Blue Ear Books

A few weeks ago, my younger brother surprised me when he asked if we could listen to the audiobook of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist together. He’s not much of a reader, but as we made the long drive home to Texas from a weekend of hiking in the Colorado mountains, he was the one who suggested we put something on. Now, I’m very much a reader, but we went into listening to this particular story together, both for the first time, with fresh ears. Blue Ear Books is a reader-supported publication.

The long, cumbersome process of handing over Camp Bucca prison to the Iraqis training as detention officers culminated with cadet graduation one late April day. Erin and I had graciously accepted the invitation from the Army National Guard instructors of the academy, who had quietly helped us identify sources within the student body.

My name is Cody LeRoy Wilson. I am a Vietnamese American, living through the Asian American diaspora experience. My mother is a first-generation immigrant of unusual circumstance: adopted by an American soldier and raised in rural West Virginia. Blue Ear Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My connection to my homeland was essentially cut off, and I grew up absent of Asian culture or tradition.

Haiti’s qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was a historic moment. After more than five decades away from football’s biggest tournament, Les Grenadiers returned to the global stage and gave Haitians in Haiti and around the world a reason to celebrate. The team faced Scotland, Brazil, and Morocco, three formidable opponents, and although Haiti lost all three matches, the performances demonstrated something important: the talent and potential exist.

Having snacks with an old friend on Monday, I told him about how Sunday had been the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, and how Daniel Ortega had declared that Nicaragua should not hold elections any more because they just open the door to interference from the United States. My friend didn’t respond well to my bitter laugh and old soldier’s grin. I felt that the revolution had now finally and totally died. My sarcastic remark was that it lasted 47 years and one day.

The books I list below go back to when I was in seventh grade and come up to just a year ago. They were crucial to the book I wrote but, as I have come to realize, they are also crucial to how I think of myself. My book, Fatal Second Helen: A Modern Veteran’s Iliad, is not exactly a memoir, but it does more than flirt with the idea. It is no surprise, then, that the books that built my book also served to build who I am. 1. The Iliad by Homer This is an ancient Greek poem about war.

For Rwanda, July 4 is Liberation Day: the day the genocide against the Tutsi was brought to an end after one hundred days of unimaginable darkness. For my family, it is the day hope returned. Blue Ear Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. On June 27, 1994, my father made one of the hardest decisions of his life. He left the orphanage. It was not because he wanted to save himself.

On January 12, 2010, as I headed to a rendezvous with some MINUSTAH staff members to discuss the possibility of expanding our collaboration, I learned that the meeting had been canceled. We had conducted a successful national awareness campaign on disability, and now we were thinking of organizing a follow-up activity with teachers, to help them gain some basic skills to accompany students with special needs. Blue Ear Books is a reader-supported publication.

We are getting ready for parts of California to burn down again this year, same as last year and every year since colonization. The Spanish, the Mexican, and now the U.S. periods have in common that they did not allow the native peoples to do the controlled burns they had practiced for thousands of years. The lack of controlled burns leads to uncontrolled wildfires, followed by uncontrollable flash flooding. Later in the year, our poorly managed watersheds will flood again.

Good evening (or good morning) to everyone within the Blue Ear Books Community. I hope this finds you all doing well. We’ll be moving our scheduled conversation (April 27th) to a later date in May of 2026 in order to accommodate our speaker. We hope this doesn’t inconvenience anyone. Please be expecting a post in the next few days as we nail down a pair of speakers for the coming months! John Singleton Consulting Editor Blue Ear Books Blue Ear Books is a reader-supported publication.