Reviews with TLC

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker wasn't exactly what I expected. It took me several pages to reconcile that the book wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but once I did I found it very interesting and rather helpful. It reminded me a lot of my days as part of a committee organizing a  writers and readers conference. I couldn't help but compare and contrast our efforts with her recommendations. Parker made me alternately wish I'd read this book back then and feel proud of the work we did. That said, I could imagine how some of the things Parker suggests would feel contrived to guests and even to hosts even those who were genuine in their efforts, particularly at parties. Maybe this comes from my upbringing where gatherings, or get-together as we called them, were much less formal by design and people appreciated that informality. It also reminded me of parties I attended where there was so much structure, no one seemed to have an...

I've been using Hiking Waterfalls in Oregon (A Falcon Guide) by Adam Sawyer to find hiking trails leading to waterfalls for several years now. I really like this guide because it provides good directions to the trailheads as well good descriptions of the hikes and what to expect on the hikes. The maps of the trails are also quite nice providing a realistic idea of what the hike will entail. The photos are nicely done and add a bit of enticement for many of the hikes. The estimated time the hikes will take are fairly accurate though this does depend on one's fitness ability. I'm not sure how accurate the difficulty scale is because I think there's a large amount of subjectivity involved again. I found some of the easy hikes more difficult than I expected and some of the difficult hikes easier than I expected. Overall, though, this is my go-to guide when I'm searching for a hike, particularly because I love hikes that include waterfalls.