Every Secret Crime by Doug M. Cummings is a murder mystery set in Falcon Ridge, a wealthy suburb of Chicago. Local TV reporter Reno McCarthy sets out to solve the crime, having noticed early on that something is not quite right with the investigation.
I had no idea when I started reading Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth that I’d be interested in the building of a church. Yet the plot and counterplots surrounding the lives of the principal characters were so captivating and engrossing that I found myself reading far into the night and early morning, not wanting to put the book down.
(Reviewed By Lee L. Peoples)
A 90-year-old man—or is he 93?—narrates the story of his one summer as a veterinarian with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth during the summer of 1931 in depression-era America. Jacob Jankowski resides in an assisted living home with other elderly people, many of whom require more medical attention than he. He is quite mentally astute for his age, yet because of his age, most of the people in charge of the facility treat him as mentally incompetent, all but Rosemary, a forty-seven-year-old nurse, who treats him and the rest of the patients/residents with the loving care, dignity, and respect they deserve as human beings.
(Reviewed By Lee L. Peoples)
The two books below helped me put a face to a country I had only envisioned politically and, of course, negatively. However, reading Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns has enabled me to humanize this country. In the midst of all the turmoil in Afghanistan, there is still living…and loving…just as in any other country.
(By Lee L. Peoples)
After reading Paulina Porizkova’s novel, A Model Summer , I find it difficult to enjoy, as I previously did, the innocent-looking faces of the young models I encounter in the magazines and elsewhere; for fiction as we very well know is based on fact, and I shudder at the fact that to become a top model, young people often endure terrible trials and temptations.
(Reviewed By Lee L. Peoples)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a novel of survival in post-apocalyptic America. The world as it was no longer exists. Black ash years later continue to rain down on everything. There are no specifics as to what actually happened to cause this apocalypse, but the few clues the author gives us suggest a nuclear bomb: “The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions … A dull rose glow in the windowglass” (52). A father and his young son, survivors, are traveling “the road” from their home in the north in expectation of reaching the south, where they expect to survive the winter.
(Reviewed By Lee L. Peoples)
Having always thought of Sidney Poitier as a gifted consummate actor, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the trials he went through to become that way. A current Oprah’s pick, his memoir, The Measure of a Man , is the story of how a young man with so limited advantages and resources rises to become the consummate actor. Among his many awards for his performances both on stage and in the movies he received the Academy Award in 1964 for best actor in Lilies of the Field.
(Reviewed By Lee L. Peoples)
This is a true story of a family who beat the odds. When faced with the devasting diagnosis that their only son had a severe case of autism spectrum disorder, they defied the advice of specialists and devised their own treatment to reach their son. With unconditional love and patience, they not only made a connection, something that eludes those with the disorder, but with their child, Raun Kaufman, fully recovered, and now shows no signs of ever suffering from autism.
(Reviewed By Kaylene Peoples)
The true story of a male model’s struggle with binge eating.” This memoir is an uncorrected galley, due to be published by the New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 5674 Shattuck Ave., Oakland, CA 94609 (www.newharbinger.com) in March, with an ISBN No. 1572244852.
(Reviewed By Lee Lemon Peoples)
(Written by Lisa A. Trimarchi)
Having family over for brunch does not have to be a stressful event. My family is from the South, and traditionally we have a big spread for breakfast around 10 a.m., which includes sausages, scrambled eggs, biscuits, and grits. Try the following menu to impress your loved ones Christmas morning.
