To live in a world meant for other people

To live in a world meant for other people     Here a bartender carves a block of ice into a near-perfect sphere with a sharp knife and his bare hand.  A geisha steps onto the elevator in the hotel, her hair brushed back with painstaking accuracy.  In the restaurant, food is prepared with care and served with even more care.  Ugly buildings and tangled wires overhead share space with small gardens and handmade signs and window displays and rows of idle bicycles.  Neon skeletons hang by day and become breathing beauties at nightfall.  Preschoolers line up like ducks in yellow uniforms on a train platform.  I hear one visitor refer to these children as the reason why “they are so militaristic.”  My introduction to Japan is a list of quips like this one from other westerners.  I hear them from strangers on the subway.  I hear them from my co-worker who has lived here for several years.  I hear them from the occasio...

Syncopated Rhythm AnnLoretta’s Review 5 Star Review on Goodreads Jan 31, 2016 The most razor-sharp prose I’ve read in years. While I loved James Halat’s other two books, I wasn’t prepared for the art and beauty of Syncopated Rhythm. I work my way through the big books, the prize-listed books, the 600-page books, we all do, looking for a scintilla of the humanity Mr. Halat has produced in this (as far as I can tell) all-but-unknown work. The reader is given a main character unflinchingly self-aware, deeply perceptive of those around him, and descriptions of the world he moves through – textures, sounds, tastes, light, darkness – that are so perfect that I want more. But more would be too much. Somehow Mr. Halat knew that. I can’t recommend this book strongly enough, especially to a reader who may be running as fast as she or he can to read every book that comes along trying to find something real, something true. A character who lives his own life on his own term...

The Story of Teddy and Eddie Diane's Review 5 Star Review on Goodreads Jan 16, 2016 This is So Good! It took a while for me to adjust to the way the author wove his way through the narrator's life as he revisited memories. I hated what happened to Michael... Why couldn't it have been Elaine?  I think I figured out why christmas is never capitalized throughout the story.  I loved Rosalie and wanted to throttle Mr. Santini.  Teddy and Eddie need to spend some time soaking up love and acceptance from Rosalie and Anthony.  College really was a time of self-discovery and this author delved into it superbly!  I'm looking forward to reading more by James Halat. I'm certain he has more to share and such a unique way of doing so! My books on Amazon   |   Subscribe to this site   |   Contac t me   

The Story of Teddy and Eddie AnnLoretta’s Review 5 Star Review on Goodreads Jan 2, 2016 This is a hard review to write. They’re easy to throw together when a bazillion readers have turned the pages before you, and even easier when the book is about people you don’t know, about strangers, about, oh, the 19th century or about the 24th. When a book is new, when a book is about you, yourself, when it’s a call to do something you’ve known for a long time you have to do, it’s very, very difficult to read, let along write and publish your comments and put them out there for the community to see. I am Nino. Not in identical ways, but people are people are people. Or maybe what I mean is all people have the potential to be persons. Some of us grew up in “withering shadows of gray.” Some of us “Live in a future with a population of one.” For me it was a personally painful book. But I can work harder than that. This is a beautiful book. It’s a clarion call to change the prese...

Clifford and Claudia AnnLoretta’s Review 5 Star Review on Goodreads Dec 31, 2015 I dearly love to be knocked out of my expectations! I was fortunate enough to get a copy of this constantly moving, unrelentingly challenging, bemusing, amusing, hurtful, charming novel as a special offer for my Kindle, just when I needed a break. And what an enjoyable book it is. It deserves your full attention, it demands your full attention. It's not a lightweight bit of fluff, it's too human (?) to be that. Did Charles come from where he said he did? I don't know. Was the family he ended up with who they seemed to be? I don't know. But Charles is as convincing a character as I've met in a long time, there's never a moment when he's weakly portrayed, when the author wasn't living in his skin so that we could care about Charles, love with him, laugh with him, be in pain with him. When somebody else has read it, I'd love to talk about whether an...