Knockemstiff is a linked collection of stories about the inhabitants of a small town in Ohio named Knockemstiff.  The town is grim, run-down, and the world has mostly passed it by.  The same can be said of its residents, who are, for the most part, poor and uneducated.  They include perverts, alcoholics, the mentally ill, and drug abusers.  The stories take place over a period of fifty years.

It is worth mentioning that Knockemstiff is a real town, and the author, currently an MFA student in creative writing at Ohio State, grew up there.  This provides him with a unique and sympathetic perspective towards the town and its residents.

The premise of the book sounds incredibly depressing, and it is, to an extent.  What redeems it is the author's unflinching and nonjudgemental portrayal of the characters.  Knockemstiff's residents do horrible things to each other in the course of the book, and the lives they lead are often bleak and hopeless.  By presenting the book's characters without judgement, Pollack allows us to see them more clearly.  Instead of being amoral monsters, they come across as people who are largely at the mercy of a grim, hopeless environment. 

Many of the stories are heartbreaking.  Mankind has a great capacity for cruelty, and that capacity is magnified in a place like Knockemstiff.  Mankind also has an immense capability to be noble, even in the face of adversity.  Pollock maintains a balance between these two poles throughout the book.  Sometimes, as in the story "I Start Over," he combines cruelty and nobility in a way that left tears in my eyes.

This is a fine, fine collection of stories by an author who deserves to be watched in the future.  It is all the more impressive that this is Mr. Pollock's first book.  While it is definitely not for everyone (those who are easily offended are advised to avoid it), it is a highly rewarding and life-affirming experience.

We're all busier than ever, and we're all stressed out.  Meditation is a great way to help deal with life's stresses.  But how can the average busy person learn to meditate?  Doesn't it take years of practice and study under a guru?  Not at all. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Short Meditations shows you how to lower your stress levels, lighten up, start enjoying life, and be healthier with a wide variety of short meditations that take 15 minutes or less.

The idea of meditation can seem foreign and even scary to the average person.  Isn't it some sort of mystical process where you learn to detach yourself from the world? No!  There is nothing inherently mystical or religious in the practice of meditation.  At its heart, it is nothing more than learning how to control your brain and your thoughts.  Most of us have habitual thought patterns that run whether we want them to or not.  Quite often, these patterns are negative and self-defeating.  They can lead to negative and self-defeating behaviors.  Meditation provides a way to short-circuit these patterns.

Don't let the "Complete Idiot's" tag fool you.  This is an outstanding and thorough introduction to the varieties of meditation.  It is also highly recommended for experienced meditators.  It gives a concise background to the science behind meditation, then provides a series of increasingly deep meditation exercises.  A wonderful feature of the book is the number and variety of the meditation exercises it provides.  Everyone is different and has different needs.  The wide range of the exercises ensures that anyone who reads this book will find a meditation that meets their needs.  Some of the meditations will resonate with you, and some will not.

This can be a hard book to "read" in the traditional sense.  Once you find an exercise that really works for you, you may feel inclined to stop and work with that exercise for a while.  That's what I found happening to me again and again.  I have a feeling that this is how the book should be used.  Its intent is to get the reader to start meditating in a way that works for them.

If you're curious about meditation and want to see what it is like, this is the book to start with.  If you've meditated in the past and want to get back in to the practice, this is the book to read.  If you are currently meditating and want to broaden your range of practices, this is the book to read. 

Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region by Doris Sloan Have you ever wondered about the rocks beneath your feet, where they came from, or how they got here? This book, part of the California Natural History Guides series, provides a great introduction to the geology of the Bay Area.

This book covers the different rock formations in the area and the geological process that brought them to their present state. It is not excessively technical in its presentation: one of the nice things about the book is how it provides a general introduction to geology as it discusses Bay Area's geological formations.

Another excellent feature is the abundance of illustrations, photos, and maps. It is one thing for the book to talk about how the soil in parts of San Francisco has settled over the years, causing buildings to sink. Adding a photo of a building that has sunk below street level as a result of this settlement adds an extra dimension to the reader's understanding.

This is a great introduction to the geography and the geology of the Bay Area.

In Annals of a Former World, John McPhee has collected his four books on American geology in this, his magnum opus. His 650-page essay, much of it originally published in The New Yorker, recounts a geological field trip across the United States on Interstate 80, during which he was accompanied by several geologists. In the course of the journey, he combines travelogue, geologic history and human history with some of the finest writing I have come across. As a whole, it is simultaneously an admirable work of awe-inspiring description and astonishing detail and a frustratingly random compilation of theoretical research and overwhelming arcana.

Along the way, McPhee intersperses what he calls "set pieces" and "time lines," which place geological research in currently held theoretical and chronological contexts: the origins of coal and petroleum, the differences between field geologists and "black box" geologists, a reconstructed view of what Kansas may have looked like during the Middle Proterozoic era. He also interrupts his travels with riveting accounts of notable historical events, from the California Gold Rush to the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco. It is hard to imagine that a book on geologic history could be as fascinating and dazzlingly written as this is. What makes it even more of an achievement is the author’s ability to convey subject matter that is so complex and potentially dry in such an engrossing manner. In the course of the book, the reader begins to understand the vastness of geological time and the tremendous forces that were required to shape the landscape. Sometimes, the feat is accomplished with breathtaking ease, as when he states, “The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” This is a long book at almost 700 pages, and it is filled with complex terminology (I’m still not completely sure what an orogeny is), but it is well worth the effort. It will change the way you think about the world.