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Dark, soulful tales that haunt long after the last page.
Yes, after months of not blogging, of my only updates being book reviews, I’m going to write about the Adrian Peterson drama. But I’m going to write about something I’ve not seen covered yet. First, though, a possible disclaimer: I was horrified in 2007 when Peterson announced he was leaving my Alma mater, the University…
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho My rating: 3 of 5 stars I was in the mood for another meaning-of-life book, so did some searching and The Alchemist came up on several lists. I saw reviews on Goodreads from people who found it life-changing and from people who hated it. I guess I’m in the middle.…
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is an interesting story about the generation of Germans who came along immediately after World War 2 and how they dealt with the sins of their parents and the guilt of their nation. The Nazi crimes are personalized in the character of Hannah,…
Gabriel’s Story by David Anthony Durham My rating: 4 of 5 stars Despite a rather slow start and Gabriel being a pretty unlikable character in the beginning, this ended up being a coming-of-age Western novel that I really liked. It begins with Gabriel, his brother Ben, and their mother traveling to the Kansas plains to…
Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss by Peter Criss My rating: 4 of 5 stars Maybe sometimes it’s better to not learn too much about your heroes. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been a KISS fan since 1976, when I was 10 years old. Granted, I didn’t know what most of…
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse My rating: 4 of 5 stars After reading The Life of Pi I wanted another book with a spiritual theme but a non-traditional philosophy. Well, non-traditional by Western standards. Siddhartha had been needling me for a while, but I thought I’d already read it back in my college days. I was…
Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman My rating: 2 of 5 stars I give up. It’s taken me three months to get 53 percent through the e-book. I’d kinda like to know how it ends, but I just don’t care enough to keep slogging through. The setting was pretty interesting at first, but now it…
Life of Pi by Yann Martel My rating: 4 of 5 stars It’s billed as a book to make you believe in God. That sounded intriguing, and I enjoyed the film adaptation, so I decided to give it a try. I think this is one that is going to have to sit on my mind…
On Tuesday my first grandchild was born. On Thursday I held a departing senior while we cried on each other. On Friday I printed a contract for a three-book deal with a top small press publisher. Today I watched a man I’d just met cry as he read a speech at his daughter’s wedding, where…
I started a long blog post about one of my students and her father who came to Oklahoma from Mexico and the only English word he knew was “wetback.” He heard that word a lot at first, but overcame the odds and now owns his own business in Oklahoma City. But the more I wrote,…
Steven E. Wedel 