I love to travel, write, and work in film and TV. My thoughts about how technology is changing people mixed with love for the Mojave Desert drives the story in my first novel, Edna in the Desert. Most of the desert has cell phone service but you can still lose it for stretches. Occasionally, there's a house in the middle of one of these expanses, and I always wondered what a teen living there would do without the usual modern distractions.
The unraveling of what people long for in the wild, and what they’re willing to endure to find it, is as compelling as going to the places on these pages. I was afraid of the sadness defining this book, but McCandless and seekers like him, including the writer, push us to contemplate a deeper relationship with nature and ways of being more fully alive.
Krakauer’s page-turning bestseller explores a famed missing person mystery while unraveling the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.
"Terrifying... Eloquent... A heart-rending drama of human yearning." —New York Times
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all…
In this quintessential coming of age story, Holden realizes that the rules governing society may be more aspirational than he was led to believe, and that adults can be unreliable and phony. I read this book when I was around his age, I also found these truths hard. We're still young and uncertain if we can trust our ability to decipher it all. It’s a tough time.
What were America's first prisons like? How did penal reformers, prison administrators, and politicians deal with the challenges of confining human beings in long-term captivity as punishment--what they saw as a humane intervention?
The Deviant Prison centers on one early prison: Eastern State Penitentiary. Built in Philadelphia, one of the…
I love a comedy about a young woman who becomes a better person and realizes her boyfriend is the cute guy who’s always hanging around. Emma thinks she knows what everyone else needs to do, but (spoiler) she needs to figure herself out first. Her surprising inner shift makes this one of my favorite Jane Austen novels.
'Her masterpiece, mixing the sparkle of her early books with a deep sensibility' Robert McCrum, Observer
Although described by Jane Austen as a character 'whom no one but myself will much like', the irrepressible Emma Woodhouse is one of her most beloved heroines. Clever, rich and beautiful, she sees no need for marriage, but loves interfering in the romantic lives of others, until her matchmaking plans unravel, with consequences that she never expected. Jane Austen's novel of youthful exuberance and gradual self-knowledge is a brilliant, sparkling comic masterpiece.
I admire Anne’s ability to entertain herself, her tendency towards joy, and her rambling imagination, but she has issues with impulse control and reading people. In this way, the character from my book, Edna, is like her. As with many older books, there’s outdated thinking about being female in this one, but contemporary girls are also working out gender roles and obsessing about their looks. It's another classic story about becoming a better person, and to a lesser degree, about the possibilities with a nearby boy.
Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. Feisty and full of spirit, Anne Shirley charms her way into the Cuthberts' affection with her vivid imagination and constant chatter. It's not long before Anne finds herself in trouble, but soon it becomes impossible for the Cuthberts to…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan. The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…
The title appeals to me, and the list of books I love is overwhelming. I’m rounding out my recs with this out-of-print, self-help book published in 1939 that I came across it in a second-hand bookstore. You can open the guide to almost any page and find something simple and deep, or if not, old phraseology like, Preventing Unwholesome Behavior Due to Tedium, is amusing. Technology may be changing the way people meet and how we process information, but we have most of the same emotional needs as before.
Edna is a trouble-maker at school. Her therapist advocates medication, but her parents come up with an alternative cure: Edna will spend the summer in the desert with her grandparents. Their remote cabin is cut off from cell phone signals and cable service. Edna can’t imagine a summer without WIFI. She’s determined to rebel, but she meets an older local boy and falls in love for the first time. How can she get to know him from the edge of nowhere?
Katie's Gamble is an unexpected, unique story about a young woman who's trying to support her younger siblings by keeping her family's confectionery shop open.
In order to do that, she has to take on her older brother, who's a notorious gambler in Louisiana. Additionally, she has to outsmart Rowdy…
David Fletcher needs a surgeon, stat! But when he captures a British merchantman in the Caribbean, what he gets is Charley Alcott, an apprentice physician barely old enough to shave. Needs must, and Captain Fletcher takes the prisoner back aboard his ship with orders to do his best or he’ll…
