by michael | Feb 5, 2023 | Book Blog
Bruce Cockburn came to town in Victoria bc on Feb 2. It may be the last time we see him, so I am glad we were there. If you have not heard him sing or any of his, see his news on his site. he also has another set of songs coming out in a couple of months.
At 77 years old, he walked on stage stooped and with a cane. But he walked on with a vigorous step and sang alone for a full crowd for at least an hour and a half. He gave a kind of retrospective of his 50+ years as a musician, word-master and poet. He performance was what we are used to seeing and hearing with him: tight, solid, no note out of place. His voice has the sound in it like delicately aged whiskey from an oak steeped barrel. (I hope none of that give offence!)
It is not too far to say that he is a Canadian treasure. Thank you, Bruce!
Small Source of Comfort, Cockburn’s 31st
by michael | Jan 25, 2023 | Book Blog
Almost finished the third volume of three (in less than a month!). Fantastic books: well crafted, characters are impeccably moulded, the pacing is just right, lots of turns and surprises, all meeting at perfect endings. These are the first volumes of his oeuvre that I have read and am impressed.
If you love fantasy and adventure, and have not read Sanderson, then you are missing a great writer’s work.
by michael | Jan 3, 2023 | Book Blog
In the last three weeks I read Carlos Ruiz Zafon‘s four novels that are linked by a ‘cemetery of forgotten books’ in Barcelona. He died in June, 2020, a loss for literature and those who study, read and enjoy ideas and the solace of silence while so doing. These are complex, wonderful stories that do into fit into any one genre. as he once said one can read them in any order, but I suggest that new readers leave The Shadow of the Wind to the last. The particular aspect of the novels I admire the most is the characters: they are almost flesh and blood. If he was alive today, I would send him an email to thank him for these magnificent stories. Thy will never end up in the cemetery of forgotten books.
by Geeks on the Beach | Jun 1, 2022 | Book Blog
With this blog, I will be seeking writers who feel as I do: that we writers need community to do our best work. I hope I will be given the privilege of supporting and maybe helping others to writing success. I also hope that I can find persons who are willing to walk with me in my writing journey.
Ideas can reshape our reality, even if they are old ones that have become lost for a while. Writing is the practice of detailing on paper our reality so that we can tell a story that enlivens and shows the human condition in its multifaceted complexity. If you are like me and love writing, stories and ideas in the kind of context I’m trying to express here, let me know if we can collaborate. I am happy to help others in their same journey of writing for life.
I will also do reviews of books, concerts, new, whatever catches my interest in the wide, non pixelated flesh and bone world for whoever asks.
So, interested? Let’s talk, share our work. I am happy to ‘go first’ in doing a review or whatever another writer will ask me to do!
The first thing I will share follows. I am working on a fifth generation rewrite of a novel and am also working on a non-fiction manuscript.
The novel’s working title is ‘the blessed realm’. It is a fantasy story. A city has made a contract with a creature that keeps their city blessed (every one is healthy and beautiful, no violence, all is secure and prosperous). In return, the city allows the creature to pick one teenager/young adult to help it defend their city from evil, every time the previous ‘defender’ dies.
But the creature itself is the evil and the defender does not defend; he or she is consumed. Those who realize the true nature of the realm’s success, escape as soon as they can. Others, the majority, used to a perfect, blessed life, choose to allow the contract with the thing to continue. They think the price of a child’s life is worth their blessings. The story begins with the current defender dying, and the thing chooses a young man, who has one talent, seemingly useless, by which he might perhaps defeat the thing. He does not know what he has. So…we will see what happens!
The second book, the non-fiction, asks the question: how is it that members of Christianity have preached and taught that loving god and loving the neighbour are the most important ethical principles and that every Christian and all humans in fact should live by them…but the Church has had a rich history of ignoring those principles for its own ends?
