MADreads

As we've all hunkered down over this past year there have been a few bright spots in our social network. One of the brightest (and most surprising to many) was the instagram posts that veteran character actor Leslie Jordan started posting while he was sheltering in place in Tennessee. Leslie is best known for his guest appearances on Will and Grace, but he has appeared in many, many things. And as was the case for everyone, the pandemic shut down the bulk of his work and life.

Albert Marrin has crafted a gripping narrative of the life and death of Janusz Korczak, a Polish Jewish doctor in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was not only a physician, he ran an orphanage in Warsaw for Jewish children. As the horrors of the Nazi regime moved closer, Dr. Korczak was given numerous opportunities to escape, but he would not go without his charges. Ultimately, he led them to Treblinka Camp, dying by gas along with the children in 1942.

In the current romance publishing climate, it’s not unusual for ‘debut’ authors to have multiple titles in print through self-publishing houses before they’re picked up by conventional publishers. While the quality of self-published titles are definitely hit-or-miss in terms of quality, self-publishing gives authors the possibility of publishing stories that traditional publishers pass on or to hone their writing chops in different directions.

I know channel surfing is becoming a thing of the past as more and more of us are moving to streaming at will, but I'll date myself and admit I'm still a frequent surfer. And when I'm bouncing around the dial (for the kids reading: a dial is what we used to have to physically move on the tv to change channels) there are a few movies that will always make me stop and watch. One of those? Die Hard starring Bruce Willis as a New York cop loose in a skyscraper where terrorists have taken his wife and a bunch of her co-workers hostage.