Elizabeth L. Sivler wrote one of this summer’s hottest books The Execution of Noa P. Singleton and was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. Q. How did for the idea for the novel came about? A. In my last semester of law school, I enrolled in a class on capital punishment. As part of the course, I visited Texas’s death row and worked on a clemency petition, where I spoke with inmates and victim family members. Then, for two years following law school, I was a judicial clerk for one of the nine judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and worked on several death penalty appeals. I researched the law and examined several cases from both an advocate as well as neutral perspective and wanted to present both sides of the death penalty debate by removing the obvious questions of whether or not the person did the crime, to instead focus on the question of punishment. How does society treat its prisoners? How do we accept our own shortcomings and mistakes? How does our guilt define us? These were just a handful of issues that I hoped to explore by examining the death penalty through…

During the summer vacation we encourage our children to read, and to read a lot. To our delight our daughter has really taken on to reading, she already finished several book and did her “reading response” on them. One of the books she really enjoyed is in the Cobble Street Cousins series called Some Good News by Cynthia Rylant. Please leave a nice comment to encourage her efforts. Buy this book from Amazon.com More books by Cynthia Rylant Buy this book from Amazon.com More books by Cynthia Rylant Zohar — Man of la Book *Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account

Today is the birthday of famed Brazilian novelist, poet, playwrite and short story writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. The author was an advocate of monarchism and is still regarded as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature. 1) The author was known also as Machado de Assis, Machado, or Bruxo do Cosme Velho 2) Machado was born in Rio de Janeiro which at the time was the capital of the Empire of Brazil to a mulatto father and a Azorean Portuguese washerwoman. 3) Machado went to public school but was not a good student. 4) Father Silveira Sarmento became known to young de Assis while celebrating masses and taught him Latin (and later became a friend). 5) When his mother died, 10 year-old Joaquim and his father moved to São Cristóvão. Franscisco de Assis met and married Maria Inês da Silva. 6) Joaquim studied at a school for girls, he was there because his stepmother worked at the school making candy. At night Joaquim learned French and also met Francisco de Paula Brito, a bookstore owner who helped him get published. 7) Joaquim started working in a newspaper as a proofreader while contining to write for several other newspapers. He…

Noa P. Singleton is awaiting execution for the murder of her father’s pregnant girlfriend. As the months pass and her execution date gets closer, Noa is visited by Marlene Dixon, mother of her victim.

About: Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva is the eighth in the Gabriel Allon series. Even though there are numerous references to the previous books, I thought this novel was still a good read and could be read independently. 352 pages Publisher: Signet Language: English ISBN-10: 0451227387 My rating for Moscow Rules – 4 Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format* Thoughts: Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva (web­site) is another solid, well-written and dependable adventure in the Gabriel Allon chronicles. After reading the 8th book in the series it is obvious that Silva has created a character that is strong, subtle and conflicted with an interesting background story and engaging future. At this point in his life, Allon and the readers aren’t really sure what he is. Allon is too old to be the James Bond style agent, too young to retire, too cynical to take a desk job but he is a patriot in every bone in his body and is still able to contribute. Silva realize that he can’t keep his spy young forever and basically ruined his spying career in several books prior by having his face splashed across newspapers and European agencies not allowing him entry…

Tomomi “But­ter­fly” Ishikawa com­mit­ted sui­cide but left her best friend, Ben­jamin Con­sta­ble, a trail of clues which lead him from Paris to New York and back – the cities she called “home”. Ben is search­ing for jour­nals and notes left specif­i­cally for him.

Today, June 14, is flag day in the United States so I thought this post would be appropriate. My daughter who just finished second grade, decided to do her biography project on Betsy Ross (she had to do several persuasion papers, a biography, autobiography, an entrepreneurial project (design, build, and sell for profit a product – in her case an easel made out of popsicle sticks) and more), which I found a bit disconcerting. As an astute student of history I know that the only “proof” we have of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag is a family legend which started after she died by her grandchildren. At first I was put off by my daughter’s choice, mostly because of the tale told about Ms. Ross is now told so often and is printed in so many history books that it actually became fact, with absolutely no evidence. Much like George Washington’s wooden teeth (they were made of bone – could you imagine chewing with wood splinters?), or that Columbus discovered the Earth was round (the first globes went on sale the year Columbus sailed, by the way he didn’t “discover” America either) and many more. If you’re interested…

About: Death of Superman is a collection of a one of the most famous storylines in recent comics history (1992). The comics were created by a myriad of artists including writers Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louse Simonson and Roger Stern and artists Jon Bogdanove, Jackson Guice and Tom Grummett. 168 pages Publisher: DC Comics; First Edition edition Language: English ISBN-10: 1563890976 My rating for Death of Superman – 5 Buy this graphic novel from Amazon.com* Thoughts: Death of Superman is basically an epic fight between Superman and Doomsday leaving the reader wanting for more with an open ending. As for story, well… Superman dies… it’s in the title and that’s basically it. There is no background to who or what Doomsday is but the book stays true to the Superman ideals: he never gives up and he is selfless (see Glen Weldon‘s book Superman: The Unauthorized Biography). This book is part one of a long and interesting Superman saga. If you buy this book make sure to also get World Without a Superman, The Return of Superman for an exciting read. The art in the graphic novel ranges from good to very-good, since this is a collection of single issues, drawn and inked…

Article orignially published as Book Review: Big Brother – by Lionel Shriver on Blogcritics.org About: Big Brother by Lionel Shriver is a fictional book from this acclaimed author. Ms. Shriver won the 2005 Orange Prize for her acclaimed novel We Need to Talk About Kevin. The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book –to enter fill out the Raf­fle­copt­ter form at the end of the post. 384 pages Publisher: Harper Language: English ISBN-10: 0061458570 My rating for Big Brother – 4 Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format* Thoughts: Big Brother by Lionel Shriver (Facebook) is a book which stylistically reminded of So Much for That which I thought was fantastic. Ms. Shriver wrote an interesting book, with a twist at the end which I did not see coming. I was a bit disappointed with the book because I thought it might have more social commentary. After all, So Much for That was scathing in its criticism of the health care system. I was expecting more of the same about the weight loss industry, its shysters, the discrimination and reasons for obesity – I got some of that but not much. Yes, I concede that I should read a book without any…

Superman in this strip is a step, or a few steps, above a circus strongman accomplishing magnificent feats, underwear on the outside and all. The adventures are masterfully reproduced to insure enjoyment of fantastic storytelling, active imagination and the beginning of the greatest super-hero of all.