More national reviews are coming in for The Silver Squad: Rebels With Wrinkles, and they are fantastic! The novel won’t be published until January 17, but you’d be doing me a big favor if you preordered now. Just go to either the Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Powell’s Books website and type my name into […]
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Category: Book Reviews
Five Star Review for The Silver Squad: Rebels With Wrinkles
National reviews are coming in for The Silver Squad: Rebels With Wrinkles, and they are fantastic! The novel won’t be published until January 17, but you’d be doing me a big favor if you preordered now. Just go to either the Amazon or Barnes and Noble website and type my name into the search bar. […]
Review: The Art of Racing in the Rain
During my April college speaking tour, I read “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. It’s a novel about a golden retriever, Enzo, and his race-car-driving human. Enzo reminded me of Max, a golden retriever Deb and I had as our first dog after we got married. Yes, all dog books and […]
Day #8 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #8 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. Yeah, the math doesn’t make sense, but I feel it’s pushing it to call Time Is Irreverent: Ooh, It’s a Trilogy! my “eighth book.” Instead, it’s the entire hilarious three-volume Time Is Irreverent trilogy in one convenient, specially priced Kindle […]
Day #7 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #7 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with my latest novel, Doctor Refurb. “This hilarious SF novel pits a doctor and a time-traveling alien against eco catastrophe.”—BookLife by Publisher’s Weekly (editor’s pick) “This time-travel comedy is completely audacious, utterly bonkers, political AF (don’t expect it […]
Day #6 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #6 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with my return to nonfiction writing: Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer. Like so many other authors and musicians, this is my “What I did while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic project.” […]
Day #5 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #5 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for 16 Seconds. Part of this novel was inspired by an amazing class I took on the Middle East during my senior year in high school. I wrote this novel in 2019, […]
Day #4 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #4 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! This is the second novel in what would become the Time Is Irreverent Trilogy. Unfortunately, the advertising departments at Amazon and Facebook refused to allow me to use this […]
Day #3 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #3 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. After writing two nonfiction books, I switched to fiction. Time Is Irreverent is both hilarious and irreverent, and it introduced me to the concept of “review bombing.” Despite open-minded people loving the novel, conservative Christians (many who never even read […]
Day #2 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #2 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with the four-time award-winning Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico. “Join photographer extraordinaire Marty Essen and his intrepid wife Deb on their adventures through four Endangered Edens. You’ll be […]
Day #1 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days
Day #1 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We start with the six-time award-winning classic, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. “This is a wonderful book—a labor of love—that describes in soul-stirring language what it is like to live with the people, the animals, the birds, […]
Hits, Heathens, and Hippos cover reveal
Just arrived! The cover for my sixth book: Hits, Heathens, and Hippos. I don’t have a publication date yet, as I’m still evaluating publishing options. It could be as early as February or as late as November. I also have some great back cover blurbs from celebrities. Here’s one of them: “Hits, Heathens, and Hippos […]
Signed Marty Essen Books!
Avoid the Black Friday Crowds. Signed books make special gifts! For a limited time, I’m offering free U.S. shipping on all signed books and will also include a free signed copy of Endangered Edens with every purchase of two or more books. All books are Amazon #1 best-sellers in their respective categories. Here are the […]
Off to the editor!
Yay! I just sent Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for Sixteen Seconds off to my editor. After I wrote my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents (published in 2007), it took me nine years to publish Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico. […]
Elizabeth Warren’s breakup proposal is a mistake
I’m not a one-issue voter, but I’m disappointed that Elizabeth Warren called for the breakup of Amazon, Google, and Facebook. It feels kind of desperate to me. These are not like the Bell telephone companies that once had literal monopolies. Instead, they are on-line corporations that had competition from the beginning and just grew wildly […]
The dramatic turnaround of a depressing day
My books have always received great reviews from both amateur and professional reviewers. Cool Creatures, Hot Planet has received 88% 4 to 5-star reviews, Endangered Edens has received 94% 4 or 5-star reviews, and my latest, Time Is Irreverent is currently at 79% 4 to 5-star reviews. Because Time Is Irreverent is a controversial satire, I […]
The first major review of Time Is Irreverent
The normal process for books is to submit them to major reviewers months before publication, so that their comments can appear on the release date. Because Time Is Irreverent satirically skewers today’s Republicans and predicts their future course, I couldn’t follow the normal process and risk that it become dated before its release. Not that […]