A Novel by Christina Baker Kline — Until this last year, I’d heard about the penal colony in Australia where convicted male felons were shipped from Britain to Tasmania. …

Personal and practical ideas — “Where is that stupid book?” I ranted, unfairly insulting the book I searched for in my frustration. I KNEW I owned it, but I couldn’t lay my fingers on it to save my soul. I spent five minutes scanning shelves and looking at the piles I had stacked in various…

Officially endangered — Doubly sad When I was a little girl my mother used to read us a story about the monarch butterflies and their miraculous ability to migrate thousands of miles. Mother probably liked the story because she admired strength and persistence, and the beautiful monarch butterflies had those traits in spades. When Mother…

Thorny, short-stemmed, and multi-bloomed — Knock-out roses are colorful and prolific, providing long-lasting beauty to your garden. They love heat, are disease resistant, and keep on coming. Over and over., new ones appear, blooming the entire season. (We’ve had roses into October here in central Illinois.) Some sources say that you don’t have to prune…

The Russian “girl” sniper — Another gem in the WWII treasure trove The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn is a gem in the ever-expanding WWII treasure trove, and I hate to admit that I almost didn’t choose to read it. WWII books seem to be proliferating as fast as global tensions, and there are so many of them that I’m beginning to…

The giraffes of the flower world — “Yucca. Yucca. Yucca.” I know. It sounds like a line a comedian delivers after a bad joke. It’s not. Yucca refers to those tall, white, funky flowers, towering over the lower-lying garden-variety plants. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder… A few years ago, I thought yucca plants were ugly. …

Resumes aren’t one! — Do you really even need a resume to capture clients? If you want to work for an agency, how do you present yourself? If you’re pitching an idea, is a resume of your credentials going to help? A resume is rigid. Straightforward. Factual. Linear. No matter what words you choose…

Use the hues! — “With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.” — Henri Matisse Flowers are a colorful medium You don’t have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You can be a gardener, planting your garden with an eye to color, shape, and form. When you pluck those flowers…

Rare pieces of art — Think you know a lot about books? Me, too. I’ve been a book lover all my life, coming from a family of readers and bibliophiles. We went to the library for Saturday outings, and a trip to a bookstore was a source of unbridled glee. (Still is.) …