Poetry & Short Stories LOCAL SF AUTHOR! The Ancient Book Of Hip By D. W. Lichtenberg Fourteen Hills Press, $12.00, 89 pages D.W. Lichtenberg’s poems in his first book, The Ancient Book of Hip, are those that will remain timeless. Lichtenberg, filmmaker and winner of the Michael Rubin Chapbook Award at San Francisco State University, presents a “case study” of hip. Readers will be taken through the streets and subway system of New York and Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The narrator will take us on a tour of Europe, ride on the wrong train, see monuments, and make a pit stop at McDonald’s. Strained relationships will also play a pivotal role as we read about young people falling in love, and the tension that builds between them. Despite Lichtenberg setting The Ancient Book of Hip in the New York City area, and from the point of view of a someone in their early twenties, accessibility should not be an issue for readers of any age. All readers have felt love, have known (or will soon know) what it’s like to question your life and
future in your twenties, and what it’s like to lose another. Readers might be thrown off at first when reading Lichtenberg’s poetry as the writing will suddenly jerk into a new thought. However, this soon doesn’t become an issue as this writing style portrays the young, experimental attitudes often attributed to those in their twenties. Reviewed by Robyn Oxborrow The Chester Chronicles By Kermit Moyer The Permanent Press, $28.00, 232 pages Kermit Moyer’s aptly named second book, The Chester Chronicles, is a series of linked short stories which span the Fifties and Sixties, chronicling the adolescence of Chester Patterson. An army brat and perpetual new kid, Chester is awkwardly selfaware and prone to bouts of vivid daydreaming. He barely tolerates his sexy alcoholic mother and selfeffacing father, envies his popular sister, and searches for an identity in environments rife with political and social upheaval.
“Of course, my face is the one that’s impossible to gauge, the one made unseeable by its sheer familiarity, so that observing it is like trying to smell your own breath.” In “Slightly Far East,” he meets an intelligent and bigoted boy who impregnates his Japanese maid. “In the Georgia Rain” recounts Chester’s first trip to a bar, where he faces racism head on. As a “Face Man” for his fraternity, Chester thinks he has it made, until he meets another face man and learns who the true heroes are. The stories, told from Chester’s point of view, reveal a romantic, vain, and highly observant boy obsessed with women and sex. He is often unlikable, a testament to Moyer’s realistic portrayal. Even as he realizes the truth about his family, Chester is still unable to see himself clearly. That’s ok, because we see ourselves in this melodramatic and scarred boy. Reviewed by Katie Cappello
Current Events The Dollar Meltdown By Charles Goyette Portfolio, $27.95, 248 pages Charles Goyette, a former Phoenix, Arizona talk show host, details where the U.S. economy is now, how we got there, what might happen next, and how to protect your money. By government intervention in money and markets, the U.S. faces runaway inflation. Between September 2008 and March 2009, the U.S. monetary ratio grew 199%, according to this writer. The author feels that our national debt costs up to $43,000 per individual taxpayer. Furthermore, China owes approximately $717 billion in U.S. treasury securities. The latter is due according to the equivalent of every American citizen borrowing $3,300 from people in China. This reviewer found the chapters on investing in oil, natural resources, bonds, and foreign currencies of interest, offering detailed information on the investments. Each chapter of this book, starting with the second chapter, begins with a few
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thought-provoking quotes--take for example Chapter 7, “How It Comes Down.” Reviewed by Claude Ury The Narcissism of Minor Differences By Peter Baldwin Oxford University Press, $24.95, 310 pages This is an important book and an easy one to grasp. Baldwin uses concise language and clear data (over 200 very easy to read graphs) to make his point: differences between Europe and America in the areas of the economy, healthcare, welfare in general, crime, the environment, are minor differences. When we believe otherwise we simply do not know the facts. For each of several social and political indicators Baldwin compares (those easy graphs) the U.S. with 18 to 20 European nations. So, for example, the chapter on healthcare depicts differences in government spending, total spending, hospitals per 100,000 population, infant mortality, obesity, diabetes, alcohol consumption, and more. For each indicator the graph exposes where the United States falls in comparison and thus does Baldwin make his
point…(over 200 times he makes the point): the differences are minor. The differences among European nations are often greater than the difference in the U.S. Baldwin’s book is short, focused, and surprising. He draws on the latest evidence from sources like the United Nations, the World Bank, OCED and he includes 50 pages of end notes and source material. A well-respected Professor of History at UCLA, Baldwin set out to “unsettle the prejudices and dislodge mistaken assumptions…on both sides of the Atlantic.” I strongly suggest you let him update your thinking as completely as he did mine. Reviewed by Marcia Jo U.S. Grown: To Survive a Nation Must Feed Itself By Herman Franck Esq. BookSurge, $12.99, 184 pages You always hear the phrase “buy American”; however the consumer rarely hears this phrase applied to the food chain. In the book U.S. Grown, author Herman Franck, Esq., discusses the effect that Americans have on the world food chain. The more food we consume that’s grown in third world countries the harder it is for the starving in those countries to get food. Franck uses many reports and much statistical informa-
Too Much Happiness: Stories By Alice Munro Knopf, $25.95, 304 pages Alice Munro presents another series of the epitome of what the modern short story should, and could, be. Using an absolutely delightful turn of phrase, she writes the things that the rest of us only think about, and sometimes those things that we only think about for a moment, as they’re not “proper” or “socially acceptable” situations to dwell on. What happens to a mother after the violent death of her three children? What is the answer behind the mystery of a special-needs child drowning at summer camp? Munro shines a flashlight on the human condition, but only enough to get you to think. Indeed, there’s not much happiness in Munro’s most recent collection, but her depth, her talent, and her raw look at the world make this book (and Munro) one in a million. This book is haunting, the storylines are memorable, and it’s an honor to own and read Munro’s words. Reviewed by Allena Tapia
tion to make his points. He talks about the expanding bio fuel market taking food out of the mouths of the hungry, and also talks about food wars. Franck discusses NAFTA; he talks about the Chinese dumping food in the American market at prices so low that our farmers can’t compete. “U.S. Grown is devoted to reviving and supporting U.S. agriculture.” This reviewer found this book startling. Startling because I didn’t fully grasp the effect of my food purchasing choices. The book is a kind of call to action to the consumer to be aware of what they are buying and where it’s coming from. Franck is also promoting a labeling company called “U.S. Grown.” If you like reading statistical information you will love this book as this reviewer did. Reviewed by Marc Filippelli
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