BookSpeak Network

On this episode of Milford House Mysteries, Joan and Sherry interview author Children and Young Adult book author Joe Harvey. Harvey’s books focus on the lives, concerns and frustrations of pre-teens and teens.  We'll talk about Harvey's latest elementary-school age volume, If We’re Really Quiet , It Won’tFind Us that features a creature called The Howler rumored to be roaming the woods...

Lou Gehrig Day is on June 2. This annual, league-wide celebration will be a time to not only honor the legacy of this Hall of Fame first baseman but to also raise awareness and funds to fight ALS.  Dan Joseph is a Washington-based journalist, editor and writer, and a senior editor in the Voice of America's central newsroom. He is the author of "Last Ride of the Iron Horse," the firs...

Another example of serious fiction trying to fight ignorance. The Heatstroke Line (Sunbury Press, 2015) depicts a United State with its coastal cities flooded and its remaining land sweltering under debilitating heat.  It has broken into smaller units that are in conflict with each other and it's dominated by more northerly nations, like Canada, that now have temperate climates. It shows an i...

On this episode, Sherry Knowlton and J.M West interview Laury Egan, a versatile and prolific writer, back for a second visit to Milford House Mysteries to talk about her new work of literary fiction, The Swimmer. Reviewer Lori Ostlund describes “The Swimmer in this words: "a psychotherapist with end-stage cancer contemplates the end of her life and marriage and her failures as a mother, while...

(Fiction novels, too, play an important role in garnering public attention of the Climate Crisis)The Weathermaker (Milford House Press, Jan 2020) is a “cli-fi” genre-bending thriller, with the action aspects of Twister. It shows the tragic aspects of climate change (like The Day After Tomorrow) and “the cure is worse than the disease” (Snowpiercer). There is also evidence that controlling nature c...

Charles Miller is a thirteen-year-old who is looking forward to a lazy Florida summer with his friends. That all changes when a strange-looking raft rolls up, led by a certain "Captain Kid."The captain enlists Charles and the gang to aid him in a mission to rescue a princess known as the Patch Fairy. What follows is a wild ride through space, bringing them in contact with mysterious and...

How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos (Jan 2021, Simon & Schuster) is by David Pogue, a science and technology writer best known for his work on CBS News Sunday Morning. Pogue cuts straight to the chase when it comes to climate change. “The world is getting hotter, natural systems are going haywire, and you should begin to prepare,”He lays out the harsh re...

Join Author Sherry Knowlton for the sixth and final episode of her limited podcast series, DEAD on the DELTA: An African Adventure. On today’s Episode, Africa Anecdotes, Writing What You Know, Sherry is joined by her husband and travel companion, Mike Knowlton. Together they’ll share a few anecdotes from their many safaris. Some of the stories are amusing. Some might make you gulp. Keep in mind, t...

In To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning (MIT Press, Nov 2020), Mitchell Thomashow proposes that we revitalize, revisit, and reinvigorate how we think about our residency on Earth. First, we must understand that the major challenges of our time--migration, race, inequity, climate justice, and democracy--connect to the biosphere. Traditional environmental education has accompli...

Aspen and Lori Wolfe are a pair of not-so-genteel young ladies, inventive, adventurous, and deadly. Like their father, Aspen and Lori build and operate machines that do wondrous things that should just not be in Victorian-era England, but then, things are never what they seem. Taking lodging at the home of a friend of sorts, Keagen Myrack, the Wolfe sisters embark on a quest to free "Dimies,&...

The Population Bomb (Ballantine Books) is a best-selling book written by Stanford University Professor Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich, (who was uncredited), in 1968. It predicted worldwide famine in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. Fears of a "population explosion"...

Join Author Sherry Knowlton for the fifth episode of her limited podcast series, DEAD on the DELTA: An African Adventure. On today’s Episode, Tips for Taking a Safari Knowlton is joined by travel expert, Donald Roebuck from AAA Central Penn Travel. Roebuck has been a travel agent for 14 years and specializes in adventure and luxury travel. One of his key focus areas is Africa, which he’s visited m...

Join Author Sherry Knowlton for the fourth episode of her limited podcast series, DEAD on the DELTA: An African Adventure. Today’s Episode, Wildlife Poaching: A Dirty Business focuses on Knowlton’s research trip to Botswana before she wrote DEAD on the DELTA and some of the important information she learned while there. Knowlton also provides a high-level overview of some of the damage illegal poa...

In Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus, Wilson Jeremiah Moses provides a critical assessment of Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian influence. Scholars of American history have long debated the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. However, Moses deviates from other interpretations by positioning himself within an older, 'Federalist' historiographic tradition, offering vigorous and insightful...

On this episode of The Milford House Mysteries, co-hosts JM West and Sherry Knowlton interview Anthony Award-nominated E.A. Aymar. We'll be talking to Aymar about his most recent thriller, They’re Gone, which was published in 2020 under his pseudonym E.A. Barres. We'll also discuss Aymar's busy writing life including his past thrillers such as the celebrated novel, The Unrepentant,...

Join Author Sherry Knowlton for the third episode of her limited podcast series, DEAD on the DELTA: An African Adventure. Today’s Episode, Life as a Lion Researcher, features An Interview with Robynne Kotze. Robynne works with WildCRU’s Trans-Kalahari Predator Programme where her research includes camera trap surveys of the Okavango Delta and other protected areas in Botswana and completing field...

Join suspense author Sherry Knowlton for the second episode in a limited podcast series, DEAD on the DELTA: An African Adventure. Today’s show focuses on Knowlton’s experiences on safari and doing research for the book on Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Knowlton will introduce listeners to Botswana and the Okavango Delta and the wildlife she’s seen there. She’ll also discuss a typical day on safari, wh...

Join suspense author Sherry Knowlton for the first episode in a  limited podcast series, DEAD on the DELTA, An African Adventure. She is embarking on this series of podcasts to celebrate the release of her latest Alexa Williams novel, DEAD on the DELTA, and to talk about its setting, the African Wild. The six-segment podcast will air weekly and focus on topics like Knowlton’s own adventures on saf...

Join cohosts Sherry Knowlton and JM West as they interview author Elena Taylor about his latest novel, All We Buried, and her Eddie Shoes series written under the pen name of Elena Hartwell. We talk to Taylor about her shift from writing the lighthearted Eddie Shoes mysteries to taking on the challenge of the more serious and literary mystery All We Buried. Called "atmospheric" in its to...

Alan Mindell has owned and bred racehorses for many years. His horses have raced at many tracks, including Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Del Mar, Golden Gate Fields, Emerald Downs, Turf Paradise, Arlington Park, Tampa Bay Downs and Canterbury Park. A former standout baseball player at the University of California, Berkeley, he won four gold medals as a sprinter in the 2012 San Diego Senior Olympics...

An environmental attorney, Bob Carey is transplanted to Florida, where he replaces a sleazy colleague who has died under myterious circumstances. Bob must get used to life in the state, as he joins a scientist and a surf shop manager in the investigation of a strange contamination. Along the way, he deals with redneck millionaires, a third-world revolutionary, a spy within his office, and...Itori....

The peaceful farm life of a teenage girl in Germany is abruptly upended when WWII comes knocking at her family’s door. One month before her sixteenth birthday, Mildred “Mickchen” Schindler and her family are captured by Russian Soldiers. Having already survived life in Hitler’s Nazi Germany, they now face the terror of a new enemy—Stalin’s Red Army. Driven from their home, Mildred and her family b...

On today's episode of The Milford House Mysteries, co-hosts Sherry Knowlton and JM West keep it "all in the family" as Joan interviews Sherry about her upcoming new book release, Dead on the Delta. The book, the fifth in Sherry's Alexa Williams suspense series, is a departure from the earlier books in that it takes place in Botswana. When Alexa Williams agrees to spend four mon...

Mr. Kelly G. Park is a retired sandlot athlete, never having the skills to “take it to the next level,” but enjoying every moment of those pick-up games. Since 1988 Mr. Kelly has worked as a safety and risk manager in the insurance industry. Just Like Me: When the Pros Played on the Sandlot is the author’s debut book. Mr. Kelly lives in Benton, Ky. with his wife, Mrs. Kelly (yes, that’s right, the...

Joan West and Sherry Knowlton begin the new year on The MIlford House Mysteries by taking a look back at 2020.  On this episode, the co-hosts reflect on some of the books we that they read and enjoyed most during the past year. Note that these books may not have been published in 2020. The list includes brand new books by well-known and not-so-well known authors, some oldies but goodies, and some...