Book reviews

Novel by M. Lee Buompensiero

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

March 6, 2025 (San Diego) -- Long-time San Diego resident, M. Lee Buompensiero has released an award-winning novel, Sumerland. The story is full of romance, unusual hauntings, heart-warming dog crises and mishaps.

Kate Post inherits the San Diego historical Liebersohn mansion after her mother, whom she rarely saw and barely knew, dies. Kate doesn't want the house, nor any reminder of her mother's abandonment. Leaving with every intention of returning to San Francisco, Kate stumbles and falls in front of the house. An odd inscription etched in concrete beside a garden pathway catches her eye; it haunts her dreams and changes her mind. She will do a period restoration on the house and make for a quick sale. This will take it off her hands for good.

Francis and Marie-Claire Liebersohn have unfinished business—they want someone to set the record straight seventy years after their deaths. Their hauntings reveal family secrets and awaken Kate to paranormal realities. Prompted by her friend, Lulu, Kate adopts a new mission to set matters right for living relatives, including herself.

Kate’s romance with her dog’s vet seems real life. The dog that pulls Kate into committing to a totally new life is endearing. The melting of Kate’s heart by the dog is realistic and heartwarming. The disturbing hauntings that Kate witnesses turn out to have a positive purpose. I loved this story. I couldn’t put it down.

Below is an excerpt from the novel:

“I turned to look back at the old house. Even in its shabby state, you’d be blind not to see that it had been magnificent at one time. I tried to imagine the grand old Craftsman dismantled, torn down and replaced with a cookie-cutter row of faux-French chateau townhouses. Something inside knotted my stomach. Guilt? I shrugged that off and considered the renovations needed to convert the place into a B&B.

“It might not be so crazy after all. Of course, I’d have to hire a manager to run it. But do I want to?

“The logical right side of my brain took over What? Are you nuts? Focus! You don’t want this. Think about it—the time, energy and money. I did the math. I was perfectly happy with my current career path—the sterile landscape of investment counseling. No personal attachments. The black and white, plusses and minuses, the safe uninvolved terrain of advising clients about solid investments. Simple. No emotional ties.

“This wasn’t anything like that. This bound me to my mother. My stomach twitched again. I did a quick mental one-eighty back to my original plan, which was to settle what business needed settling and get back to San Francisco, where my job and condo and lifestyle await. Not that many would call twelve-hour workdays and little free time for cultural or romantic involvement a lifestyle. Still, it was my world and I wanted to get back to it. I needed to retreat to the familiar, the safe, the unattached—the total opposite of this … house.

“I don’t owe this house or mother my time or money.

“That sealed it. I’d have Lizbeth list the property. I turned and started back up the path when I caught my foot on something, tripped, and landed face down in a tangle of withered hydrangeas at the foot of the stairs.

“’Oh, Kathryn,” Lizbeth squealed “Are you all right?’

“I scrambled to my feet, more embarrassed than damaged, and brushed off the remnants of dirt and debris. When I bent to pick up my satchel, I noticed something scrawled in concrete. It was partially hidden by the bushes. I pushed the dead brush aside and stared at the initials in a sketchy scrawl etched into the concrete: “WJL.” Above that: ‘Sumerland – 1941.’”

The author, M. Lee Buompensiero, is a third-generation San Diegan. She has supported the writing arts as a volunteer at the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild. For her many years as managing editor for the Guild’s annual anthology, The Guilded Pen, and for her efforts while serving on the Guild’s board, she received a Rhoda Riddell Builders Award.

Buompensiero also writes under the pen name, “Loren Zahn,” and is the author of the Theo Hunter Mystery Series: Dirty Little Murders, Deadly Little Secrets, and Fatal Little Lies.

Brain Surgeon: A Doctor’s Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles, by Keith Black, MD (Wellness Books, trademark of Hatchette Book Group, Inc., New York, NY 2009, 226 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

Photos of Author by: Kareem BH Photography

February 26, 2025 (San Diego - Having written more than 400 book reviews, two of which contributed towards the authors winning the NAACP Image Award in Literature, this book by Dr. Keith Black is foremost the most intriguing and insightful book that I have ever read, for it deals with life and death. I am truly honored and inspired!

Brain Surgeon: A Doctor’s Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles delves into the realm of what actually constitutes life and death, and it places Dr. Keith Black in a place that few if any could ever dream or hope for. Having written all those book reviews, from that of former Vice-President Hillary Clinton, President Donald Trump, Lakers’ Owner Jeanie Buss, and former Barack Obama White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett, I say this with the most humble of intentions as a book reviewer.

Dr. Keith Black, who serves as chairman of the department of neurosurgery and director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has an extraordinary ability to combine cutting edge research and an extremely busy surgical practice. Since 1987, he has performed more than 5,000 operations for resection of brain tumors, up until the publication of this book in 2009. One can only marvel and guess at the number of operations since then.

Perhaps most insightful to me about this book, and endearing to me about the author, is one simple passage which states: “We take care of people. Part of what we are doing is God’s work, and what I like about the way it is set up now is that there is no conflict of interest for me. There is no incentive to do surgeries, but there is no incentive to turn people away, either.” Talk about compassion!

The author states in this book, in further regard to his statement of “we take care of people”: “Cedars has been incredibly supportive of what I do. I am fortunate to have a formidable group of dedicated fund-raisers in my corner. Maxine Dunitz gave the founding gift for the Neurosurgical Institute. Another group of remarkable women who support our work call themselves the Brain Trust, and they are truly a force of nature. Headed by Pauletta Washington, Keisha Whittaker, Johnnie Cochran’s widow, Dale, and several other remarkable women, they have raised more than $20 million for us to date. We couldn’t do what we do without them.”

An example of what Dr. Black means when he says that they couldn’t do what they do without them, is clearly stated here: “I worked on a young Ethiopian boy who was brought to the United States by a relief organization called Save the Children. Elijah was getting headaches and was becoming unresponsive. The local doctor said that he needed a CT scan, but apparently there is only one CT scanner in all of Ethiopia. When he finally got the scan a couple of months later, they found a huge posterior fossa tumor, and no neurosurgeon in the country would operate on him.” Fortunately, Pauletta Washington, Denzel Washington’s wife, and the “Brain Trust” came to the rescue! The Brain Trust is pictured here!

The Foreword to this informative and intriguing book by renowned actor, Forest Whitaker, perhaps says it best as he states: ‘”What can we do.”’ This was my mother’s reaction when she was told of the tumor that had invaded my grandmother’s brain. “Where do we go from here?”’

"As my mother pondered these questions she was reminded of a magazine article she had saved years before. There was a surgeon on the cover who was described as the best neurosurgeon in the world. She had saved it for its historic value, since the man on the cover of this magazine was black. Now she proceeded to search through her things to find the clipping, and then she made a call to the hospital to see if she could speak with Dr. Keith Black.” From there, everything else is history, the creation of a medical icon!"

Mr. William Tao, a wealthy Hong Kong real estate entrepreneur, who divided his time between Hong Kong and Los Angeles, praised Dr. Black for the surgery that he performed on his brain. Mr. Tao’s cancer in the brain was diagnosed as a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM)-the most malignant of all brain tumors. It is inspiring how the surgery for Mr. Tao is described in this book, and the team that Dr. Black utilized to perform it.

An insightful and interesting passage in Dr. Keith Black’s book relates to the surgery of Tionne Watkins in regard to a “vestibular schwannonoma”, which states: “Now it was time to close. After we got a good water-tight seal on the dura, small titanium plates were used to anchor the portion of Tionne’s skull we had removed back in place. The scalp was then closed in layers with a subcutaneous plastic surgery closure that would not leave a scar. No one would know that we had ever been there.”

In further regard to Tionne Watkins, of the famed musical group “TLC”, Dr. Black indicated in his book that “Tionne’s operation had taken six hours, but it looked like there was good news all around.” Additionally, Dr. Black stated in this warm and heartfelt book that: “Twenty-six years ago, as a young intern, I had watched a surgical team take thirty-two hours to remove a vestibular schwannoma. The patient survived the operation, but was neurologically devastated. I thought briefly on how far we’d come in just a generation.” This says more about Dr. Black’s skill and expertise as a neurosurgeon than the medical profession itself.

Throughout this book, the author gives examples of patients that he has brought back from despair and possible death. He also gives examples of different forms of cancer, and how to attack and defeat them. He gives an example of something that we might want to ponder, stating: “Because we know that X-rays can induce brain tumors, dental X-rays should be minimized. Every time I go to the dentist I am asked if I want to have my teeth x-rayed, and I routinely refuse. I haven’t had a dental X-ray in twenty years.” He certainly has put something on my mind, going forward! As a matter of fact, just recently while in the dentist’ chair, the dental assistant (Dr. Evelyn Hersel) told me that Dr. Black had performed surgery on her mother for cancer! How ironic, but then again this book is full of tantalizing ironies!

The author of this book, BRAIN SURGEON, states in regard to cancer: and its development: “One of the most exciting developments in cancer research is the discovery of the cancer stem cell. Within the body, stem cells are primitive, undifferentiated cells that evolve into heart cells, lung cells, brain cells, and other kinds of cells specific to our body’s various organs. From our earliest moments until we die, stem cells are hard at work, replenishing our dying cells with new ones. The cancer stem cell, it seems, functions in much the same way, enabling the tumor to grow by populating it with new cells.” I didn’t know that!!

In further regard to stem cells, Dr. Black states in his book: “Researchers in Canada first discovered cancer stem cells in 1997. The first cancer stem cells to be identified were those of leukemia, but additional studies documented the existence of stem cells in other types of cancers. At Cedars-Sinai we have isolated stem cells in glioblastoma tumors. This discovery may have far-reaching implications.”

In another aspect of this book, which is rich in irony, in a phone call from Dr. Black’s office to me set up by his executive assistant Teresita Casipe-Bellon, I took the liberty to suggest to Dr. Black that this excellent book should be made into a movie with the actor Courtney Vance of my West Angeles Church of God here in Los Angeles playing the role of Dr. Black, realizing that may have been a bit presumptious of me. Incidentally, Courtney Vance is the husband of noted actress Angela Bassett.

Additionally, aforementioned Pauletta Washington and Denzel Washington were members of my West Angeles Church family, the first 27 years that they were out here. The author, Dr. Keith Black, had no way of knowing that 15 years after writing this amazing book that Denzel Washington would be ordained as a minister. Talk about ironies! My son Julien actually had a very small part in Denzel Washington’s movie, “The Little Things!

This amazing book should be required reading for all medical students, especially those going into the field of Neurology, for a variety of reasons, and someone should nominate Dr. Keith Black for the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine! This, a man of humble beginnings, from Auburn, Alabama!

To sum up this incredible book, the author states: “It was yet another reminder that my patients fight their disease with the greatest dignity and spirit one can ever imagine. Their courage inspires me to focus every drop of energy I have in myself to provide them with the best odds possible to beat this disease, or at least give them as much quality life as our surgeries and medicines will allow. They are my heroes, and I hope one day all of their bravery and determination will help lead them to a cure.”

I too, am a cancer survivor, having been cured from Leiomyosarcoma in my hometown of Chicago in 1999! My brother Ronnie in Chicago has recently contracted prostrate cancer.    

Dennis Moore has been the Associate Editor of the East County Magazine in San Diego and the editor of SDWriteway, an online newsmagazine in San Diego that has partnered with the East County Magazine, along with being the President of the Bethel A.M.E. Prison Ministry in San Diego.He is also the author of a book about Chicago politics, “The City That Works, Power, Politics and Corruption in Chicago”. Mr. Moore can be contacted at contractsagency@gmail.com or you can reach him on Twitter(X).

By Jacob Hubbard

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

February 24, 2025 (San Diego) - Long-time San Diego resident Jacob Hubbard has written a debut novel, Sounds of Yesterday, about a romantic relationship during COVID as experienced by an autistic man.

For five years, Rob and Ana overcome career challenges, achieve emotional stability, and survive a global pandemic. Though they each achieve successes, Ana ends their relationship.

Rob’s world is shattered. He blames himself. Traumas are reopened, and forgotten insecurities play center stage in his thoughts.

As he mourns, he comes to see that Ana worked in an abusive workplace and had a harsh, demanding mother. Unable to share about the pains in her life, she slowly falls into a depression, and becomes unable to give or receive love.

Below is an excerpt of the novel:

“Later in the evening after dinner, I put Don McLean’s American Pie on my dad’s vinyl player. I felt immersed in the song until it reminded me of the night I listened to it with Ana when she asked me why I listened to music like this.

“’The way I see it now,’ I said. ‘The reason I listen to older music is because when I take the time to listen to the sounds of yesterday, they make me remember the promises of tomorrow.’

“‘What kind of promises?’ Ana asked.

“’… the promise of a better future, and the promise that everything will be okay, no matter what …’

“I pulled out my phone and found myself looking at her photos. As the music played, snapshots of everything Ana and I have been through over the years flashed here and there in my thoughts. I saw images of us cuddling in bed, laughing and giggling, of us going to the art festival by the waterfront, riding bikes by the beach, and taking selfies at museums. I saw flashes of restaurants we explored and trips we went on, an image of us together when we saw Poets of the Fall.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the night I comforted her when she cried in my arms.”

“Today

“Last night, I dreamt Ana and I watched the sunset at Ocean Beach Pier.

“’Has work gotten better?’ I asked.

“’Kinda but not really,’ she said. ‘I’ll tough it out, hope for the best.’

“’Yeah. Have things gotten better with your mom?’

“Ana just shrugged, not saying anything as we watched the sunset.”

Sounds of Yesterday shows the everyday highs and lows in a relationship as it is experienced by an autistic man—a person who tends to berate and reject himself. This book vividly shows a couple struggle to love one another until life itself crushes one of them. We experience the intensity of loss the main character has when love is lost.

Sounds of Yesterday is Hubbard’s debut novel.

Hubbard is a neurodivergent (autistic) writer and college writing teacher living in the San Diego Metro area. With a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Rhetoric from San Diego State University, he has developed a love of writing in all its forms.

As an advocate, Hubbard has made neurodiversity an important theme in his writing and teaching to help spread awareness of neurodivergence.

When he is not writing or teaching, he loves hiking, traveling, browsing his local indie bookstore, and playing video games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls.

By Wanjirũ Warama

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

January 1, 2025 (La Mesa) -- Wanjiru Warama a resident of La Mesa, provides true stories of how her family and community lived in abject poverty on British colonial farms in Kenya in her novel, The Colonial Farm. Her historic memoir sheds light on the struggles of Kenyan farmworkers and rural populations under the British colonial rule. She then covers how Kenya’s rulership developed after the British retreated from governing.

Below is an excerpt from the novel:

“Before colonization, Kenya had no plantations for children to work in and earn money. People lived in clusters of extended families and worked only on their own lands unless friends did merry-go-rounds at each other’s projects. Without full-time jobs elsewhere, parents did most of the hard work and eased their children into work without burdening them unduly.

“But during my time, in the fifties and sixties, our parents needed us children to help them not only garden and harvest but also earn extra money. “Hard work killed nobody,” they said. Discipline (a euphemism for beating or assaulting a child) and work, the village culture claimed, molded a child into a responsible human being. Or the Christians evoked “Spare the rod, spoil the child” nonsense.

“Later in my adulthood, I heard an occasional misguided adult say, “My parents beat me, and look at me now? I turned out okay.” I bet people make such statements to make light of the assaults and damage they suffered.

“Regarding child labor, one would expect that because Kenya was a British colony, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), also known as child labor laws enacted in England in 1938, would apply. But the law applied to British children, not African children in the colonies like us. Our parents didn’t know of such laws; individual parents set the standards. Major Miller, like the rest, employed children as young as ten.

“My siblings and I complained about the hard work, but the hardest hit were the unlucky children whose fathers couldn’t afford school fees (at twenty-two shillings per pupil per year from 1956) or didn’t see the need for educating potential farmhands. The children worked full-time. They dug, weeded, and picked coffee cherries alongside their parents or other adults eight to nine hours a day, six days a week. Some landowners, like the famous author of Out of Africa, Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen, 1885-1962), besides plantation jobs, employed small boys as domestic trainees.”

Warama shows the lives of overworked native groups while describing the lives of her family members, including herself. Despite the odds of an African living in 1950s Kenya, where education for a girl was an afterthought, Warama managed to use education to escape a life of drudgery.

The book is astonishingly positive given the abject poverty under which Warama and her siblings suffered. She tells a compelling story. I look forward to reading the author’s personal story—how she continued her education and eventually immigrated to the United States.

Author Wanjiru Warama has written five books and one personal essay. The Colonial Farm is the latest in her The Colonized series. A philanthropist, Warama is a member of The Rotary Club, a lifetime member of the Friends of the San Diego Public Library, and a benefactor of Gitura Secondary and Gitura Primary schools in Kenya.

By Wanjirũ Warama

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

January 1, 2025 (La Mesa) -- Wanjiru Warama a resident of La Mesa, provides true stories of how her family and community lived in abject poverty on British colonial farms in Kenya in her novel, The Colonial Farm. Her historic memoir sheds light on the struggles of Kenyan farmworkers and rural populations under the British colonial rule. She then covers how Kenya’s rulership developed after the British retreated from governing.

Below is an excerpt from the novel:

“Before colonization, Kenya had no plantations for children to work in and earn money. People lived in clusters of extended families and worked only on their own lands unless friends did merry-go-rounds at each other’s projects. Without full-time jobs elsewhere, parents did most of the hard work and eased their children into work without burdening them unduly.

“But during my time, in the fifties and sixties, our parents needed us children to help them not only garden and harvest but also earn extra money. “Hard work killed nobody,” they said. Discipline (a euphemism for beating or assaulting a child) and work, the village culture claimed, molded a child into a responsible human being. Or the Christians evoked “Spare the rod, spoil the child” nonsense.

“Later in my adulthood, I heard an occasional misguided adult say, “My parents beat me, and look at me now? I turned out okay.” I bet people make such statements to make light of the assaults and damage they suffered.

“Regarding child labor, one would expect that because Kenya was a British colony, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), also known as child labor laws enacted in England in 1938, would apply. But the law applied to British children, not African children in the colonies like us. Our parents didn’t know of such laws; individual parents set the standards. Major Miller, like the rest, employed children as young as ten.

“My siblings and I complained about the hard work, but the hardest hit were the unlucky children whose fathers couldn’t afford school fees (at twenty-two shillings per pupil per year from 1956) or didn’t see the need for educating potential farmhands. The children worked full-time. They dug, weeded, and picked coffee cherries alongside their parents or other adults eight to nine hours a day, six days a week. Some landowners, like the famous author of Out of Africa, Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen, 1885-1962), besides plantation jobs, employed small boys as domestic trainees.”

Warama shows the lives of overworked native groups while describing the lives of her family members, including herself. Despite the odds of an African living in 1950s Kenya, where education for a girl was an afterthought, Warama managed to use education to escape a life of drudgery.

The book is astonishingly positive given the abject poverty under which Warama and her siblings suffered. She tells a compelling story. I look forward to reading the author’s personal story—how she continued her education and eventually immigrated to the United States.

Author Wanjiru Warama has written five books and one personal essay. The Colonial Farm is the latest in her The Colonized series. A philanthropist, Warama is a member of The Rotary Club, a lifetime member of the Friends of the San Diego Public Library, and a benefactor of Gitura Secondary and Gitura Primary schools in Kenya.