“At sixty miles per hour, you could pass our farm in a minute…” Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres is a modern reimagining William Shakespeare’s King Lear, but instead of taking place in ancient Britain, the story is set on an Iowa farm in the late 1970s. This is the era…
Star Trek Book Review: The New Voyages 2 (1978) edited by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath
There is a fascinating connection between the creation of The New Voyages 2 anthology and the late ’70s political battle to save NASA from oblivion. Around the time of publication, NASA was struggling and facing steep financial cuts (in fact, the introduction to The New Voyages 2 mentions that some…
Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith
“Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York.” It is the summer of 1912 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Eleven-year-old Mary Frances “Francie” Nolan is on the precipice of becoming a young woman. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn offers the loving episodic story of her upbringing. Taking place across…
Goosebumps Review #13: Piano Lessons Can Be Murder (1993) by R.L. Stine
“I saw this woman. Late at night. She plays the same sad melody over and over…” Jerome “Jerry” Hawkins is a practical jokester. He recently moved into a creaky old house in the town of New Goshen with his family (and his “vicious” cat “Bonkers”). He has left behind his…
