When life seems too hard, and I want to snivel like the mope that I am, I buck myself up with thoughts of Meriwether Lewis and Ernest Shackleton. That’s right, these two legendary explorers and survivors of expedition-related disaster have been my inspiration, and can be yours, too! You must, however,  commit to a rigorous […]

It’s that official time of year to celebrate Earth, the spectacular spinning ball of gases, rocks, and minerals which we call home.  Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 of each year.  According to earthday.org, this celebratory tradition was originally conceived in 1970 by a man named Gaylord Nelson.  Nelson was a Wisconsin U.S. Senator […]

Supernatural horror and historical fiction may sound like an unlikely combination.  But The Terror, by Dan Simmons, is a brooding, bone-crunching thriller and a complex survival tale. Based on the events of the lost Franklin Expedition of the 1840s, which sought the elusive Northwest Passage in the Arctic, The Terror tells the story of the HMS Erebus and […]

Whodunit heaven, that is.  I like them hard-boiled and full of creeps, weirdos, and cruds, and Crimson Lake, by Candice Fox, is the ideal pick. Ted Conkaffey, a former cop, accused but not convicted of the brutal rape and attempted murder of a young girl, has been released from prison due to insufficient evidence.  Broken […]