So I’m kind of lukewarm on Brooks’ book. Perhaps that was because it came with SUCH a high recommendation that I expected this book to change my life somehow. And I don’t think that it did. But it did pull together some great research from a number of disparate fields in a way that intrigued me and allowed me to come to larger conclusions than perhaps I had before. So to be fair, perhaps Brooks’ book is a larger accomplishment than it will get credit for.

Now that doesn’t mean it was easy for Lincoln or that everyone who is depressed is promised to go on to achieve great things… but it’s possible. Shenk does a great job of pulling together extensive research in a way that is fairly readable and interesting.

The perfect gift for your counselor, history buff or social working friends.

The story of her mistake and his forgiveness is a beautiful and powerful reminder of how fallible we are, especially when we’re traumatized or under huge amounts of stress. It’s nice to know that even deep hurts that go back for years can be forgiven and moved past when people are willing to put aside old differences.

Still, there are far worse ways to spend a day or two than being swept away to Alagaesia. And kudos to Paolini for thinking through the languages, the geography and the variety of species, an area where many writers fail to do their prep work and their stories fall short because of it.

I will admit that book 3 ended with such a downer that I wasn’t sure Paolini would be able to redeem himself (or Eragon), but he did. The final showdown between good and evil was rich and satisfying.

What came after that, the clean up, so to speak, is always difficult. Do you wrap up everything? Leave a few things hanging? Leave enough open that you can start a whole new series (as J.K. Rowling has done so many times)?

Well kudos to Paolini for deciding to end it on his own terms and to heck with what his audience might want. I wasn’t crazy about the ending, but I respect that it’s his book and he can end it however he wants. It was a downer, but life doesn’t always wrap up into neat packages. Still, if you only like to read happy books, this may not be the series for you. Stick to the The Underland Chronicles (the Gregor books) or if you just want a delightful, fantastical (and pun filled) romp – Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels.

To be fair, I’m a Christian and he approaches “The Year of Living Biblically” without any faith in God at all. So it starts out feeling like a gimmick to sell books (and he would probably agree that it was at least partially that). I held out for some redeeming moment where he realized why he was REALLY on this quest and what it meant to him attempting to live with faith in something for a year.

There were a few glimpses of that, but far too few to keep me from being disappointed. While I admit that I was hoping the year would really show him his need for God, I also came to feel that he was toying with things that aren’t really meant to be toyed with. I love his humor and his willingness to be self-deprecating, but the blase approach got old (really? Wearing a white robe and carrying a bible around? That’s not trying to be like Jesus, that’s just being weird for the sake of being weird).

If you’re attracted to the oddball passages of the Bible or you wonder how anyone can take it literally, this might be an interesting read. He is kinder towards some of the “oddball” beliefs than many religious people who preach tolerance. But if you’re looking for a moral message, keep seeking.

For me, that’s an important distinction and an improvement. Not only do the Goodwin’s feel inspired to spend a year living on homemade, homegrown or used items, but they explore what it says about their faith to have chickens in their backyard, to make their own birthday party decorations and to give microloans to struggling families in Thailand. Their entire enterprise was started on December 27 when they were fed up with all of the junk that’s bought and exchanged at Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I’m already thinking about (and dreading) the shopping, wrapping and exchanging for a few moments of pleasure (before the kids are off to the next thing).

It doesn’t have the great recipes that Kingsolver’s book contains and it’s perhaps lighter on environmental depth than some of the other options in the environmental living genre (you’re not going to read extensively on CAFO’s in this book, but it’s not devoted just to local food either). But it’s a great book to read with your bible study group or a gift to give to a friend who’s been toying with the idea of starting her own garden but gets intimidated easily. It may also inspire you to buy a lot more local goods as Christmas gifts this year (or even make some gifts), which would almost certainly be a good thing.

The book is full of strange, hilarious and occasionally serious facts from his reading. I learned about a Chinese uprising that killed 20 MILLION people that I’d (sadly) never even heard of. I found out that the Mozart/Salieri rivalry was just fictional (they were actually friends). And I read aloud the juiciest and funniest bits to whoever was sitting near me as I was reading.

The best part of the book, really, is for those of us who really do want to know it all. We have a curiosity that can never be satisfied. We can’t seem to resist checking the facts and looking for more in-depth answers than are provided on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. It’s a fairly small club and I’m not always sure it’s one that I really want to be in, but I can’t help myself. For other “know it alls”, this book may be just what the doctor ordered.

Mr. Feller has twin daughters who are still young when he gets a cancer diagnosis that sounds very serious. Suddenly, he and his wife are faced with the idea that he may be leaving them much earlier than he’d ever expected. He looks to his friends to form a “Council of Dads” who would guide his daughters, giving them invaluable fatherly advice.

The book is touching and deep. If nothing else, it will lead your man to wonder what kind of friendships he has and perhaps inspire him to gather more like-minded men around him. It’s definitely thought provoking, in a meaningful way.

Thanks to Carey for suggesting this book.

I would get my best pregnant friend, “From Here to Maternity: The Education of a Rookie Mom“, which I found more amusing. Konig’s books are real, which is great and they’re not all silly stories. Some of them have a point and some of them are touching. I just didn’t feel the depth of humor that I was looking for. Worth a read, but not going to impress the pants off of you (unless, of course, they’re your old maternity pants, in which case, maybe those will just fall off – here’s hoping!).

I’ve been following his website keenly for some time waiting for word of the latest book, and it finally came this spring. Now they’d had release dates in the past and the books haven’t always lived up to those dates, so I was skeptical. But this time, they were right on the money and “A Dance with Dragons” was released in July as promised.

I made it through the 900+ pages in about a week. This is the fifth book in the series, but it really is meant to be read along with the fourth book – they were just both too many pages to release in a single volume. But the events in both books are happening concurrently, which can be a challenge to wrap your head around, especially if it’s been a year or so since you read “A Feast for Crows“. I read “Dance” and then went back and re-read “Feast”, so just know that you’re going to need to refresh your memory.

The first book in the series is “Game of Thrones”, which was recently made into an HBO miniseries. I HIGHLY recommend “Game”. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. There’s love, there’s intrigue, there’s treachery and the characters are so real that you’ll find yourself loving and hating almost every one of them. Martin tells each chapter from a different character’s perspective. So one character might hate another and you find yourself thinking, “That so and so is a real jerk”. Then you read a chapter from the “jerk’s” perspective, and suddenly you have to change your thinking. It’s an awesome way to tell stories (really it’s what Gregory Maguire gets so much credit for with “Wicked”) and makes for a fun and exciting read.

Be forewarned that Martin will kill ANY character, and I mean ANY character. The man is ruthless.

Thank you to my mother-in-law for loaning me her copy of this book while she went on a 12 day cruise. I think she got the better end of that bargain but I’m still really glad you let me read it while you were gone.