Interesting Books

The Secret History of Dreaming
Robert Moss
New World Library
2009, 330 pages
ISBN: 9781577316381

Everyone dreams. These often pleasant, sometimes disturbing, “sleep experiences” are certainly interesting and, according to Robert Moss “vital to the human story”. In his extensively researched book Moss covers dreams, coincidence and imagination “as secret engines in the history of all things human.”

Moss looks at dreams threw the ages including those associated with Joan of Arc, Winston Churchill and Carl Jung. He also looks at Harriet Tubman (1822 – 1913) who was a run-away slave who helped free other slaves via the Underground Railroad. According to Moss, Tubman “was a dreamer and seer. In her dreams and visions, she could fly like a bird. Often she flew over landscapes she had never seen with her physical eyes. From her aerial maps, she was able to find the right roads and the river fords and the safe houses to get escaping slaves out.”

Dream experiences with many others is also included such as Mark Twain who “dreamed the death of his beloved younger brother Henry, in exact detail, before it took place” and Paul McCartney who dreamed the song “Yesterday” and whose song “Let It Be” was “based on a dream visitation by his dead mother, Mary.”

Totality: Eclipses of the Sun (Third Edition)
Mark Littmann, Fred Espenak, Ken Willcox
Oxford University Press
2008, 341 pages
ISBN: 9780199532094

Totality: Eclipses of the Sun takes a fascinating look at eclipses of the sun including what causes a total solar eclipse, monuments testifying to earlier civilizations’ knowledge of astronomy, “Anatomy of the Sun” as well as other topics including capturing an eclipse on video. This interesting guide looks at past, present and future eclipses. Lots of stunning photographs.

 Obsessed With TV
David Hofstede
Chronicle Books
2009, 320 pages
ISBN: 9780811868488

A fun book to take on vacation is Obsessed With TV. This book features 2500 questions about television in areas such as: comedies, dramas, reality TV and game shows, action shows, kids' shows and music and variety shows. An important part of the book is the module which selects questions in the book. You select your answer by pressing A, B, C or D. One or two people can play. 

Quick! "Which 1960s sitcom cast reprised their roles more than thirty years later in a 1999 made-for-TV movie?" A. The Patty Duke Show B. Car 54, Where Are You? C. The Donna Reed Show D. McHale's Navy

If you said "D"... you'd be wrong!

A warning...it's easy to become a little obsessed with book. It truly is one of those books that's hard to put down!

It would also make a great gift to those who have enjoyed television over the decades.