Rebecca Reads

Any blocked artist, be he or she a painter, writer, or actor, can benefit from the positive course of action suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. The Artist’s Way is the most powerful call for self-nurturing and creativity that I’ve ever read. I wish I’d found it years ago, because I feel it [...]

Lately, I’ve found myself starting books (particularly nonfiction), and not finishing them before picking up the next. There are so many books out there, and I am struggling to decide which one to read now, and next, and next year!
Maybe, I thought, if I write on my blog what I’m going to read this week, [...]

My baby turns one year old this week. I can’t believe he’s so old, and yet I can’t believe he’s only been in my life for one short year.
I’ve never really done Sunday Salon, but there are so many great books I’m finding at my local library for my son, I thought I’d share what [...]

Chris at book-a-rama brought a most interesting article to my attention.
“The End: Have We Reached The End of Book Publishing As We Know It?” is a fascinating look at the publishing industry and struggles it is facing. While I don’t think publishing is going to ever end,  I thought the article had some great insights [...]

When we found out in early 2007 that a little bundle of joy would be joining our family, we headed to the bookstore. Alexander Tsiaras’s lovely coffee table book, From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds, came back home with us. I loved pouring over the graphically enhanced photographs of babies in the womb, imagining [...]

Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 46, when his youngest daughter was just 3 months old. As a well-known computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, he was a world leader in virtual reality training. But the focus of his last lecture to the university is not about programming a computer: It’s [...]

In the best-seller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, Daniel Goleman explores emotions and the cause of emotions from the perspective of physiology, psychology, and human and child development. While Emotional Intelligence helped me reconsider my default reactions and emotions in various situations, I can’t really say I enjoyed listening to this [...]

I am not very familiar with the political situation before, during, and after World War II. But after reading the best speeches of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, I am impressed that his powerful, confident speeches were a deciding factor in the perseverance of the United Kingdom through the trying times of World War II. [...]

One Saturday, my husband laughed out loud while listening to something on his headphones.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
” ‘Maggots’ is an ugly word; she’s using ‘haciendas’ instead!”
My husband doesn’t normally laugh out loud while listening to audiobooks. This was new. After a bit more coaxing, I found that he was listening to Stiff by Mary [...]

In The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester delves into two contrasting yet similar personalities who helped to create the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). One is the professor, Dr. James Murray, a prolific scholar who undertakes the daunting task of creating a comprehensive dictionary; the other is a madman, Dr. William C. Minor, a schizophrenic [...]