Darden North, MD

For years, organizers dreamed of the first ever Mississippi Book Festival. Beginning at 9:00 am on Saturday, August, 22, 2015, that dream became a reality. Of course, they say that when the Mississippi legislature, Greg Iles, and John Grisham signed on to participate, corporate sponsorship followed and it was a done deal. The Mississippi State Capitol Building in Jackson And despite the expected summer heat that continued to deal a blow to downtown Jackson, Mississippi, an estimated crowd of 2500 to 3500 ascended the halls and grounds of the early 1900s State Capitol Building, the location of the festival billed as “A Literary Lawn Party.”  "A Literary Lawn Party" Mississippi Capitol Building packed at the Book Festival About 100 authors participated in writing discussion panels in rooms filled to capacity by book lovers. I squeezed in to attend the author panel “Across Literary Boundaries,” moderated by Michael Farris Smith...

The Stranger by Harlan Coben My rating: 5 of 5 stars I had not read Harlan Coben in a while--in fact could not remember the title of that last novel. But now after completing this digital audio book in a few days, I'm hooked and will most likely soon read (or listen to) Coben's "The Missing." In "The Stranger," when a stranger confronts protagonist Adam Price with a secret in a bar just before the coaches select the local high school lacrosse teams, Adam begins to question the love and integrity of his wife and everything he holds true--or thought was true. He learns that she has faked a pregnancy, but for no good reason. In the audio version of "The Stranger," the performance may initially seem sing-song or "preachy," but this could be attributed somewhat to Adam's and the narrator's frequent use of simile and metaphor to describe other characters, settings, or the situation. Clandestine Internet websites, mystery-solving...