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Golfers: What are your favorite holes in the area? See if our Timesland Dream 18 is up to par and nominate your favorite.
‘The Child Thief’ one of the year’s best thrillers
“The Child Thief” is a good novel; let’s just get this out of the way first. Dan Smith has written a good story, and it definitely is worth the time of any reader remotely interested in a historical thriller. In “The Child Thief,” which is Smith’s first novel distributed to the United States, a Russian man and his family encounter a refugee, who is dragging behind him the mutilated bodies
Diva of the big top
There is no entertainment as mesmerizing as the circus. Author Dean Jensen calls the circus “a church of gaiety.” His “Queen of the Air” is a portrait of Lillian Leitzel, the star celebrant in that church’s cathedral, The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. “Queen of the Air” exceeds expectations of a biography; it functions more as a work of fiction. Certainly, the subject would be an apt one
Beyond the parlor tricks
Peter Parker as Spider-Man stops a speeding train by shooting out webs that attach to some trackside buildings. The train continues for an improbable distance ; all the while the web material stretches without thinning, the attachment to the buildings remains intact, and Parker himself is not torn apart by the momentum of the speeding train. It’s great theater, but we understand Newtonian physics well enough to know that such
A blueprint for fatherhood
Deployment to a battle-forward area creates a need to have family discussions. Among those items discussed are the management of the family during your absence, and what will happen if you don’t return. Lt. Col. Mark Weber faced just such a discussion when Gen. David Petraeus “invited” Weber to become part of his team in Afghanistan. While preparing for his trip to Afghanistan, Weber discovered he had stage 4 cancer.
Unengaging story tangles ‘Tapestry’
Opening the mail and finding a new book by a favorite author is a simple joy to an avid reader. And yet, few things are a bigger buzz-kill than settling in for the promise of a good read only to find yourself sloughing through it, wondering if you will ever care about these characters. That was my experience reading the novel “Tapestry of Fortunes” by Elizabeth Berg. It took weeks
Rapunzel story inspires spinoff
Fairy tales often form the basis of plays, movies and other books. Here, the tale that inspired the Disney movie “Tangled” is the grounds for “Sold for Endless Rue.” In Madeleine E. Robins’ retelling of the story of Rapunzel, the woman who takes her neighbors’ baby for her own is no witch but an accomplished doctor living in 13th-century Salerno, Italy. As a child, Laura fled the bandits who overran
Epic battle has makings of Hollywood blockbuster
If, in these halcyon days, a Hollywood screenwriter had approached a major producer with a movie script so packed with improbabilities, so extraordinary in its premises and fanciful in its conclusions, he — the screenwriter — would very likely have been shown the door. Even such renowned authors of derring-do as Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin couldn’t beat this one for sheer tension and melodrama. Start with a medieval castle,
Book & talks calendar
TUESDAY Lunchbox Lecture Series: Celebrating Black History Lacy Ward, Jr., a recognized leader in heritage tourism and director of the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville, will lecture on the importance of black history. Cost includes lunch. When: Noon Where: Center on Church, 20 E. Church Ave., Roanoke Cost: History Museum members, $10; non-members, $15 Contact: 342-5770 Reading Is So Easy: Program on a New Book to Teach Reading Susan
Q&A with Roanoke author Rod Belcher
Roanoke author R.S. “Rod” Belcher’s first novel, “The Six-Gun Tarot” — a mash-up of Western, horror and fantasy, with a little romance and steampunk thrown in — was published by Tor, a division of MacMillan, in January. The story takes place in Golgotha, a rugged Nevada town just past the 10-Mile Desert where everyone has a secret — but an evil creature, older than humanity, imprisoned deep below an abandoned
A poignant celebration of changing culture
A good novel can function as a form of mathematics. The author attempts to work out an equation within which there are many variables. Joanna Hershon skillfully structures her new novel, “A Dual Inheritance,” in order to explore through an unlikely love triangle various changes in our national culture and identity. The novel begins in 1962- 63, a watershed year by any measure, when the two central male characters, Ed
Revolutionary decisions
What most Americans know of how our Founding Fathers made a union of British colonies that then fought against the British war juggernaut and won the opportunity to begin a new nation is a kaleidoscopic montage: Paul Revere, Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock. Philadelphia, Declaration of Independence, Benedict Arnold, Nathan Hale. Yorktown. Victory and nationhood. Richard Beeman has crafted a slightly longer and
A politician views ‘The 1st Conservative’
Americans who pick up Jesse Norman’s “Edmund Burke: The First Conservative” expecting to pick up ammunition in the ongoing political culture war may be a bit disappointed. Jesse Norman is a British Parliamentarian, and his definition of conservatism is rather more, well, liberal, than those of Ayn Rand or Glenn Beck. Norman argues that Edmund Burke, a Whig, was a sort of protoconservative during his life, often advocating for ideals
In defense of Grover Cleveland
John Pafford offers an apology for the life of President Grover Cleveland in his new book, “The Forgotten Conservative.” In this case, the word “apology” is not used to describe an expression of regret. In this case, “apology” means a formal defense. Pafford’s treatment of Cleveland is among a number of books recently written by professional conservatives exalting past presidents. This book is different from the others because it does
A moving saga of family, poverty in Southwest Va.
Poverty, as experienced on varying levels by multiple generations of a family, is at the root of Susan Tekulve’s first novel. The saga begins in War, W.Va., in 1924. War, a coal mining town in Appalachia, is home to countless Italian immigrants, led to the mines on the empty promise of a better life. Emma is the 16-year-old daughter of a miner who helps her arthritic mother in any way
Memoir of dementia oddly lacking in emotion
“Moving Miss Peggy,” by Robert Benson, is a memoir of dementia. The author’s mother — the titular Miss Peggy — has, by the time this book starts, already started to show signs of dementia: forgetfulness, worry, and so on. Benson, who writes “contemplative” books, tells the story of his family’s search for some meaning in his mother’s growing illness. This work, which is really a series of short essays, effectively
The funny, flawed woman behind the tweets
More than a half-million people know Kelly Oxford’s biting sense of humor via her Twitter account. She counts an odd collection of celebrities, including magician David Copperfield, television host Jimmy Kimmel and the late movie critic Roger Ebert, among her fan base. Yet beyond the 140-character quips she shares with her followers is a gifted storyteller whose collection of essays, “Everything Is Perfect When You’re a Liar,” is a vivid
'The Lawyer Bubble' gives profession critical look
In William Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, Part 2,” Dick the Butcher utters a line that has made it onto T-shirts and bumper stickers, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” The legal profession may be doing Dick’s bidding. Northwestern University adjunct law professor Steven Harper has taken a critical look at the business side of the legal profession, and what he sees is an education/business model that is
'Gospel of Freedom' is letter perfect
“Gospel of Freedom” is an inspired work that belongs in every English-language library. Author Jonathan Rieder gleans a host of illuminating revelations from the content of Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Prophetically, it was composed in 1963, a week before Sheriff Bull Connor turned police dogs and fire hoses loose on black students marching in a non violent civil rights protest. Yet what an incarcerated King wrote,
Books & talks calendar
MONDAY How to Say Anything to Anyone Shari Harley, founder and president of Candid Culture, an international training and consulting firm that helps companies, government agencies, schools and nonprofits create better business relationships, will speak. When: 6 p.m. Where: Jefferson Center, Roanoke Cost: Call for ticket information. Contact: 983-0700 TUESDAY “Stuart’s Finest Hour: The Ride Around McClellan June 1862” A presentation by John Fox and the Roanoke Civil War Round
King Coal on trial
A brief disclaimer: Laurence Leamer’s “The Price of Justice” discusses a series of court cases that lasts for the better part of a decade. Leamer’s prior work, which focuses mostly on celebrity biographies (including a trilogy about the Kennedy family), makes his decision to document the court cases against Massey Energy, the now-infamous coal company in West Virginia, seem a bit bizarre. But when he was younger, Leamer went “under
1. COMMENTARY: A letter to the ones left behind
2. Military bristles at Roanoke County woman's 'Operation Bedsheet'
3. 2 men charged in Blacksburg break-in Monday
4. Archaeologists uncover pieces of the past at Washington & Lee
5. Bond set for Roanoke man charged in death of stepson
6. New River Community College shooting suspect waives right to preliminary hearing
7. Dublin town attorney Baker found guilty of reckless driving, not DUI
8. Marion police chief arrested on drug charge
9. Franklin County to purchase 2 YMCA properties, fund new career and technical center
10. Roanoke councilman's switch appears to doom 28.5 percent pay increase
THE ROANOKE TIMES
