“Many books have rested on my bedside table since March 2020, ranging from poetry, western anthology, WWII settings and one amusing one called ‘Ella Minnow Pea.’ “My favorite and most intriguing title is ‘Schooled In Silence’ by D.J. Howard, a northern Maine author and retired teacher. As a retired teacher myself, the title interested me […]

The easiest thing for Jeff VanderMeer to do after the success of his Southern Reach trilogy (which includes the novel “Annihilation,” adapted for the screen by Alex Garland) would have been to continue in that same vein: spooky, Lynchian, Tarkovskian, “X-Files” adventures in contemporary wilderness settings. Instead, he wrote “Borne,” a futuristic post-collapse urban disaster […]