Carole Mertz Reviews Jack Grapes Prize-Winning Book of Poetry

Title: Dancing in Santa Fe and Other Poems

Author: by Beate Sigriddaughter 

http://writinginawomansvoice.blogspot.com/

Genre: Poetry Chapbook

Publisher: Cervena Barva Press

ISBN 9781950063239 

2019, 24 pg., Paperback, $8.00

Book is available at Amazon.com 

Review by Carole Mertz (carolemertz@cox.net originallyfor The Compulsive Reader 

In Dancing in Santa Fe, Beate Sigriddaughter delivers a fine collection of fourteen poems, all written in free verse. An American poet of German heritage, she has won multiple poetry prizes, including the Cultural Weekly—Jack Grapes Prize in 2014, and multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her gracious promotion of women’s poetry (at her blog Writing in a Woman’s Voice) is also commendable.

Richness of character and content run throughout the collection. The author presents a wealth of resources and displays her thoughtfulness resulting from inner reflection, along with her skill in defining external scenes surrounding her. Sigriddaughter describes a bus ride, for example, in which a rider is exulting over the sunrise, but fellow-travellers give the rider a look of contempt. “What have you done with my exuberance and with my tenderness?” she asks within the poem. “Was it of any use to you to take it like that?” (From “Silence,” p. 19.)

In “Lines for a Princess” (p. 21), the persona is at once a sheltered flower, a mountain juniper, a “seed that never quite took,” and a poet who “wants sequins and justice both.” I like the depth of this persona’s character and appreciate the clarity with which the narration is rendered. In it Sigriddaughter writes, “Days whisper by. You have to / listen carefully to hear them.” The poem is one among others in the collection that draws on fairytale themes

A longer poem, “Dancing in Santa Fe” (pgs. 4-7), renders alternating verse backdrops of such weighted matters as concentration camps and the horrors of war, contrasted with New Mexico’s beautiful mountain scenes. “…to feel for sins I haven’t committed?” she writes, as autobiography. “…is an unspeakable filter / on this gorgeous world.” 

The poems, “Samsara” and “Nirvana” draw on Buddhist religious terms to deliver their messages. As wanderer, in “Samsara” (pgs. 8-9), the poet writes:

 

Even on the mountain, surrounded

by excellence, the trouble

of the city clamors in my heart…

 

In “Nirvana’ (p. 10), Sigriddaughter issues a plea:

 

I love you world. Send more angels.

Help me fight the dull and dangerous

deceptions.

 

Here she admits her distrust of “nirvana,” a striving after bliss and the absence of suffering or desire. (Isn’t self-effacing consent like suicide? she asks.) 

“The River” (p.11) brings to the reader another level of reflection; the river acknowledges being bound to desires. Accepting this, it wants to carve passageways through mountains of unnecessary evil. I enjoy the beauty of this metaphor and how it allows the river to speak Sigriddaughter’s own spiritual desires. 

In addition to her narrative skills, the poet’s mature voice also lends beauty to her verses. We trust her voice all the more, because it doesn’t conceal the imperfections of the world. “I have heard,” she says in Scheherazade (p.16), “how not forgiving is like drinking poison.” And with further insight, “You cannot be my hero any more…I cannot imagine the cost / of making nice with the entitled predator / like that.” A subsequent line strikes an even stronger point. 

Though several poems lead us to reflect on beauty and dark matters, such as war and unforgiveness, the Sigriddaughter chooses to close the chapbook with a humorous poem. In “The Dragon’s Tale” (p.23), the princess is hidden away from “benevolent contempt.” We content ourselves with this comedy when the dragon asks, “You thought I was going to eat her?” 

I delight in Dancing in Santa Fe. Its content seems to “fill the narrow margins of reality with beauty.” (15) Beate Sigriddaughter’s poems balance darkness with a joyful light.

ABOUT THE POET

Beate Sigriddaughter, author of hundreds of poems, is winner of the 2014 Jack Grapes Prize and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. She has promoted women’s writing at her blog Writing in a Woman’s Voice for many years, an activity which grew out of her earlier Glass Woman Prize. Siggriddaughter is the author of Emily and Dancing in Santa Fe and other poems. 

Her forthcoming Dona Nobis Pacem will be issued December, 2021 by Unsolicited Press. Learn more at: https://sigriddaughter.net/, http://writinginawomansvoice.blogspot.com/, and https://www.facebook.com/beate.sigriddaughter.

 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER 

Carole Mertz is the author of Toward a Peeping Sunrise (Prolific Press) and of the forthcoming Color and Line (with Kelsay Books, November, 2020). She reviews frequently at Mom Egg Review, Eclectica, South85 Journal, and Dreamers Creative Writing. Her reviews are also at Into the Void, Main Street Rag, World Literature Today, and League of Canadian Poets. Carole is judge (in the formal poetry division) of the 2020 Poets and Patrons of Illinois International Poetry Contest. Carole resides with her husband in Parma, Ohio. Reach her at carolemertz@cox.net and tweet with her @Carolemertz1

 

 MORE ABOUT BLOGGER AND WAYS TO GET THE MOST FROM THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too!

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Dr. Bob Rich Praises New Self-Help Book: "Lyrical Language," "Transparent Honesty"

Title: Awakening to a New Reality

Subtitle: Conscious Conversations across the Horizon of death.

Genre: Spiritual, Self-help, After-Death Conversation

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-8380152-0-6

Reviewer website:  https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/

Publisher:  Sleepy Lion Limited  

Some Purchase links:

Waterstones
Barnes and Noble

Amazon 

Direct from Publisher Sleepy Lion Limited 

Reviewed by Dr. Bob Rich 

I have the benefit, and used to have the handicap, of a scientific training. I don’t believe anything, but have created a tentative and always evolving model of reality. As new evidence came in, my reality progressed from complete scepticism to seeing the Universe as alive, and made of the unconditional Love all the great religions and philosophies describe. 

Janice Dolley’s account of her conversations with her friend Ursula Burton, before and after Lady Burton’s death, fit perfectly into my current model. I cannot treat it as evidence, because it is a personal claim that is only hearsay in the scientific sense, but it is the kind of thing that fits my understanding of Reality. 

If you are open to a more complex yet simple, holistic and sacred view of reality, if you agree with me that death is not the end of a book but the end of a chapter, then Janice’s (and Ursula’s) book will speak to you. 

Add to that the beautiful, clear, lyrical language, and a transparent honesty, and you can enjoy having your eyes opened (or, as with me, your established beliefs confirmed) in a most pleasant way.
All the same, the basic claim of conversations with a dead friend made me entertain the possibility that the book is a cleverly done fantasy. Even if it were, it presents Truth, and joining Janice’s Reality will make you into a better person. However, a simple internet search provided many bits of corroborative evidence, so I am confident that Janice honestly believes her account. As I said, my scientific training prevents me from saying more, but her account is so inspiring that it honestly doesn’t matter."

About the Author

Janice Dolley is the co-author of The Quest: Exploring a Sense of Soul, Awakening to a New Awareness: Stories of Contemporary Christians and Christian Evolution. She is Development Director of the Wrekin Trust, which started as a spiritual education charity by Sir George Trevelyan in 1971 and she now travels the world, such as arranging the international conference on The Emerging Spirituality Revolution: Embodying the Spiritual imperative of our Time and has been a lecturer at the Open University for thirty years. Furthermore, she is director of the Findhorn College and Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation. Finally, she is the President of CANA, or Christians Awakening to a New Awareness, and she is striving to bring a holistic spirituality and positive message to many in the newly emerging future. As a Trustee of WYSE international, she aims to promote co-creating and encourages young leaders to rise to a greater potential. Bridging old and new faiths, her latest book aims to encourage everyone to create a better future and to reach authentically within themselves for truth and personal growth. Find her at:

https://www.facebook.com/sleepylionpublishing/

https://www.instagram.com/sleepylionpublishing/

https://twitter.com/sleepylionLtd

https://sleepylionpublishing.com/

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr. Bob Rich is a visitor to this planet. At home, he is an historian of horrror which is why Earth is his favorite place in all the universe. It is the only place where sentient beings play a game where points are scored for the number of civilians killed (they call this “war”), where child-raising practices are designed to damage the children, and above all, where the global economy of an entire species is designed to destroy their life support system. This background is why he is interested in the opinions of another traveler, who has left, but still chatting with one of her friends. You can learn all about Bob at his popular blog, Bobbing Around https://bobrich18.wordpress.com and find him on Twitter, too, @bobwriting.

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page and in a tab at the top of this blog's home page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites so it may be used a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning

James Sale Reviews Classic Poetry

Theresa Rodriguez, Jesus and Eros: Sonnets, Poems and Songs 

Author: Theresa Rodrigues

ISBN 13: 978-0-96569555-6-5)

and Sonnets 

Author: Theresa Fodriques

ISBN 13: 978-0-9656955-8-9)

Author's Website: www.bardsinger.com. 

Genre: Poetry

Original Publisher:  The Society of Classical Poets, Evan Mantyk, publisher 

Reviewed by James Sale originally for JamesSalePoetry.web.com

These two collections comprise a total of 79 poems (if we include the songs too), although there is some overlap of sonnets, some of which appear in both collections. Three themes stand out: one, a spiritual longing for union with God which is underpinned by her sense of her own unworthiness and sin; two, a deep but very measured eroticism (no filth in other words) which explores failed relationships and the fantasies of the longing mind; and third, the act of writing itself as a purgative or panacea for the afflictions life has vented on her. This last point is important too, since it is why she has developed a fascination with forms and structures as she seeks to communicate, understand and order her experiences. I would observe—I think justly—that by far and away her best poetry are those poems (of which there are many) in which she uses form, rhyme and meter, and where the verse is free, I find the poems far less effective.

The strength of Rodriguez as a poet is in her ability to access and confront her emotional states directly. She does occasionally comment on wanting to come up with original ideas, but this is a mistake: she is not a poet made to impress us with new ideas hatched in the mind; she is a poet who speaks from the heart. We see this in contrasting a poem that appeared on the pages of The Society of Classical Poets, “Writer’s Block,” and its concluding lines:

“Oh, would that something fresh would come to me,

Not what amounts to sheer banality!”

This is fun but no more than that. Contrast that with this first line from “Finale”:

“The rigor mortis of my love for you has not set in.”

Phew! That is pretty startling on a number of levels. Or take her poem, “Sweet Bird,” where I would ask is this really about a bird as we are “awaiting your long descent”? There is a plangent eroticism in all this suggestive of a lover to be; the bird is always “he.”

And again, the concluding stanza of “Shaman of the Waves” also captures something of her intense yet understated erotic power:

“And so we are of polar force

that meets in synergy;

you are the shaman of the waves;

I am the sea.”

But having said earlier that there are three main themes, they of course blend in all sorts of ways. Indeed, the title of her first collection, Jesus and Eros, might appear to be such a blend as well as being oxymoronic in its mixing of the sacred and the sensual. Here, however, I am reminded of two lines from a C.H. Sisson’s poem, “A Letter to John Donne”:

“That the vain, the ambitious and the highly sexed

Are the natural prey of the incarnate Christ.”

That is beautifully put; he was of course referring to John Donne in terms of the three attributes, but certainly the “highly sexed” applies to Rodriguez’ writing. And since she writes frequently in sonnet form it is worth contrasting her efforts with another favourite sonneteer, who writes occasionally on these pages, Joseph Charles Mackenzie. Whereas Mackenzie’s sonnets are usually theological, public and “objective,” Rodriguez’ are confessional, intimate and “subjective.” Both, of course, have their own strengths, but how different they can be!

In Rodriguez we have the sense of a soul longing for order, for discipline, for that unreserved giving for the great cause of either passion or love. One suspects that in another life Rodriguez would have made a formidable nun or saint of an order. Take her “Platonic Sonnet”:

“I hope that by a deprivation all

Might turn into a longing at your core.”

Or, from “You’ve Made It Clear”:

“For though I’ve longed for you in every way,

I also love enough to stay away.”

Or, from “Simple Little Things”:

“Do you have any sense of what can be

Within a body touched by loneliness?”

The poems, then, at their best can be touching, affecting and profoundly felt experiences, and I think represent real poetry from a real soul whom the Muse has visited. Perhaps one final great example, where Rodriguez brings it all together in the concluding couplet of a sonnet is “Grey Sonnet” (yes, she uses the English spelling!):

“For grey to dwell alone is grey indeed

When colors yearn to contrast, blend and bleed.”

That is wonderful writing, and a quite brilliant sonnet that I invite everyone to read and find its joys for themselves. And as a footnote, “bleed” is a favourite word of Rodriguez.

Regular readers of the pages of The Society of Classical Poets will also be heartened to know that Rodriguez’ strong religious beliefs lead her to reject much of the feminist and other contemporary claptrap that passes for thought. Her poem, “Goodbye, Sweet Fetal Child,” is a searing indictment of “hedonistic choice” abortion. There is, then, so much to recommend in her poetry. But where, perhaps, may there be improvements?

I think the major fault in these collections is in the editing. First, the collections could be tighter – some poems do not justify their place in the collections, and if we take Sonnets, then 37 is not a number I recognise! Shakespeare had 154 (11 x 14, the number of lines in a sonnet) and Mackenzie has 77 (half 154). 33 is good (Dante liked the number) and 36 is also good (4 x 9 or 3 x 12): one poem that should be omitted is “The Earl of Oxford’s Sonnet” which seeks to assert that Shakespeare did not write his plays. Quite apart from the fact that he did, as I have explained on the pages of The Society of Classical Poets, it should be obvious from all I have said about Rodriguez’ poetry that this is not a suitable theme for her: it is academic, dry-as-dust, and not from the heart. Why bother? It’s a weak poem anyway.

Second, on the editing front, the proofing needs improving, and most particularly in the area of punctuation. Punctuation is intermittent in places; if Rodriguez were E.E. Cummings, then that might be justified, but in writing traditional sonnets I think punctuation is not a burden but a major semantic benefit. Her sonnet, “I Cannot Write,” is I think impaired by its lack of punctuation. So I would ask her to rethink her punctuation policy for future poems.

But my criticisms must be considered inconsequential compared with the praise I wish to lavish on her collections: they are a real achievement. The poetry contains some dazzling truths as she unashamedly faces the demons of herself, her life and her imaginings. Let me leave you with her couplet from “I Wake My Eyes”:

“For everything is better when from cares

We turn our full attention to our prayers.”

Simple, direct, child-like, but massively affecting with all the potency of truth. Read Theresa Rodriguez.

About the Author

Theresa Rodriguez is the author three books of poetry, including Longer Thoughts, which is being published by Shanti Arts in 2020. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Religion and Intellectual Life, Leaf Magazine, Classical Singer Magazine, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Mezzo Cammin, and the Society of Classical Poets, where she is a contributing member. Her website is www.bardsinger.com.

About the Reviewer

James Sale has been a writer for over 50 years, and has had over 40 books published, including 8 collections of poetry, as well as books from Macmillan/Nelson (The Poetry Show volumes 1, 2, 3), Pearson/York Notes (Macbeth, Six Women Poets), and other major publishers. He won first prize in The Society of Classical Poets' 2017 poetry competition and now serves on their Advisory Board, the only Brit to do so. He regularly writes on culture for New York's The Epoch Times.

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page and in a tab at the top of this blog's home page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites so it may be used a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Dr. Bob Rich Reviews Inspirational Poetry

Title: Lost in Wonder

Author: Matthew Buonocore 

Available on Amazon

ASIN: B0842QDHKM

Genre: Inspirational Poetry

Reviewed by Dr. Bob Rich

When I read, I like to get immersed in a story. Poetry doesn’t allow this, so I thought twice before accepting a review copy of this collection of poems from Matthew Buonocore.

I made the exception because each of these little snippets of thought expresses exactly my philosophy. Matthew and I are kindred spirits, on the same path.

The reason for life is to progress in spiritual growth, until we reach enlightenment. In our very different ways, Matthew and I are showing you the path for achieving the meaning of life: Love; seeking god inside instead of chasing happiness outside; inner beauty.

My roadmap is a story. Matthew’s is a few carefully chosen words that force you to think, and then to feel.

You can’t race through this book. I suggest, read one poem, then let it germinate and flower before reading the next. This may give you months of meditation in words.

If thoughtful, gentle inspiration is your thing, you can’t go past this jewelry case of a book.

The Author Shares

I'm a poet and a writer from Central New York. My work consists of affirmations, quotes and poems of the divine nature. My work tells my story, it conveys each step I’ve taken in my journey towards personal freedom. My books are dedicated to my lovely girlfriend Alaina, who helped me see my worth and grasp the meaning of unconditional love. Growing up I always felt the call to do something beyond the “norm”; to follow my heart regardless of what others told me. Beneath everything, I find myself called to put out my message and my “heart-song”. It's very easy to forget that life is completely subject to each individual choice made, and these writings helped me to grasp the potential of trusting my true self.

This is a book of poems and affirmations to awaken the soul. Each poem provides a new vibratory experience that guides the reader towards spiritual growth. This book is my journey from awakening to present day. The book is meant as a catalyst for spiritual growth, the goal being to ignite the fire that lies dormant. We are all called to serve, to serve ourselves and then the world. Let this be a message to all that would choose the path of service, the true path. As each fear disintegrates we walk closer to the truth of our nature, and this is my truth.

About the Reviewer

Dr. Bob Rich is an apprentice Buddha. But, did you know, so are you? In fact, every sentient being in our universe is an apprentice Buddha.

If you want to know what that entails, visit Bob’s blog, Bobbing Around https://bobrich18.wordpress.com and look around. You are guaranted to be entertained, amused, informed, possibly outraged — but never bored. You can learn more about him at http://bobswriting.com  and/or subscribe to his eclectic newsletter, Bobbing Around, at https://bobrich18.wordpress.com. Tweet with him @bobswriting. His motto is: 

Commit random acts of kindness

Live simply so you may simply live

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER, THIS BLOG, AND ITS BENEFITS FOR WRITERS

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everything from Amazon Vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too.

Hendrika de Vries Reviews New Self-Help Book on The New Book Review

From Depression to Contentment

Subtitle: A self-therapy guide

By Bob Rich, Ph.D.

ISBN-13: 978-1-61599-435-9 paperback 

http://bobswriting.com/psych/depression.html

Reviewed by Hendrika de Vries

In all my over thirty years of practicing psychotherapy I have read and recommended many self-help books, but seldom have I found one that speaks to me with the spiritual wisdom of Bob Rich’s From DEPRESSION to CONTENTMENT. Here is a book that offers an attitude to life that can change your world-view even if you are not suffering from depression. It is a book not to be read in one sitting, but to be turned to again and again for daily words of wisdom and encouragement.

Dr. Rich puts our current epidemic of depression in a larger framework that helps the reader understand the nature of suffering and provides incremental small steps, baby steps, to move through the helplessness and overwhelm. He generously shares his personal experiences but also reminds us of the deep wisdom found in such timeless works as Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and Mihály Csikszentmihályi’s Flow. He even includes a chapter on reincarnation and past lives that I found especially fascinating.

It’s like being given a spiritual tool kit. I have a daughter who is a sculptor. When she was a little girl, my father, a craftsman, taught her to use tools. Upon his death, the only thing she desired was his old tool kit. It had everything in it she needed, she said, because his love was in the tools he taught her to use. This book reminds me of that. Not just a self-help book, but a tool kit filled with the timeless wisdom available to us whether we need guidance to move through depression or just a refresher course in the meaning of life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Bob Rich lives inside his computer, because whenever he looks outside it, the news is full of too much horrible stuff. Various countries are acting as terrorists by slaughtering the civilians inside other countries (they pretend that war isn’t terrorism). Those who have so much wealth they don’t know what to do with it are using every means possible to steal more from those who don’t have enough. And the entire global economy is designed to kill all complex life on this planet, for example by bathing everything in chemicals that kill insects, birds, fish and the good bugs inside your digestive system. So, things are MUCH better within that computer. If you want to have a peek in there, visit Bob’s blog, Bobbing Around at https://bobrich18.wordpress.com

Learn more about Dr Bob Rich at Twitter @bobswriting. He writes with two mottos in mind, Commit random acts of kindness and Live simply so you may simply live.  

http://bobswriting.com

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER, THIS BLOG, AND ITS BENEFITS FOR WRITERS

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everything from Amazon Vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too.

A Travel Journalist Explores the Final Frontier: Death

Title: How to Communicate with the Dead and How Cultures Do It around the World 

Author: Judith Fein

Publisher: Global Adventure

ISBN: 978-0-9884019-9-0
Author Website: www.globaladventure.us
September 4, 2019 Release

Reviewed by Marlan Warren, Reviewer originally for Roadmap Girl’s Book Buzz

 “Communicating with the dead has been a secret 

part of my life for many years.” –Judith Fein

Judith Fein’s fourth deep travel memoir, How to Communicate with the Dead and How Cultures do It around the World, invites us along on her decades of investigations and explorations of the final frontier: Death.

For most of her life, Judith Fein has seen and heard dead people. Not all the time, thank goodness, or it would not leave much time for this prolific journalist to write about her soul-searching globetrotting with her ever-skeptical photojournalist husband, Paul Ross. “Judie and Paul” are the “Nick and Nora” of the travel adventure-supernatural set. She can see a ghostly figure in the middle of nowhere and believe it to be a specter. He can be right next to her, eyes huge, and afterward admit “maybe” it was real. Their yin-yang bonding and love adds to the delightful humor of this Odyssey.

How to Communicate with the Dead  signals a coming out of the woo-woo closet for Fein. The Oxford dictionary defines “woo-woo” as “unconventional beliefs regarded as having little or no scientific basis, especially those relating to spirituality, mysticism, or alternative medicine…” Throughout her illustrious career as a journalist, Fein has occasionally penned articles about seeking healers and rituals in “exotic” locales; although mostly she has flown under the radar as a gifted intuitive herself. This book puts the spotlight on Fein’s spiritual truths as she has lived them, revealing how she has embraced and been embraced by others around the world who perceive those truths without shame.

There is no navel-gazing in these stories that take us from her father’s untimely death (and her first stunned awareness that she could hear him beyond the grave) to her late mother’s skepticism that she and her daughter could communicate after her transition (and how wrong that turned out to be) to various vortexes of cultures and religions that accept death as a fact of life that does not end the soul.

Fein’s passion to communicate with her living readers shines as an honest desire to help others move through their grief and fears to an understanding that death itself is not the final word on existence.

A discussion guide ends the book with such thought-provoking gems as:

“Would you like someone to contact you after you die? Why or why not?”

No matter what the answer, I’m willing to bet it won’t be boring. Fein invites readers to discuss the most taboo topic in America, as if to say:

“Hey, it couldn’t hurt.”

About the Author

Available in e-book and paperback via Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Booksamillion, Global Adventure. Judith Fein is based in Santa Fe and available to speak at venues.

About the Reviewer

Marlan Warren is an L.A. journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, blogger, and publicist with Roadmap Communications [http://bit.ly/2Mak8fJ and Book Publicity by Marlan. She reviews for the Midwest Book Review and her blogs include “Roadmap Girl’s Book Buzz” and “L.A. Now & Then.” She is the author of the fictionalized memoir, “Roadmaps for the Sexually Challenged: All’s Not Fair in Love or War”  and the producer/writer of the acclaimed documentary, “Reunion. Marlan is now in production for the documentary “What Did You Do in the War, Mama?: Kochiyama’s Crusaders” based on her play" “Bits of Paradise.". She is a member of the Nonfiction Authors Association and on the faculty of The Greater Los Angeles Writers Society.

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER, THIS BLOG, AND ITS BENEFITS FOR WRITERS

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