Garden Dreams of Philadelphia

Posted on February 8, 2010
Filed Under go, grow | Leave a Comment

White, Sharon. (2008). Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. ISBN: 0-8203-3156-2

This book was a great find, especially great for winter reading during the recent snow storm. The book combines a discussion of plants that grow in the city with city history. But the book is not nearly as dry as that makes it sound. The book is filled with descriptions of pastoral scenes, descriptions of varieties of plants, of famous gardens of the past, of eccentric gardeners. White’s style is especially effective in conveying a sense of connection among people who have gardened and loved gardening in Philadelphia over the last few centuries. She achieves this way of making history come alive by anchoring in her own life experiences. The book reads like a sort of formalized journal that wanders off into the lives of other people. Woven expertly into these contemporary explorations are the stories and exploits of people of the past.

When White writes, toward the beginning of the book, “The more I live in my corner of Philadelphia, the more it seems that the city is an extensive garden, a bit wild in parts” (p.4). For someone living in Center City, that is a great eye-opener; beauty and nature are all around us, even in what seems to be the most urban settings. All we have to do is open our eyes and see it, whether it is plants growing in a hidden spot, or a sense of the past and what has come before.

Putting Your Life On a Green Diet

Posted on February 5, 2010
Filed Under be, eat | Leave a Comment

Uliano, Sophie. (2009). The Gorgeously Green Diet: How to Live Lean and Green. New York: Dutton. ISBN: 978-0-525-95115-5.

The title implies a diet book, but it is much more than the typical diet book. It has the usual suspects: eating plans, nicely exercises, allowed and not allowed foods. But the book expands the idea of dieting and shows that most of us need to put more than our bodeis on a diet. The pantry and refrigerator are prime targets, and we can move out from there.

Uliano’s plan has a basic, but thoughtful, beginning: figure out what you really want before you begin. How many times have I jumped into a plan of self-improvement in excitement after reading a book or seeing something on television?

And this book does inspire, It connects what we eat with the ecological and environmental movements we are all thining about. It offers three different levels of being green to show that living better is possible for all of us. And she lists many websites and company names that sell the kinds of healthy foods and products recommende in the bookthat makes it easy to do further research on the specific topics that appeal to you. ( )

Author’s Website: http://www.gorgeouslygreen.com

House For Sale

Posted on January 25, 2010
Filed Under belong | Leave a Comment

Moving out of a house is tiring, emotional and an odd experience of emotionally detaching oneself from the surroundings that have been the most familiar and comforting part of your life.  And of course, after the cleaning, moving, repairs, etc, it is odd to see the place you lived in sparkling, looking its best, knowing you are moving on to somewhere else.

embedded by Embedded Video

Book Mania: LibraryThing

Posted on January 23, 2010
Filed Under read | 1 Comment

OBSESSED currently with LibraryThing. It is an online book cataloging service with social media applications that combines a love of books with a mania for organizing. It allows all of us to indulge in our librarian fantasies without actually having to get a Library Science degree.

I found out about Library Thing last May and immediately began entering the books I was currently reading. I could rate them, review them, classify them in all sorts of ways, see who else was reading them and what they thought. I even figured out how to add gadgets of books I am reading (see far right column) to my websites.

In January 2010 I moved, a daunting task for any book lover. While packing up box after box of books, I decided that when unpacking them I would catalog them all on LibraryThing. I am currently in that process, and am I ever glad I have done this. In picking up and looking over each book, I have relived many memories, discovered old friends (both of the book and people variety). Remembered who gave me books, where I bought books, how certain novels and poems made me feel, how one particular novel changed the way I thought about writing in general (Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, which I am going to reread and blog about soon). My personal library contains my own personal history.

This sorting out of memories and possessions bring forth one of the great draws of Library Thing: books are more than dusty bound sheets of paper, they carry ideas and emotions and likes, dislikes, prejudices. This site not only gives me the chance to sort all of that out, but do it in a public way. Other people can see what books I own, see how I have rated or reviewed them.  Reading can be such an isolated activity, and so many of us have used books as an escape form others, so it is nice to find an outlet for book people that makes me feel a little less isolated.

I have connected online and through email with a couple of authors, but more importantly, I have revived the most passionate love of my life.

http://www.librarything.com

Photos below are from  LibraryThing.com, and are generic screenshots and publicity photos they provided.

Sublime Muppets

Posted on November 25, 2009
Filed Under hear, wonder | Leave a Comment

Writer’s Best Friend, Reader’s Best Friend

Posted on October 19, 2009
Filed Under belong, read, write | Leave a Comment

Koontz, Dean (2009). A Big Little Life: a memoir of a joyful dog. New York: Hyperion. ISBN: 9781401323523.

Why do so many of us sit cold-hearted, distant when we read or watch a scene of a person’s death, vioolent or valiant, but weep copiously at description of a dog’s demise? It took Dean Koontz’s memoir about his special relationship with his dog Trixie to put these thoughts into concrete words for me. If at time s it seems as though Koontz is a bragging parent relating how gifted his child is, well… he is. Tricks, cookies, routines, walks, medical problems, uncanny events: all are things that anyone who has ever had a dog will realte to, and be glad someone with Koontz’s gift for words took the time to express so beautifully. Along the way we are let into the private life of a writer, glimpses of the challenges and rewards of being a successful novelist.

I connected with this book as a dog lover, savoring every story, every excuse as to why dogs are so supreme. Having lost my own dog in 2008, I knew exactly what Dean Koontz and his wife were going through at each stage of their dog’s life with them.

The book goes deeper than an account of a single beloved dog and becomes a sort of treatise on neo-romanticism. As the writer discusses his beleifs about innocence being an ideal state, I was reminded of William Blake. And his discussion of how his relationship with his dog brought about profound changes int he way he wrote and thought about writing, I thought of other Romantic writers (Coeridge and his defense of poetry especially seems reflected here). Likeso much of the fiction by Dean Koontz, this book is enjoyable on multiple levels.

Dean Koontz personal website: http://www.deankoontz.com

Dean’s dog Trixie has a web page as well: http://trixie.deankoontz.com