 Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty Review by Roy Peak Caitlin Doughty is a mortician living in California, known for her charming YouTube videos in which she answers questions about death. In this, her third book, she tackles questions from kids about that same morbid subject. And you just know that kids are going to come up with the best questions—right? Questions such as "Can I keep my parents' skull after they die?" and "If I died making a stupid face, would it be stuck like that forever?" and of course the always fun to think about "Will I poop when I die?" These are the kind of questions that when kids ask their parents, the parents hardly ever have the real answer and just make something up: "Um, no Uncle Ken gets to keep daddy's skull. Your father did lose that bet to him all those years ago," and "Of course, it would. Now stick your tongue back in your mouth,, and eat your asparagus," and "Duh. Doesn't everyone?"
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 Go Home by Sohrab Homi Fracis, Knut House Press Review by Roy Peak The protagonist of Sohrab Fracis' novel, Go Home, is a young college student named Viraf, from India, in America during the time of the Iran hostage crisis. (Viraf, rhymes with giraffe, and if you're a regular of this website you know that we think highly of anything that reminds us of a giraffe.) Truly torn between wanting to stay in America and going back to India, Viraf loves rock music, has intense feelings for his neighbor's girlfriend, drives around in a Ford Pinto (Remember those? And why no one wanted one?). He works hard, and often has trouble telling the difference between his long-haired American friends and the dangerous rednecks in his town.  Sometimes, a book comes across my reading pile that has a striking title and nice cover, but doesn’t give any indication of the contents hidden within. This particular book cover featured a feather. (Please note the slight pathology of a person who buys books based on the cover without even knowing, based on the cover, what might be inside. I may have a problem. I buy a lot of books, okay?) I pondered the jacket, wondering if I had bought a book about birds. In a way I had, but I couldn’t glean that from the cover. Nothing to do but open the cover and stop puzzling over it in the middle of the Starbucks line. People might start to think I was weird. We can’t have that, can we?
 If you go to Lane’s Amazon page, the review is simple. It begins with a few lines of poetry from this sharp, sweet, and far too short book.
 Georgia Blues By Bill Sheffield Review by Roy Peak Bill Sheffield is a guitarist, slide player, and vocalist from Atlanta, Georgia who doesn't just dabble in the blues, he lives it. From his days of fronting the Eastside Blues Band and opening up for blues greats such as Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, and T-Bone Walker, to his stint singing with Roy Buchanan, to his solo performances reinterpreting classic blues by the likes of Charley Patton, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Blind Willie McTell, Sheffield has most definitely learned and owned his craft.  Poetry and I have a love hate relationship; when we get along, it’s fantastic, but when we disagree, we really don’t like each other. For example, Poe and I are great friends, but Bukowski and I are not on speaking terms. It’s hit and miss is what I’m trying to say. Poetry is distinctly different than reading a novel. A book may leave you with ideas and messages to think about, but poetry to me always seems to keep its secrets close. It’s up to the reader to interpret whatever message we may or may not glean, and the interpretation either hits you or sometimes takes much longer than for prose. Poetry is an introspective process, and I often find that the messages interpreted from it are specific to the reader. But perhaps I’m just a lazy reader. I do like a story that buttons itself up. This little collection of poems is definitely a hit for me. It’s published by Backwaters Press. I appreciate the name, and the contents within. Titles for poetry books are very important. I need to have a starting word or concept. There are so many poems I loved in this collection, and I would like to go through them one by one. Unfortunately I can’t, but I have chosen four poems that really struck a chord with me. Instead of just a cursory glance, and a recommendation, I would like to really get into a few of these.
 Mrs. Greenthumbs: How I Turned a Boring Yard into a Glorious Garden and How You Can, Too Written by Cassandra Danz Review and ruminations by Julie Carpenter I am not a fan of winter. Granted, now that I’m older and my internal thermostat is broken, I’m better able to deal with cold weather - if taking off and putting on layers of clothes every thirty seconds and opening and closing windows can be considered “dealing with it”. It’s no longer the temperatures that get me. At this point my main objection to winter is that I feel lonely while all the plants are sleeping. I miss the leaves, the flowers, the buzz of nectar drunk bees. All I get in winter is cold gray sky and blank expressions from naked trees. There’s certainly no use talking to them while they’re napping – and trust me, I’ve tried. (But why not have a long conversation with an evergreen you might ask, say, a pine or a cedar? The cedars are serious and somewhat taciturn, and just between you and me, the average Georgia pine has very little depth so to speak. It’s why they topple over on houses during storms. Don’t get me wrong, they’re very sweet…but no sparkling conversation there. Anyway, evergreens never want to discuss my favorite topic: spring.) After Christmas, I wish I could go dormant with the oaks, fall asleep among the roots, covered with a blanket of withered leaves and wake with the buds in the spring. But alas…that is not to be. So, I do the next best thing. I read and dream about gardens.  Sometimes, I buy books for the title. That’s probably not the right way to do it, and I’m sorry…(not really, but some of you were clutching your pearls, and I wanted to give you a little comfort. This parenthetical observation probably counterbalanced that; in which case I am kind of sorry). However, in rare instances, I find that the title is so compelling, reading the dust jacket is not necessary for purchase. I will admit that buying a book based on the title is risky; sometimes if I had read the blurbs or synopsis, I would have been prevented from giving my monies to an author who poured all the originality into the title instead of the contents within. But sometimes, it’s worth the chance. It’s a reading adventure! And that is exactly how this little book by Sarah Allen grabbed my attention.
 When I visited Poetic Justice Books and Arts in Port St. Lucie over the holidays, I had the pleasure of meeting Dominic Albanese. (If you haven’t read it yet, check out this interview with him that Jeff Weddle wrote for Sacred Chickens.) Dominic is a poet, an animated conversationalist, and a force of nature. Dear Miss B is his first book of prose, an homage to his junior high school English teacher, who nurtured his love of reading and writing and helped him open up new areas of thought about himself and the world around him. The book takes the form of memories from his childhood through early adulthood, interspersed with the letters he wrote Miss B. from Vietnam, where he ended up as a troubled sixteen-year-old when he joined the army (after a little subterfuge about his age).
 The genre of folk punk is still evolving and can be many things, some of which often contradict one another. Sometimes the artist's personal choice in their state of sobriety or instrument tuning can be questionable, sometimes not. Some of these bands are strictly acoustic while others employ a range of instruments including electric guitars, synths, and drum machines. The one thing they all have in common is passionate songs about the changing times we all find ourselves in. Songs about politics, climate change, being in debt, and how hopeless the future seems are all typical of modern folk punk material.
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