The Great Man: A Novel by Kate Christensen

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel is not about a great man at all, but the strong, unique and falliable women who surrounded a celebrated but morally weak artist in his life.



After the artist's death, his sister, his wife, his mistress, his grown daughters and his mistress's best friend are reminded of their time with him through the eyes of two biographers writing about him.



Sometimes comical, often biting, The Great Man gives us female protagonists who are grandmothers, or old enough to be grandmothers. And their voices are anything but tedious.

Here are some environmentally-friendly tips any household can take advantage of. They are excerpted from “The Green Book” by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigan. Three Rivers Press, 2007 (printed on 100 percent recycled paper):

•Take a shorter shower. Every two minutes you save can conserve more than 10 gallons of water.
•Set your thermostat a degree higher for air-conditioning and a degree lower for heating. You could save $100 per year on your utility bill. Keep adjusting and you’ll save even more.
•Compost. Keep your kitchen scraps from fruits, vegetables and coffee grounds in a composting container. Try adding them to your garden or starting a compost site in your yard. You’ll grow a better garden, create deeper topsoil, recycle nutrients and save landfill space.
•Don’t pre-rinse dishes. Run full loads in your dishwasher and save energy, and don’t pre-rinse dishes before putting them in. Do both and you’ll save up to 20 gallons of water per dish load, or 7,300 gallons over a year — that’s the same amount of water the average person drinks in a lifetime.
•Clean the microwave. Keeping your microwave clean will maximize its energy. Microwaves are up to 4.8 times more energy efficient than traditional electric ovens. If it costs 10 cents to cook an item in the microwave, it would cost 48 cents to cook the same item in a standard oven.
•Use glass containers. Instead of using plastic, store your food in glass or porcelain containers. Fewer chemicals will likely leach from the container into the food.
•Water filters. Try installing water filters on your home faucet instead of buying bottled water. You can buy a walter filter for as little as $29 - about the same cost of a month of bottled water.
•Rid yourself of junk mail. The average U.S. household received 1.5 trees’ worth of junk mail each year. To reduce the amount of junk mail you receive, visit www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing list
•Light bulbs. Dust your light bulbs and change them to compact flourescent when they burn out. You’ll increase energy efficiency and light output.
•Choose matches over lighters. Over 1.5 billion plastic lighters end up in landfills yearly. Cardboard matches, made from recycled paper, are a better choice than wood matches, which are made from trees.
•Filters. Instead of having to replace your disposable air filter several times a year, consider buying a permanent one that can be washed and reused indefinitely.
•Dry cleaning. Request no plastic bags, and return you paper hangers to the dry cleaners for recycling.
•Get rid of lint. Clean your dryer lint screen, and don’t overload the dryer. You’ll save up to 5 percent on your electricity bill. Better yet: Use a clothesline when possible.
•Wrap your water heater in an insulating blanket to store heat. Set the thermostat no higher than 120 degrees to conserve energy.
•Wash your car in a commercial car wash. It is better for the environment than doing it yourself. Car washes use less water per wash — up to 100 gallons less — and often recycle and reuse rinse water.
•Hoses. Fit your garden hose with an automatic shut-off nozzle. You’ll save up to 6.5 gallons per minute.
•Lawn care. Cut your gras so it’s two inches high, and leave the clippings on the lawn. You’ll spend less time mowing and raking, and you won’t have to water your lawn as much.
•Download music instead of buying CDs. The average price of a CD is about $15, while a downloaded album is about $10. Each month, more than 45 tons of CDs end up in landfills.
•Soda. Buy from the fountain in a paper cup rather than from a can or plastic bottle. More paper (48 percent) is recycled than are cans (43.9 percent) or plastic soda bottles (25 percent).
•Go high-speed. Faster Internet access saves time, and ultimately money and energy. Based on a full day’s use, you could save more htan $30 per year in energy costs by increasing your Internet efficiency and turning off your computer when it’s not in use.
•Don’t take an ATM receipt. ATM receipts are one of the top sources of litter on the planet.
•Direct deposit your paycheck. You will get your money faster and will reduce the time and fuel you used to get to the bank.
•Pay bills online and sign up for paperless bank statements. Save postage and paper.
•RECYCLE. We could decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by 75 percent if everyone in America simply separated the paper, glass, and aluminum products from the trash and put them in the recycling bin. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all of our waste each year.

To learn more about ways to save the environment, visit award-winning Senior Mercury reporter Evan Brandt's blog The Thin Green Line.

To purchase "green gifts" including the book mentioned in this blog, visit The Green Perspective

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is good beach-reading material for those who like a darker, CSI meets pre-WWII Russia suspense-filled tale. The cold, spare, fast-moving story is a departure from my usual girly wrought-with-feelings-and-emotions lit picks.

The story follows war-hero Leo, a government true-believer under Stalin's regime, through his fall from grace and subsequent scramble to stay alive while trying to crack the case of Russia's first serial killer.

A quick read, but it didn't capture or captivate me.

Written by Tom Rob Smith, whom I want to make fun of for having two monosyllabic first names, it's a first novel and unbelievably detailed as such. Well, he did go to Cambridge after all.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, Penguin Books, 1993, 361 pp.

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
I think Carol Shields is genius for the way she wove together this tale of a family with roots in rural 19th century Ottawa.

A bit of a slow starter, this one. I tried reading it years ago, got through about 50 pages then put it down. But the "Winner of a Pulitzer Prize" (1995) sticker on the front got me to give it another go.

Sleepy in spots, rich in detail and complex. Told from several multi-generational viewpoints. Sad and ironic.

In the end, you want to defend Daisy Flett, through whose eyes we view the final chapters (illness and death). You want her to find love again. No such luck.

Reviewed: “The True Cost of Happiness,” by Stacey Tisdale and Paula Boyer Kennedy, Wiley, 2007, $24.95, 288 pages.

How your parents handled money influences the way you handle your finances, according to “The True Cost of Happiness,” a book co-authored by business journalist Stacey Tisdale and financial planner Paula Boyer Kennedy.

Readers are encouraged to take a look at the role family dynamics play in their financial behavior.“I’m talking about the ways in which the first lessons we learned about money as children affect our decision about making and spending it as adults,” writes Tisdale, who penned the first half of the book, which focuses on self-awareness.

In my family, my father managed the money. My mom took care of the house and three kids. The bills and the bank account were the man’s job. When my father died at age 58, losing a 13-year battle with cancer, my mother was thrust into a position of total financial responsibility — a role no one had prepared her for. When my mom was growing up, her father took care of the household finances. She learned at an early age that money was the man’s job. And that was the norm of the time, and it worked out OK for my mom. Until circumstances in her adult life necessitated a crash-course in paying bills.

Learned financial behaviors are what Tisdale and Boyer Kennedy call “money scripts.” Leaving room for you to write down your thoughts, they ask you to explore your own “money scripts” learned in childhood, and look at how they play a part in your financial attitudes as an adult.“Think about those money scripts that are limiting you. Imagine your life without those messages. How would your actions be different?” the authors write.

If your behavior isn’t leading you to your financial goals, then you need to take a new tack, they say. They walk you through ways to make those changes. One fun exercise, that I’m sure each of us has indulged in some variation, is:

•Imagine that you have all the money you will ever need. Decide what you would do with it, your life and your time.

•Next, change that picture. Now you only have 5 to 10 years to live. How will you change your life? What will you do with the time you have left?

•Lastly, imagine the changes you’ll wish you had made if you only have 24 hours to live.“The question is not what you would do with the time you have left, but what are your regrets?” the authors ask. That last scenario, they say, “cuts deepest of all. It becomes clear which issues in life are superficial and which are central. Sometimes this exercise delivers a … longing or wish that has never before surfaced.” It’s a thought-provoking way of getting to your big picture goals.

For instance, I have a desire to travel, but I feel like with my current monthly bills (mortgage!) I don’t have enough money to go anywhere. Per the authors’ advice, I can afford a trip to, say, Italy, if I make a budget and start setting aside a small sum every month.

Those who dislike the “getting in touch with your financial feelings” part of the book may be more comfortable with the second half of the book, which focuses on numbers. Basically, it tells you how to make a budget — something a lot of people simply don’t do. “We think having to literally face your values and your barriers each time you look at your finances will be an important factor in keeping your financial decisions aligned with your priorities,“ writes Boyer Kennedy, who handles the numbers-focused latter half of the book.

In other words, make a budget and stick to it and you may be able to save some money for a trip abroad … or retirement!

While the authors offer some very sound, practical advice, they also suggest that readers visit a financial planning professional to help you figure it all out.“The True Cost of Happiness” helps readers to determine why they spend/save as they do and what they could do better to meet certain goals.

Michelle Karas is The Mercury’s business editor.