In the tradition of Will Rogers' homespun humor, Taylor Reese chronicles the comedy in everyday life in a book brimming with wit and wisdom -- Sharyn McCrumb, NY Times Best Selling Author

One reviewer said of Taylor Reese:  I expected his humor to be like everyone else's...explosive, slam-bang, hurried-out, one-liners--kind of like New York and Hollywood have conditioned us for.  It took me a few pages to realize the difference, and from that point on I couldn't put them down.  There is something about real human beings in small town settings that has universal appeal.
     Emyl Jenkins said of Humor Is Where You Find It, "These heartfelt stories hold a valuable lesson worth remembering as we race towards the 21st Century: true humor needs no fancy props, TV cameras or visual pyrotechnics."

Mitchell News-Journal about  From Here To There, review by Jimmy Autrey II 

     Western North Carolina has more than its share oftalented artists.  We're not only blessed with great painters, sculptors, and musicians--we even have tons of wonderful writers living in our communities. Taylor Reese is just one of the many great writers in the Tri-County area.  This Yancey County resident has written several popular books over the years, and this week's pick is one of them.
Reese's book From here to There:  A Boy's Tale has something for anyone who enjoys a great nostalgia piece. To make this interesting piece of literature, Reese delves into his own childhood memories from the 1920s and 1930s.  Disguised as a character named Todd, Reese records everything from his love/hate relationship with his first grade teacher to a reading of his slaveholding great grandfather's will.
     The reader gets a delightful chance to follow Todd/Reese from his firm memory of childhood all the way through his senior year of high school. From Here to There is a fascinating read for anyone who is interested in the "good old days" when families dutifully bowed their heads to pray before every meal
and 50 cents a week could pay for piano lessons.
     Todd's/Reese childhood is much simpler than the lives of children today.  The world described in the pages of this wonderful book can be looked at as a paradise by those who are terrified by television images of school violence and rampant teenage drug use across the country. The people in Reese's book are far from being perfect humor beings, but they are flawed in completely different ways than people are nowadays.
     That's what makes this book's world seem so foreign to the modern reader. Perhaps the most fascinating passages of the entire
book are those involving the race relations that took place in the rural North Carolina county of Bertie (where both "Todd" and Taylor Reese grew up).  Many of the ways of African Americans are treated (both good
and bad) in Todd's town are quite surprising upon a first reading. It is certainly an educational experience to hear what really went on in the South in the early post-slavery years.  After all, Reese's stories can be taken as truth since he actually lived the tale being
told. If you're one of those people (like me) that always loved it when your grandparents told stories about their youth, then this book is definitely for you.
     Reese tells his story with a deeply honest and intelligent insight into this now nonexistent America. Don't miss this chance to experience a world that most of us will never know.  Come see what life's lessons "Todd" has for you.


Jimmy Autrey II wrote an Amazon review:
     Taylor Reese has produced yet another work of superior writing with his new poetry book, A Glimpse at Life.  Poetry fans will definitely want to take a look at Reese's brilliant poetry. Reese explores Southern themes like the natural world with sincerity and insight.  He explores patriotic themes with poems like "Our Flag" (a poem that should be read by anyone still grieving over the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001).  He explores incidents in a person's
everyday life that touch individuals more than they realize.
You should definitely check this book out.                                                        
A Glimpse at Life - A book of poetry divided into four categories:  Nature, Encouragement, Humor and Miscellany. In a manner reminiscent of the late Will Rogers, these poems are homespun and down-to-earth.  Some pages may tend to rub salt into the seams of the insincere and some may tend to pick at the veneer of the falsely pious or the hypocrite, but they are poems that will speak to all people as they relive their own similar experiences.

Ibsen, move over!
 
Reviewer: J. Stephen McDaniel, M.D., Clinical
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine from Atlanta, Georgia, US

If you identified with Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" and Nora in "A Doll's House" early feminist plays in which love alone promised a woman happiness and sin against one's society didn't count, you will love Black Horse White Rider.
     With historical accuracy, Jack R. Pyle's version pits funloving, teenage abolitionist Elizabeth Chadwycke, falling in love with and marrying philandering, southern plantation slaveholder, Clay Greenleaf. The pace is deadly as Clay slowly, steadily, passive aggressively, tethers his bride, until the leash is so short, she wonders if she controls even her own thoughts.
     Resistance carries a hefty legal price: Clay will get custody of their two daughters, whom he rarely sees and doesn't even like because they're not boys. When Elizabeth finally escapes with the girls, powerful Clay seeks revenge. The chase takes the reader through a labyrinth of surprises to an ending so rewarding (yet predictable), it couldn't be guessed!
     Don't miss this great read!


THE SOUND OF DISTANT THUNDER

What happens to the average citizen when the law
fails to deliver justice?  There is always a developing anger, a resentment, a disappointment. Finally, there is a cold, sullen reconciliation--an acceptance that "the system" has not done its job.
     What happens in the mind of the independent thinker, the rugged individualist, when justice goes awry?  What happens to the person who already feels his freedom has been eroded by daily intrusions of the law?
     The Sound of Distant Thunder is a fictional story,
but what happens to the Prices and the Pendleys echoes the thunder we hear when smart lawyers and bad laws combine to make a mockery of the legal system.
     Set in a fictional county in Western North Carolina, Jack R. Pyle tells a tale that is all too real; a tale that makes us stop to think of what might be our own reaction to a personal injustice.
     All the members of the Pendley clan are faced with a murder of their youngest and the failure to convict the killer.  We'd prefer not to hear it, but this is an injustice that could happen to any of us in today's world.  We can understand the emotions that are involved because we are allowed to see inside the heads of the people involved in this intricately plotted story of a senseless killing.
     While this is a classic story of murder and revenge, it is also a tale so close to home that we must test our own reaction to a similar situation that could occur in our own lives.  These are real people caught in the web of fate.
     The Sound of Distant Thunder is recommended as a thought-provoking story as well as a good read.  The use of seven points of view is unusual, but this is an unusual novel.

THE GOLD BUG OF FARROW POINT
Parkway Publishers, Boone, NC
ISBN 1-887905-78-2
Reviewed by schuyler kaufman, author of Dear Mouse...

     Prompted by Poe's famous short story, George and Ellen Hilton decode a  mysterious note while vacationing with their parents on Florida's Gulf coast. This young-adult mystery features smugglers, a baffling cipher, and a girl who does the brain work while the boy blunders into the villain's toils, updating the classic Nancy Drew /Hardy Boys tradition. Pyle casts the story in first person, alternating the point of view between big brother George and his sister Ellen.
     Pyle's protagonists seem to be in their early teens. Ellen is old enough to enjoy window-shopping and beauty treatments; George is at least a year older, but doesn't have a driver's license. Even as they team up like chopsticks to solve the mystery, they bicker and one-up each other like real siblings. One of Pyle's best lines comes when Ellen spots George racing home, having earlier slipped away without bringing his sister (a family no-no): "He was in deep trouble. I couldn't wait to tell him."
     Pyle gives both kids somewhat mature vocabularies for their ages. After George fails to look as if he's window-shopping, Ellen tells him, "Oh, boy, am I disappointed in you" (a simple "Sludge-brain!" would have worked for me). When Ellen tries to coach him in decoding the note, George protests, "Yes, but the letters in this code--or in any equal number of words--are not going to follow the order of the Printer's Frequencies." Although some passages read rather heavily, such as Ellen's step-by-step descriptions of her (somewhat flawed) decoding process, the story is a good yarn. Unlike  traditional mystery heroines, Ellen reports George's disappearance the minute she knows of it, rather than dashing off to "rescue" him without telling anyone.
     Generous elder relatives may want to buy this book
for young readers who thrill to secret codes and young detectives.