Mike Strong
HPPR Radio Readers Book LeaderMike Strong is a photographer, videographer, software programmer, tech writer, and web programmer. He is a former astronomic and geodetic surveyor/computer, massage therapist, baker and—of course, bartender and waiter (“proudly so!”). He also worked as a newspaper and radio reporter in Nebraska and upstate New York. He holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Kansas. Known in the Kansas City dance communities for his dance photography and videography, as well as for his online publication, www.KCDance.com, Mike has focused on dance since 1994 and continues to do so.
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“Made in China” starts in my home, and your home. It starts in Hays and in Garden City, and in Topeka and in Amarillo and in any town. -
In “Made in China,” Amelia Pang tells us what happens to individuals caught in a complex tangle of responsibilities, corporate practices and relationships and the treatment of human beings across the world. -
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Made in China” by Amelia Pang. -
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” by Christy Lefteri.In a non-linear narrative such as this book, you might want to start with the author’s note. It’s at the end. She tells us that she felt compelled to write a book on refugees as she volunteered in 2016 and 2017 at a UNICEF refugee center in Athens, Greece. -
As much as Christy Lefteri gives us word pictures in her search to let us see the world of refugees, there are sometimes worthy companion media. In this case, a documentary, which was actually my impetus to write about “The Beekeeper of Aleppo.” -
Most journey stories start in point A and go through all the other points, with some adventure at each point, until we get to point Z. “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” is all over the route. And not as a flashback. Just scenes from each location, not in order, building to an overall sense through chaos of circumstance. -
In “The Beekeeper of Aleppo,” Christy Lefteri ponders what it means “to see.” One of her two main characters, Afra, the wife of Nuri, is blind, following the death of her son. -
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “The Cellist of Sarajevo” by Stephen Galloway.As I looked up the Bosnian War and the Balkans and Yugoslavia, I kept seeing the word “diverse” to describe the population of the area. Yes, diverse, but at each other’s throats. -
Screenwriter Angus MacPhail, who wrote several screenplays for Alfred Hitchcock is credited with the term “MacGuffin.” A MacGuffin is the device which drives the plot but is unimportant by itself to the movie or book. -
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “The Cellist of Sarajevo” by Stephen Galloway.Stephen Galloway’s take off on the Vaso Miskin massacre in Sarajevo on the 27th of May 1992 is not about the worst of the massacres and killings in the Bosnian war.
