Roald Amundsen was the greatest polar explorer of all-time … first to the South Pole, first to the North Pole, who successfully navigated the Northwest and Northeast Passage. Shackleton’s bad luck was epic and really incomparable, but bad luck was fairly routine in polar exploration. There was a good chance that you were going to suffer and suffer for a long time and suffer to the brink of death. But there were nations lining up to explore the globe and achieve great feats. Roald was inspired as a young man to do big things. Continue reading →

“Flow” is a very influential book in the world of psychology. The author, Mihaly Csikszentmihlyi, poses the question, ‘What makes life worth living?’ With this inquiry as the starting point, the author reveals years of pioneering research that adds to our understanding of happiness, creativity, and human fulfillment by describing the common elements of ultimate experience or “flow,” a state of heightened focus and immersion in art, athletics, work and life. Continue reading →

I readily admit that I don’t catch most literary references or metaphors, if that’s what modernist fiction means. This novel was hailed for its experimental nature. Nothing happens. Everything is a stream-of-consciousness, jumping from character-to-character. No action, little dialogue. Continue reading →