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  • Interview with Shirley Roe, Editor and CEO of Allbooks Reviews, Without the Questions

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    Matt

    I am an aging New Yorker who dearly misses Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray and brisket on rye. Living among the elderly here who play and cavort as if in a second childhood, I feel misplaced, but I am always the observer. Unfortunately it took decades before I could metabolize what i “experienced.” I have been an English teacher, the director of an alternative school, a writer and a therapist, and all of these attributes, in the last several years, have merged, and I am having the time of my life expressing myself. I am direct, often blunt — I have no…

  • Am I Overly Sensitive?. . .I Hope So

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    Matt

    Struggling with my weight in an endeavor to avoid diabetes and to lower my blood pressure, I resolved to join Weight Watchers, which I did recently. I am perhaps the only man in a group of about 35 to 40; it fluctuates. I find the plan itself sane and doable, and my pressure within three weeks has become almost that of a young man’s. It is due to portion control, I believe. But all this is by the way of an introduction. The group is led by a cheerful woman, who does not chirp but is pleasant. The Tuesday before…

  • Killer Review

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    Matt

    Sabrina Williams at Breenibooks.com had reviewed Down to a Sunless Sea, quite favorably at that. She then asked to read The i Tetralogy. In our correspondence before the review she shared how the book was unnerving and that she felt “bludgeoned” by it. The review came in today and I feel compelled to share some of the highlights with you, The book: “. . .is a raw and disturbing look at the destructive capabilities of humanity. The i Tetralogy is a frightening book from the outset, plunging the reader into unimaginable despair.” “The book was probably the most difficult, but…

  • What Is Going On Here?

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    Matt

    Another review just came in and what a review, all 13 paragraphs of it. I need to read it carefully for what it may teach me, although my initial impression is that it is lacquered with academic polyurethane : “…the story conjoins a Freudian view with an almost Heiderggerian analysis of existence within a moment — Dasein summoning Freud.”  Come, come, now. Modestly, he says, “I ain’t that bright.” Before I get into this, see http://prickofthespindle.com for the review by the editor-in-chief, Cynthia Reeser. A few weeks ago and unusual for me, she formally rquested if I would give her permission to…