What Teachers Make: In Praise of the World’s Greatest Job. By Taylor Mali. Penguin-Putnam Publishing. Hardback. 2012. $12 At 197 pages What Teachers Make is short, sweet and to-the-point. Mali has a wide following, having taught in numerous places, with experiences across curriculums and disciplines. He draws from his wide experiences in this brief collection…
False Economy, by Alan Beattie. Published by Penguin and Riverhead Books. Copyright 2009. Paperback. $16. My interest in economics certainly cannot be traced to my college experience with Micro- or Macroeconomics. Both classes were taught be the same gentleman, Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson tended to be tardy and always arrived with a ceramic coffee cup of…
Some authors have an innate ability to create an instant rapport with me. Their words, compounds and elements, with pages as catalyst, crystallize in my mind. James Lee Burke is such an author. I discovered him a year ago, or so, after finishing another series of character-based novels, and wanting to develop a new reading…
I write because I think. My thoughts need a form. I give them a form through the laborious machinations of word selection, ordering, and penning them on some hard- or soft copy media, following generations old rules. My favorite author of all-time is Ray Bradbury. His prose is poetry. The meter, tone, tenor and lyrical…
I have grave concerns over the future health of Ahmed Rashid. Pakistan is not friendly towards journalists, aid workers, politicians, business people, or anyone critical of Pakistani leadership. Since 1992, 42 journalists have been killed in Pakistan (CPJ.com.) April 20th, 2012, Mutaza Rizvi was found murdered in Karachi, the southern port city of Pakistan. Rizvi…
Escape From Camp 14, by Blaine Harden, published by Viking. Hardback. $26.95 Shin Dong-hyuk still remembers his first execution. In a North Korean prison camp, attendance at executions is mandatory, regardless of age. The prisoner had rejected an opportunity of redemption, and was bound to wooden posts in a grassy field. The man’s mouth was…
If one can set aside personal religious dogma and indoctrination, the Universe represents a fascinating field of study. I have never been able to reconcile the vastness of the Universe with religious traditions, teachings, or Faith on a personal scale. Nor have I been able to achieve any relationship at scales below atoms, neutrons, protons,…
Written by David Matthews; from Penguin Press ©2011 Stefan Templeton, the object of the author’s research, did more in his life to 9 years old than I’ve done in all of mine, I think. Born of a Black father and a Norwegian mother, Stefan was already a well-versed world traveler by 9. His upbringing is…
Novels contain an immense amount of geography. The fifth book I’ve read by Lee Child in two months. The guy can put a story together. Take equal parts of the best procedural crime novel you’ve read with parts of the Walking Tall movie series and that gives you Jack Reacher series of novels. For series…
>On a whim, I bought my first Repairman Jack novel, “Harbinger.” Anyone who has read a Repairman Jack novel, by F. Paul Wilson will realize what came next. I bought my second Repairman Jack novel, “Hosts.” And then I bought “Gateways” and “Crisscross,” which I am reading now. I bought “Infernal” on Friday. No, I…
Constant Geography 
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