Toto’s music was the first to make me really appreciate stereo music. It has complexity, and yet there’s a very appealing beat to it.

I was playing this so loud in the car that our 8-year-old told me to turn it down cuz she was embarrassed, lol!!

This is a kids’ book, but a fascinating introduction into historical forensic anthropology. In some cases they were able to actually indentify the remains they found by name. In others, simply the reconstruction of the person’s life was most interesting.

Acedia, which is related to inactivity, laziness, and that dreaded “evil” sloth, was not a term I had ever encountered before. It seems to resonate with me though, and I’m devoting some study to it now.

This isn’t entirely a book on acedia. In truth it is at its best when covering Norris’s personal life and development—her difficulties fitting in as a child (and later in life), and especially the long illnesses and loss of her husband.

When she writes “outside” her head she is at her very best. Dakota and Cloister Walk are better, I’d agree, but this is the best Kathleen Norris book I’ve read in a good while.

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when gasoline prices rose from under eighty cents to the staggering price of $1.40 a gallon, the United States government implemented measures to reduce oil imports and improve energy efficiency.

Flash forward twenty-plus years. Larger vehicles are again the norm, gas prices top $4.00 a gallon, and development and consumption across the world are rampant. The environment is more at risk than ever. What to do?

Enter New York Times columnist and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman, and his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution, and How It Can Renew America.

Hot, flat & crowded are concepts that are, individually, not new. “Hot” refers to global warming, an issue that has become increasingly, well, hot, recently, especially during the last election. “Flat” is an idea presented by Mr. Friedman in his previous bestseller, The World is Flat, and represents the level economic playing field and globalization. “Crowded” indicates humanity’s continued growth & expansion, and its negative effects on biodiversity and the world’s limited resources.

Friedman’s solution to “hot” & “crowded” is to utilize the U.S. (& potentially global) markets. He suggests a competition, largely enforced by government regulation and taxing, to stimulate the U.S. to become more green than China. The goals here are two-fold: to reduce dependence on foreign oil, thereby depriving “petrodictators” and potential terrorists a livelihood; and to help preserve Earth’s ecosystems and resources and, thereby, ourselves.

I listened to the abridged audio version of this book and would probably recommend reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded instead. With so many concepts and so much information, you’ll want to take your time with it.

This was amazing. I had read the David McCullough book a few years ago, and would highly recommend it. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney are the Adamses, in all their complexities, humanity, and humor. Makeup, settings – everything set you in the very real times & places. A wonderful miniseries.

Tasty, but fairly ummm, “provocative,” digestion-wise.

This is a series that we can sit down with our daughter and all enjoy – get some serious laughs from – each for own reasons. Most of the innunedo is over our daughter’s head but she loves the slapstick, and my husband & I are appreciating again how truly funny Robin Williams is.

This was a truly beautiful book, its images captivating. So many pictures to be taken, so little time!

This is one of the most delightful films I’ve seen in a long time. Frances McDormand is just priceless – reminds me a bunch of Emma Thompson. I loved the light irony and wit, all of it stretched across the canvass of a coming dark and scary time. This is a film I could own and watch again and again.

I always enjoy a well-done piece of historical fiction. Granted, sometimes it can be too well done, when the history outweighs the fiction.

This is not the case with Midwife of the Blue Ridge, by Christine Blevins. As a first-time novel, this is a pretty good book.

It’s the mid-1700s, and midwife-apprentice Maggie Duncan comes to the American colonies as an indentured servant. After surviving a harrowing voyage and the unwanted attentions of a British nobleman, Maggie arrives in Virginia and is purchased by Seth Martin to help his family on their homestead. Though her life with the Martin family is difficult and sometimes dangerous, the midwife makes friends and finds a place among the settlers. Longhunter Tom Roberts is present as Maggie’s sometime love interest.

Blevins included a lot of detail about life in colonial America that was new to me, especially the elements of day-to-day existence. I was not always clear, though, on whether this book was trying to be a romance, an adventure story, historical fiction, or a combination of all of them. I found the instances where Maggie was practicing her midwifery skills fascinating. I would have loved to have seen some notes on where the author found her information on eighteenth-century herbalism and medical practices. Also, there are a few somewhat violent scenes that might not appeal to those looking for a gentle read.