCurdy, Range Light Press, 242 pages, 2019Review by Barbara Becker The Doggedly Determined is Bob McCurdy’s 17th novel and the first in a new series that takes place in Door County. He has two other series: the Andy McCloud mystery series (of which there are 11 books) that features a former social worker […]
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Review by Carolyn Kane Early in the 20th century, a mysterious stranger arrived in a Wisconsin community, approached a family of immigrant farmers and introduced himself as a doctor. In a community of large families, this couple had only one child – a daughter with a disability – and the stranger gave them some exciting […]
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by Andrew Kleidon-Linstrom I was nine years old when I saw Sam Rami’s Spider-Man on the big screen. My father had instilled in me a lifetime love of superheroes through many bedtime comic-book-reading sessions, and like most boys my age, I grew up watching Batman and Superman cartoons every Saturday morning. But when I walked […]
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Little FaithNickolas Butler, 336 pages, Ecco, 2019 No convincing is needed. You don’t have to see any evidence or concrete items. Proof is unnecessary because you’re already sure of what you know. You’re a believer, and what’s in your head is in your heart, but, as in the new novel Little Faith by Nickolas Butler, […]
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Review: ‘The President Is Missing’
Bill Clinton and James Patterson, 528 pages, Little, Brown and Company and Knopf, 2018 It is not unusual for an American president to write a book, either before or after his presidency. Theodore Roosevelt, in fact, was a professional writer before he became president, and John F. Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in […]
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‘Great Lakes Chronicle’ Tells the Story of Coastal Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Historical Society Press helped celebrate last year’s 40th anniversary of the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program with the publication of a book of essays celebrating the state’s coastlines. Called Great Lakes Chronicle: Essays on Coastal Wisconsin, it includes essays written by a wide variety of contributors – including quite a few Door County residents […]
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Review: ‘The Death and Life of the Great Lakes’
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan, 384 pages, W.W. Norton & Company, 2017 Dan Egan first became interested in water pollution during his childhood in the Green Bay area, when the Fox River was too polluted for swimming. After college he moved to Milwaukee and became a prize-winning reporter for […]
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Book Review: ‘Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm’
Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm Jerry Apps, 138 pages, Wisconsin Historical Press, 2018 Review by Terri Schlichenmeyer Ropes of diamonds and gold are not for you. A fancy car has no place in your garage, your home isn’t TV-worthy, and you’re happy with uncomplicated meals, hold the mustard. While it’s nice to have big […]
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My Own Words By Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 400 pages, Simon & Schuster, 2016 Review by Carolyn Kane The amazing Ruth Bader Ginsburg has inspired a variety of Halloween costumes, T-shirts, and action figures; two coloring books; a song cycle; a play; a movie; and an opera. The praying mantis Ilomantis ginsburgae is named in her […]
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New Standalone Romance from Local Author
Door County resident Katherine Hastings released her new book, A War Within, on Nov. 7. The historical romance novel is the second released for Hastings in 2018, preceded by her first novel, In the Assassin’s Arms. A War Within is a historical romance novel set in France during World War I. Unlike her first book, […]
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Review: The Dark Decent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
Your future was laid out before. It’s all set. You have plans and a method to execute them. Each step of your journey will progress in order, just as it’s meant to be, and any bumps in the road will be dealt with accordingly. As in The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White, […]
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Many people think of a “poet” as a writer who searches for inspiration by wandering through the woods or walking beside the sea, notebook in hand. Perhaps Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” or “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” comes to mind. But Tracy K. Smith, the current Poet Laureate of the United […]
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Review – Black Klansman: A Memoir
by Terri Schlichenmeyer You want no part of that. In fact, the farther away you are from whatever-it-is, the happier you’ll be. Nope, some things are not your friend. Some things are not good for you at all. And as you’ll see in the new book Black Klansman: A Memoir by Ron Stallworth, some […]
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In the weeks since I finished David Foster Wallace’s canonized Infinite Jest, other books I read feel as though they’ve been run through a thesaurus machine with the dial turned way down. Perhaps that is why I asked our editorial team if I could write something about my experience reading the 1,000-page text. But even […]
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For anyone who is weary of novels and movies about teenagers saving the world, Jerry Apps’ new book Cold as Thunder will come as a refreshing change. It is a dystopian novel in which almost all of the heroes are past the age of sixty, and they belong to a club known as the Crystal […]
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Review: ‘The Language of Kindness’
The Language of Kindness Christie Watson/336 pages, Tim Duggan Books, 2018 There was a time in your life when you tried everything. Full-time, part-time, gig-worker, entrepreneurship, you changed jobs like most people change clothes. It’s exhausting and disheartening and author Christie Watson had the same experience: café worker, milk deliverer, video shop clerk, she […]