As I am laying out my final edition of The Beacon, I feel the need to write one of the longest but most well deserved thank you notes. I figure if Jimmy Fallon can write out thank you notes, I can too. Thank you to the readers who have made writing my weekly book reviews […]

Sum It Up is an autobiography written by legendary Tennessee basketball coach Pat Summitt and close friend, journalist, Sally Jenkins. Sum it Up is the remarkable story of Summitt’s resiliency, barrier breaking and determination spanning her childhood in Clarksville and Henrietta, Tennessee to her present day triumph in dealing with early onset Alzheimer’s. I originally […]

Someday, Someday Maybe is a “New York Times Bestseller” by Lauren Graham. Graham has been in the news recently as she will reprise her role as Lorelai Gilmore in a limited reunion of the show, Gilmore Girls on Netflix. My friend and I, being obsessed with the show in the early 2000s, resulted in my […]

Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion is an anthology of World War II love stories complied by author Kristina McMorris. With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, it is the perfect read. The anthology features the original work of ten recent best-selling female authors. Some of the stories are the equivalent of a short […]

If you have watched the news recently, viewed social media, listened to the radio or read a newspaper, you probably have seen the latest headlines of a teenage boy who required major surgery for a serious head injury after taking part in a “YouTube Challenge.” Many popular news outlets such as CNN and Buzzfeed reported […]

Of all the books I have reviewed for this column, I have never reviewed or analyzed a drama selection. I came close when writing an analysis of T.S. Eliot’s famed, Murder In The Cathedral, which can be read as having both elements of a poetic work and of a dramatic work. Having never analyzed strictly […]