"Malena had skills that no one could explain, not even her. When they were alive, her parents thought that her ability to speak to ghosts meant she was a bridge between this world and that of spirits, between their ancestral home in Ireland and the new one in...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 20: Occupying Arthur Whitfield by Charles Johnson
by MHill | Mar 22, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
Charles Johnson came onto my reading radar for many years after I read his National Book Award-winning novel, Middle Passage. The novel told the story of Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave who sneaks onto a slave ship heading back to the motherland to escape an...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 19: The Past Is A Dream (The Launch of a Blacktopia) by Maurice Broaddus
by MHill | Mar 18, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"No one ever considers the impact of a single life well-lived. The relationships made and lives touched. How a person might walk through history inadvertently." Those words of wisdom spoken by Nora Bradford, pilot of Ghana's first interstellar spaceship and longtime...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 123: A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
by MHill | Mar 17, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
The greatest pleasure I can have as a reader is getting lost in an author’s story. What I mean is, an author has pulled me into their imagined world and has a reality that connects with my imagination. P. Djeli Clark achieves this in his first full-length novel, A...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 18: The Galactic Industrial Complex by Tobias S. Buckell
by MHill | Mar 6, 2023 | Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
Tavi is an intergalactic cab driver trying to hold on to his NYC cab driving job and make ends meet. However, when he picks up an octopus-looking alien that commits suicide by jumping out of his cab, Tavi could lose his job. His employer offers him a new cab to cover...
Rest In Love, Wayne Shorter (August 25th, 1933-March 2nd, 2023)
by MHill | Mar 3, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I found out earlier today that the legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter passed away at the age of 89. Outside of Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, and the Pat Metheny Group, I have listened to Wayne Shorter's music the most when it comes to jazz. I was...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 122: So Much Blue by Percival Everett
by MHill | Feb 21, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Percival Everett, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Does secrets force us to make choices that we would not have made otherwise? This is the question I keep asking myself as I read Percival Everett's very good novel, So Much Blue. It tells the story of Kevin Pace, an artist, who has kept his past at bay to be...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 121: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
by MHill | Feb 14, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Nonfiction, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 120: Mr. Breakfast by Jonathan Carroll
by MHill | Feb 4, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Jonathan Carroll, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"People want life to be their friend. Some even expect or believe they deserve it. But I think of life only as a companion, and an unpredictable one at that. If it were my friend, life would be hurting or disappointing me all the time. But if it's only a companion,...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 17: The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark
by MHill | Jan 22, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"For the blacksmith understood what masters had chosen to forget: when you make a man or woman a slave, you enslave yourself in turn. And the souls of those who made thralls of others would never know rest----in this life or the next." This quote is prophetic in its...