Author: Barbara

I am a bit faster at reading than writing.  This makes 10 books read and shared during the summer challenge. Kent Haruf is new to me.  The novel came from a friend who had many many books dropped off at her house while recovering (for three months) from a broken knee and hip—she’s finally mobile

I have always enjoyed a good mystery, and Josephine Tey is a master at her craft.  Robert Bernard wrote in his introduction to the novel, “Tey belonged to the Golden Age of British crime writing (roughly speaking, 1920-1950), and her place in the pantheon of mystery writers is unassailable.” Tey’s tale takes place at a

The Milk Lady of Bangalore will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about cows in Bangalore.  Shoba Narayan writes about food, travel and culture.  This is an account of the return to her native India with her husband and two children.  She and her husband studied in the U.S. and began raising a

A friend was downsizing her library and passed this book on to me.  It is a page turner!  The story is a true firsthand account of a young (late 20’s) woman’s adventure preparing for and crossing the outback with a dog and three camels.  Davidson starts out with virtually no money, works in a bar, and

This book has been sitting on my shelf for years.  I read part of it for a course on Horney, Freud and Jung and knew that someday I wanted to read the entire volume.  I picked it up because I recently watched a fascinating documentary, The Century of the Self, which describes the influence of

After reading Sejal Shah’s review about her friend’s book, I decided I wanted to read it.  I wanted to know more about Erin’s journey as it related to the tension that resulted from falling in love with a women at about the same time that she fell in love with Catholicism.  When I graduated from Union

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion was in a stack of books a friend was giving away.  I had been wanting to read it, but I knew it would be difficult.  I had seen the documentary, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold, and I knew her story.  I had to be prepared

I heard Kate Bowler interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.  The interview moved me to buy Bowler’s book which chronicles her story centered on a diagnosis of Stage IV colon cancer.  With tremendous power and grace she takes the reader from the highpoint of her young life through the devastating diagnosis of cancer

  I came across the book Mindset by Carol Dweck on one of my favorite websites, Brain Pickings by Maria Popova.  Dweck is a research psychologist who has done groundbreaking work on how our belief systems shape our personalities and our brains.  She describes two mindsets that can color the way we live our lives