thursday november 05
A friend who teaches high school tells me that, in order to inspire her students, she uses quotes from former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz. Great coaches, like great teachers, have the ability to change lives for the better. Here are a few inspirational titles from college football coaches:
Jim Tressel: The Winners Manual - For the Game of Life (2008)
Charlie Weis: No Excuses (2006)
Eddie Robinson: Never Before, Never Again (1999)
Lou Holtz: Wins, Losses, and Lessons (2006)
wednesday november 04
This was my latest car book, The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing, a collection of pieces from National Geographic’s Adventure magazine.
Essays by Sebastian Junger, Tim Cahill, Peter Matthiessen, and other greats of travel, adventure, and nature writing are collected here. Plus a creepy look at the man-eating lions of Tsavo by Philip Caputo; the account of a stay with the last of the traditional reindeer herders in the far reaches of Russia by Gretel Ehrlich; and a horrifying account of an ebola epidemic by Tom Clynes.
This volume is a little different from earlier collections, as it includes some political writing and war correspondence. But it’s still a look at life on the outer edges by very talented people, and it’s a great read straight through or dipped into at coffee stops.
saturday october 31
A vision of orange, red and yellow leaves fall a flutter and filter down and once the wind subsides, the
Birthing House reveals itself. Just as a death has the power to shake the cosmos, so does a birth. A birth, some may say rattles all layers of the earth’s spheres because birth brings forth life and is in essence, creation. Something in the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere and exosphere changes. Imagine a haven for thousands of births. There lays the Birthing House, incarnate, a container for the creation of life. The earth pulsates with energy from the structure and so does everyone contained within, around, or inside a few mile radius.
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thursday october 29
If you are looking for some ghostly reading for this weekend, check out the Library's impressive collection:
Cincinnati ghosts, haunted Las Vegas,
haunted highways,
haunted battlefields, spirits of Kentucky, phantom kitties, ghost hunters, ghost busters, and even
haunted Christmas tales can all be found lurking amongst the shelves of your favorite library location.
wednesday october 28
Ruth Rendell writes both intense psychological suspense novels and a traditional British police procedural mystery series. I have to confess that I can’t take the psychothrillers (some written under the name Barbara Vine), since I really don’t want to enter the mind of a serial killer, thank you. I prefer her Inspector Wexford mysteries.
But what I like most about the new Wexford novel, The Monster in the Box, is its odd little psychological twist on a serial killer plot.
Wexford sees a man get out of a van and cross the road, and it’s a man with whom he has a long though unacknowledged history. The man, Eric Targo, stared at him outside a murder scene years before; he walked his dog near Wexford’s windows; he nodded at him across the bar.
And these tiny connections over a long and relatively uneventful span of years have convinced Wexford that the man is a multiple murderer.
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friday october 23
Summer camp for the gifted turns out to be more fun than academic. Katrina, Isaac, Battle and Nic comprise your above average teenage group just trying to get a foothold in society’s wall. All are friends, but soon crushes develop. We can only hope who we’re crushin’ on is crushin’ on us also. It takes most of the book to find out but the story is very well woven and worth the perseverance.
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thursday october 22
Having recently become a knitter, I am amazed by the variety of knitting books that are available. One of my favorite examples is a book of ideas for Knitters Who Also Love the Roller Derby - whoever they may be, God bless them for breaking stereotypes left and right.
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