Poetry Feature: The Bric-a-Brac of Mickey Mack by Mickey Mack #bookreview #giveaway #poetry #comedy #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

Poetry /Comedy Satire Gift Rhyme Millennial Humor Silverstein Memory

Date Published: 04-15-2026

Publisher: The Tink and Tank Press

A wry poetry collection that captures the jarring sink-or-swim leap into adulthood. This book honors the limbo of exiting youth, a unique period where responsibility suddenly smashes the youthful optimist, crushing it under the crippling weight of adulthood. Twenty-somethings scatter across life's spectrum with some jobless and couch-surfing, while others marry, become parents, and buy a house. Everyone eventually finds themselves old enough to fight in foreign wars but too young to rent a car. It's the fast, brutal shift to an unguarded world, to bowling without bumpers. You've entered a chaotic soup of competing ambitions and subterfuge, where one hand offers help while the other conceals a knife. You're expected to be an adult without ever having been one, like seeing the ocean from afar and suddenly wrestling its waves. This book highlights the inevitable sense of crushing defeat and loss, but reveals the importance of laughing anyway. After all, life is a game of avoiding the consequences of your own actions. The Bric-a-Brac of Mickey Mack will hand you a mirror and dare you to laugh at its reflection.

Review

Reading this book felt like taking a tour through Mickey Mack's meaningful moments. 

The author writes with honesty, wit, and a clear affection for the people and experiences that have shaped his journey. 

The stories vary in tone and subject matter, yet they are united by a strong sense of humanity and perspective. 

It's a rewarding read for anyone who enjoys memoirs, personal essays, or stories that celebrate life's unexpected turns.

About the Author

Mickey Mack is a world-weary traveler and obsessive collector of life’s absurd talismans and trinkets. After years of eavesdropping on bar-stool confessions around the globe, he distills the Suffering Olympics of modern adulthood into witty, rhythmic heroic couplets.

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Poetry Feature: The Bric-a-Brac of Mickey Mack by Mickey Mack #giveaway #poetry #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

Poetry /Comedy Satire Gift Rhyme Millennial Humor Silverstein Memory

Date Published: 04-15-2026

Publisher: The Tink and Tank Press

A wry poetry collection that captures the jarring sink-or-swim leap into adulthood. This book honors the limbo of exiting youth, a unique period where responsibility suddenly smashes the youthful optimist, crushing it under the crippling weight of adulthood. Twenty-somethings scatter across life's spectrum with some jobless and couch-surfing, while others marry, become parents, and buy a house. Everyone eventually finds themselves old enough to fight in foreign wars but too young to rent a car. It's the fast, brutal shift to an unguarded world, to bowling without bumpers. You've entered a chaotic soup of competing ambitions and subterfuge, where one hand offers help while the other conceals a knife. You're expected to be an adult without ever having been one, like seeing the ocean from afar and suddenly wrestling its waves. This book highlights the inevitable sense of crushing defeat and loss, but reveals the importance of laughing anyway. After all, life is a game of avoiding the consequences of your own actions. The Bric-a-Brac of Mickey Mack will hand you a mirror and dare you to laugh at its reflection.

About the Author

Mickey Mack is a world-weary traveler and obsessive collector of life’s absurd talismans and trinkets. After years of eavesdropping on bar-stool confessions around the globe, he distills the Suffering Olympics of modern adulthood into witty, rhythmic heroic couplets.

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https://mybook.to/BricaBrackMickeyMack 

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Poetry Feature: The Bric-a-Brac of Mickey Mack by Mickey Mack #teaser #excerpt #giveaway #poetry #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

Poetry /Comedy Satire Gift Rhyme Millennial Humor Silverstein Memory

Date Published: 04-15-2026

Publisher: The Tink and Tank Press

A wry poetry collection that captures the jarring sink-or-swim leap into adulthood. This book honors the limbo of exiting youth, a unique period where responsibility suddenly smashes the youthful optimist, crushing it under the crippling weight of adulthood. Twenty-somethings scatter across life's spectrum with some jobless and couch-surfing, while others marry, become parents, and buy a house. Everyone eventually finds themselves old enough to fight in foreign wars but too young to rent a car. It's the fast, brutal shift to an unguarded world, to bowling without bumpers. You've entered a chaotic soup of competing ambitions and subterfuge, where one hand offers help while the other conceals a knife. You're expected to be an adult without ever having been one, like seeing the ocean from afar and suddenly wrestling its waves. This book highlights the inevitable sense of crushing defeat and loss, but reveals the importance of laughing anyway. After all, life is a game of avoiding the consequences of your own actions. The Bric-a-Brac of Mickey Mack will hand you a mirror and dare you to laugh at its reflection.

Excerpt

I sat across from him, he had a twisted distant gaze while he wracked his mind and grappled with a foolish phrase which was written on a note and shuffled in a mess of junk atop a desk ensconced in filth, no doubt the man was drunk. His name was Mickey Mack, both laser focused and aloof, fenced in by Bric-a-Brac unpacked and stacked up to the roof. A product of his times, so wise, yet dumber than a door. A man of vast experience and yet he’s such a bore. He’d traveled ’round the world and been to many foreign lands to simply say he had, to sit and sulk, his only plans. For “that’s what people do,” he’d say, “they travel to enjoy the petty world and what it offers every girl and boy.” Despite the fact that Mr. Mack had traveled far and wide he would do what’s done at home and find a bar to sit inside. And there, while many past him by, bemoaning life itself, it tortured Mickey for he couldn’t help but see himself. He realized now that time is gone, and that’s the way it is, and he, while living other people’s lives, had wasted his. And as a way, as best he could, expel the toxic bile, he has compiled every groan and gripe within a file. And written down, at last, now put together in a book the crying whines of all he heard from all the trips he took. A vapid, superficial twit, he sobered up somehow, and Mickey Mack looked up at me behind a furrowed brow, and as he squinted, leaning closer straining hard to see, He was looking in a mirror, for the hopeless fool was me.

 

 

About the Author

Mickey Mack is a world-weary traveler and obsessive collector of life’s absurd talismans and trinkets. After years of eavesdropping on bar-stool confessions around the globe, he distills the Suffering Olympics of modern adulthood into witty, rhythmic heroic couplets.

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Fiction Feature: Great Exploitations by K.R. Levin #bookreview #fiction #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

Fiction / Satire

Publication Date ‏: ‎ April 19, 2025

Publisher ‏: ‎ BearManor Media

Hollywood is brutal, especially for an aging TV writer who is not connecting with her audience. Unemployed Charlotte DeBlane finds herself at precisely that moment until she turns her tragic youth into a sparkly tweenaged dramedy.

The legendary Fable Studios snaps up her project as a vehicle for their newest hot starlet, Milary Stanton. Despite a tsunami of production nightmares, the show becomes a smash hit.

When the disappearance of an essential crew member wreaks of corporate foul play, Charlotte finds her dream job turned into a nightmare. Ultimately, the inevitable forces of money, power, and talent collide, forcing Charlotte to choose where her future leads.

K.R. has been working in Hollywood for more than four decades. Some of his early credits include special effects on Mystic Pizza, and Leadman on Breakin 2 is Electric Boogaloo. He also worked on the original Lizzie McGuire and went on to prop master many kids’ shows, from Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide to Wizards of Waverly Place and Lab Rats. K.R. lives in California with his therapist/author wife. 

 

Review

K.R. Levin examines ambition, power, and the consequences of unchecked desire. While using wit and humor Levin manages to tell his story with a hilarious and slapstick type of humor.

Through sharp storytelling and layered themes, Levin challenges readers to consider how success is often built on sacrifice.

 

 I have been working in Hollywood for over four decades. After graduating from Hampshire College in 1981, I moved to Los Angeles. Some of my early credits include special effects work on Mystic Pizza and serving as a Leadman on Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. I also worked on the original Lizzie McGuire and went on to serve as a prop master for many kid shows, including Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Lab Rats. I recently moved more into motion pictures, including Promising Young Woman and Lyle, Lyle Crocodile for Sony Pictures before officially retiring in 2024. I live in Camarillo, CA, with my therapist wife, Laura and two Bengal cats-Crouton and Bang Bang.

 

In addition to all that jazz, I am a licensed pilot since 1989. I served as crew chief on a privately-owned WWII bomber named Feeding Frenzy during the nineties. I have a 3d printing workshop and a large model train layout at my home. I regularly fly RC gliders and FPV aircraft out the back of my house.

 

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Fiction Feature: Great Exploitations: A Hollywood Fable by K.R. Levin #fiction #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

Fiction / Satire

Publication Date ‏: ‎ April 19, 2025

Publisher ‏: ‎ BearManor Media

Hollywood is brutal, especially for an aging TV writer who is not connecting with her audience. Unemployed Charlotte DeBlane finds herself at precisely that moment until she turns her tragic youth into a sparkly tweenaged dramedy.

The legendary Fable Studios snaps up her project as a vehicle for their newest hot starlet, Milary Stanton. Despite a tsunami of production nightmares, the show becomes a smash hit.

When the disappearance of an essential crew member wreaks of corporate foul play, Charlotte finds her dream job turned into a nightmare. Ultimately, the inevitable forces of money, power, and talent collide, forcing Charlotte to choose where her future leads.

K.R. has been working in Hollywood for more than four decades. Some of his early credits include special effects on Mystic Pizza, and Leadman on Breakin 2 is Electric Boogaloo. He also worked on the original Lizzie McGuire and went on to prop master many kids’ shows, from Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide to Wizards of Waverly Place and Lab Rats. K.R. lives in California with his therapist/author wife. 

 

 

 I have been working in Hollywood for over four decades. After graduating from Hampshire College in 1981, I moved to Los Angeles. Some of my early credits include special effects work on Mystic Pizza and serving as a Leadman on Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. I also worked on the original Lizzie McGuire and went on to serve as a prop master for many kid shows, including Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Lab Rats. I recently moved more into motion pictures, including Promising Young Woman and Lyle, Lyle Crocodile for Sony Pictures before officially retiring in 2024. I live in Camarillo, CA, with my therapist wife, Laura and two Bengal cats-Crouton and Bang Bang.

 

In addition to all that jazz, I am a licensed pilot since 1989. I served as crew chief on a privately-owned WWII bomber named Feeding Frenzy during the nineties. I have a 3d printing workshop and a large model train layout at my home. I regularly fly RC gliders and FPV aircraft out the back of my house.

 

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Fiction Feature: Corporate Almighty: 2098 by James Owens #bookreview #political #fiction #giveaway #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

 

Political Satire/Fiction

Date Published: October 28th, 2025

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

At the turn of the next century, a corporate oligarchy rules America with an iron fist. Commercial jingles have replaced the Top Forty, babies come from factories, and the race captivating the nation isn’t between political candidates. It’s the cutthroat competition to find the formula for No-Sog Stay-Crisp Cornflakes.

The battle pits cereal titan Todd Swindell, head of Flakes Alive Incorporated, against Chad Scandalman of the Great American Flake Company. When Scandalman hires a diminutive assassin named Twinkle to bump off his rival’s top chemist, it sparks a war of the flakes that makes the bloody feud of York and Lancaster look tame by comparison.

But not everyone in the Cornflake capital of Domino, Indiana, is happy with the status quo. Ziggie Wexler, an unemployed pipefitter and all-around average Joe, knows that something is deeply wrong with his country.

All history prior to 2040 has been banned, but old-timers whisper about the days when people still voted for their leaders. After Ziggie posts fiery polemics against the state to the Clandestine Journal, he becomes a marked man. But in a world built on lies, there’s one truth he’s sure of. Somebody needs to fight back.

 

Review

Exceptional! The settings and descriptions are vivid and real.

James Owens is a master of making the reader want to know what happens next.

The stakes are high and the action continues throughout the entire read. Perfectly paced to keep you flipping pages.

 

About the Author

Retired IT professional, James Owens is a trained computer engineer and technical documentation specialist who earned an A.A.S. in computer programming and a B.A. in English from Purdue University.

Immensely curious about human behavior, James spent the 1970s hanging out on the streets to observe people, many of whom became inspirations for his fictional characters. Later, he worked in cube farms at conservative insurance companies, where the idiosyncrasies of corporate personalities sparked his imagination.

James has spent the last decade reading and writing offbeat fiction about bizarre protagonists. Corporate Almighty: 2098, a dystopian tale about the rise of the corporation and the fall of democracy, follows his first two novels, Animal Candy and Pods of Bubbledumb: A Study in Mass Depravity.

Born and raised in an industrial suburb on the south edge of Chicago, James lives with his wife Sue and four cats in Evansville, Indiana.

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Political Fiction Feature: Corporate Almighty: 2098 by James Owens #releaseday #newbooks #giveaway #political #fiction #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

Political Satire/Fiction

Date Published: October 28th, 2025

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

At the turn of the next century, a corporate oligarchy rules America with an iron fist. Commercial jingles have replaced the Top Forty, babies come from factories, and the race captivating the nation isn’t between political candidates. It’s the cutthroat competition to find the formula for No-Sog Stay-Crisp Cornflakes.

The battle pits cereal titan Todd Swindell, head of Flakes Alive Incorporated, against Chad Scandalman of the Great American Flake Company. When Scandalman hires a diminutive assassin named Twinkle to bump off his rival’s top chemist, it sparks a war of the flakes that makes the bloody feud of York and Lancaster look tame by comparison.

But not everyone in the Cornflake capital of Domino, Indiana, is happy with the status quo. Ziggie Wexler, an unemployed pipefitter and all-around average Joe, knows that something is deeply wrong with his country.

All history prior to 2040 has been banned, but old-timers whisper about the days when people still voted for their leaders. After Ziggie posts fiery polemics against the state to the Clandestine Journal, he becomes a marked man. But in a world built on lies, there’s one truth he’s sure of. Somebody needs to fight back.

 

About the Author

Retired IT professional, James Owens is a trained computer engineer and technical documentation specialist who earned an A.A.S. in computer programming and a B.A. in English from Purdue University.

Immensely curious about human behavior, James spent the 1970s hanging out on the streets to observe people, many of whom became inspirations for his fictional characters. Later, he worked in cube farms at conservative insurance companies, where the idiosyncrasies of corporate personalities sparked his imagination.

James has spent the last decade reading and writing offbeat fiction about bizarre protagonists. Corporate Almighty: 2098, a dystopian tale about the rise of the corporation and the fall of democracy, follows his first two novels, Animal Candy and Pods of Bubbledumb: A Study in Mass Depravity.

Born and raised in an industrial suburb on the south edge of Chicago, James lives with his wife Sue and four cats in Evansville, Indiana.

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Political Fiction Feature: Corporate Almighty: 2098 by James Owens #political #satire #fiction #comingsoon #coverreveal #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

Political Satire/Fiction

Date Published: October 28th, 2025

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

At the turn of the next century, a corporate oligarchy rules America with an iron fist. Commercial jingles have replaced the Top Forty, babies come from factories, and the race captivating the nation isn’t between political candidates. It’s the cutthroat competition to find the formula for No-Sog Stay-Crisp Cornflakes.

The battle pits cereal titan Todd Swindell, head of Flakes Alive Incorporated, against Chad Scandalman of the Great American Flake Company. When Scandalman hires a diminutive assassin named Twinkle to bump off his rival’s top chemist, it sparks a war of the flakes that makes the bloody feud of York and Lancaster look tame by comparison.

But not everyone in the Cornflake capital of Domino, Indiana, is happy with the status quo. Ziggie Wexler, an unemployed pipefitter and all-around average Joe, knows that something is deeply wrong with his country.

All history prior to 2040 has been banned, but old-timers whisper about the days when people still voted for their leaders. After Ziggie posts fiery polemics against the state to the Clandestine Journal, he becomes a marked man. But in a world built on lies, there’s one truth he’s sure of. Somebody needs to fight back.

 

 

About the Author

Retired IT professional, James Owens is a trained computer engineer and technical documentation specialist who earned an A.A.S. in computer programming and a B.A. in English from Purdue University.

Immensely curious about human behavior, James spent the 1970s hanging out on the streets to observe people, many of whom became inspirations for his fictional characters. Later, he worked in cube farms at conservative insurance companies, where the idiosyncrasies of corporate personalities sparked his imagination.

James has spent the last decade reading and writing offbeat fiction about bizarre protagonists. Corporate Almighty: 2098, a dystopian tale about the rise of the corporation and the fall of democracy, follows his first two novels, Animal Candy and Pods of Bubbledumb: A Study in Mass Depravity.

Born and raised in an industrial suburb on the south edge of Chicago, James lives with his wife Sue and four cats in Evansville, Indiana.

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Satire Feature: Toys in Babylon by Patrick Finegan #satire #rabtbooktours @pat_finegan @RABTBookTours

 

A Language App Parody and Whodunnit

 

Satire

Date Published: August 15, 2024

 

 

Who murdered the mascot and spokes-bear of the world’s most successful foreign language app? Was it an executive, employee, investor, lover, or one of the company’s animated instructors – endearing cartoon personalities invested with the power of Artificial Intelligence? What began as a chain novel prompt along the lines of “It was a dark and stormy night” on a language app fan site morphed into a full-fledged novel and parody by the prize-winning author of Cooperative Lives. The story originally appeared online in thirteen riveting installments but is now expanded and available in book format in both English and German as the definitive parody, page turner, and murder mystery for anyone who has ever studied language with a cast of digital cartoon characters and an anthropomorphic mascot.

About the Author

Patrick Finegan was born during the latter half of the Eisenhower Administration and graduated during the Carter and Reagan Administrations from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Law School and Graduate School of Business. He worked more than thirty years in law, corporate finance, management consulting and risk management. He has a wife and grown daughter and is an avid student of foreign languages. He is the author of three published novels.

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Fantasy / Horror Feature: The Amber Menhir by Jonathan N. Pruitt #promo #releaseday #giveaway #fantasy #horror #satire #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

 

The Shadows of the Monolith: Book One

 

Fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy, Horror, Satire, Politics

Date Published: October 3, 2023

Publisher: Spinner Loom Press

 

“A GRIPPING DARK FANTASY THAT IMMERSES YOU IN A WORLD OF DEADLY POWER POLITIC AND CORRUPTION.”  Richard Moriarty – The Sun

 

With each new dawn, the celestial body known only as ‘Calamity’ draws closer – and with it the end of the world. Humanity’s only hope from oblivion rests in the menhirs, towering bastions of scholarship and imagination which cast long shadows across the lands. The scholars within the menhirs devote themselves selflessly to the discovery of new magic that will help avert the impending apocalypse … or so the masses have been made to understand.

  In a society divided between those with occult potential and lay citizens, Tara Langcraw is recruited into the Amber Menhir with great interest. The long-awaited heiress of a bloodline bearing the rarest of the six magical disciplines, time manipulation, she is expected to flourish within this noble citadel of learning, as are her friends and fellow recruits, Roland Ward and Peony Bianchi.

They soon find, however, that those who fail to meet expectations, or who dare to challenge the prevailing order, put more than their marks on the line. For the menhir squirms with rivalries, and those who stand against the status quo may not stand for very long.

 

JONATHAN N. PRUITT

The Amber Menhir, book one of The Shadows of the Monolith series, marks the debut of high fantasy author Jonathan N. Pruitt. A lifelong educator who has taught around the world, Pruitt enjoys spinning spellbinding tales of dark magic and political intrigue. When not toiling away on writing projects, Pruitt can be found traversing about the great outdoors. For more information, visit www.TheShadowsoftheMonolith.com.

 

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