Barbara K. Richardson
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Thanks, 2012: The Year's Best

12/12/2012

4 Comments

 

Favorites have to stir the heart, and the following really stirred me up this year. Blessed to have enjoyed them, & happy to pass them on!

My favorite carol of the year, perhaps of the decade:
My favorite new TV drama series is old. And completely engrossing. Make sure to watch The Guardian through Episode Eight. Yes, Simon Baker brings a young Paul Newman to mind, but it is the content here that is so winning. Tough shark lawyer meets vulnerable kids as a reluctant public defender. Netflix has the series on Instant Download. My admiration grows with every episode.
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Favorite novel of 2012 is, hands down, The Ordinary Truth by Jana Richman.


Cat Stephens was looking for a hard-headed woman. Truth features four. Ranchers all, with a past that has them snared like barbed wire and
a 300-mile-long pipeline that's about to suck their arid Nevada ranch dry.

Who gets the water—Las Vegas or the Jorgensens?

Be ready to eat dust and ride the rangelands to find out. Richman can really write desert.

And the pipeline is not fiction. See my favorite cause below.
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My favorite new pastime--napping.
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My favorite trees, and this is one tough category for me:
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My apple tree, which produced five blossoms. I was so excited I couldn't hold still!
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Van Gogh's "Poplars at Saint Remy"—at the Denver Art Museum, until January 2.
For a few years now, my favorite TV comedy series has been Modern Family.
With this year's Phils'osophy, the writers reached new heights. I would buy multiple copies of this book to give away, if only someone had published it! Phil for the holidays!
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My favorite non-fiction book, which I am reading slowly to relish every insight: Priscilla Stuckey's Kissed By a Fox.

The writing in Kissed is easily as beautiful as the cover. Stuckey explores our basic connection with nature which we've largely forgotten but which has not forgotten us.

Philosophers, biologists, mystics and economists all join voices with Stuckey to pinpoint and resurrect our profound state of being not just one with nature but being nature itself.

Let the fox kiss you. Let an eagle catch your eye. Let Stuckey's restoration of a creek in Oakland sing along with her recovery from severe sorrow and isolation.

Kissed celebrates the up close and personal power of connection.

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Favorite new chocolate: Whole Foods Dark Chocolate PEAR & ALMOND.
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My favorite cause of 2012: Utah's Goshute Indians claiming their water rights against a proposed Las Vegas pipeline that will decimate their arid homeland. The Goshutes ARE Spring Valley. And Spring Valley needs to keep its water under its own very beautiful dry feet.

If you have any gift-giving ahead in your holiday, the Goshute Legal Fund deserves
to hear from you.
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Favorite quote: almost anything Rumi says, but here's the current zinger.
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

Favorite recipe: take one moment, pay attention, repeat and stir, bake until you are tender.

Happy holidays
and a dashing New Year filled with new and old favorites!

4 Comments
Jana link
12/12/2012 08:04:59 am

What a fabulous list! I'm honored to be a part of it. I love the Fuller quote and the Cather quote.

And let us not forget your favorite "publication" this year, the strong and lovely "Tributary."

Reply
Barbara Richardson
12/13/2012 03:26:35 am

"The Ordinary Truth" just started my reading year off right! My favorite cause explored in a powerful novel—I am so glad you wrote this book.

Reply
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4/25/2013 10:17:10 pm

The book “Kissed by a fox” clearly details the basic connection between human beings and nature! In this busy world nobody has got time to serve nature. This book is one of the best among various writings of Priscilla Stuckey.

Reply
Barbara
4/26/2013 12:04:37 am

So glad you loved "Kissed." I hope it finds a wide audience.

Reply



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    Favorite quotes:


    "Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.” 
    —Willa Cather

    "Nothing is as powerful as beauty in a wicked world."
    ​—Amos Lee

    Favorite tree:

    Butterscotch-scented ponderosa pines in sunlight.

    Favorite place:

    The middle of nowhere.


    Currently reading:

    Glimpses of the Moon

    Beautiful Ruins

    The Coroner's Lunch


    Just finished reading:


    Perma Red

    Favorite blog:

    One Woman's Meat: Notes from Escalante

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