Lonely? Depressed? Want a soulmate of sorts? Well, 'Caring in Remembered Ways: The Fruit of Seeing Deeply' could just about meet your needs. Just about, simply because it strays at times, giving in to platitudes a 'needy' soul could do without. As the writer jumps from thought to thought quoting at random from Mother Teresa to ancient Chinese chronicles or even a dialogue from a film to drive home a point, the reader traverses a 'known' world and yet learns anew how to "return(ing) a favor", "tender touch", "blessings, gratitude and prayer", "loving and dying"...

"Out from the darkness we come, like saplings seeking the sun. we notice those having what looks like an easier time and we wonder about ourselves. Yet struggling, we also find our strength. We become familiar with our true inclinations. In the end. We stop apologizing for the time we have spent in the shadows and know that those items often have birthed what is best in us.
"To ignore the darkness is to ignore all that lives there. It is to want the sun without the moon, the day without the night.
"Dormant times - like active times - are life. Chinese bamboo spends years and years developing its root system in darkness, then suddenly grows eighty feet in a few months.
"Creation lives in darkness before it bursts into poems and songs and sculptures and healing words. In darkness, skin heals beneath the scab. Fetuses are nourished in the womb of darkness. Seeds germinate in darkness, evolving into flowers that blossom in the light."

Not as perennially refreshingly absorbing, illuminating an aid in soul-searching as perhaps Hugh Prather's 'Notes to Myself', Maggie Steincrohn Davis' tips on how to "see deeply the beauty and interconnectedness of all life; then think, speak and act from what you see" nonetheless opens windows to everyday aspects of life, which, perhaps one had not spared a thought or two. The engaging language makes it an interesting read on a sultry, depressed evening --curled up on a couch, all alone in a corner.

When National Geographic published its first Atlas of the World more than 35 years ago, the world was indeed a different place. In order to cover today's world--including its oceans, stars, climate, natural resources, and more--National Geographic has published its seventh edition of the Atlas of the World. With each new edition, National Geographic strives to make its atlas more than just maps. You'll learn that the coldest place in the world is the Plateau Station in Antarctica, where the average daily temperature is minus 56.7 degrees Celsius; the most populated continent is Asia, with more than 3.6 billion people, or 60.8 percent of the world's population; the driest place on earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile; a flight from New Delhi to Rio de Janeiro covers 14,080 kilometres; life expectancy in the Republic of Zambia is 37 years; and the literacy rate in Turkmenistan is 98 percent.

Flip through the pages of this impressive book and you will feel as though the world is literally at your fingertips. Full-page spreads are devoted to more than 75 political and physical maps (political maps show borders; physical maps show mountains, water, valleys, and vegetation). There are many new touches to be found in this edition, including increased usage of satellite images, an especially helpful feature when researching the most remote regions of the earth; more than 50 updated political maps that record the impact of wars, revolutions, treaties, elections, and other events; and the use of the latest research on topics such as tectonics, oceanography, climate, and natural resources. The sheer size of the atlas's index--134 pages--offers insight into just how much information is packed into 260-plus pages. The book is so physically large, in fact, that when it's open, the reader is staring at three square feet of information, a surface area larger than many television screens. The potential uses of this book for a family are vast, from settling a friendly argument to completing a school report. In the end, though, the atlas is still mostly about maps. Pages and pages of maps. Maps that force us to see how wonderful and dynamic our world is. Maps that remind us of where we've been and where we'd still like to go. © Amazon.com