Spare Parts

Disclaimer I’m in no way qualified to review a new gadget. However, I can bring one thing that those in “the gadget know” cannot bring: A real point-of-view opinion from a regular gal. Starting Line As far as gadgets go, I’m about as savvy as a third-grader entering high school. Attempting to review a new technical device is a first for me. Please refrain from laughing! My techno-suave maneuverings go only as far as necessary to get by in our fast-paced world without seeming fossil-like to others. Despite being technologically challenged, I do enjoy the latest and greatest and I force myself to understand them, whenever possible. So imagine my delight when I got the chance to play with Barnes & Noble’s new e-Book Reader the ‘nook’? I had the ‘nook’ right in my hands, teasing and pulling me in for a trial run. It was an opportunity for me to bring one of my great loves together with one of my great phobias. The ‘nook’ is going to let me fuse reading and technol...

"There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in." ~Elizabeth Gilbert ~ About two years ago, I picked up a book that I had been seeing in the hands of countless people both on my daily commuter travels and at bookstores. People, mostly women, engrossed so thoroughly in its pages that I felt I had to know what the big deal was about. I picked up the book, and like so many others before, it found a home on my crowded shelves. Not long after that, I was watching an episode of Oprah and she was interviewing a young, vibrant author who, if I remember correctly, seemed to me to be glowing. Surely she is pregnant, I assumed. That author was Elizabeth Gilbert. Her book, E at, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia , was by then a bona fide worldwide phenomenon. As I sat back and listened to Liz Gilbert discuss the adventures – across Italy (to eat), India (to pray) and Indonesia (where she found love) - that led...