Meanderings and Musings is a collection of true stories, short essays, humor, travelogues, and ruminations that entertain, inspire, and stir thought. Russell has a voice that is easy to hear as he takes you back to his animated childhood in the rural South. As he moves through adulthood, there are intriguing takes on academe where he spent his career, poignant observations, and delightful surprises. An intrepid traveler, Russell describes his trips in unusual ways and with characters who come to life. His deliberations engage and challenge. This book is worth taking time to read, savor, and revisit. How could you ask for more?

Russell’s first book, Cold Turkey at Nine: The Memoir of a Problem Child, tells of a life forever changed by his paranoid schizophrenic mother’s death at his father’s hands. In that book and in this one, which Kirkus Reviews notes is made of more cheerful stuff, Russell writes with unusual empathy for the struggles of others he comes to know. With curiosity, humor, and insight in this his second book of nonfiction, you will come to know an earlier America now unknown to most, and a world that gets smaller and more precious as we experience it.