The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri, Ballantine Books, 2020 - Ms. Lefteri is currently a lecturer in creative writing at Brunel University in the UK. Her parents fled Cyprus during the 1974 Turkish invasion of the island and, during a period in 2016, she became a volunteer worker at a UNICEF-supported refugee center in …
Author: richardsleftbank
Retired, when in a late life crisis, began to write - started a blog and now, three novels later, the rest still isn't history.
THE U-CRANE – AN ENDLESS BLEAK WINTER AHEAD
Seems as if the longer Vlad (the impaler) Pootine rules Rooskie, the more he acts like his hero, good ol’ Joe S. And hot dog, hasn’t Vlad been some busy this past week? Somehow those two hundred thousand ballet dancers that he’d brought to the border of Russkie have high stepped their way into the …
Continue reading THE U-CRANE – AN ENDLESS BLEAK WINTER AHEAD
TROUBLE IN THE U-CRANE – THANK THE GHIT
Thank goodness we’ve spent trillions of dollars on nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war. That pretty much leaves our current crop of megalomaniacs with nothing but ‘conventional’ weapons to throw around in their quest to conquer the world. Yes, here we are, well into the 21st century, and we can still enjoy the antics …
THE UNCIVIL SOCIETY
“Bring it on.” That’s one Freedom Fascist’s response to the Ontario provincial government’s announcement that they’re going to end the Ottawa occupation. Not only is their ‘freedom’ is more important than your freedom and their HONK louder than your combined voices, they’re thirsting for a fight. Well, most people will agree that democracy can be …
PANDEMIC POINTS TO PONDER
Search as I might, I just can’t seem to find the place in the Bible that says ‘Thou shalt not get vaccinated’. It wasn’t hard to find the one that says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’, so I’m wondering why so many of the FW (‘freedom wimps’ - Honk! Honk!) insist that vaccination is against their …
THE FREEDOM WIMPS
Truckers driving their rigs to Ottawa to protest the vaccine mandate for cross border work. Sure – waste fuel, create another glitch in the supply chain, add to air pollution, honk horns, use neighborhood snow-banks as toilets, soil war memorials and scream about ‘freedom’. Let’s not think about the fact that most truck drivers are …
ADDICTED TO MEDICINE
Is there no end to medical shows? Can there possibly be enough patients with new and fascinating cases to go around? Do scriptwriters have to comb the medical journals for new and exciting illnesses? When I saw the CBC had started a medical show called ‘Transplant’ in 2020, my heart did not go pitter-patter. Okay, …
THE FIFTH SEASON by NK JEMISIN
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, Orbit books, 2015 (Winner of the 2016 Hugo Award) Yes, I’m now at the point where I have actually started to read the books given to me for Christmas by my DDD (Dearest Darling Daughter). DDD is an admirer of fantasy fiction and I’ve had many enjoyable hours reading …
Where Has All the News Gone?
The offerings on the left bank have been sadly lacking in news lately. For a blog that prides itself as ‘Views on New from those that Snooze’, you might consider this a vexing oversight. My only excuse is that what’s reported as news right now lacks much variety. Prior to the emergence of the Confounded, …
The Gift That Kept On Giving
Is there any Christmas gift more bold and brave in terms of your stress level than giving a piece of new computer technology to the aged parents? It begins with dissatisfaction at the speed of their internet and the annoying propensity it has to work badly because of ‘poor signal’. Even trying to work from …
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