RANTS, RAVES, RUMINATIONS, AND RAMBLIFICATIONS: MUSINGS FROM A HAMLET
by Jonathan May

Publisher: Hollow Square Press/CreateSpace, 2013
ISBN-10: 1507881789        ISBN-13: 978-1507881781

(Available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores or through your local bookstore. The Kindle edition is available from Amazon)

His life and the lives of others. A place over time. Kinfolks and personalities. Problems and prospects. Fears and follies. Dogs and dreams. Books and motion pictures. The passing of time.

In essays written for this collection as well as drawn from other sources, the author reminisces and reflects, much of his attention given to his earlier and later years in Sawyerville, a small hamlet in the West Central Alabama. The cover itself is a detail from one of the older structures in that community, and the weathering of the wood and the sturdiness of the brick reflect something of his concerns.

This book and the companion volume Telling Stories, Fragments of a Life and the memoir of his mother's family The Turbervilles of Greensboro, Alabama: Memories of a Family provide as good an account of the family, life and times, and some of the opinions of Jonathan May as the world is likely to see. For that possibly the world might be grateful. All of these are tell-somes instead of tell-alls, and the author does do a lot of speculation, carefully (he thinks) labeled.