BPL Blog
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Feb 11
Father, teacher, head little league coach, and so much more, Terry Maitland really is the heart of Flint City, Oklahoma. When a heinous atrocity against a young child is committed, witnesses and DNA evidence point directly at Terry. The problem is, Terry was nowhere near Flint City when the crime occurred and he has proof of this alibi. As the tension rises, evidence on both sides builds up. Is Terry really the good guy everyone thinks he is?
Posted by JGranatino on Thu, Feb 07
This small but powerful manifesto is a heartfelt appeal from a respected Buddhist leader for young people “to lead humanity toward a renewed form of fraternity, justice, and solidarity.” In it, he stresses the need to practice altruism, non-violence, and peaceful dialogue, to exercise leadership in healing and protecting the ecosystem, and to bring about a “revolution of compassion.” He reminds the reader that because “every action, every word, and every thought has a global resonance,”...
Posted by JGranatino on Thu, Feb 07
Anyone drawn to the transcendent beauty of Rilke’s poetry and prose will appreciate this collection of newly-translated letters pondering the realities of loss and death. Rilke offers his very personal and exquisitely sensitive condolences to friends and correspondents while sharing extraordinary insights into a reality “where life and death penetrate each other and incessantly mix” and where the Angel of his affirmations “turns a radiant face toward death.”
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Feb 04
Life inside the Morrow family’s farmhouse is far from normal. Having grown up in an abusive home, Momma uses plenty of physical means to keep her children in line. Momma and Wade have three children, up until their son Rebel abducts 4 year old Michael from a neighboring town. The Morrow’s live in a secluded area where no one can hear you scream. The story begins with Michael waking up to the screaming of one of “Momma’s girls.” As Michael begins his new life in this dysfunctional family, he...
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Feb 04
During the initial outbreak of “Herod's Syndrome,” all prepubescent children suddenly drop dead at about the same time. Grief, despair, and unreality encompass parents while funeral homes struggle to keep up with so many dead all at once. Three days later, after many are buried and rotting, all the children suddenly wake up with no memory of what has happened. All seems oddly normal, until they start to die again. At the unsettling request of the children, the parents learn that once given...
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Jan 28
College student, Darby Thorne is en route to see her dying mother when a blizzard in the Colorado Rockies forces her to wait out the storm at a rest stop with just a coffee maker and a few vending machines. As luck will have it, she finds herself with no cell phone reception in the company of four strangers. While searching for cell reception outside, she spies a young girl in a cage hidden in the back of one of the other stranded vehicles. Realizing that she must carefully orchestrate her next...
Posted by JGranatino on Tue, Jan 22
After amassing $30,000 of credit card debt and developing compulsive eating, drinking, and shopping habits, author Flanders found herself moving back to her parents’ home. Deciding that the time had come for some radical changes, she adopted a shopping moratorium for one year. She only purchased necessary supplies or items that had to be replaced. During that year, she began to eliminate negative and wasteful lifestyle habits, focused on saving and reducing her debt load, and, in the process,...
Posted by JGranatino on Tue, Jan 22
Clinical studies demonstrate that reading aloud to children stimulates brain development, literacy, vocabulary, and social-emotional skills; however, research also indicates that too much passive “screen time” leads to underdevelopment of higher-order brain networks. Reading together offers an opportunity for strengthening parent/child bonds, for discussion, and for transmission of values. The benefits of reading aloud are not isolated to young children. For example, this activity can provide a...
Posted by JGranatino on Mon, Jan 14
Ninety-six-year old Doris has kept a red address book given to her by her father, and throughout her life she has recorded the names of all her friends, family and lovers. The book is now old and tattered and has nearly every name crossed off as she outlives them. Jenny, her grand-niece in America, Skypes with her every week and is her only family now. Doris is ill but still feisty, even in hospital, and wants to share her memories of her life as a model, the salons with intellectuals and...
Posted by BHanley on Fri, Jan 04
Sarah Winman creates a heartbreaker in just over 200 pages with her latest work, Tin Man. It follows the story of two men, Ellis and Michael, with an intense bond, forged in their teenage years, who are met with the unyielding complexities of adulthood. The story is told in three parts and is largely set in the 1990s and earlier: first from Ellis’ perspective, which lovingly meanders between the present and the past. Then, from the perspective of Michael through his journaling. Winman...
