88 posts
Crafts & Hobbies In a world where there are so many online links and published books about crochet generally and amigurumi specifically, Vincent Green-Hite’s book stands out. The basics of crochet, including choosing
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Cooking Opening Bite-Sized French Pastries for the Beginner Baker is like opening the door to a world of marvelous, mouth-watering desserts. The first thing that caught my attention was the gorgeous color pho
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Reviews In After Meat: The Case for an Amazing, Meat-Free World, Karthik Sekar makes a strong case for the likelihood of humanity eschewing animal technology (i.e., the use of animals for food, clothing, medi
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Business & Investing “Harnessing the gifts of neurodiversity promises businesses in different industries a leading edge in innovative and creative problem-solving. Dismantling groupthink is especially important in an incr
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Biographies As a French journalist with Polish forbears, Piotr Smolar’s memoir details his peripatetic career, serving as a reporter for years in Moscow, in Washington, and as the Le Monde senior representative i
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Arts With its inviting title, I was looking forward to reading a condensed, hopefully enriched treatise on learning to appreciate and further understand art. Unfortunately, this sample is disappointing. In
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Reviews I’ve loved the Peanuts comic strip ever since I was a child, This graphic novel added laughter to my day as I remembered the shenanigans Snoopy and the Peanuts gang would get themselves into. Snoopy’s
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Early Reader In the second book in the delightful The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class series, we meet Rohan, another engaging third-grader with big dreams. When Mrs. Z announces a school fundraiser for a new garden, entrep
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Reviews Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan is a good book, but also kind of confusing to younger readers. A young Native American girl named Summer goes to spend her summer vacation with her mother’s family in
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Reviews Action-packed, exciting, and full of surprises, Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper by Gary Natoli is an excellent book choice for middle school and early teenage readers. Told from the perspective of E
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Reviews The perfect gift for any Star Wars fan, Star Wars: Tribute to Star Wars is a collection of beautiful pieces of art created by Japanese manga artists and illustrators. Each piece of art is accompanied
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Reviews Nothing is ordinary about the narratives we encounter in All Our Ordinary Stories, the second graphic memoir by writer and illustrator Teresa Wong. When her mother appears to grow despondent and melan
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Reviews Elisabeth has just graduated but her future has already been mapped out as she is expected to take her grandmother’s place. The path she is meant to take is simple: become the head of her family, marr
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Reviews A thirty-five minute ferry ride outside of Seattle sits Bainbridge Island and the quaint Queen Anne Victorian style home where Michael and Kayla have lived for the past six years. Their life is serene
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Mystery, Crime and Thriller Buried Lies is a well-written mystery novel that introduces retired detective and ex-traffic cop Davis Reed. Renting a cabin in Cruso, North Carolina, he ends up getting hired by a wealthy, eccentric
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Modern Literature Henry works as a consultant at Anthony Freckleman, a leading management consulting company. He is well-paid and enjoys his profession, preferring it to accounting, which he found monotonous after work
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Horror C.J. Leede is back after her disturbingly dark Maeve Fly with a book that goes hard and epic in American Rapture. Readers may be surprised by something quite different, but it is nevertheless engrossi
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Historical Fiction The year is 1989 and Sivan Mayr has returned home after a prolonged absence. He is walking the streets of St. Jakob, Austria, and hears words that stir up resentment and anger at events going back to
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Classics This reader is much prejudiced toward seeing a work as the writer intended; even if the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays remains questioned. The editor of AS YOU LIKE IT is the artistic director of t
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Children's What does Bear do at an animal fair? Some animals may not understand why Bear comes ripping through the fair and tearing things down. Then, the animals set a trap to calm him down. Only one animal tha
Read MoreThe 24th Hour is the next installment in James Patterson and Maxine Paetro’s Women’s Murder Club Thriller Series. The book starts off with the women in the club at a fancy Bay Area restaurant. They he
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Poetry The works in Billy Collins’ latest collection Musical Tables: Poems are referred to as “small poems” by the author in the introduction. What they really are, though, is an assortment of puns, obvious
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Poetry In times of cold and turmoil, it’s easy to forget that the most important thing for some people is warmth. As winter descends, being warm means many things, and it takes on many guises. This small but
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Poetry In what many call “Education for Extinction,” 523 church-run boarding schools took Native American children from their families and attempted to indoctrinate them away from their culture. About 35,000
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Reviews Book Summary: Brady Wilks wished for a new life with a real family in the pre-boomtown years of Las Vegas, 1982. Instead, he finds himself in a precarious situation, struggling to belong and find his
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Reviews Book Summary: Belonging Matters supports the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. The collection explores the pursuit of identity and the bound
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Reviews Book Summary: Tensions are at a breaking point. The Western markets that once relied on Russian gas have turned to Israel for their energy needs. Furious, Russia surreptitiously moves to protect their
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Reviews As an aspiring artist looking for inspiration, Creative Together by Steven Kowalski is a book that will ignite your creative spark and guide you on a journey of self-expression. With its unique blend
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Reviews Introduction 7: Joanna Hardis’ Just Do Nothing is a thought-provoking exploration of the benefits of embracing idleness. Through her captivating storytelling and well-researched evidence, Hardis chall
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Reviews Book Summary: Resilience isn’t inherited. It’s a hard-fought skill forged by our ability to pick up the broken pieces of our past and remake them into something new. Meet four-year-old Delicia, a poor
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Reviews Book Summary: Exploring the realms of death and dreaming, the occult, the unconscious and the soul, Epicedium is a stream of consciousness collection of 50 works. Told as a four-part story of transfor
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Blog In a small English town lies a haunted road called the Devil’s Corridor. Though the Devil’s Corridor is known for its strange occurrences, teenage Olivia and her three friends drove through it one nig
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Blog Cribb has already written a novel covering the years of Lincoln’s presidency: Old Abe. In The Rail Splitter, he turns to Lincoln’s youth, offering us a portrait of one of the most respected presidents
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Blog Muhammad was the founder of the Islam religion and was a prophet. Muhammad’s (570-632)’s words and deeds have been chronicled and relayed in the centuries after his passing. Many biographies have been
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Blog Manning has made a book as sharp-edged and vital as the Colorado mountains it’s set in. Sylvie Pelletier came to Colorado from Vermont with her family after her father took a mining job. Mining, howev
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Blog Dissociation Made Simple is written with love, care, and experience by the author and therapist Jamie Marich, Ph.D. Dr. Marich writes from a place of compassion and empathy, having experienced and act
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Blog I’m a sucker for anthologies. There’s something about getting lost in myriad perspectives on a common theme that scratches some kind of persistent itch in my brain. But it’s not very often that one li
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Blog Tim is a knight-in-training who wakes up every morning to fight off small but deadly fire-breathing dragons. And after Tim falls asleep while attempting to guard the castle gates. And because Tim fell
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Blog The Lost Library is a sweet book about little kids who like reading so much. The plot is very simple and predictable and lacks any measurable detail, so you probably wouldn’t read it more than once. T
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Blog Namaste Is a Greeting isn’t really about anything except the word “Namaste.” There’s no real storyline, just many fragmented ideas and a little girl pulling it all together. The pictures are a little
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Blog The Noom Mindset is the companion book to the Noom app, which helps users make better health decisions. Whether it’s creating a relationship with food, deciding to exercise or not, or learning differe
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Blog GRONE is an absolute masterpiece of science fiction. This massive tome of a tale spans literal centuries but somehow still manages to leave you wanting more, long after you’ve turned the last page and
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Blog It has been four decades since retired detective Larry Klinger lost his son. Yet, at 66, Larry still mourns his loss. Consequently, he joins a group of fathers who suffer from the pain of losing a chi
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Blog My Story, His Glory is Nathaniel X. Arnold’s compelling memoir of his conversion and fall from faith, exploration of diverse spiritual paths, and finding his way back to the Christian fold. Arnold’s a
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Blog Diane 317 knew something was terribly wrong with her peaceful home. The tremors aboard the Cradle, a space station orbiting a post-apocalyptic Earth, were worsening. When Diane’s home began plummeting
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Reviews Review: Seattle Book Review – 5 stars CarboN: The Primitivision is the premiere art book by Lawrence Armondo Hodge (aka CarboN). His new book is a collection of CarboN’s work from 1989 to 2021. This B
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Blog Oh, help, I thought, less than a third of the way into this book, I’m reading poetry. It was not a complaint; far from it. Before All the World is poetry as it should be: deliberate while feeling casu
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Blog Happy Doll, the former cop, is trying to eke out a living as a private detective. The business hasn’t been great, so he’s anxious to meet his new client. When the young woman, Mary, walks in the door,
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Blog Betty White’s Pearls of Wisdom almost seems intrusive to read, as it is about the personal and intimate relationship the author and her family had with Betty, and the twelve pearls of wisdom are stori
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Blog Nature’s Wild Ideas: How the Natural World is Inspiring Scientific Innovation
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Blog After her wealthy husband suddenly left her, Alyssa Macallan was drowning her sorrows in a hotel bar. She picked the spot specifically because no one in her social circles would ever set foot in a pla
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Blog Eric Ross and his two daughters are on the run, living out of motels as they try to escape their secrets. Eric comes across an ad for a caretaker for the Masson House, which is known to the locals as
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Blog If you really like Elsa Beskow’s books, you might not like this one, Around the Year, as much. I don’t like it. It’s not as good as the others. It’s all about poetry, but if you like poetry you will p
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Blog Our Incredible Library Book (and the Wonderful Journeys It Took) has a somewhat interesting premise, but unfortunately, the execution is somewhat lacking. The rhymes are the main point of it and they
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Blog Stitch Head Book 2: The Pirate’s Eye is the second one in the series. Stitch Head and his friends found a letter saying that the Professor should enter a professing contest and then the professor left
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Blog Life Lessons from a UFO Catcher , an autobiographical manga by Kenny Loui, was such a creative, lighthearted read. Based on Loui’s personal experiences, he bestows life lessons and wisdom that he has
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Blog Over many peripatetic years, Roger Cohen has lived in a succession of countries, compiling New York Times columns from 2010 to the brink of the 2020 election. Born in South Africa, his columns have co
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Blog Historian and legal scholar Linda Hirshman builds upon her track record in relaying women-centered stories as she chronicles the movement that ended slavery in the United States. The Color of Abolitio
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Blog Jeni Stonewall is desperate. After losing her spiritual abilities, Jeni is searching for a solution. Her harrowing quest leads her to Tennessee, where she makes a deal with a demon that will supposedl
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Blog How Does My Fruit Grow? At first glance of the title, you might think this is a book for little kids, but it is not. This book is packed full of information on how plants grow and change in different
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Reviews Story Summary: She is a rebel. Lilla is fighting for the refugees’s freedom from oppression. The king, her father, lost touch with reality ever since Lilla’s mother died. Now everyone else is paying t
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Reviews Book Summary: Set yourself free from smoking. Strategy trumps willpower! Personal stories paired with moving photographic portraits. Empathetic, non-judgmental advice to stop smoking for good. Have yo
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Gift Guide Gift Guide Book Suggestion #5 Book Summary: Join endangered and misunderstood AYE-AYE on his quest to win back the hearts of the people of Madagascar after his mischievous pranks get him banned from h
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Gift Guide Gift Guide Book Suggestion #6 Got someone who loves fantasy and adventure in their life? Book Summary: Gravedigger Volke Savan wants nothing more than to be like his hero, the legendary magical swashb
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Gift Guide Gift Guide Book Suggestion #4 Book Summary: Success is not reserved for the smartest or most talented—it’s earned by those who want it the most. Heart conquers all and the triumphant always go all in,
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Gift Guide Gift Guide Book Suggestion #3 Book Summary “There were little sins and big sins, and if you committed too many little sins you were more likely to go on to the big ones. Some sins you did in your mind
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Gift Guide Gift Guide Book Suggestion #2 Know a baseball or sports fan in your life? The Baseball by James Flerlage might be the perfect gift. Book Summary: Landon Myers is a retired pediatric oncologist who spe
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Gift Guide Gift Guide Book Suggestion #1 Book Summary: By turns thoughtful and hilarious (even, inexplicably, both at the same time), this deeply Midwestern book quietly unfolds a vision for how to navigate in a
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Reviews Book Summary: A book of 366 mantras or affirmations to raise and encourage the self-esteem and self-belief of children (plus adults), told through the eyes of young siblings Hao Finley Lee and Sabine
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Reviews Book Summary: Cordelia Lee has experienced something few in the Western world have even witnessed: exorcism. Demonic possession brought her to a Taoist shaman who could drive out her tormentors, but o
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Reviews Book Summary: Amateur journalist Greg travels to a remote mountain area to investigate rumors of a sinister building only to find himself imprisoned there. As he tries to escape, he evinces symptoms o
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Reviews Book Info: George Gray, San Francisco-based reporter for the New York Sentinel, receives two similar emails an hour apart. One offers to expose well-known individuals who have criminally perverted use
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Reviews Book Summary Veganism is more than a healthy lifestyle choice—it’s a moral imperative. Society continues to engage in widespread animal oppression, slaughtering billions of helpless living creatures e
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Reviews The Prize by Geoffrey M. Cooper Book Summary What does it take to win a Nobel Prize? Deceit, fraud, even murder? Set in the competitive world of cutting-edge medical research, The Prize is a science t
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Reviews Story Summary: The essence and meaning of transcendent love between two people—the kernel of human existence—is often found in the crucible of war. Such was the love between Bosko, a Serbian boy, and
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Reviews Becoming by Fouad Azim Story Summary This is a story of blooming love and betrayal, about children coming of age, of conscience and the sociopaths who lack it; it is a story about trust and how true l
Read MoreBook Summary Want to be in the world’s top 3% of achievers? Would you like a road map to get there? In his fourth book, RULE #1 DON’T BE #2,bestselling author, CEO, and NHL Hockey Agent Daniel Milstei
Read MoreBook Summary In 2005, I was arrested by agents from both the US Postal Service and the Food and Drug Administration for the importation of illegal human growth hormone and botulinum toxin (Botox) from
Read MoreClockwork Strange: Into The Whirlwind by Dale McInnes Story Summary: A North American novel inspired by Karel Zeman’s 1955 children’s classic tale Cesta Do Praveku Our first novel begins in 1943 with
Read MoreStory summary: Lucia Zárate is based on the poignant, real-life odyssey of the world’s smallest woman. Pretty and gregarious, Lucia Zárate was just twenty inches tall. A celebrity after her ‘display’
Read MoreStory Summary: THE SALAD OIL KING is a uniquely American tale of Greed-Gone-Mad. Inspired by real events that took place in the 1940-60’s. An unpretentious, diminutive Manhattan-born high school drop
Read MoreStory Summary: Dan “Tito” Davis comes from a town in South Dakota that’s so small everyone knows their neighbor’s cat’s name. But once he got out, he made some noise. While at the University of Nevada
Read MoreStory Summary Harold Hardscrabble, by G. D. Dess, captures the feelings of frustration and helplessness that many of us experience in our daily lives. These sentiments are embodied in the contemplativ
Read MoreStory Summary: What happens when a troubled young woman dares to follow the stirrings of her soul in turbulent times? Elmina begins life with a troubled childhood in a medieval French town-a childhood
Read MoreStory Summary “This thrilling book delivers a violent tale that is ultimately as surprising as it is gruesome.” Kirkus Review Sayer didn’t expect his life to go any further than wherever his wealthy c
Read MoreStory Summary: The Hunter: Awakening, is the first of a series of novels that will explore the nature of good and evil and the question of redemption: Is it available to those who have perpetrated gre
Read MoreStory Summary: Unsung heroes and murderous villains, hidden forever in ancient shadows, now leap to life – blazing onto the pages of revelation. Gideon, a lowly woodcutter, is blessed by an angel to b
Read MoreThe Hunger Saint by Olivia Kate Cerroneis about Ntoni, a twelve-year-old boy forced to labor in Sicily’s sulfur mines to support his family after his father’s untimely death. These child laborers were
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