Author Archives: John Walters

Book Review:  Aflame: Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer

Aflame is a celebration of Iyer’s decades-long infatuation with a Benedictine retreat in an isolated spot in the hills above the ocean at Big Sur. In his recent book The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise, Iyer searches the world … Continue reading

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Where Am I?

This week’s newsletter in The Perennial Nomad: For Those Who Wander with Intent celebrates the irresistible urge to roam. Sometimes it takes me awhile to remember where I am in the world. No, that’s not right. Let me rephrase it. … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Memorial Days: A Memoir by Geraldine Brooks

On May 27, 2019, Memorial Day, Australian writer Geraldine Brooks received a phone call telling her that her sixty-year-old husband, Tony Horwitz, who was away on a book tour, suddenly collapsed on a sidewalk in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and died. … Continue reading

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Time Traveling for Nomads

This week in my newsletter The Perennial Nomad: For Those Who Wander with Intent I discuss the value of visiting historical sites while traveling. The concept of time travel has intrigued humankind for centuries. H.G. Wells popularized a device that … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Three Wild Dogs (and the truth): A Memoir by Markus Zusak

When I saw this book on the library’s Peak Picks shelf (comprised of new books that are in such demand that you can take them out only for two weeks with no renewals) and perused its introductory material, I immediately … Continue reading

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Travel Communities

This week in my column The Perennial Nomad: For Those Who Wander with Intent I discuss travel communities. I made my second trip across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent in the middle of … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Orbital by Samantha Harvey

The first I heard about the novel Orbital was when I read that it had won the Booker Prize for 2024. It seems I wasn’t the only one whose radar it passed under. The Seattle Public Library, usually top-of-the-line in … Continue reading

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The Perennial Nomad

Introducing The Perennial Nomad, a weekly Substack newsletter. I began writing with a focus on science fiction stories. Many of the books I read as a teen and young man were science fiction and fantasy, and it was a science … Continue reading

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Book Review:  The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

I hesitated before deciding to go ahead and write and post this review. After all, my intention is to attract readers, not repel them. But then again, the type of readers I am interested in reaching is not going to … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman

When you think of iconic film makers of the early twentieth century few, if any, shine as brightly as Charlie Chaplin. The man was a comic genius and helped to define an art form. My personal favorite among his films … Continue reading

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