Silent Desperation by Jeffrey M. Bryan

Amazon.com link for Silent Desperation

Book Description:  Written through the emotional rollercoaster of decades, each story and poem captures the human condition in convincing detail, from the greatest love to unalloyed hurt. Yet throughout, the writing is entertaining, offering characters and situations that expand the imagination and pass along the conceptual epiphanies that inspired them. Like a silent cry from the depths of personal experience, the stories and poetry in Silent Desperation capture the greatest life has to offer.


My Review: Silent Desperation by Jeffrey M. Bryan is a wonderful collection of short stories and poetry. The author has produced a creative blend of futuristic tales and, as the title describes, stories of silent desperation. My favorite stories were Eyes of Echo with its fascinating description of actions concerning a crisis in space, and One Dark Night with its armed robbery with a twist. I admit that I am probably not competent to judge poetry, but I was quite moved by Mr. Bryan’s poems, What I have Seen and World of Evil, World of Hope.


The entire book shows great emotion while still being entertaining. Silent Desperation is an interesting, emotional, and quite remarkable collection of stories that conveys emotions that honestly touched my heart. I highly recommend this book.

About the Author:

Jeff Bryan lives in sunny Florida with his wife, Arlene. Both from Illinois, and having attended High School together, they had the good fortune to share homeroom class for all four years. Five years after High School graduation, the couple met quite coincidentally in the frozen foods section of a local grocery store. They were married the following year. Now, after more than 22 years of marriage, they have three beautiful daughters, three cats, and one dog.

Strange But True, America by John Hafnor, author and Dale Crawford, Illustrator *****

Amazon.com link for Strange but True America, Weird Tales from All 50 States



What an interesting book! If you like trivia, quirky facts, or history, you will absolutely love this book.

Every state has a tale to tell, and the author has certainly delivered up some fascinating history. Best of all, the book is fun to read. The general layout of the book is one page of story and one illustration page. The stories range from heartwarming, to horrible, to down-right strange, but all are entertaining.

My favorite was my home state story of Fast Eddie, but the story of the student who killed the oldest living thing came in a close second! An additional section of the book, When Doomsday Came Calling in Your State, is quite an eye opener. Finally, the section called Thumbing Through America’s Weird Past is a meandering tour of the different areas of the country with bits and pieces of historical trivia.

The illustrators love of history and the old west shows in his detailed contributions to the book. The combination of story and drawings create a complete picture of each of the stories. This is a wonderful book for ages 10 – 110. You can also check out the author's website, http://www.strangetrueus.com, for additional information and even some collectable state postcards with tales from the book.

How to train a Rock by Paul Steven Stone ****

The Amazon Link for How To Train A Rock

How to train a Rock is a collection of the author’s writings from his newspaper column, “A Stone’s Throw”. With titles such as: Listen to The Wind, Perhaps Love, If You’ve Been Wrongfully Murdered, What Happens to Snow That Never Falls, Dear Lord, Can I have a Raise, and many more - you will read stories that make you laugh, wonder, scratch your head and say “Huh?”, and maybe even shed a tear. It is an enjoyable collection of stories that are well written, insightful, and sometimes philosophical.

My favorite quote from the book was when I first opened it and read:

“BUY THIS BOOK AND SAVE HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS!
I lied.”

You may not save hundreds of dollars, but you will have a wonderful and enjoyable book to read.