American Shakespeare

Today I read that Arthur Miller is America's Shakespeare.  The same has been said for August Wilson.   I like Miller but I don't like Shakespeare, but I still know that is a compliment!  I like August Wilson better than Miller, but I do like Miller!  Broken Glass is a very thought-provoking story.  It is set in 1938 in Brooklyn where a woman of Jewish heritage is experiencing paralysis brought on at least in part by news of Kristallnacht and the horrors that are beginning in Europe with the rise of Hitler.

It's a short play but packed with a lot.  Self-denial and self-hatred and the complexities of love.  Powerful.

Excellent

the song and the book Stella by Starlight are both favorites of mine.
Another fantastic book by Sharon M. Draper.
Another reminder of our horrible past.  The shame we must bear. And the present isn't really much better.  When will we learn?

Not What I Thought It Was

When I saw the cover of The Mad Sculptor:  the maniac, the model and the murder that shook a nation I thought it would be like The Devil in the White City or The Monster of Florence but it wasn't.  That was totally my fault.  The author, Harold Schechter has been writing true-crime books for a very long time and he is true to his craft and does a great job at it.  I was just hoping for something more.
I had never heard of this crime, even though it is listed on Raymond Chandler's 1948 list of most memorable crimes of the century.  This is the story of Robert George Irwin, a guy with some serious psychological problems.  If you want a good true-crime book, this is a good one, but it's not like DIWC or TMOF.

Cheese Turtles in Paradise

Turtle was a very different kind of book for me.  It was a Kindle check-out and also on a list of historical fiction that I made for a work project.  This one, set in 1935 is the story of a young girl, Turtle, who is sent by her mom to live with her sister and sister's family in the Florida Keys.  Her mom is a housekeeper to rich folks and her boss doesn't like children.  Turtle's mom is sure that the difficulties will be over soon, though because she has found THE man of her dreams, a salesman who promises to marry her and provide a good life for her and Turtle.  The story is about love and healing and forgiveness, single motherhood, poverty, all kinds of things, without being preachy at all.  A lovely, short, beautiful story.  Turtle is a smart, tough cookie (nicknamed Turtle because of her hard shell) and she fits in with her gang of boy cousins, showing them that a girl can do the things that they can do, and sometimes better.  There's buried treasure, babies with diaper rash and laughter and tears.  Loved it.