“...massive works of the intellect do not spring from the abstract workings of the brain and the imagination; they are deeply rooted in the personality.”
This is the core theme of Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, by Paul Johnson.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Shelly, Karl Marx, Henrik Ibsen, Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Bertolt Brecht, Bertrand Russel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, and Lillian Hellman are among the revolutionary thinkers who have shaped the past 250 years of Western Civilization, and they are, if we are to believe the author, they were all deadbeats, philanderers, depraved, cheats, mendicants, and phonies. ​

A Destiny of Memories by David Ramati is not a war novel, not in the usual sense. It is a warrior novel exposing the baggage that the warrior carries home with him.

Scenes of battle play in his mind’s eye while reality plays out around him, and it is often hard to distinguish between the two. The nightmares that bedevil his sleep are little worse than the friends and family as well as strangers who judge him for the war they sent him to fight. It is a tale that every warrior has lived (if they were “fortunate” enough to live). Sadly, those who fought in Vietnam suffered worse than most. Denied the opportunity to decompress among comrades on the long voyage from battlefield to home, these warriors were transported almost as swiftly as Star Trek crew members and dropped into another battle, an uncivil civil war raging between their peers. No one has told this story better than Ramati.

If anyone had asked me to guess at the earliest examples of concentration camps, I might have mentioned the reservations used to remove Native Americans from valuable lands that we coveted. Or, I might have mentioned American plantations where African slaves were employed in forced labor. However, Pitzer makes an excellent argument that the modern system of concentration camps began in Cuba during the revolution there during the late 19th Century. Inspired by Sherman’s March to the Sea, the Spanish engaged in Total War, incarcerating and tormenting noncombatants, to separate the rebels from their popular support base thus depriving them of food and war materials. She then shines a bright light into the darkest corners of history and tells a tale that comes full circle, ending like a thrill ride where it began, at Guantanamo Bay.

Is there any question that we're living in The Devil's Pleasure Palace? Political correctness runs amok on American campuses as students demand freedom from offense and free everything else. Sex loses all its pleasure as it becomes easier to obtain. The practice of abortion destroys human life in numbers that would make a Nazi blush. Pseudo-science is used to control behavior. Atheists have gained the legal right to demand tolerance of their belief system only. The purveyors of progressive leftism, like Rousseau, Marx, Brecht, Sartre, and Lillian Hellman, beasts in their private lives who profess to love humanity most but despise people, have come to dominate American philosophical and political thought. So, what else would you call this place other than The Devil's Pleasure Palace?

Explaining this phenomenon is the goal of The Devil's Pleasure Palace by Michael Walsh.

When I wrote my first novel, Rebels on the Mountain, I crafted a hero to fit the role of a soldier/spy observing Fidel Castro and his revolution in Cuba. It seemed obvious that my man would have been too young to have fought in World War II and thus learned his craft in the Korean War. As the story evolved, it became essential that he have friends in France and be fluent in their language (you'll have to read the story to understand why). Thus, I had him fight in a desperate battle alongside French soldiers. A quick check of the history showed me that there were French forces among the UN command there and thus I felt I had factual backing. 

My lack of in depth research came back to bite me when I decided to write a prequel to Rebels, The Accidental Spy, a story set in the Korean War. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the amazing story of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Monclar and his French Battalion, and the battle of Chipyong-ni. As luck would have it, I had accidentally placed my hero in the midst of one of the most significant battles of that war fighting alongside a unit that won a Presidential Unit Citation for gallantry in that action.

As I read Dr. Ben Carson's book, Gifted Hands, I discovered that he shared a problem with me in school. No one bothered to teach either of us how to study. Although Dr. Carson relates that he excelled in grade school in spite of the handicap, his lack of study skills almost caused him to flunk his first semester at Yale. Fortunately, as he believes, God extended a helping hand and got him over the hurdle. Afterward, he perfected his study skills and went on to great accomplishments.

Sadly, God never gave me a hand. However, inspired by Dr. Carson's example and believing that late is better than never, I set out to learn how to study. I turned, of course, to Google to show me the way. 

Have you attempted to help a child with their Common Core homework? Confusing isn't it? Common Core seems to complicate even the simplest of tasks just for the sake of complication. Is there another agenda? Are they trying to drive a wedge between us and our children?

Read Emancipation: A short story about a boy luring his younger sibling into the world of emancipated youth.

Are you bored with roller coasters, pendulum rides and drop rides? Are their height and speed no longer thrilling? Are you becoming bored with amusement parks?

Maybe, just maybe you're ready for a ride on the Carousel...a new short story.

Writers are readers, avid readers. Like you, we're always on the lookout for a good book. Come join us on a blog hop as we visit some of our favorite authors. 

What's a “blog hop”? It's a trail of links from one author's website/weblog to another. This trail leads to articles about the characters populating books in progress, soon to be published, or recently released novels. Now meet mine: Nick Andrews, an American who joined the Army just in time for the Korean War.  

Studies have shown that as many as 20 to 30 percent of soldiers never fire their weapons in combat. No, I'm not including those in the rear echelons. I'm talking about combat troops, under fire. In some skirmishes, it has been reported that fewer than a third fired their weapons. Unfortunately, the research does not include the reasons why they didn't return fire. Some may have been too frightened to emerge from their foxholes and fight back. Still others may have been unable to find a target. The ones I'm interested in are those who simply couldn't overcome the natural reticence to kill another human being, even one who is attempting to kill them.

I created a story set in Korea during the war there to explore this issue. I created a character, Nick Andrews, an ordinary person with whom readers can identify. He's been well-trained to fight as an Army Ranger, but never taught to kill. That's a skill that can only be learned on the battlefield.

Can you unplug from your iPad, iPhone, and iPod, sit alone, and just think? I do, quite often. Indeed, When I turn to other stimuli, I prefer any form of entertainment that will inspire me to seek a quiet corner and reflect on what I have learned. It matters not whether it comes in fiction or nonfiction stories. Truth is simply true, and it belongs to anyone willing to embrace it. The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front by Peter Hart is one of those books, full of true incidents, and it gives people like me something to think about.

Hart's book illuminates the battle of World War I in which nearly 1 million men were either killed or wounded in during the brief period of July1 to 18, 1916 on the banks of the River Somme in France.

The Somme chronicles the events leading up to the battle as well as the carnage that ensued. It is this early part of the book that caused me to reflect on my war, the one in which I participated, Vietnam. It dwells not only on the engagement of forces, but also on the steps and missteps that led to it. We become familiar with the heads of state, mostly royal cousins, trading notes in familiar language, and their respective statesmen giving the appearance that they want to avoid the unavoidable, and yet secretly rushing to war. We learn how the armies came to meet on the bucolic plains of rural France where they had to improvise an infrastructure to support the men and machines of war. I paused to remember Vietnam after reading this part inasmuch as America's military victory in Vietnam, a place where so many others had failed, was largely based on logistics.

Ah, I can see that you are thinking. What does he mean, “...America's military victory...”?