June 2009

This is such an amazing book for the inspired or need to be inspired.  Every Monday Matters, written by Matthew Emerzian and Kelly Bozza gives you ideas on how to make a difference in your everyday life, starting it off with Monday’s - turning the one day of the week that most people dread into something special.

In this book, they give you examples of things to do every Monday for one year (52 Mondays).  They also inform you on how to get involved in your community and how to make a difference in other people’s lives.  This book is so full of inspiration that after reading it, no matter what day of the week, you’ll want to jump up and start helping. 

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One of my heroes died the other day. Lost among all the talk about Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett was the news that Steven Wells, the greatest music journalist of his generation, had passed away. One of the things that made him great was his realization that no matter how much you try to intellectualize a work of art, to explain what makes it good, bad, or mediocre, that really doesn’t have a lot of bearing on whether your audience will actually go out and enjoy it. Rather, he preferred to write about how he reacted to songs, how they made him feel, and tried to express that in a universal way.

And then he cursed a lot.

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Loukom: Little Prince

We've been talking about interesting books from various parts of the world for a while now. Well, this one adds to that list as I mention a book by African author Calixthe Beyala. The story in question is called Loukoum: The Little Prince of Belleville and it has been surrounded by controversy for a while. This is partly due to its topical content and partly due to scandals involving Beyala. Where the former is concerned, the writer paints a rather cynical picture of women in African society as opposed to depiction of females by other African authors. Where the latter is concerned, Beyala has been accused of plagiarism by various folks and thus, her works have been in the limelight for the wrong reasons. I wanted to talk a little bit about the book, why it caught my eye and then mention a few of the controversies about the book.

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With such a sticky, hot month upon us (at least where I live), what better time is there than to hole up in the bathroom like a terrorist in hiding and get into a book? Here are some ideas for enjoyable bathroom reading. Feel free to keep these reads on top of the towels for easy access, or stack them on the back of the toilet tank for a nice, non-seashell accent.

The Great American Bathroom Book: Full of short summaries of great books, this is good for people who either A. want to be well-read and need to find out what they should read, or B. want to appear well-read and use the summaries for actual reading. There are also author quotes as well as facts and statistics if you’re into reading those.

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My Stroke of Insight"My Stroke of Insight" has been hot on the NYT best-seller list for a while. The story, in case you are somehow not familiar, is the all-too-true (and ironic) tale of Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-educated brain researcher who had a major stroke, and was not only cognizant enough during the stroke to write about her feelings during the stroke, but to write about them in the context of her life as a brain researcher.


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banned book button As a former resident of rural New Hampshire, Lichfield's recent foray into is more than a little upsetting.

Irate parents demanded last night that the school board and administrators take action over stories assigned in Campbell High School English classes that they found objectionable, including stories by authors Stephen King, David Sedaris and Ernest Hemingway.

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Marja as a Young Revolutionary"Persepolis A Story of a Childhood" by Marjane Satrapi is not only a great graphic autobiographical work detailing the Iranian revolution and war with Iraq from an upper-middle class ten-year-old's perspective, but a book containing nuggets of information necessary to understand the recent historical context of today's protests and the subsequent brutality in the streets.

In 1979, Marji's parents are revolting against the Shah of Iran, and Marji, a more than precocious youth, is trying to understand the context of the revolution through historical comic books, her family's legends, and her own over-active imagination. Her story is depicted through simple frames with dialog that carried  from one historical event to the next accompanied by charming narration with a slightly sarcastic tone.


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If you’re interested in learning a little bit about the goddesses of the world, Patricia Telesco’s daybook, 365 Goddess, is a great book to dive into. Each day introduces you to a new goddess, following a theme of daily goddess festivals and observances.

For example, today’s goddess is actually a group of goddesses, the Ratna Dadinis of India. Telesco chose these goddesses because today is traditionally the Hemis Festival, which celebrates the battle of good and evil. In Tibet, the Ratna Dadinis rule over gestures of good and compassion. Coordinating the place and festival with matching goddesses, Telesco provides a peek into both culture and deity.

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husbandJoyce Carol Oates is the mistress of the lingering human nature yarn, the disturbing yet delightful, the dark yet real. In her latest installment of short stories, she does not disappoint.

Dear Husband, is a collection of stories about family and relationships, the ties that bind humans together whether they wish to be or not.

The first tale, “Panic,” is sure to resonate with mothers everywhere—as well as husbands who believe their wives are completely different people post-childbirth. “Vigilante” depicts the unsettling way a son shows his love for his mother. “Special” takes on a relationship rarely explored—that of a sister and her “special,” autistic older sister.

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