Fourth of July preview

Freedom Summer

The recent conviction of Edgar Ray Killen got me thinking about this novel, written by my friend Bill Heath, who was my undergraduate English professor. I recommend it.

William Heath's novel, The Children Bob Moses Led brings alive the optimism of Freedom Summer. While working toward equality and mutual understanding, the Summer Project workers show the first signs of the counter-culture.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Also people think they're not computers because they have feelings and computers don't have feelings. But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.

p. 119
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
by Mark Haddon

Summer reading

"What makes a person into a person who matters is to have ideals, then to realize everything's tainted, then to grow up and reimpose your ideals upon the unjust and indifferent world."
-- Crooked River Burning, p. 375

Mark Winegardner's second novel shows why Cleveland rocks. The novel plays with the leeway between truth and fact, especially when it comes to local lore and hometown heroes.