A set of cheerful works about searching for gold of all kinds.
Magner (Free to Decide, 2015) explores the concept of treasure hunting in this debut collection of short stories and essays.
Since ancient times, the promise of gold has captivated people’s imaginations. After all, stumbling upon wealth in the form of buried treasure, lost shipwrecks, or untapped mines is much preferable to acquiring it the old-fashioned way. Owners of such prizes can also go to great lengths to keep them safe. These subjects inspired a favorite subgenre of campfire tale, and with this collection of 12 short stories and four essays, Magner continues that legacy, addressing humanity’s capacity for imagination and ingenuity. In “Gold for the Taking,” an apparent homage to Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 tale “The Gold-Bug,” a perennially broke man learns that his father hasn’t left him his hoard of gold coins in his will, but rather has hidden them—with instructions indicating that whoever solves the riddle of its hiding place will become its owner. In “The Combination,” a man finds the combination to a safe written in an old library book about chess and seeks out the granddaughter of the man who wrote the note. In “Miracle in Montana,” a man discovers that his ailing uncle is sitting atop a literal gold mine. In both the stories and essays, Magner’s prose is light and relaxed: “The May sunshine was pleasantly warm on the back of his neck and shoulders,” one tale begins. “The young Catholic priest’s black shirt absorbed the afternoon rays as he strolled slowly on the sidewalk near the red brick church.” The stories present many compelling get-rich-quick scenarios, but they generally eschew the darker aspects of human nature, such as greed and treachery, and almost always find their ways to quick, easy endings. The essays are about more abstract types of treasure (including the spiritual kind) and, as such, don’t fit perfectly with the fiction. The book is highly readable, nonetheless, and most readers will likely find something to enjoy here—particularly if their dispositions are as sunny as the author’s seems to be.
A set of cheerful works about searching for gold of all kinds.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
