Murmuration

1954. Something's happening in the idyllic town of Amorea--Mike hears voices and sees shadows and flocks of birds invisible to everyone else. And no matter what, Mike must protect the man he loves.

A Murmuration of Starlings elegizes the martyrs of the civil rights movement, whose names are inscribed on the stone table of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. Individually, Jake Adam York’s poems are elegies for individuals; collectively, they consider the violence of a racist culture and the determination to resist that racism. York follows Sun Ra, a Birmingham jazz musician whose response to racial violence was to secede from planet Earth, considers the testimony in the trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant for the murder of Emmet Till in 1955, and recreates events of Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Throughout the collection, an invasion of starlings imagesthe racial hatred and bloodshed. While the 1950s spawned violence, the movement in the early 1960s transformed the language of brutality and turned the violence against the violent, says York. So, the starlings, first produced by violence, become instruments of resistance. York’s collection responds to and participates inrecent movements to find and punish the perpetrators of the crimes that defined the civil rights movement. A Murmuration of Starlings participates in the search for justice, satisfaction, and closure.

A Murmuration of Starlings elegizes the martyrs of the civil rights movement, whose names are inscribed on the stone table of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. Individually, Jake Adam York’s poems are elegies for individuals; collectively, they consider the violence of a racist culture and the determination to resist that racism. York follows Sun Ra, a Birmingham jazz musician whose response to racial violence was to secede from planet Earth, considers the testimony in the trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant for the murder of Emmet Till in 1955, and recreates events of Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Throughout the collection, an invasion of starlings imagesthe racial hatred and bloodshed. While the 1950s spawned violence, the movement in the early 1960s transformed the language of brutality and turned the violence against the violent, says York. So, the starlings, first produced by violence, become instruments of resistance. York’s collection responds to and participates inrecent movements to find and punish the perpetrators of the crimes that defined the civil rights movement. A Murmuration of Starlings participates in the search for justice, satisfaction, and closure.

A flock of birds, even a skein of geese perhaps -- but a cete of badgers, or a grist of bees? The collective nouns of animals and birds have long inspired and intrigued us. Many have their roots in medieval times, in particular applied to those creatures hunted by man, and subject to the etiquette of their proper group names. Author Steve Palin has beautifully illustrated and given the background to about fifty different animals and birds with interesting collective nouns -- and listed 420 of them in his glossary. This elegant little book will appeal to all those with a fascination for the English language, those who want the answers for quizzes and crossword puzzles, and those with an interest in animals and birds.

the sea breaks around my feet before moving out again like an inhaled breath. above the water, a mass of starlings twist and collapse in on themselves before bursting out in an explosion of tiny bones. I watch the birds beyond the iron carrion and by now the water is below my knees. I look down and wonder if any amount of salt could drown the monsters in my blood. Murmuration is a year's worth of emotions, anxious thoughts and panic attacks, each one a beating wing in the mind of the author. This book is an attempt to create something beautiful from this chaos; to make sense of the things we dare not breathe to life. Focusing on loss, heartbreak, mental health, and the impact of isolation on a tired mind, these poems are the starlings that gather above the water. These pages are the hope that we can learn to heal; that the future can survive the past.

Charlie Christmas, Ademar Zarkan, and Prometheus Stone are the best of America—united by war, scarred by displacement, and resolute in the face of the troubles that rip the nation apart over three decades. Christmas, a Somali translator with a split personality, and Zarkan, a Muslim sharpshooter who defies gender and religious constraints to graduate from West Point, are first brought together by Stone, a lapsed Jew and an Army captain, amidst war and famine in East Africa. Their ensuing journey—which takes them from the mean streets of Mogadishu to the high desert of West Texas, from the barren plains of Indian country to the rolling hills of Minnesota—is at turns tragic and uplifting. Charlie’s son, Amir, is the bookmark in their lives, and the struggle to raise him amid the predators of white supremacy and violent radicalism is their life’s work. With the help of Buck, the bomb-sniffing dog with a nose for danger, they prevail over Somali militias, pirates, white supremacists, and ISIS terrorists in a splintering world that has turned on itself like a serpent in the singularly obscene act of devouring its own tail. A sweeping novel that digs deep into the backstories of some of the beloved West Texas characters from Seventh Flag, Balman’s award-winning debut novel, Murmuration is a mesmerizing story of what it means to be American in the twenty-first century.

For the first time since he'd left the island he thought of the starlings massed at dusk in the winter trees behind the children's home. He remembered the rustle of their wings when they twisted in skeins over the fields, or swelled and contracted high above the cliffs, dark wave after dark wave, lifting and falling in a kind of dance. Sister Lucy had said it was a murmuration. He was still quite young, and he had thought the birds were showing him a sign, that there was something written in their fluid patterns. Lives merge and diverge; they soar and plunge, or come to rest in impenetrable silence. Erris Cleary's absence haunts the pages of this exquisite novella, a woman who complicates other lives yet confers unexpected blessings. Fly far, be free, urges Erris. Who can know why she smashes mirrors? Who can say why she does not heed her own advice? Among the sudden shifts and swings, the swerving flight paths taken, something hidden must be uncovered, something dark and rotten, even evil, which has masqueraded as normality. In the end it will be a writer's task to reclaim Erris, to bear witness, to sound in fiction the one true note that will crack the silence.

In today's fast-food world, Christianity can seem outdated or archaic. The temptation becomes to pick up the pace and play the game. But Chris Smith and John Pattison invites us to leave franchise faith behind and enter the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loves the church.