Carol Grosser

My Life in Retirement is Made Wonderful

Reviewed: 03-28-18

A wonderful book detailing two of my favorite retirement pleasures:

First my portable notebook computer (MacBook Air) while I wait for my Prius to be repaired and a use of his great invention, the internet where I can access Audible.com where I can download excellent audiobooks. I love to work outdoors and spend most of my time working on my huge yard with an audiobook in my ears. The ability to buy almost any publication read by excellent readers and put on an iPOD with earphones as they are downloaded from the internet. These audiobooks in my ears makes me entertained or educated and makes me an excellent environmentalist as I work the bit of earth that is mine to care for while I live my final years. If only he would run for president!

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Required listening/reading for sleepers

Reviewed: 12-05-17

I got so much information from this book, i am going to keep it and re-listen until I have all the suggestions memorized.

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The book that is coming true in today's press!

Reviewed: 10-27-17

I can't believe that my e-mail today was full of e-mails about the instability of Trump and how close he is to need to be immediately impeached!! I hope it can be done before the bombs go off starting the final solution to humanity so to speak instead of just picking a religion that has to be eliminated!.

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14 people found this helpful

Another great book by my favorite naturalist

Reviewed: 03-28-17

Since being a child I have been fascinated by ants, especially the red ants then in abundance and still in abundance in the "hill country" of Texas. There is a curious event that occurred when sprays for "irritants" were invented. People began to poison all the numerous species of ants to keep their children from being stung instead of leaving them there for nature to teach children about each species--large or small--ability to defend his life and home. Once the red ants were gone the wonderful "horned" toad was gone since their only food was the red ant. They are almost extinct. I have had about 4 red ant nests very active in my yard and no horned toads have appeared though the local group of naturalists report there are several areas in the same area that are successful. I am told of a vacant lot in town that has red ants and horned toads, which I think are actually a type of lizard. I intend to capture one or more of these creatures to put them in my yard. Apparently like most of nature that the ratio of red ants to honed toads are enough to keep both populations healthy. Wikipedia has horned lizards, which are the horned toads of which I speak.

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Protein and Bread

Reviewed: 10-19-15

What made the experience of listening to Pandora's Lunchbox the most enjoyable?

It was a great coverage of all the ways that our corporate food is questionable; however, I would recommend two books to listen to or read to clarify some things she needs to read as well as all those who have listened to or read this book. They are "Wheat Belly" and "Whole." The need for protein is not as urgent as she covers, in fact, the requirements set by the government is not based on fact, but the need to please the meat and dairy industries having more influence in our politics than is healthy for the economy and our bodies.

What did you like best about this story?

The book is a great way to learn how to test one's own food, i.e., buy a bit of it and set it on the counter to see what happens.

Which scene was your favorite?

There were too many great pages to point out one.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Food and health.

Any additional comments?

She points out the danger of preservatives. I had terrible and medically verified acid reflux disease, extremely painful. I was prescribed medication. I decided to think it over and read a book on digestion where I understood the need for friendly bacteria. I thought well maybe the preservatives in food kills my friendly bacteria so I did not eat anything with a preservative. My acid reflux disease disappeared.

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1 person found this helpful

Grew Up in the Hill Country

Reviewed: 08-09-15

What made the experience of listening to Means of Ascent the most enjoyable?

I laughed at his adequate description of the Hill Country because I grew up in said Hill Country on a dairy farm which became a cattle farm when the state requirements increased beyond my father's finances. On his death, it was found that my father's highest income was when he worked for the county road maintenance, the annual amount was $3000. Johnson brought our family electrical power, but my father discussed his questionable activities politically, i.e. Duval County. I thought LBJ was a hero until Vietnam.

What other book might you compare Means of Ascent to and why?

This book, in its thoroughness, cannot be compared to any other biographical work I have ever read or heard about. It is fascinating!

Which character – as performed by Grover Gardner – was your favorite?

All.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, but in Book 1 it is 20 hours!

Any additional comments?

I look forward to all of the series and the as yet unpublished one.

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Exposition by and for Specialists in the Fields

Reviewed: 07-19-15

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The author seems very knowledgeable about his field of consciousness and, what I understood, was enlightening. However, most of it was beyond my knowledge. How and why consciousness evolved is still a mystery to me so I will have to look elsewhere. As I see more and more non-human species live out their lives, I am awed at the specialized "knowledge" that abounds in nature from plants to all other species. For instance, this year there are huge numbers of tiny frogs/toads (?) hopping around everywhere. They seem to "know" to go off at a right angle to my pathway if they are directly in front of my next footfall. How do they know to go at a right angle? Just one of the amazing "consciousness" that nature at all species levels seems to have evolved.

I also don't think he did justice to paranormal phenomena. For instance, why did 700 people have dreams, including myself, with foreboding so intense that they phoned President Kennedy not to go to Dallas. I had a precognitive dream of Lyndon Johnson being called Mr. President several days before the event.

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2 people found this helpful

Science Fiction and History Rolled Into One

Reviewed: 10-03-13

As usual, the awesome intellect of Margaret Atwood is awesome in the MaddAadam Trilogy. I have listened to all of them and found myself in today's world to start and a hopeful tomorrow world that might come out of the chaos of the earth today. It is the first plus that might come out of genetic engineering in spite of the stupidity that has so far presented itself.

It is also a true tale for me personally in that I changed from a meat eater with prediabetes, obesity, and osteoarthritis such that I was needing two hips, two knees, and two ankles replaced to a raw fruitarian with the occasional cup of beans and now have normal blood sugars, normal gait with no pain and the absolute disappearance of the supposedly incurable osteoarthritis. From a size 4X at 235 lbs. to my weight now of 121 and size small, I ambulate all day with enduring energy and a normal stride. I am now experimenting with wild raw honey to see if I can regrow the entirely missing cartilage in my joints. So the future "humans" in Atwood's future are all grass eaters with careful bioengineering producing such a need. I would modify the book in only that way--i.e., grass eating requires cleared forests and cleared forests means no elimination of CO2. My future humans would be fruitarians and their sole occupation would be preparing and maintaining orchards. That is what this human does now as well as installing solar panels.

I will now research something hinted at by Atwood and wonder if there is current science on it, i.e., the curative effects a cats purring.

It was also a surprise to have pleasant music in an audiobook!

These 3 books should be required reading in every high school and college literature courses, hopefully in that literature courses are still required.

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Post WWI

Reviewed: 08-05-13

My father was a veteran of WWI and he spoke about the war frequently. He spoke about the lighter side of the war like the war against mud in trying to move heavy artillery with the constant rains and horses struggling against the mud. He talked about the constant war against lice and the horrible food, i.e., corned beef, the constant meal.

But I know the war damaged my father and was part of his constant solace of alcohol and his seeming isolation from all around him for his lifetime.

This book echoes my father's demons and the narrator is perfect. It is a truthful picture of the damage that war produces in the men who fight them and the ghosts of terror they live with the rest of their lives. I especially liked the connection between all of us being participants in the terror of the war when we are silent about the stupidity of solving problems with killing. Nothing is ever solved, only more killing in the future is guaranteed as historians showed how WWI absolutely required WWII. What war will the war on terror bring us?

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The Best Book to Date of this Century or the Last

Reviewed: 11-13-12

This book is so good in so many ways it is hard to know where to start. The reader who is also the author gives a sterling performance.

The character development (which is so often lacking in so many of today's works) is fantastic. The viewpoint of rural versus urban is also fantastic. I know, I was born rural and moved to the city. The culture shock is quite shocking. Now the reverse is happening, urban or suburban raised going to the country and watching that has been very interesting! Anyways I absolutely love Barbara Kingsolver and read every word she writes. I think she is one of the urban to rural people with the ability to understand and adequately show to all of us the difference in life experiences and knowledge. From this book I get the feeling that she understands the rural poor, especially those who get stuck in 18th century thought and stay there. I meet them weekly in my trips to the local feed store. These denizens hang on to their Fox News with all their might in the hopes that all is well.

The part which is a phenomenal accomplishment is the part where the author through her main characters explain climate change to others. It is the best rebuttal to all the naysayers I have read and Ms. Kingsolver should be the voice for that type of education in all media and everywhere. She gave many acknowledgements in her book to many different people, including Bill McKibben, but her clear explanation of climate change and its proofs left me awed and I had read Bill McKibben.

At an emotional level, the death of a species is another horrible theme of the book and maybe even a little hope is there for overnight or at least one or two generation evolution. Lyall Watson has written a book on quick evolution and proved it. There is the same hope here.

This past year, a single monarch feasted on a sunflower plant in my yard. I live north of the fire ant invasion now in Texas and in a much earlier year I happened outside just as the large monarch butterfly population was heading towards Mexico via the Texas Hill Country 30 miles north of San Antonio and 150 miles south of where I now live seeing the single monarch. That vision near San Antonio of the delicate filtering of millions of these beautiful butterflies I count as one of the premiere memories I have. The other was when about 20 whooping cranes passed overhead on the way to the Texas coast also near San Antonio, Texas.

I ordered milkweed seeds from the group that advocates planting them via the net and I didn't get them in the ground. I will this year though before I plant anything else come spring. Since non-green government took over the State of Texas, they are spraying herbicides on the freeways and roadsides again, but for a while no spraying was done and no mowing was done where a field of flowers lived. Ignorance and stupidity keeps washing back into politics. We are all monarch butterflies because of it. This summer was mostly over 100 degrees with very little rain. I grow my own, but the only garden plant that survived were the weeds. I have learned to love weed salad!

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14 people found this helpful