"Camille DeAngelis's
The Boy from Tomorrow is a complex and beautiful puzzle of times and places that comes together in a way that is a little bit eerie, a little bit sad, and a little bit hopeful.
"Twelve-year-old Alec and his mother have just moved into the old Victorian house at 444 Sparrow Street when he discovers an antique talking board in a cupboard. When he first tries to use it, he meets Josie. She is also twelve, and she also lives at 444 Sparrow Street--though one hundred years in the past.
"As Josie and Alec get to know one another across the insurmountable span of time, it becomes clear to Alec that he must find a way to help Josie and her little sister, Cass, escape from a danger that has long since passed.
"The novel grabs attention from its very first page, when Josie describes the psychic tools in her mother's library. The house's atmosphere is masterfully captured, both in the Victorian period and in modernity. Characters are just as thoroughly rendered, particularly Alex, Josie, and Cass, who search for friendship and belonging. The joy and sorrow of an impossible friendship across time come through.
"There book covers difficult topics: infidelity, divorce, child abuse, and death. These are not presented as problems to solve, but rather as realities that must be faced. The extraordinary circumstances of the story make such realities less scary, though no less real.
"
The Boy from Tomorrow is a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy that will appeal to a wide range of readers, all of whom will find it difficult to put down."
Excerpt: "Written with much lyricism and heart, the Cape Breton of the past comes alive on the page, with its close-knit culture, spectacular wind-swept vistas and grinding poverty.
"
The characters are vivid-though the inter-generation plotline occasionally gets crowded with players and a bit jumbled-and the authorial voice is compelling. The underlying psychology? Downright haunting.
"But it's the attention to detail here that proves most evocative: the lobster sandwiches and home-baked pies; the fiddle that's passed from one generation to the next; the boiled potatoes that a mother hides in the barn for her runaway son; Trudeau's pirouette behind the Queen; the feeling on the streets of Yorkville in Toronto in the 60s.
"All told,
The Light a Body Radiates is a standout debut. A sign of good things to come."
"Gail Straub's contemplative walks along the Ashokan Reservoir, nestled among the Catskill Mountains, are chronicled in thirty-six poignant and heartfelt essays that are a feast for the senses. As the seasons change, moving through light and dark, calm and storm, birth and death, the landscape whispers ancient truths that teach, heal, and reshape her.
"In the company of this water and sky, these mountains, forests, and creatures, I feel a profound sense of sanctuary," Straub, a social activist and peacemaker, writes. They ground her with their constancy, provide respite from noise and urgency, and remind her that the dharma is living one's true nature. Inner and outer landscapes intertwine, enriching each other in a partnership akin to dance, the stability of the one allowing freedom for the other.
"With a spirit open to embrace other creatures as kin, she observes a crow funeral with its own etiquette, ritual, and expressions of empathy. The drowning of a baby gosling in the reservoir's turbulence is a reminder that while nature can nurture, it can also destroy, and we are subject to both.
"Silence, solitude, open space, and contact with inner worlds through meditation and prayer are vital to her. "An ongoing bond with the unseen is essential to both my faith and my capacity to find hope in a dense and complex world," she writes, inviting us to form such a bond with whatever landscape it is that surrounds us.
"Lacking a connection with the natural world that awakens awe and astonishment and provides the air and water we need to survive, we are nothing more than "hungry ghosts," obese with the nonstop chatter provided by our electronic devices. For real sustenance,
The Ashokan Way advises three pathways: spiritual practice, the arts, and the natural landscape."
Excerpt: "Fr. Slattery's work gives his reader an insight, through history, but also through a true spirituality and understanding of the Catholic priesthood, into the vocation which has preached the Gospel, celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, absolved sins in Confession, offered Extreme Unction, but also fostered the true humanistic education of millions, fostered an economic system based on free enterprise, and fostered art, literature, and culture for generation. Heroism and Genius is a monumental achievement and should be on the reading list for every priest, religious, and seminarian."
(6/5) Interview scheduled with The Mike Church Show; live phone interview, 7:30 am (CT).
Excerpt: "This volume could act, therefore, as a springboard for Catholic scholars to delve deeper into the Gospels and the account of Christ's Resurrection. For laymen, the book provides an accessible survey of Christianity's position on Christ's Resurrection, as well as responses to those who reject Christ's rising from the dead. For the clergy, the book provides a source for homilies and parish Bible studies, especially during the Easter season. The book also works as a tool for apologetics; its readability allows even a non-believer to understand the Church's teaching. In an age of secularism, we need more books like this one to "give a reason for the hope" (1 Peter 3:15) that resides in each of us, the hope in our own resurrection with Christ."
Excerpt: "
This book presents the story of an intelligent, passionate woman who analyzes the world around her in a search for the truth. The analysis of her reasons, and the comparisons she makes between options when she transitions from one movement to another, provide a depth of insight that anyone travelling a similar path, or accompanying someone on it, could really benefit from her insights."
Excerpt: "
Feser makes it clear that the book is not a study in the history of philosophy. His arguments refer to key elements of the thought of each of the five thinkers, but he actively constructs a compelling argument that stands on its own terms today. He also spends a considerable amount of time engaging opposing views and objections raised by atheists, both throughout the book and in an entire chapter to conclude the book. The book is not written in scholarly language, but will provide a challenging read. Ultimately, it provides another way of forming our minds in faith."
Excerpt: "Meet Me in the Strange is a beautifully written coming-of-age story about all the ways in which you feel most at home when you find the people who are looking for the same home you are. Davi (whose gender is never specified) is a glorious combination of curiosity, self-doubt, and determination, while Anna Z. is delightfully too weird and too certain for manic pixie dream girl status. (She is actually the long awaited evolution of the manic pixie dream girl.) The worldbuilding is subtle, the setting a mix of big city, old world, and some Carnival of Venice flash and style. And Django Conn is enough like Bowie to make a fan weep. Altogether, Meet Me in the Strange is most wholly a book like no other and, for plenty of questing readers, that will be more than enough.
