Recent Reads

1. The Summer of the Great Grand-Mother
This is the second journal-type book by the author I have read and I loved it. The author's mother starts to get senile as she gets older and the book explores their relationship - past and present. I am reminded of all the stories that disappear when a person dies. This is such a gift the author has given her family.

2. The Painter from Shanghai
A book I picked up because I liked the cover art and to my delight I loved it. I had never heard of this Chinese painter, and am again reminded of how little I know about Chinese history and art. This is a great read - tough at times, but gets you really thinking about the choices people make.

3. Top 10 Las Vegas
This is one of several books I read recently in preparation for my upcoming trip to Vegas. Fun and fact filled.

4. Arizona, New Mexico & the Grand Canyon Trips
Love this book. This is one I will buy, and hope to someday actually do all the trips described. Would be a great themed vacation.

5. The War of Art
Amazing little gem of a book. Another one I will read again and again. I felt a shift in my mental models as I read this. What could be a greater gift than that? Here is a little nugget:

"We're not born with unlimited choices.
We can't be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny.
We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we're stuck with it.
Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it."