Dealer's Dog and Other Tales of Non-Valor by William A. Patrick III

Dealer's Dog and Other Tales of Non-Valor, William A. Patrick III.[also: Dealer's Dog and other tall tales of non-valor]. self-published, 2010. e-book, 156 pps.

Although Dealer's Dog describes itself as fiction, it reads too true to me to really be fiction. I treated it as a semi-autobiographical lark into the memories of the coming of age of the author. No offence intended to the author. 

Whether it is wholly fiction or not, I chortled through the entire book. The characters were charming and horrid by turns, the protagonist-- a slacker kid named Ash who is forced by his mother to get a job-- was endearing, and the partying escapades were riotous.

And yet...

sapphoq reviews says: If you like slacker novels, then you will like Dealer's Dog. The stories are woven together in an effect that produces a feeling of, "Oh yeah, I remember stuff like that. There was this kid I knew..." This is the kind of book that the hired help will be reading to me and my cronies in nursing homes and assisted living places in order to stimulate our memories some years hence. For adults only please. Highly recommended.

A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen

A Street Cat Named Bob: and how he saved my life, James Bowen. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/ St. Martin's Press, 2013. e-book, 180 pps.


https://twitter.com/StreetCatBob

https://streetcatbob.blogspot.co.uk/

https://www.justgiving.com/jamesandbobcatsprotection/


      James Bowen was trying to get clean off of heroin via an opioid substitution program in London. He was living in what is called "vulnerable housing" and busking with his guitar for a living when he happened upon a cat. James took the cat in with a thought to nurse him back to health. As a result, both James' and Bob's lives were permanently altered.

sapphoq reviews says: James Bowen's first book is a charmer. Easy-to-read, I found myself rooting for both James and Bob. Through Bob, James found a purpose in life. James started to make decisions that would keep both himself and Bob on an even keel.
     Bob is certainly an unusual feline. He is a ginger tom with many of the characteristics inherent to that coloration. [I also love ginger toms and have had several of them. Currently, one is in residence].
     The twelve step programs have become a sort of set of sub-cultures in the United States. Those who are threatened by other ideas about recovery will most likely reject this delightful book based on the facts that James was able to drink in moderation and that he elected not to attend Narcotics Anonymous. Culture is a funny thing. While informing us of where our roots are, it also limits our vision.
     It is clear that we are continuing to hear from James Bowen and Bob in the form of subsequent books and a charity set up for cats. For those who love cats and tales of human triumph over tough adversaries, A Street Cat Named Bob is highly recommended. 

The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz

The Long Walk:  The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, Slavomir Rawicz.  Guilford, Ct.: Globe Pequot Press, 2010.  e-book, 253 pps.



   Slavomir Rawicz, Lieutenant of the Polish Cavalry, was arrested on November 19, 1939 at his home during a party welcoming him home.  He had barely gotten in the doorway and managed a few hellos before the Soviet Secret Police came for him.  His supposed crime was espionage.  After spending a miserable year in the Lubyanka hellhole, Rawicz was given a three day trial.  At the end of the trial, he was sentenced to twenty five years of hard labor.  He was briefly returned to Lubyanka.

     The next several months found Slavomir Rawicz rounded up along with other political prisoners into a train of cattle cars with standing room only, and then a rough march through part of the wintry and bitter cold Siberia to Camp Number 303.  A chance conversation with an Ostyak in Russian got Rawicz seriously thinking about escape.

     Deliberately, Rawicz plotted the escape.  Six other prisoners joined him.  Together they walked down the side of the then Soviet Union, through parts of Mongolia and then Tibet, and into British India.  The landscape was forbidding.  Starvation was a perpetual companion.  Through the hospitality of many poor villagers, Rawicz and his buddies were enabled to carry on. 

     Not everyone survived.  Among those that did was one American.  The American had been arrested and subsequently denied his right to contact the American Embassy.  The band of escaped prisoners were pretty beat up by time they reached India and help.  Rawicz had intentions of returning to Poland immediately to continue fighting the war.  He hadn't realized how much in need he was of medical attention and recovery.  Having lost everything, Rawicz did return to fighting in the war.  He never had contact with his companions again.

sapphoq reviews says:  I appreciated the immense history behind this book.  The events did not occur in a vacuum, but rather with the distinct backdrop of World War Two.  The Long Walk gave me a real sense of what it might be like to live in the Soviet Union during wartime, when the Secret Police snatched people up with impunity and carted them off to various Soviet prisons and concentration camps.  What Slavomir Rawicz and his comrades went through in fleeing from Siberia is a tale that left me with both a certain grittiness and a deep admiration for them.  Highly recommended.

.comvict by Gregory Alphonse Nimensky

.comvict: Ivy League Genius, Hacker, Multi-Millionaire and Convict, Gregory Alponse Nimensky.  self-published, 2012.  e-book, 105 pps.

Gregory Nimensky hails from Boca Raton Florida and has two degrees related to Engineering/Finance from a pretigious university.  He is knowledgeable and opinionated.  As a younger man, Nimensky alleges that he and some cohorts set up a bunch of fake companies and spammed folks for money.  He is the founder of  Club Epkin (2010), a business located in Boca Raton.  bbb.org characterizes Club Epkin as being involved with "Handbags - Manufacturers Equipment & Supplies".  Nimensky also claims to be a convict.  This I can neither confirm nor deny.  I did not find any independent verification of an arrest record on the Internet.  I don't use paid sites, so perhaps an arrest record does exist.  Neither could I find an arrest record for his associate Mammad.  [Same caveat].  .comvict does mention realitykings.com which actually does exist.  It is a porn site offering free porn movies and uh, some other things to legal adults. 

sapphoq reviews says: I enjoyed most of .comvict.  It told a good story that captured my attention and held it.  The makings of a hacker were there in Nimensky's early childhood.  The problem with .comvict is two-fold.  The last five pages are written choppily.  Nimensky was supposedly in a fedpen serving a five year bid when he wrote .comvict.  Beyond that, the book is supposed to direct the reader to a site [redacted] where the story is finished in video by an an actress standing in for Nimensky's wife.  Another video on the site [redacted] according to the book has an afterword which includes the notion of, paraphrased here, the stuff Nimensky did is uncool so don't do it.  The last five pages may be honest, I don't know.  But to me, they just didn't ring true.  .comvict is worth a read for the first 100 pages which are cancelled out by the last 5.  Give this one a miss unless you are truly enamoured by hacker culture.

Please Stop Laughing at Me by Jodee Blanco

Please Stop Laughing at Me, Jodee Blanco.
Avon, Mass.: Adams Media Corp., 2003. .

Jodee Blanco was teased in fifth grade for befriending a deaf girl who also had severe vision problems that also attended her school. When Ms. Blanco refused to play a mean trick on an elderly woman, her classmates turned against her. Sixth grade continued to be hell. In seventh grade, Ms. Blanco transferred to a school for the gifted.


But gifted kids are not immune to the lures of being bullies, and once again Ms. Blanco found herself on the fringe. By high school, she was getting beaten up regularly. She was also mocked for having a physical deformity which required surgery to correct. Her parents sent her to a shrink who recommended pills; and then to biofeedback sessions.


In the pages of this personal treatise on bullying, Ms. Blanco records her repeated public humiliations and grapples with serious issues.

...Why are the kids who get picked on by the school bullies always the ones who
end up being poked and prodded in psychiatrists' offices? Why aren't the bullies
ever taken to psychiatrists? Why do doctors keep telling the parents of the victims
that it's their children who need help? And what about the parents of the bullies?
What is wrong with all the adults? It seems that if you are mean or cruel to another
kid, that was "okay" because it was just a normal part of growing up. If you are on
the receiving end and allow it to bother you, you were the one who needs help. What
kind of logic was that? p. 87


Please Stop Laughing at Me has plenty of insights about vulnerability and humanity. Ms. Blanco matriculated into New York University (N.Y.U.) and later on became a media success. The reader will wince at the defeats of her earlier school years and applaud at what she has become.

For those who are intrigued by a sharp environmental analysis, the book is highly recommended.

sapphoq reviews

THEY CAGE THE ANIMALS AT NIGHT by Jennings Michael Burch 11/16/06

They Cage the Animals at Night, by Jennings Michael Burch.
New York: Signet, 1985. paperback, 293 pps.

The author, J. Michael Burch tells the story of his childhood and adolescence quite well. His mother was not a well woman; his father a drunk absent from his life. Periodically, his mother would drop him off [and later on his youngest brother] at an orphanage or at social services because of her inability to provide for her offspring. The two oldest boys were able to go to relatives to live, the middle brother had a heart condition and lived at a hospital for most of his life.

This book recounts the horrifying abuses suffered by the author and other boys entrusted to New York City's foster care system during the fifties and how the author was able to find his way out.
Definately worth a read for anyone with their own childhood memories of abuse. Not for those who dislike sentimentality.

sapphoq reviews