Bruce Douglas Reeves's Blog
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Jan.13.2013
In a few hours, we will leave for our third visit to India. The subcontinent is so vast and so complex, we know that we will never finish exploring this ancient, astonishing part of the world. India, of course, leaves...
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Jan.09.2013
The bunkers, many of them broken and damaged, hunkered like giant multi-colored tortoises along the rocky shore, extending up the rugged hills, partially hidden by overgrowth, boulders, and trees. More than 750,000 of them...
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Jan.03.2013
Crowds are rushing to the San Francisco Asian Art Museum these days to experiece the amazing display of China's Terracotta Warriors: the Legacy of the First Emperor. Much more has been uncovered in that vast burial site since we were in...
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Dec.23.2012
Once upon a time, an agent liked a story I wrote and asked if I had a book. I did. He liked the novel, too. He sent it to publishers and one bought it for good money. The agent also sent the manuscript to movie studios. One of those bought it, too, for even more money...
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Dec.15.2012
Even as child and adolescent, Delphine felt deeply and was angry at the cruelty and injustice she saw in the world. When she glimpsed the homeless huddled in doorways with newspapers and ragged blankets, when she read about struggling...
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Dec.08.2012
Survivors and their children: this description could apply to many countries today, but it fits Cambodia perhaps more than most. I learned this as we explored the Cambodian countryside, small towns, and villages, as well as the cities and famous...
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Nov.29.2012
What has been going on at the United Nations? Why shouldn’t the Palestinians at least be a nonmember observer state of the United Nations? For that matter, why not full membership?
I guess I’m confused by it all. When I...
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Nov.26.2012
The “meek shall inherit the earth.” That’s the promise, but through human history it has not proven true, especially during the past hundred years. The punishing treaties after the violence of World War One led to...
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Nov.18.2012
A boy called Apu and his creator, Satyajit Ray, changed my life. It was only yesterday, give or take a few decades, when I plunged into the world of Apu and my love of India – and of all things foreign, exotic, different from...
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Nov.16.2012
What is Quality of Life? The general “well-being” of all of us, wherever we are. Emotional well-being, as well as physical – not only how much money you’ve got. How would you judge your quality of life?
Do you have the basic human needs such as food, water, shelter, freedom,...
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Nov.10.2012
The Communists were in power. The year: 1988. The place: the territory and city of Kaliningrad, named for a buddy of Joe Stalin. My wife and I were there for the day, exploring the bleak, gray remains of several centuries – none bleaker or...
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Nov.06.2012
“Thank you for flying.”The silver-haired, Mt. Rushmore-profiled airplane captain walked among the few dozen of us in the SFO departure lounge. It was one week after 9/11. The world was still numb from the horror. After days of no flights at all, planes were starting to move, but...
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Nov.04.2012
Beautiful? Other people had called Delphine beautiful for as long as she could remember. Yes, she was slim and black-haired, with the high cheekbones, large eyes, and finely chiseled profile beloved by photographers, but she’d learned as a child to disregard, even scorn, these features...
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Oct.29.2012
From San Francisco to Rome, from Istanbul to Jerusalem and the villages of Palestine, Delphine confronts with love and courage a changing, sometimes violent, world.
"The allure of this narrative is deceptive in that it offers a cunning misdirection. Apparently, it is about a young, beautiful...
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Oct.25.2012
“MORTAL DANGER – MILITARY ZONE," announced a garish red and yellow sign. "Any Person Who Passes or Damages the Fence ENDANGERS HIS LIFE.”
Like a...
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How much time do we want to spend with a young, beautiful, talented, self-sufficient, self-confident woman who dictates terms for life herself and to hell with everyone else? Turns out we want to spent a lot of time with her. By the end, one cannot help but to have fallen in love with her...and to feel how deeply she feels her need to give herself and her talent in an attempt to make a better world.
-- Clay Reynolds, series judge on my prize-winning novella DELPHINE, Texas Review Press, November 2012”
—Clay Reynolds' announcement of the prize and his quote for the book blurb
About Bruce
My novella DELPHINE won the Clay Reynolds Novella Competition and was published as a book by Texas Review Press; I've also published three novels: THE NIGHT ACTION (NAL hardback, Signet paper; Great Britain: Andre Deutsch hardback, Mayflower Books paper;...
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Bruce’s Favorite Books
Seven almost perfect novels: THE GREAT GATSBY, LOLITA, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, THE WARS OF LOVE, THE GRASS IS SINGING, LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS, THE GOOD SOLDIER....
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