Last Words on Earth – Javier Serena, Translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore 

Posted on February 23, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned "The paradox of letters made weapons, words made bayonets with which to pierce the page and exact revenge against my own destiny, which I had judged---until then---to be so harsh." Poet and writer Ricardo Funes didn’t find fame until he was dying. He was born in Peru but went into…

Read More →

Posted in Latin American Literature, World Literature | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Last Words on Earth – Javier Serena, Translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore 

An UnderratedRead Revisited: Things I Have Withheld – Kei Miller

Posted on February 19, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “…the place where I have always felt most comfortably gay is in Jamaica. In Jamaica, I know the language and the mannerisms of queerness. In Jamaica, I know how to dance. In Jamaica, I do not have to constantly translate my sexuality into mannerisms and speech and dances that sometimes…

Read More →

Posted in Revisited | Tagged , , | Comments Off on An UnderratedRead Revisited: Things I Have Withheld – Kei Miller

An UnderratedRead Revisited:The Man Who Lived Underground – Richard Wright, Afterward by  Malcolm Wright

Posted on February 12, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “…even though his entire body was drenched in what seemed to him a cloud of hot vapor, even though his throat gagged at the reeking odors, he felt that he was safe for the first time in many long and weary hours…” Fred Daniels, a twenty-nine-year-old black man in an…

Read More →

Posted in Revisited | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on An UnderratedRead Revisited:The Man Who Lived Underground – Richard Wright, Afterward by  Malcolm Wright

An UnderratedRead Revisited: The Lost Treasures of R&B – Nelson George

Posted on February 8, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “They were both Golden Gloves boxers and had that good foot work. They both did splits. Weren't afraid to get on the floor. Not spinning like hip hoppers but they would get on their knees to sell a song...That man could get on his knees in his suit and bend backward like…

Read More →

Posted in Revisited | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on An UnderratedRead Revisited: The Lost Treasures of R&B – Nelson George

Do You Follow?: A Thriller – J.C. Bidonde

Posted on February 1, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned Twenty-two-year-old Alexa has just been arrested for killing her boyfriend. She insists that the real murderer is her twin sister, Beth. This is where the story begins. The author then takes us back three months and then further into the twins’ past. Alexa has suffered from mental health issues, but…

Read More →

Posted in Crime, Mystery and Thrillers | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Do You Follow?: A Thriller – J.C. Bidonde

The Proud & the Dumb – Bob Freville

Posted on January 26, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung)   Buy the book! “Don’t get all bogged down in so-called facts. That’s the whole problem.” A gang of racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic (I could go on and on), white nationalists regularly hang out at the Swindlehurst Diner. It’s not in the Midwest or Southern U.S. It’s…

Read More →

Posted in More fiction | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Proud & the Dumb – Bob Freville

An UnderratedRead Revisited – Gigolo: Inside the Secret World of the Super Rich- Ben Foster & Clifford Thurlow

Posted on January 22, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “…I had plenty of money but always needed more. I had thought of myself as a healer when I started work at the spa. I had turned into a total slut. I played every client until they let go of their inhibitions and submitted to their secret fantasies. Ladies who…

Read More →

Posted in Revisited | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on An UnderratedRead Revisited – Gigolo: Inside the Secret World of the Super Rich- Ben Foster & Clifford Thurlow

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

Posted on January 13, 2022 by J D Jung

(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 world’s…

Read More →

Posted in Bios and Memoirs, Non-fiction, Reviewers' Top Picks, Social Justice | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker – Maggy Krell

Law of the Jungle – Christina Hoag

Posted on January 7, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by Don Jung) Rowena Aldus is an Oxford scholar whose passion is researching the venom in spiders to use for medicinal purposes in humans. Though she finds this fascinating, she struggles to get funding. Author Christina Hoag details the hardships one has in living a very primitive life in the Amazon Jungle away from…

Read More →

Posted in Crime, Mystery and Thrillers | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Law of the Jungle – Christina Hoag

The Unwanted Dead: The Shocking End of Zorba’s Heretical Author – Yorgos Pratanos

Posted on January 3, 2022 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned Nikos Kazantzakis, a popular post WWII Cretan writer, died in October 1957. His works included Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ. Many thought he was a Communist and a heretic, and the Greek clergy tried to ban his books. Some even wanted him excommunicated. His enemies not…

Read More →

Posted in Historical Fiction, World Literature | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Unwanted Dead: The Shocking End of Zorba’s Heretical Author – Yorgos Pratanos