I’m Not Going Anywhere – Rumena Bužarovska,(translated by Steve Bradbury)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “She cried because her son didn’t love her, because her husband didn’t love her, because she felt lost at work, because the country was a total mess and had no future…” These words of desperation are from the short story “The 8th of March” but is emblematic of many of…

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Lifeline to a Soul: The Life-Changing Perspective I Gained While Teaching Entrepreneurship to Prisoners- John K. McLaughlin

(Reviewed by Christopher J. Lynch) #CommissionsEarned It’s not often that you read a book that sounds like you might have written it yourself, especially a memoir. But that’s exactly how I felt reading John K. McLaughlin’s brutally honest and heartfelt, Lifeline To A Soul. In it, McLaughlin recalls his experiences teaching entrepreneurship to inmates at…

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Stay This Day and Night With Me – Belén Gopegui, (translated by Mark Schafer)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “Don’t think, Google, that the value of human acts can be measured in visits or by keeping track of how much information or money they generate.” Mateo, a twenty-two-year-old Spanish college student wants to apply for a job with Google. He believes that if he is hired, he can affect…

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Fast Fiction: 101 Stories 101 Words Each – Scotty Cornfield

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned How do you get a story about a serial killer from the prompt “Hot pretzels”? To answer that, we’ll have to dig into the mind of Scotty Cornfield whose Fast Fiction: 101 Stories 101 Words Each, provides readers with an eclectic and entertaining view of the genre of flash fiction.…

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PRIMO—a stageplay: Auschwitz through the lens of time – Ed Davidson

(Reviewed by Heidi A. Swan) #CommissionsEarned Primo Levi was a writer, chemist, and a survivor of the Holocaust. This tightly written one act play is a fictional account of the last day of his life. As he goes through his day, Primo remembers times in his life from the year he spent in Auschwitz. Primo…

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The Dish Dog – Peter Davidson

(Reviewed by Don Jung) #CommissionsEarned Kimberly King turned down a golden opportunity to work at her father’s highly successful investment fund company. Instead, she wanted to make her own mark in the world. She now works as a forensic accountant for the FBI, trying to unravel a complicated insider stock trading ring. This is a…

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Trash – Sylvia Aguilar-Zéleny, (translated by JD Pluecker)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “Who is the person who makes a life out of our leftovers? And, more specifically, what makes us who we are?” Griselda, a researcher, studies those who inhabit the Juárez city dump. She balances that with helping to care for her aunt in El Paso who is suffering from dementia.…

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An UnderratedRead Revisited – Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker – Maggy Krell

(Reviewed by JD Jung)   “While a commercial sex transaction may seem consensual on the surface, the lopsided power dynamic, the history of trauma and abuse, and the lack of options often make the consent illusory. And sex without consent is rape. The exchange of money doesn’t change that."  By 2012, human trafficking was the…

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The Flowers of Buffoonery – Os Amu Dazai, (translated by Sam Bett)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “A man crushed by reality puts on a show of endurance.” This is exactly the case with twenty-five-year-old Yozo Oba, who is sent to a seaside sanitarium to recover from injuries due to failed suicide attempt. Unfortunately, his girlfriend succeeded. Yozo’s older brother and a couple of friends visit him,…

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The Lord’s Tusks – Jeffery Ulin

(Reviewed by Ann Onymous ) #CommissionsEarned “…Michael nodded, climbing into his car and silently steering back toward camp. He passed by the troop of baboons, still frolicking in the savanna, slowly making their way back home, oblivious to the powers shaping their future world. Michael looked at them play and longed for the ease of…

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