Thank you A to Z

Thank you to the A to Z organizers and volunteers for another interesting challenge. 

Thank you to the bloggers, I loved reading your stuff. 

Thank you to the readers who read. 

A special thank you to the readers who comment, I often wonder if anyone is reading my posts. Thanks for letting me know your thoughts. 

Please let's stay in contact here and through facebook. 

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Book Review: No Turning Back by Dan Burns

No Turning Back

By Dan Burns

Chicago: Chicago Arts Press: pp 253 

$24.95

10 short stories in one book by Dan Burns

 may be just the thing to get your mind off the world or decide to engage just a bit more. Thought provoking, the sometimes Twilight Zone reminiscent or Bradburyesque tales transport the reader to another place.

The ten stories are: Cone Out Wherever You Are, At the End of the Day, Out of Touch, Letting Go, The Dark Side, For a Few Laughs, Adios Amigo, An Unexpected Guest – A Fantasy, The Pass, and No Turning Back. Will keep you turning pages through the quick paced prose.

Come Out, Wherever You Are takes one path on an apocalyptic day. What would you do if you were the last man standing? You may think differently when you’re done with this one. I particularly liked the descriptions of the location and how what was expect just wasn’t what was found.

Adios Amigo is particularly disturbing in that funny Twilight Zone sort of way. While it reminded me of one of the tele-plays it was distinctly different. The differences included a 21^st century taste for the ew-factor. By the end, we’re not sympathetic to the main character and yet… ew.

An Unexpected Guest is the answer to, if you could have dinner with anyone, absolutely anyone, who would it be? Dan Burns’s guest is simply delightful, and if it is based completely on fantasy, it’s just how I would imagine his guest would be. No spoiler here. But when you read it you’ll know why he included this vignette with this collection.  

The last story No Turning Back is thought provoking especially with the announcement of the end of the warfare in Afghanistan; it gives us food for thought before we send any other young men to foreign countries.

If you like SciFi stories without the gore you’ll enjoy this collection of short stories and commentary from author Dan Burns.

Thank you Dan for the opportunity to read and review your latest book: No Turning Back. 

For more information go to: http://www.danburnsauthor.com or http://www.chicagoartspress.com

Z= Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

A writer in her own right, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was also the wife of F Scott Fitzgerald. Born in Alabama in 1900, she wrote her first successful novel in 1920, ‘This Side of Paradise.’

Zelda and her friend Tallulah Bankhead were the talk of Montgomery during their high school years. She danced the Charleston and made no pretense about liking boys. As a teen she aspired to be a ballerina. At 27, she become obsessed with the ballet and practiced up to eight hours a day.

Sadly, from 1930 until her death she visited health farm and sanatoriums where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. During a stay at the Phipps Clinic she wrote an entire novel in six weeks. She sent ‘Save Me the Waltz’ to Fitzgerald’s publisher. Fitzgerald was upset that the book paralleled their lives, although his writing did the same. In fact, he copied portions of Zelda’s diaries directly into his work.

More about Zelda: http://www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/bios.html

Film of Zelda & Scott: http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/rare_footage_of_scott_and_zelda_fitzgerald_from_the_1920s.html

W = Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Oscar Wilde was the son of Sir William Robert Wills Wilde MD and Lady Jane Francesca Agnes Elgee Wilde, a writer. The Wilde home was known for the intellectuals and nationalists who frequented Lady Jane’s parlor. In this stimulating environment young Oscar learned French and German.

He attended Oxford where he became involved with the philosophy aestheticism. Later, he wrote articles and toured America lecturing about the Aesthetic Movement.  

Ultimately, he became one of the best known playwrights and personalities of the Victorian Era.

Read more of the works of Oscar Wilde at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde_bibliography

T = JRR Tolien

The son of English parents, Arthur Tolkien and Mabel Suffield, John Ronald Reuel and his brother Hilary were South African by birth. After the early death of his father, a bank clerk, Mabel returned with her sons to her childhood home of West Midland in England.

Not long after Mabel’s conversion to Catholicism, she was diagnosed with diabetes and died. John Ronald and Hilary were boarded with two different families until they became adults.

Even through this tumultuous upbringing, JRR Tolkien demonstrated his linguistic skills mastering Latin and Greek, as well as Gothic and Finnish. In his spare time he made up his own language and shared it with his friends and co-members of the Tea Club, Barrovian Society.

Completing his education, he served in World War I. After the war he worked various jobs until he eventually became a professor at Oxford. His academic career was unremarkable by Oxford standards. However, his social group was quite remarkable. The Inklings members included Own Barfield, CS Lewis and Charles Williams.

To read more about JRR Tolkien visit: http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

N = Napoleon III

As President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became Napoleon III when during his term as duly elect president, the parliament gave him enough power to seize all power in a coup d’etat. He followed closely in his uncle’s, Napeoleon Boneparte, footsteps.

The Bonaparte family was relatively new to their elevated role. Certainly the tumultuous background of French emperors, other royal families were hesitant to offer princesses to Napoleon III. He decided to marry for love. He love the Countess Teba. By all accounts they had a loving relationship.

One heir, Louis Napoleon, the Prince Imperial, was produced from the marriage of Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress the consort of the French, Dona Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzman y Kirkpatrick.

Napoleon III declared the Empire means peace in 1852 but by 1854 France was embroiled in the Crimean War against Russia. France’s successful participation solidified their relationship with Britain.

Through the early 1860s, Napoleon III reached into Asia using French missionaries to consolidate their philosophy which led to establishment of the colonial system in the region. But the French were not only moving through Asia, Napoleon III also dabbled in the US Civil War and sent troops to Mexico establishing Maximilian I of Mexico.

The end of his reign came during the Franco-Prussian War when in 1870 Napoleon III was captured following the Battle of Sedan. He and his family were exiled to England and died in 1873. 

L = Louisa May Alcott

Best known for her book ‘Little Women’ Louisa May Alcott, wrote 32 books and numerous magazine articles. The second of four daughters of transcendentalist Amos Alcott, Louisa grew up listening to her father’s friends Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau share their ideas about life and nature.

While many family friends were wealthy, the Alcott family struggled with poverty. Louisa and two of her sisters had to work to help support the family.  The sisters were primarily schooled by their father with only her youngest sister being able to attend school.

Her most famous books, Little Women, Little Men and Jo’s Boys, written over a twenty year period were based on her family with parallels that allow the reader into Alcott’s life. Her main character Jo was based on herself.  She wrote about many of her life experiences including the marriage of her older sister and the death of her younger sister in her work.

Little women is a literary favorite that lends itself well to the big screen. Each film version focuses on different elements of the book. It’s a fun project to read the books then watch all the movies and compare them: Little Women 1933 with Katharine Hepburn as Jo, Little Women 1949 in Technicolor with June Allyson as Jo, and Little Women 1994 with Winona Ryder as Jo.