Category Archives: Book Review

The Unraveling

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Introducing my 5th novel, “The Unraveling”. As I endeavor to make new acts of creation with each one, this book – which took me 4 years to write – is by far perhaps the most literary; and it feels like … Continue reading →

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A Novel about the Maghreb

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

It’s hard, for those who have not experienced it, to imagine the desolation of the Sahara. The great sand sea, the size of America, where only the Tuareg ride. Even to this day the vastness is daunting, but 80 years … Continue reading →

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Old Yeller

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

It’s time we return to that which is good and true. We need to abandon the nonsense, and quick, lest we are swept away into the turbulent waters of politics and victimization and forget that which made us. Things that … Continue reading →

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“And Quiet Flows the Don” – Book Review

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

There is something majestic, timeless and grand about Russian literature. Whether its Tolstoy (Leo, sure but I prefer Alexei), Goncharov, Turgenev – the stories resonate with purpose and the full nature of the human experience. This is perhaps especially true … Continue reading →

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Remember the Climate Apocalypse?

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Remember climate apocalypse? The little girl lectures, scowling in hatred at the leaders of the free world because they refused to do what they were told? Those days almost seem quaint and comical in the mess that 2020 has become. … Continue reading →

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Many Types of Lords

Posted on June 27, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

“Joel D. Hirst’s masterpiece is a worthy best-selling novel brimming with poignant lessons about idealism, culture, and religion. It begs us to examine the current state of the world today, a world so divided by different idealisms and misruled by … Continue reading →

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Giving Up On Hemingway

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

OK, I give up. “Screw it,” as I’ve been yelled at for saying. Life is too short. 2000 books, that’s what I think I have left to read in my life. One a week; ambitious for sure but I’m trying. … Continue reading →

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98.6 – A Novel by Leon Surmelian

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

It’s odd to review a novel about tuberculosis while on lockdown cowering from a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands in a matter of weeks. That statement is even strange to write. Had I read this novel only three … Continue reading →

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We Too, Like You, Were People…

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Yerevan in the summer is like a ‘poor man’s Paris’, or maybe Paris in the 50s, after the war had ravaged the economy and the country was recovering from German occupation but there was renewed hope and the nostalgia of … Continue reading →

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“I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Leon Surmelian

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Can an epic be simple and full of longing and nostalgia? Can it be gentle and childlike, growing with the reader as the protagonist also grows. Childhood and the fits and bursts of young love, frustration and that small bitterness … Continue reading →

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