It is a vanity project and a writing closet, a treasure chest for news, views and reviews.

More prosaically, it provides a store house for my writing. Some of it is quirky – poems, sayings and asides. There are movie and book reviews, profiles and other articles from my past and present sojourn as a journalist. Plus my new book — The Dream Machine: A Novel of Future Past!

Lester Jacobson in black without glasses
The Dream Machine
Novel

The Dream Machine: A Novel of Future Past

A thrilling, highly imaginative and tautly written journey back in time to find “the tool to unrule” a post-American fascism.

“Brilliant,” says National Book Award winner and MacArthur Genius Fellow Charles Johnson of “The Dream Machine: A Novel of Future Past.”

“A great tale, brilliantly told,” says violist and international recording artist Roger Chase. “There are surprises on every page, and the end, which comes only too soon, is a coda of marvelous drama, invention and imagination.”

Wandering

In 1967 and ’68 I boarded with an English family while studying history at University College in London. But mostly I traveled. I started out hiking the city, miles and miles a day, for London, with its crazy-quilt streets and magnificent Victorian neighborhoods, was a walker’s paradise. After I had London mapped out I took the train to Manchester to romance a girl I had met the year before in New Orleans, and when that didn’t work out I widened the circle, first to Paris over a long weekend in the fall, then to Germany, Russia and Poland over the long winter break.   Swapping traveling for classes was just fine with me, as long as my draft board and my parents didn’t find out. After all, I figured, there’s no better education than wandering free, meeting people and seeing the world.

In March I caught a cheap flight to Chicago to reconnect with my family and re-enroll at the University of Illinois, then flew back to London, packed a backpack, took a train to the south coast, and crossed the English Channel on a boat from New Haven to Dieppe, a four-hour, 90-mile crossing.

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Political Animal

The smartest people I know are fierce conservatives. The most compassionate are bleeding-heart liberals. Where is the Solomon who can cleave them together?

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