The Songbook Highway

Friday, September 23, 2011

Don’t point at outlaws
Langton, Jerry. Showdown: How the Outlaws, Hell Angels and Cops Fought for Control of the Streets. Mississauga, Ont: Wiley, 2010. Print.

The Outlaws Motorcycle Club is one of the oldest and largest riding organizations in the world. It is also one of the most widely feared. “God forgives, Outlaws don’t” [...]

Sunday, August 21, 2011

A cumulative tale by David Lowery
Lowery, David. The Palace Guards. Santa Monica, CA: 429 Records, 2011.
Album cover by Michael Wertz.
My favorite song from David Lowery’s solo album is a dreamy waltz called I Sold the Arabs the Moon. What I like so much is that the words sound like the scenes [...]

The Leftovers
“Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism.” — Stephen King

Perrotta, Tom. The Leftovers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011. Print.

Tom Perrotta’s latest [...]

Happy Birthday, Dr. Ruth!

Psychologist Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a brave woman. She grew up in a Swiss orphanage after her parents were taken by the Nazis in Germany. At age 17 she moved to Jerusalem and fought in the Israeli War of Independence. (And she’s only 4 foot six inches tall!) [...]

Horses
Lerner, Sharon, Susan Jeffers, and Anna Sewell. Black Beauty. New York: Random House, 2009.

Thanks to my wonderful husband, I have a new hobby–horseback riding! Marc wisely figured that since I care so much about the horse rescue organizations Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) and the South Florida SPCA, I would probably enjoy actually [...]

Boxing
Boxing is one of the few sports that I like enough to watch on TV. I think it’s because I grew up without cable. After Saturday morning cartoons were over, the only show left to watch was ABC’s Wide World of Sports which featured the great comedy team of Howard Cosell [...]

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Telling tales

Brown, Marcia, and Robert L. Egolf. Stone Soup: An Old Tale. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947.

A couple of weeks ago I read and told folktales to a group of visiting kindergartners. The children really surprised me with their reactions. I started with one of my childhood [...]

Friday, April 15, 2011

The Beauty Killer

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Cain, Chelsea. The Night Season. New York: Minotaur Books, 2011.

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Cain, Chelsea. Evil at Heart. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009.

The Beauty Killer series takes place in Portland, Oregon where the elusive serial killer Gretchen Lowell has become a celebrity, mostly because of her good looks. Archie Sheridan [...]

Friday, March 18, 2011

Three great books about courageous girls

Fitzhugh, Louise. Harriet, the Spy. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Kathleen T. Hornig wrote a fascinating (and brave!) essay about the impact Louise Fitzhugh’s classic novel had on her life, On Spies and Purple Socks. Kathleen also wrote From Cover to Cover which is the definitive [...]

March is Women’s History Month

Let’s not forget how hard our sisters fought for rights we now take for granted.

Kendall, Martha E. Failure Is Impossible!: The History of American Women’s Rights. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 2001.

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Harness, Cheryl. Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.

Rossi, Ann. Created Equal: Women [...]