Book

Missive #591 Published 6 November 2025

Newly minted doctor Jane McGill is in hell.
Not literally, of course. But between her drug addict patients, sleepless nights on call, and battling wits with the sadistic yet charming Sexy Surgeon, Jane can’t imagine an afterlife much worse than her first month of medical internship at County Hospital.
And then there’s the devil herself: Jane’s senior resident Dr. Alyssa Morgan. When Alyssa becomes absolutely hell-bent on making her new interns pay tenfold for the deadly sin of incompetence, Jane starts to worry that she may not make it through the year with her soul or her sanity still intact.

Missive #590 Published 5 November 2025

We remember World War II as a struggle between good and evil, with Hitler propelling events and the Allied powers saving the day. But Hitler's armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit the spoils of war. That role belonged to Joseph Stalin. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have unleashed Armageddon, but as celebrated historian Sean McMeekin shows, the conflicts that emerged were the result of Stalin's maneuverings, orchestrated to unleash a war between capitalist powers in Europe and between Japan and the Anglo-American forces in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the United States and Britain's self-defeating strategy of supporting Stalin and his armies at all costs allowed the Soviets to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.

Missive #586 Published 31 October 2025

Isolated but far from impotent, Sharpe and his trusty riflemen hold off vast Napoleonic forces in the Portuguese wine country. With years to go before the Corsican Menace is safely quarantined, there is never any doubt but that intrepid, supremely resourceful Richard Sharpe, amiable hero of 18 previous outings (Sharpe's Prey, 2001, etc.), will prevail, though Cornwell, always using good history and always explaining where he has fantasized, never fails to engross and beguile. Sharpe is every gentle reader's secret vision of his or her own self: the victim of idiotic superiors, the idol of his troops, unsure of his place in the world, utterly sure of his place in battle. And doesn't he go to the loveliest places! Now he's in greater Oporto, home to the great red wine and the great English red wine–exporting families, where Bonaparte's troops threaten the city and such lovely citizens as Kate Savage, heiress to House Beautiful and a port fortune, who has disappeared.

Missive #585 Published 29 October 2025

These stories are not a dark as the the two novels by her that I have read. But they are strange or maybe weird is a more apt description. They are all very short short stories with the ebook being only 115 pages. An entertaining read which may not be liked by everyone but you might give it a try.

Missive #584 Published 27 October 2025

Now, in Against the American Grain, Gary Paul Nabhan—cultural ecologist, environmental historian, and lyric poet of the American Southwest—illuminates the outlines of a history too long in the shadows. Whether Indigenous, LatinX, priests, nuns, Quakers, or cross-cultural chameleons, it is the resisters, performers, grassroots organizers, nomads, and spiritual leaders from the desert margins who are constantly reshaping America. They have, against all odds, recolored and recovered the future of North America through outrageous acts of resistance.

Missive #578 Published 14 October 2025

The Collapse of Antiquity, the sequel to Michael's …and forgive them their debts is the second and latest book in his trilogy on the history of debt. It describes how the dynamics of interest-bearing debt led to the rise of rentier oligarchies in classical Greece and Rome, causing economic polarization, widespread austerity, revolts, wars and ultimately the collapse of Rome into serfdom and feudalism. That collapse bequeathed to subsequent Western civilization a pro-creditor legal philosophy that has led to today's creditor oligarchies. In telling this story,The Collapse of Antiquity reveals the eerie parallels between the collapsing Roman world and today's debt-burdened Western economies.

Missive #576 Published 11 October 2025

Domestic Enemies asks us to assume an America circa 2011 that has secret detention camps for ordinary citizens, an America with hyperinflation (gold $7000/ounce, gasoline $30/gallon), an America that has replaced the old paper currency with new blue bucks at a 1-for-10 exchange rate, an America where lawlessness in the big cities and political corruption everywhere exceeds anything seen in real third-world hellholes in 2006. Is this too much to swallow? You be the judge. The action in Domestic Enemies is exciting, and as plausible as you will find in works of fiction. The technical details, at least the ones where I have any expertise, are dead on. The question remains: Is the America of a few years hence portrayed in Domestic Enemies believable? This book addresses in fictional form a serious problem deserving of our attention: the problem of illegal immigration, anchor babies, and the long-term effects of a massive influx of people to our country who have no interest in adopting America s culture of individualism. My fear is that the nightmare conditions Bracken asks us to imagine for 2011 America are so far from what we have now, that mainstream readers (and reviewers) will dismiss his book as delusional ranting. That would be a grave error.

Missive #574 Published 8 October 2025

I did not like this 'collection' as well as the books that were written by Nabhan. The 'invited voices' spoke with too much touchy-feely language for me. The promo claimed there was "at times humorous' language but it escaped me, certainly nothing like the previous Nabhan book that I have read.

Missive #571 Published 1 October 2025

...a few miles east of Silver City the heat gage pegged in the red zone and the Engine Service light came on. I pulled over and shut down with steam billowing from under the hood. The engine coolant tank was very hot so I walked circles around Desperado until it cooled down and was then going to drive back to Silver City and have someone check for the problem. I drove about a mile and the same thing happened so I shut it down on the side of the road and stood behind Desperado looking helpless until finally flagging down a New Mexico State Patrol car. The patrolman called for a tow and soon one came from G & G Towing and Repair.