Get Rolling

Orbit

Lessons

Liz's Books

Store

Links

Off-Sk8 Fitness

FAQs

Get Rolling Web Site

Get Rolling Book Store

Dan's Picks

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
In retrospect, it seems as if the American Revolution was inevitable. But was it? In Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis reveals that many of those truths we hold to be self-evident were actually fiercely contested in the early days of the republic.
by Joseph Ellis

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
Detailing six distinct episodes in what the author believes is the most important decade in the history of the United States, Ellis provides fresh insights into the lives and interactions of the seven "Founding Brothers." I learned that much of what I knew of these great men was merely caricature. Their real ideas, motivations and actions are far more interesting than any textbook allows. The great friendship and bitter rivalry between Jefferson and John Adams is intriguing; the details of the often cartooned Burr-Hamilton duel fascinating.
The author has recently admitted fabricating a personal history of his service in the military in Vietnam. Don't let that keep you from enjoying this book.
-Dan

Cold Mountain
Charles Frazier's debut novel, Cold Mountain, is the story of a very long walk. In the waning months of the Civil War, a wounded Confederate veteran named Inman gets up from his hospital bed and begins the long journey back to his home in the remote hills of North Carolina. Along the way he meets rogues and outlaws, Good Samaritans and vigilantes, people who help and others who hinder, but through it all Inman's aim is true: his one goal is to return to Cold Mountain and to Ada, the woman he left behind.
by Charles Frazier

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
This is a great book that thoroughly captures the lives of its characters as they deal with the turbulence the Civil War has brought to the south. The humble characters and events are drawn with fine, rich detail. Although often dark, it drew me into their world and did not let go..
-Dan

Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea

by Eric Hansen

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
This book is essentially a two-part travelogue. But what a story! It is the funny, sometimes scary and always entertaining story of the author's shipwreck off the coast of South Yemen, with crew more interested in getting a tan than rescued, and his return years later to find his buried journals. He takes us to places and in ways most of us haven't even dreamed of. Mohammed, his driver is always looking for one more sheep to squeeze into the back seat of his car!
-Dan

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)
Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself!
by J. K. Rowling

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
Almost everyone has heard about the magical Harry Potter series to children's books. What you may not have heard is that they are great reads for adults, too. The Sorcerer's Stone is jammed with great fun characters, an interesting plot and plenty of morals for all of us. If you want an easy escape to a parallel, slightly warped world, this book is for you.
-Dan

Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
Biography of Meriwether Lewis with detailed accounts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
by Stephen E. Ambrose

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
Both Liz and I found this detailed account of the heroic and tragic life of Meriwether Lewis and his journey with William Clark and the Corps of Discovery fascinating. Here is one of the great stories of American history brought to life. I especially enjoyed learning about the expedition's dealings with the native Americans they encountered. Several tribes were essential in guiding and supplying the Corps. Without their help the expedition would have failed. Ironically, this expedition marked the beginning of the end for native culture and civilization.
-Dan

Einstein's Dreams
Einstein's Dreams is an enchanting and literacy adventure, one which Salman Rushdie had compared to Italo Cavino's Invisible Cities.
by Alan P. Lightman

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
This small volume is very different than anything I have ever read. Through short vignettes, Lightman illustrates what life would be like if time were somehow different. This is not a technical book, yet manages to give us a glimpse into what Einstein may have been dreaming when he developed his famous theory. Einstein's Dreams is great for reading aloud and is one of the few books I regularly pull out to reread.
The author teaches both physics and writing at MIT.
-Dan

A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently
In this well-crafted treatise on the history of time, psychologist Levine does a good job of keeping the text lively. Working with potentially dry subject matter, Levine has fashioned an entertaining book that examines the history of time, timekeeping, and the various ways that time is experienced in different cultures.
by Robert V. Levine

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
Through anecdotes about his own travels and foreign work experiences, and the results of his own research, Robert Levine illuminates the different approaches various cultures have to time. Whether it's cities in the U. S. or isolated tribes in the jungle, we all seem to have a characteristic speed. My favorite insight from the book came from a conversation with a local in central Africa. He did not understand the concept of "wasting time." After all, no matter what, you are always doing something.
I also found it interesting that I grew up just outside the city where people are most willing to spend time helping a stranger - Rochester NY. Thinking back to some of my first experiences in the big, bad world beyond Rochester I can believe it.
Although it is not framed as a self-improvement book, Levine had me thinking about my concepts of time and how rigid they sometimes can be. Luckily Liz and I have similar clocks. Many couples are constantly at odds over issues such as punctuality and use of "free time."
This is both an enlightening and fun read. - Dan

Crossing to Safety
From the award-winning author of "Angle of Repose" comes a brilliant novel of family and friendship that "The New York Times Book Review" called "superb". It is the poignant story of two couples who form a lifelong friendship, and the loyalties, celebrations, tragedies, and conflicts that afflict them as individuals and as families.
by Wallace Stegner

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
No violence, no mystery, no erotica - just a great read about the enduring relationship between two interesting couples. My first Stegner book. I'm going to read more!
-Dan

The God of Small Things
In her first novel, award-winning Indian screenwriter Arundhati Roy conjures a whoosh of wordplay that rises from the pages like a brilliant jazz improvisation. The God of Small Things is nominally the story of young twins Rahel and Estha and the rest of their family, but the book feels like a million stories spinning out indefinitely; it is the product of a genius child-mind that takes everything in and transforms it in an alchemy of poetry.
by Arundhati Roy

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
This is the beautifully written story of "two-egg" twins growing up in India against a background of family tension and class struggle. The author's unique style conjures images, poetry, tragedy and humor - all on the same page. Liz calls her style "delicious."
-Dan

A novel - but much more.

Milagro Beanfield War
Joe Mondragon, thirty-six, is a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, who slammed his battered pickup to a stop one day, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into an arid patch of ground. Then, illegally, he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began John Nichols' classic tale of the little guy against the big guy...
by John Treadwell Nichols

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
I picked up Milagro after seeing the movie (also recommended). This is one of my all-time favorites. It will have you laughing out loud at the quirky characters as they live out their almost-tragic lives against a background of Southwestern color and culture. Liz loves these books, too. - Dan

Volume I of the New Mexico Trilogy

The Magic Journey
Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims. The wheeler-dealers were rich -- and that was only the beginning...
by John Treadwell Nichols

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
Another visit to the Southwest and Nichols' wonderfully quirky characters. Full of magic, reality and lots of humor, this book makes you part of the community of Chamisaville, with its world famous "Dynamite Shrine." Nichols' writing reminds me of Steinbeck, with his empathy for regular, hard working folk, but with the humor of someone like Douglas Adams. - Dan

Volume II of the New Mexico Trilogy

The Nirvana Blues : A Novel
The seventies are over. All across America, the overgrown kids of the middle class are getting their acts together -- and getting older. The once-tight Chicano community of Chamisaville is long gone, and the Anglo power-brokers control almost everything. Joe Miniver -- faithful husband, loving father, and all-around good guy -- is about to sink roots. To buy the land he wants, he embarks on a coke scam and ends up in erotic adventures with three headstrong women . . .
by John Treadwell Nichols

Buy the Book Today!
What We Think:
The saga of Chamisaville continues. This one centers on the travails of a hippie trying to go straight. It's not easy when you have to deal every day with the characters who inhabit Chamisaville! Throw in a drug deal doomed from the start and you end up with lots of fun and insight as he sorts out his life. - Dan

Volume III of the New Mexico Trilogy

Dan's Picks
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation In retrospect, it seems as if the American Revolution was inevitable. But was it? In Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis reveals that many of those truths we hold to be self-evident were actually fiercely contested in the early days of the republic. by Joseph Ellis
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: Detailing six distinct episodes in what the author believes is the most important decade in the history of the United States, Ellis provides fresh insights into the lives and interactions of the seven "Founding Brothers." I learned that much of what I knew of these great men was merely caricature. Their real ideas, motivations and actions are far more interesting than any textbook allows. The great friendship and bitter rivalry between Jefferson and John Adams is intriguing; the details of the often cartooned Burr-Hamilton duel fascinating. The author has recently admitted fabricating a personal history of his service in the military in Vietnam. Don't let that keep you from enjoying this book. -Dan

Cold Mountain Charles Frazier's debut novel, Cold Mountain, is the story of a very long walk. In the waning months of the Civil War, a wounded Confederate veteran named Inman gets up from his hospital bed and begins the long journey back to his home in the remote hills of North Carolina. Along the way he meets rogues and outlaws, Good Samaritans and vigilantes, people who help and others who hinder, but through it all Inman's aim is true: his one goal is to return to Cold Mountain and to Ada, the woman he left behind. by Charles Frazier
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: This is a great book that thoroughly captures the lives of its characters as they deal with the turbulence the Civil War has brought to the south. The humble characters and events are drawn with fine, rich detail. Although often dark, it drew me into their world and did not let go.. -Dan

Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea by Eric Hansen
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: This book is essentially a two-part travelogue. But what a story! It is the funny, sometimes scary and always entertaining story of the author's shipwreck off the coast of South Yemen, with crew more interested in getting a tan than rescued, and his return years later to find his buried journals. He takes us to places and in ways most of us haven't even dreamed of. Mohammed, his driver is always looking for one more sheep to squeeze into the back seat of his car! -Dan

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1) Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! by J. K. Rowling
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: Almost everyone has heard about the magical Harry Potter series to children's books. What you may not have heard is that they are great reads for adults, too. The Sorcerer's Stone is jammed with great fun characters, an interesting plot and plenty of morals for all of us. If you want an easy escape to a parallel, slightly warped world, this book is for you. -Dan

Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West Biography of Meriwether Lewis with detailed accounts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. by Stephen E. Ambrose
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: Both Liz and I found this detailed account of the heroic and tragic life of Meriwether Lewis and his journey with William Clark and the Corps of Discovery fascinating. Here is one of the great stories of American history brought to life. I especially enjoyed learning about the expedition's dealings with the native Americans they encountered. Several tribes were essential in guiding and supplying the Corps. Without their help the expedition would have failed. Ironically, this expedition marked the beginning of the end for native culture and civilization. -Dan

Einstein's Dreams Einstein's Dreams is an enchanting and literacy adventure, one which Salman Rushdie had compared to Italo Cavino's Invisible Cities. by Alan P. Lightman
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: This small volume is very different than anything I have ever read. Through short vignettes, Lightman illustrates what life would be like if time were somehow different. This is not a technical book, yet manages to give us a glimpse into what Einstein may have been dreaming when he developed his famous theory. Einstein's Dreams is great for reading aloud and is one of the few books I regularly pull out to reread. The author teaches both physics and writing at MIT. -Dan

A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently In this well-crafted treatise on the history of time, psychologist Levine does a good job of keeping the text lively. Working with potentially dry subject matter, Levine has fashioned an entertaining book that examines the history of time, timekeeping, and the various ways that time is experienced in different cultures. by Robert V. Levine
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: Through anecdotes about his own travels and foreign work experiences, and the results of his own research, Robert Levine illuminates the different approaches various cultures have to time. Whether it's cities in the U. S. or isolated tribes in the jungle, we all seem to have a characteristic speed. My favorite insight from the book came from a conversation with a local in central Africa. He did not understand the concept of "wasting time." After all, no matter what, you are always doing something. I also found it interesting that I grew up just outside the city where people are most willing to spend time helping a stranger - Rochester NY. Thinking back to some of my first experiences in the big, bad world beyond Rochester I can believe it. Although it is not framed as a self-improvement book, Levine had me thinking about my concepts of time and how rigid they sometimes can be. Luckily Liz and I have similar clocks. Many couples are constantly at odds over issues such as punctuality and use of "free time." This is both an enlightening and fun read. - Dan

Crossing to Safety From the award-winning author of "Angle of Repose" comes a brilliant novel of family and friendship that "The New York Times Book Review" called "superb". It is the poignant story of two couples who form a lifelong friendship, and the loyalties, celebrations, tragedies, and conflicts that afflict them as individuals and as families. by Wallace Stegner
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: No violence, no mystery, no erotica - just a great read about the enduring relationship between two interesting couples. My first Stegner book. I'm going to read more! -Dan

The God of Small Things In her first novel, award-winning Indian screenwriter Arundhati Roy conjures a whoosh of wordplay that rises from the pages like a brilliant jazz improvisation. The God of Small Things is nominally the story of young twins Rahel and Estha and the rest of their family, but the book feels like a million stories spinning out indefinitely; it is the product of a genius child-mind that takes everything in and transforms it in an alchemy of poetry. by Arundhati Roy
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: This is the beautifully written story of "two-egg" twins growing up in India against a background of family tension and class struggle. The author's unique style conjures images, poetry, tragedy and humor - all on the same page. Liz calls her style "delicious." -Dan
A novel - but much more.
Milagro Beanfield War Joe Mondragon, thirty-six, is a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, who slammed his battered pickup to a stop one day, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into an arid patch of ground. Then, illegally, he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began John Nichols' classic tale of the little guy against the big guy... by John Treadwell Nichols
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: I picked up Milagro after seeing the movie (also recommended). This is one of my all-time favorites. It will have you laughing out loud at the quirky characters as they live out their almost-tragic lives against a background of Southwestern color and culture. Liz loves these books, too. - Dan
Volume I of the New Mexico Trilogy
The Magic Journey Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims. The wheeler-dealers were rich -- and that was only the beginning... by John Treadwell Nichols
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: Another visit to the Southwest and Nichols' wonderfully quirky characters. Full of magic, reality and lots of humor, this book makes you part of the community of Chamisaville, with its world famous "Dynamite Shrine." Nichols' writing reminds me of Steinbeck, with his empathy for regular, hard working folk, but with the humor of someone like Douglas Adams. - Dan
Volume II of the New Mexico Trilogy
The Nirvana Blues : A Novel The seventies are over. All across America, the overgrown kids of the middle class are getting their acts together -- and getting older. The once-tight Chicano community of Chamisaville is long gone, and the Anglo power-brokers control almost everything. Joe Miniver -- faithful husband, loving father, and all-around good guy -- is about to sink roots. To buy the land he wants, he embarks on a coke scam and ends up in erotic adventures with three headstrong women . . . by John Treadwell Nichols
	Buy the Book Today!	What We Think: The saga of Chamisaville continues. This one centers on the travails of a hippie trying to go straight. It's not easy when you have to deal every day with the characters who inhabit Chamisaville! Throw in a drug deal doomed from the start and you end up with lots of fun and insight as he sorts out his life. - Dan
Volume III of the New Mexico Trilogy