Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines by Jeannine Davis-KimballMy review
Saw her PBS/National Geographic special on Amazons and it was really good. Would really like to get my hands on this book
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Jeannine Davis-Kimball: Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines
Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines by Jeannine Davis-KimballSaw her PBS/National Geographic special on Amazons and it was really good. Would really like to get my hands on this book
Friday, September 19, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Have Now::: Melody Beattie: Stop Being Mean to Yourself
Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding The True Meaning of Self-Love by Melody BeattieMy review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have this on audiotape, wish I had it on cd and in book form. I loved this book/audio. If you liked Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, you'll definitely like this one. If you didn't like that book, you might enjoy this anyway...
Now own
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Friday, September 5, 2008
Winifred Watson: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (and 3 other books)
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred WatsonMy review
was watching the "special features" on the DVD of the movie and found out it was a book from that. Her son has commentary in the "how it came to be" type section. And it was pointed out that she sold the movie rights 3 times! Each time, something came up and shelved it. One time, Billie Burke (? I think), the one that played the Gilda the Good Witch in "The Wizard of Oz" was to play Miss Pettigrew, the role in the movie is played by Frances McDormand (again spelling, not at me swiftest this morning, LOL)
The author was told that this novel was too risque to print at the time, and the only way they would print is if she wrote another book as well, so she did and they did...
So now I know about the book, and would love to read it and the other 3 she wrote.
Odd Shoes (Portway Reprints)by Winifred Watson
Fell Top (Portway Reprints)by Winifred Watson
Jane Austen in London by Winifred Watson
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Donna Farhi: The Breathing Book: Vitality and Good Health Through Essential Breath Work
The Breathing Book: Vitality & Good Health Through Essential Breath Work by Donna FarhiMy review
I think I very much need this book! My breathing techniques need serious work!
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Monday, September 1, 2008
Vajragupta: Buddhism: Tools for Living Your Live
Buddhism: Tools for Living Your Life by VajraguptaMy review
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From Goodreads:
A guide for those seeking a meaningful spiritual path while living everyday lives full of families, work, and friends. Vajragupta gives clear explanations of Buddhist teachings and the necessary guidance on how to apply these to enrich our busy and complex lives. The personal stories, examples, exercises, and questions in this book help transform Buddhist practice into more than just a fine set of ideals. They make the path of ethics, meditation, and wisdom a tangible part of our lives.
Vajragupta, born Richard Staunton in London, is experienced in teaching Buddhism to students of all ages.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tate Hallaway: Tall, Dark and Dead
Tall, Dark & Dead by Tate HallawayA delightful new comedy about witches, vampires, and the search for the perfect man. Recovering witch Garnet Lacey manages Wisconsin's premier occult bookstore. And a fringe benefit of the job is getting customers like Sebastian Von Traum-piercing brown eyes, a sexy accent, and a killer body. The only thing missing is an aura. Which means he's dead. And that means trouble. So what's a girl to do if she's hot for a dead man walking? Run like hell-and take full advantage of the nights
Friday, August 29, 2008
Jane Geniesse
Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark by Jane GeniesseMy review
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From Goodreads:::::
Never mind that upon her death in 1993, the then 100-year-old Dame Freya Stark rated a three-column obit in The New York Times. Mention her name to most Americans, and it will elicit a "Freya who?" The tales and travails of this romantic traveler, who marched alone into the Middle East from Persia to Yemen, discovering lost cities and creating an anti-Nazi intelligence system along the way, are captured in this compelling biography by former New York Times reporter Jane Fletcher Geniesse.
The author unveils not the fearless wanderer whose mappings and 30 books brought Stark awards from the likes of the Royal Geographical Society and made her a darling of British society. Instead Stark is seen as humble, insecure, and forever caught in the role of perpetual alien--be it when the English-born child grows up in Italy, where her mother lives in scandal, or when she plunges alone into the East, a feat never before accomplished by a Westerner.
An unwilling iconoclast whose love of travel, she would say, began as an infant when her father carried her in a basket over the Dolomites, Stark longed for the social security of the times: marriage and children. Proposals fell through, on occasion her beloved was married, or the romantic emotions she felt went unrequited--and besides, as a friend later pointed out, marriage would have spoiled her with its confinements. Rising above depression, self-imposed ostracism, and her numerous illnesses, Stark learned Arabic and how to climb mountains, map, partake in geographical digs, and find a niche in strange cultures.
Initially ridiculed for her passionate fondness of the Middle East, her writings ultimately generated vast interest for that mysterious part of the world, where she was surprisingly embraced, made privy to political movements closed to most foreigners, and even shown precious Islamic documents. At times a nurse, a war correspondent, a negotiator, Stark was a one-woman revolution of her time. Geniesse's intoxicating documentation of her life not only serves to stir up new interest in Stark's many books; it also ensures that the name Freya Stark will live on long after her obituary is but a scrap of yellowed, crackling newsprint. --Melissa Rossi
Craig Doyle: Travel: Where to Go When
Travel: Where to Go When by Craig DoyleMy review
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From Goodreads:::
The Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel series are to be seen clutched in many tourists' hands across the world, and rightly so. If Travel: Where to Go When (edited by Craig Doyle) is designed to be pored over at home rather taken en voyage that has allowed the publishers to produce a handsome, large-scale volume guaranteed to set you dreaming of exotic faraway places.
This is the perfect holiday planner, concentrating on the world's most desirable travel locations, with specific attention paid to when it is best to visit them. The team of consultants (acting under Doyle's expert direction) have provided a series of concise and informative essays on everything from the wonders of the Galapagos Islands to the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, and from the mule trails of the Cinque Terre to the highly civilised streets of Boston, USA. The latter destination is a good example of precisely what the book does well: pithy, not-a-word-wasted essays giving all the essential information on the destination, with a sidebar on the left of the page detailing how to get there, suggested accommodation and restaurants along with all the information about the weather you're likely to need (the latter is particularly useful -- how often have you seen abroad tourists either underdressed or overdressed, not having done their homework?). On the right hand side of the large, eye-catching spreads are historical details -- never couched in dry prose, just a concise and lively presentation of the facts. A major plus, of course, is the sumptuous photography; everything from a brightly painted, flower-bedecked skeleton at the Mexican Day of the Dead to a glowingly lit night canal in Amsterdam does perfect justice to its subject. --Barry Forshaw
Stephen Fry: Making History
Making History by Stephen FryMy review
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From GoodReads:
Those of us who have already discovered Stephen Fry know him as the brilliant British comedian behind TV series such as Jeeves & Wooster and Blackadder, and the author of two enormously funny novels, The Liar and The Hippopotamus. But his new film (in which he plays Oscar Wilde) and his new novel (this one) represent a somewhat alarming departure from his previous work: They're more serious. Though humor is still an essential ingredient of both, Fry's fans are finally getting to witness the emotional depth that this brilliant polymath usually keeps hidden.
In Making History, Fry has bitten off a rather meaty chunk by tackling an at first deceptively simple premise: What if Hitler had never been born? An unquestionable improvement, one would reason--and so an earnest history grad student and an aging German physicist idealistically undertake to bring this about by preventing Adolf's conception. And with their success is launched a brave new world that is in some ways better than ours--but in most ways even worse. Fry's experiment in history makes for his most ambitious novel yet, and his most affecting. His first book to be set mostly in America, it is a thriller with a funny streak, a futuristic fantasy based on one of mankind's darkest realities. It is, in every sense, a story of our times.
From the Hardcover edition.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Mary Doria Russell: A Thread of Grace
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria RussellMy review
Amanda recommended this to me, thought I'd like it.
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Review from GoodReads:
published December 6th 2005 by Ballantine Books
binding Paperback
isbn 0449004139 (isbn13: 9780449004135)
pages 464
description
Mary Doria Russell's extraordinary and complex historical novel, A Thread of Grace, is the kind of book that you will find yourself haunted by long after finishing the last page. It opens with a group of Jewish refugees being escorted to safe-keeping by Italian soldiers. After making the arduous journey over a steep mountain pass, they are welcomed into a small village with warm food and clean beds. They have barely laid their heads to rest when news is received that Mussolini has just surrendered Italy to Hitler, putting them in danger yet again. This opening sequence is a grim foreshadowing of the heart-breaking journey these characters will experience in their struggle for survival.
The rich fictional narrative is woven through the factual military maneuvers and political games at the end of WW II, sharing a little-known story of a group of Italian citizens that sheltered more than 40,000 Jews from grueling work camp executions. Rather than the bleak and hopeless feeling that might be expected, the novel has the opposite effect; it reminds us that just as there will always be war, crime, and death, so too will there be good people who selflessly sacrifice themselves to ease the suffering of others. Perhaps best of all, Russell succinctly opens and closes her writing with short pieces that bookend the story with the force of a freight train. Her moving finale wraps up her narrative in the present day, with a death bed scene that's sure to rip the heart out of readers of every faith and ancestry.
On the surface, Russell's third novel may seem quite different from her earlier works. Both The Sparrow and its sequel, Children of God , were futuristic stories about Earth's first contact with alien life forms, but a closer look reveals several similarities. Fans of her earlier books will be pleased to find that Emilio Sandoz, the charismatic Jesuit priest from the first two books, finds new life in Renzo Leoni--A Thread of Grace's charming and haunted chameleon. The two have different circumstances and histories, but both characters are made of the same cloth--tormented by their consciences and plagued by unrequited love. Also similar to her earlier books, the characters in A Thread of Grace don't all enjoy a happy ending. A note in the reader's guide tells us that Russell flipped a coin to determine the fate of some of the characters. This may be upsetting for many readers, particularly those used to Hollywood endings, but it does serve as a frank reminder of the arbitrary nature of war and death. --Victoria Griffith
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
L.T. Meade: The Girls of St. Wode's
The Girls of St. Wode's by L.T. MeadeMy review
Okay Abigail, you've got me curious yet again...this looks like a young adult/childrens book from years ago taking place in England. Right there you have me, but just looking at the cover design kinda intrigued me as well. So will keep an eye out for it.
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Rene Barjavel: L'Enchanteur
L'Enchanteur by René BarjavelMy review
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would like to get this one to brush up on french.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Fritz Haeg: Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn by Fritz HaegMy review
I heard about this idea on tv some time ago and thought that it was a good idea. Just have to have the energy and will power to dig up your yard and start over, LOL.
Wish List
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Manifesto callout, special treatment: Edible Estates is an attack on the front lawn and everything it has come to represent!
Edible Estates is an ongoing series of projects to replace the front lawn with edible garden landscapes responsive to culture, climate, context and people!
Edible Estates reconciles issues of global food production and urbanized land use with the modest gesture of a small domestic garden!
Edible Estates is a practical food-producing initiative, a place-responsive landscape design proposal, a scientific horticultural experiment, a conceptual land-art project, a defiant political statement, a community out-reach program and an act of radical gardening!
Edible Estates is nothing new; growing our own food is the first thing we did when we stopped being nomadic and started being "civilized"!
The Edible Estates project proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn with a highly productive edible landscape. It was initiated by architect and artist Fritz Haeg on Independence Day, 2005, with the planting of the first regional prototype garden in the geographic center of the United States, Salina, Kansas. Since then three more prototype gardens have been created, in Lakewood, California; Maplewood, New Jersey and London, England. Edible Estates regional prototype gardens will ultimately be established in nine cities across the United States.
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn documents the first four gardens with personal accounts written by the owners, garden plans and photographs illustrating the creation of the gardens--from ripping up the grass to harvesting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs. Essays by Haeg, landscape architect Diana Balmori, garden and food writer Rosalind Creasy, author Michael Pollan and artist and writer Lesley Stern set the Edible Estates project in the context of larger issues concerning the environment, global food production and the imperative to generate a sense of community in our urban and suburban neighborhoods. This smart, affordable and well-designed book also includes reports and photographs from the owners of other edible front yards around the country, as well as helpful resources to guide you in making your own Edible Estate.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 61)
SeriouslyJerome
SeriouslyJerome rated it: 4 of 5 stars
06/13/08
bookshelves: gardening, politics
Read in June, 2008
recommended to SeriouslyJerome by: Kerri
What a great gift from Kerri! And it wasn't even my birthday... it was her birthday!
I thought this would be a how-to book, but the author clearly states it's not. It's more of a brochure/pamphlet for performance art, because that's what he's done - his lawn conversions are part of his artistic & political expression.
It was motivating for me, who is already a convert to the edible landscape plan. It was a couple of years ago that I saw a news report about a local lady who ha...more What a great gift from Kerri! And it wasn't even my birthday... it was her birthday!
I thought this would be a how-to book, but the author clearly states it's not. It's more of a brochure/pamphlet for performance art, because that's what he's done - his lawn conversions are part of his artistic & political expression.
It was motivating for me, who is already a convert to the edible landscape plan. It was a couple of years ago that I saw a news report about a local lady who had converted her front yard into a garden. What I heard was, watering our front lawns (especially in SoCal,) is a complete waste. A waste of water & money. $$$ So my desire to ditch the front lawn has only grown since then. I won't let the boys play out front, so it's not even used for recreation. And we already have strawberries growing out front. After awhile, the whole yard will be converted!
We have big plans for our front yard, which requires money we don't have at the moment, but we can start with what we have....less
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Vicki
Vicki rated it: 4 of 5 stars
07/13/08
Read in July, 2008
This is a quick read, with 4 or 5 essays at the beginning about the tradition and wastefulness of the front lawn, and the idea of planting edible plants in the front. Stories of 5 Edible Estates gardens follow, and then there are several more short bits about people in different gardening zones who have dug up their front lawns and planted veggies. It made me want to read more gardening books!
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Jenn Gardner
Jenn rated it: 5 of 5 stars
01/30/08
Read in January, 2008
I suppose I'm biased because I work at Arthouse, where we currently have a Friz Haeg exhibition on view, and are getting ready to plant Edible Estates Regional Prototype #5 here in Austin - but this is a smart and attractive book about an important topic. Everyone plant some veggies!
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Richelle Reid
Richelle rated it: 4 of 5 stars
08/26/08
bookshelves: currently-reading
Also an inspiring read. I like how it showcases more 'typical' american families converting their front lawns into veggie gardens - and is an honest look at the joys and challenges, and the level of commitment, this kind of a decision makes.
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Kaitlyn Dunnett: Scone Cold Dead
Scone Cold Dead by Kaitlyn DunnettMy review
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When her career ended with a knee injury, Scottish dancer Liss MacCrimmon returned home to Moosetookalook, Maine. But though teaching dance to the local children, helping her aunt run the town’s Scottish Emporium and starting a romance with neighbor and former classmate Dan Ruskin has kept her busy, she misses the life of a professional dancer.So she’s delighted when her old Scots company, Strathspey, arrives in her hometown. Liss arranges a reception for the troupe and even bakes her own Scottish cocktail scones. But when the company manager, who’s been making life miserable for the performers, bites into one and dies, Liss knows her batch has been replaced. Someone’s hiding something—and Liss won’t rest till the jig is up!
Kaitlyn Dunnett: Kilt Dead
Kilt Dead by Kaitlyn DunnettMy review
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As a professional Scottish dancer, Liss MacCrimmon has performed strathsprays and reels, jigs and Highland flings until a knee injury cuts her career short. Returning to her hometown of Moosetookalook, Maine, she decides to help her aunt run her Scottish emporium. But when murder rears its ugly head in the idyllic, quiet village, Liss will have to add sleuthing to her repertoire...
Liss hasn't been in Moosetookalook in over ten years, but the quaint little town, nestled in the hilly terrain of western Maine, looks exactly as she remembers it. Only home a day before her aunt takes off on a tour of Scotland, Liss mans the emporium's booth at the annual Western Maine Highland Games. There she gets reacquainted with some old friends and new local characters, including an obnoxious real estate agent and his spoiled girlfriend who insists on ordering a custom-made kilt sewn from a plaid called the Flower of Scotland.
Liss knows a sale is a sale and returns to the emporium that night exhausted yet happy. But her bliss soon turns to dread when she finds the dead body of her aunt's nosy neighbor, Amanda Norris, under a bolt of the Flower of Scotland fabric in the stock room. And if things weren't bad enough, the state police hone in on Liss as the prime suspect.
With the help of Dan Ruskin, a neighbor and former high school classmate, Liss begins her own investigation that uncovers secrets about the residents of Moosetookalook-secrets she wished had stayed buried. Now Liss will have to do some fancy footwork to prove she's innocent while avoiding becoming the killer's next victim...
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Clemence McLaren: Waiting for Odysseus
Waiting for Odysseus by Clemence McLarenMy review
Very curious to read a retelling of the story of Odysseus. Especially as the original can seem a bit taxing at times.
Will look for this!
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