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Dark, soulful tales that haunt long after the last page.
Watership Down by Richard Adams My rating: 5 of 5 stars Watership Down is one of those books that helped shape my entire worldview. It came to me, like so many of my favorites, during the horrible years we call junior high, when I would escape into books and was lucky enough to be in…
The Giver by Lois Lowry My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Giver is one of those rare books that my students, both AP and regular, were always shocked to learn I hadn’t read. Well, it wasn’t published when I was in the targeted age range, so I missed it. Until now. The story is…
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty My rating: 5 of 5 stars Simply put, this is still the best horror novel ever written. Blatty’s use of language — particularly simile — is beautiful and touching or sickening and depraved, but always right there, pushing the reader to see what he wants you to see. The…
My first novella without any supernatural elements is now available from MoonHowler Press. It’s called Inheritance. It is the story about a mother who comes home from the grocery store to find her daughter’s boyfriend and two other guys raping the girl. The mother spent almost her whole life as a victim and her one…
UnStrung by Neal Shusterman My rating: 4 of 5 stars I enjoyed this VERY short book quite a lot, but rather than answer questions about Lev it really just created more questions about the People of Chance, particularly Wil. I’d say more, but that would give away the ending and that just wouldn’t be fair.…
Unwind by Neal Shusterman My rating: 4 of 5 stars It took me a little while to get into this one. In the first third of the book Shusterman really overused the word “bolt.” Everyone was on the verge of bolting here or bolting there. It’s a small thing, maybe, but it annoyed me. Also,…
There was a 10-year period that pretty much shaped my world, providing the cultural touchstones by which all things that came after would be measured. I suppose it’s that way for most people. For me, that time period would have been about 1975-1985; that would be from the ages of nine to 19. What makes…
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’m not sure how many times I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath. I know this is the sixth year I’ve taught it in my AP Literature class. Since it is the 75th anniversary of the book’s publication and my group of AP…
Is there a more controversial topic among writers than the dreaded one about publishing your own work? Probably not. As little as 10 years ago it was unthinkable for anyone aspiring to commercial success to even consider vanity publishing. Of course, back then it was pretty dang expensive, unless you got tied up with a…
Steven E. Wedel 