Can we get an editor here please???  As I read Dan Brown’s new book – I kept thinking, who edited this?  Half way through the book I completely forgot the title and main theme (finding the lost symbol) because I was caught up in another theme of pyramids, legends and noetic science… 

 Here’s the thing I like Dan Brown but this was a ridiculous meandering around several different plots never choosing a real focus or theme.  I did however love his tidbits about Washington D.C., forefathers’ lore and the Freemasons’ society.  Unfortunately the 500 plus pages was a complete slog to get through.  If you had any notion of theme, plot or critical thinking (or you were an English major) – stop, save your money and if you must, wait for the library copy to be in.

I jumped on the Mad Men bandwagon this weekend.  I’m completely hooked.  I love the characters.  Each one has secrets, often behaving badly in one way or another only to shine a day later.  We witness the dregs and glory of each character as they struggle in quiet desperation – a desperation that is all too familiar our own lives. 

 Each of us struggles with moments of ‘quiet desperation.’  Sometimes these moments may stretch into how your life feels all the time.  It may seem like the grass is in fact greener over there on a different lawn or possible on that road not taken.  But that is an illusion that leads only to chaos – just watch Mad Men.

 The main character Don Draper is that illusion.  This man is miserable – on the inside, but all the world sees is someone irresistible.  Women want him and men want to be like him – yet he is lost.  He is desperate to feel – anything - to get into his own life.  Yet he can not - he tries with booze, work, success and many, many women to fill the ever-expanding emptiness within, but he is still empty.  In fact, more empty, for when he looks into the eyes of his daughter or son he knows each day he is less the man he wanted to be…Good stuff!!!

 It is easy to believe the person down the street or even in the next cubicle has it so much better than you, but that is just a myth.  Each of us struggles with our own brand of quiet desperation – maybe you cling to a past that needs to be let go, or hold to an idea of how it is supposed to look, or maybe something is ‘not enough’…

 I encourage you to stop looking over the fence and be where you are.  Forgive yourself for whatever failures or transgressions you have made, real or imagined - let go of the past.  Today is a new day and maybe, just maybe you will discover your own backyard is pretty nice place to be.   

Hoffman again creates moving, real characters engaged in the messy business of life.  The book revolves around the Moody family and of course, the name fits.  This is an unhealthy, struggling family – secrets, affairs and drugs abound, but also truth. 

 What happens when fathers ignore their children?  Is this a choice or is it a left over wound?  Born of your own longing for a life not lived…And better yet, where is grace found?  Can the unforgivable find forgiveness?  As always, yes, grace can find you in the strangest of places.    

 Be fairly warned though, I would not read this book if you are looking for something “happy, feel-good.”  However, the characters and the rawness of their experience stay with you in a good way.  In my own life, it has taken me years to discover – in every experience - I can only see in-part.  It takes many different voices to see all and even then it may take years. 

 For peace is only found when you choose to be peaceful.  It’s an annoying truth that you and only you, can transform your life from one of pain to peace.  It sounds almost too easy, possibly condescending, but blaming your past for where you are today only binds you to a broken place that could be, if you choose, to be left behind. 

Just discovered this LA band, The Airborne Toxic Event and I love them.  The sound is raw, plaintive, punk-like, and incredibly personal – think a cross between Violent Femmes and Crash Test Dummies.

 The album was written while lead singer Mikel Jollett was struggling with heartbreak, his mother’s cancer and his own health problems…Needless to say the album is full of raw emotions and surprisingly – humor. 

 In “Does This Mean You’re Moving On?” with the lines like, “Oh Christ, she’s not alone…” and “I’ll bet your friends all hate me now.  I get the strangest looks from that bitchy crowd…guess I am not quite over you.” – let the giggling begin.  Or in “Something New” - a priceless appreciation of hoping the fighting will stop and the therapy works…If you have been in therapy with your mate, well this is a riot.  Set to a hopeful, happy beat – the couple is falling apart…

 Another wonderful quality of the music is the shifting and building tempos of the different songs, such as in “Sometime Around Midnight.”  The song opens quietly, building softly by adding instruments and strengthening his voice with each bar until you hear his anguish refrain, “You just have to see her,”  over and over.  Who hasn’t been to this broken place?  

Must listen to: Gasoline, Does this Mean Your Moving On?, Sometime Around Midnight, Something New, Missy

Don’t do it.  I bought this book after returning from the beach in Martha’s Vineyard this past summer.  I thought it was about girlfriends at the beach…What I didn’t know was that none of the female characters were likable.  I think this is an important hook for any book – likable characters…instead we are presented with the worst of feminine traits – martyr, hysteria, anxiety, selfish…Ughh.

 Honestly I couldn’t get over the beginning when they head to the beach and all hell breaks lose – a child goes missing, cancer illness, pathetic behaviors of so-called “dear” friends…I made myself finish the book in hopes that I might like one of the women, but alas no.  So, please cross this off the Christmas list and replace it with something fantastic like Northern Borders or Broken Music or even another beach read, Gift From the Sea.

It took me months to open this book and I am glad I finally did.  I had picked it up in the Spring to read on vacation, but then I lost interest for awhile.  I had been scared off after re-reading the part about her Mother dying young on the back cover teaser…The story seemed more depressing then uplifting. 

 But somehow it traveled to the beach with me this summer and thank goodness, as The Ice Queen is a perfect beach read; light, thoughtful and surprising.  What surprised me about the book were the intriguing characters and plot twists.  The characters were complicated; no one is black and white.  Each of us has hidden parts that may shock those around us – “If they only knew…” we wonder silently. 

 I have always been drawn to plots where the world sees one thing and reality is so much stickier.  I like it because it reminds me to think in tones of gray.  To remember that there is a completely unknown back-story behind each person that motivates their behaviors every day.  The message to me is always the same – sometimes it is not about you.

 The narrator of the story is often seen jumping to hysterical conclusions as displayed when she spies on her sister-in-law late one night returning library books, or why her lover only wants to make love in the dark, or even the cause of her mother’s death.  The narrator’s inability to see beyond her own self-contempt blurs her perception of events – everyone doesn’t like her, she has no friends, she causes death…

 Surprisingly she does have friends and those who care for her, but she can not see it because of her own self-loathing.  Since she has not learned to take care of herself, she can not take care of her friendships or even a positive relationship with her brother.  The narrator transcends her hurts finally by stopping her self-punishment.  Unfortunately and of course, tragic events must unfold for the narrator to finally make peace with the past.

 However, a satisfying peace is made and lessons can be gleaned by any reader about perception and reality.  It is often a bit of both that creates the moments of your life, for better or worse…   

I read this book on New Year’s Eve/Day and I was surprised.  My husband had given the book to me as a Christmas gift.  I had never heard of it before, but my husband has a way of knowing my heart – so I gave it a try…

 Interestingly, I really enjoyed the book when I read it and have referred several friends and clients to it, but now that I look at the book in hand – again, I’m surprised…Upon my first reading a couple months ago, I was fascinated by her many different techniques to bring intuition and spirit more present in you life.  I still am and think some techniques are very useful.

 However, as I look at the chapter titles, I remember nothing of her words, her beliefs.  Well, actually one part of her writing does stand out and always will – her discovered root meaning of the word magic is “to bring light to.”  Being also a lover of words and magic – this definitely resonated with me and gave her writing voice authority as I continued to read.

 I don’t think less of the book; I am just reminded that what is important will rise up.  Yes, now that I reflect further, she did reveal a bit about her life and how she came to her beliefs, but it is the techniques to incorporate magic into your daily life that is the importance of the writing.

 I encourage anyone interested in living a more magical life to read this book and even try out a few of her techniques – like me, you will be surprised. 

Who hasn’t heard all the hype surrounding this book – Oprah’s book.  Several of my friends and family have recommended it to me and reluctantly, I read.  I say reluctantly because I am not a big fan of reading journals.  I’m a prose-girl.  I have only found a few (David Sedaris, Dr. Beryl Markham, Anne Morrow Lindbergh…go to my resources page to get reviews/info) that have a voice that not only resonates with me, but doesn’t bore…She bores a little – do I really need to read about her urinary track infection, the drama of embarrassment and alternative healing?  I’m sorry this just isn’t that big of a deal – obviously no childbirth experience…