My Blog
All Blog Posts by Date
Below is a list of all my blog posts. I hope you enjoy them.
"Three Feet From Gold" by Greg S. Reid and Sharon L. Lechter
The title of this book comes from a story in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, who is widely considered to be the father of the self-help and the power of the mind movement. After the first strike, a prospector could not get his claim to yield any more gold. He finally gave up, sold his equipment to someone who brought in an engineer, as expert council, and found that Darby had stopped drilling – you guessed it – three feet from gold. The problem was he was digging in the wrong direction.
"Six Action Shoes" by Edward de Bono
Dr. de Bono is considered the Father of Lateral Thinking, or, as most of us know it, thinking outside the box. This kind of thinking is encouraged these days, but it was unheard of in the 50s, when he began talking to us about it. One of the most well-known illustrations of the concept is in the second Start Trek movie, The Wrath of Kahn, when Kirk solved the no-win Kobayashi Maru test. Either of the two solutions a Star Fleet Academy student had to choose from would end in death. So, Kirk created a third option: He reprogrammed the computer.
Grey v. Gray
This one’s confusing, isn’t it? There’s the dog, greyhound. There’s Earl Grey tea. Of course, there’s 50 Shades of Gray. So, which is it? Is it spelled with an A or an E? he answer is: Yes. In almost all cases, either is acceptable.
"The Manager’s Daughter" by Matthew Kastel
This is another baseball book. In fact, this author and David Stinton, the author of Deadball, which I reviewed a few months ago, know each other well. He even wrote the review that’s on the back cover. And like Deadball, it’s about minor league baseball. That’s about where the similarities end.
"Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders" by Julianna Baggott
Let me say write off that Julianna Baggott has a bunch of best-selling books. So a lot of people love her work. It’s only fair to say that. So, Harriet Wolf wrote a series of six books, all of which were best-sellers. When she died without publishing the seventh and final book of the series, she is posthumously elevated to cult status and her daughter, Eleanor, is endlessly stampeded by Harriet’s fans, asking if the book exists or if it was never written.
"ATLANTIS: The Lost Continent Revealed" by Charles Berlitz
I first got interested in Atlantis when a book about it literally fell at my feet in a bookstore. Three times. I’d put it back on the shelf and it’d fall right back down. Now, I can believe I didn’t push it far enough back on the shelf once, but three times? So, I figured I was supposed to learn about it.
Compliment v. Complement
It is so easy to get these two mixed up. Most people don’t even realize there are two. And the words are used more in conversation than in writing, so you can’t tell which one is being used. We’re most familiar with compliment. “You did that very well.” “ I love your bag!” “You have great understanding.”
Less v Fewer
I was listening to NPR yesterday and the guest said something that sounded off to me. She was not a native English speaker, so I checked it out. It would be great if I could actually remember the actual sentence she used, but let’s just say it was, “There were less college graduates this year than in other years.”
Mediterranean Diet Lowers Risk of Breast Cancer
The Mediterranean Diet has been known for a long time to be associated with greatly improved cardiovascular health. Now a new study done by Dr. Miguel Martanez-Gonzalez of the University of Navarra in Spain indicates it might lower a women’s risk of breast cancer by as much as 62%.
