Are you looking for a method to hold civil conversations? The Little Book of Circle Processes written by Kay Pranis, an independent consultant who conducts circle training across the country, provides a good introduction. Pranis served as the Restorative Justice Planner for the Minnesota Department of Corrections for 9 years. Truly ‘little’, this 76-page small [...]
Too busy to read? You can answer with a resounding “No”, by selecting Short Stories as your subject search in Tipcat (click here) . One gem among the over 1000 items from which to choose, is Dagoberto Gilb’s collection, Before the End, After the Beginning. Gilb, whose previous books are The Flowers, Gritos, Woodcuts of Women, [...]
Photographer Edmund Clark presents a remarkable photo essay of ‘home’ at Guantanamo and Omar Deghayes ‘home’ in Britain. Also containing a sampling of the letters of support Deghayes received from around the world, Clark’s juxtapositions of the prison camp and the suburban British home tell a truly human story of an inhuman situation. Clark specializes [...]
In general I am not a reader of non-fiction. Oh sure, I use cookbooks for recipes and look at the pictures in art books, and my yard might be a wasteland if not for our expansive collection of gardening books. The parameters of reading non-fiction, for me, have always been defined by pure function. Half [...]
If you read “The Unit” by Ninni Holmqvist, you might find yourself opposing new health and safety rules proposed by the government (even if you agree with them in theory) because who knows what they’ll want to enact next! Dorrit Weger lives in a democracy that has gradually come to the conclusion that those who [...]
Imagine writing 37 novels with the same core cast of characters! Robert B. Parker’s been doing that with his Spenser private-eye series since 1973. Regrettably, Robert B, Parker passed away in January 2010. The urbane PI, Spenser, his psychiatrist lover, Susan Silverman, fellow boxer, Hawk, and various Boston police detectives and villains populate this contemporary [...]
The poetry of Mary Oliver speaks to my soul. Simple. Profound. Wise. Compassionate. Beautiful. In honor of National Poetry Month, I wanted to share a collection of poems and essays by my favorite poet with you. Mary Oliver, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, has many published poems under [...]
My favorite poem is “The Twelve” by Russian poet Alexander Blok. His work had a lot of symbolism in it and although he died without ever explaining this poem, critics have tried to interpret its meaning (and generally disagreeing with each other). The poem was written and published in 1918 and is extremely important because [...]
Irvine Welsh, author of “Trainspotting” and “If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work“, has written another classic novel: “Crime“. Ray Lennox is a troubled Scottish detective who is on vacation in Florida with his fiance, Trudi. Ray has a special hatred for pedophiles and this vacation is actually supposed to help him recover from a [...]
I highly recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I usually avoid books which tell a story through letters, but the letters in this novel are so humorous, witty, and appealing that I was drawn into the characters’ lives. The setting is post-World War II, after the island of Guernsey has been occupied [...]