Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Are you ready to transition from a full time  career into active retirement? It’s a wonderful opportunity to shift gears and focus on what you want to do, and who you want to become. So many retired people say they are busier than when they were working. The question is, are you following your calling and […]

Book Summary Anna is a striking and spirited young girl living in ancient Palestine where being a daughter is a disappointment. While her father excitedly anticipates the birth of his first son, the invisible Anna endures a life of drudgery. One bright spot in her world is the crippled old woman living by the village […]

Book Summary Tree is a novel about a tree written from a unique point of view: the chief narrator is a tree. Tree uses magical realism as a key to access the interrelated emotional realities of the many species that share one pristine valley in Topanga, California. Grass, birds, other trees and animals come to […]

Story Summary The brutal murder of Lavalé fey Avecath, the King’s First Magistrate and adviser, interrupts Constable Inspector Reva Lunaria’s day off. The victim’s status makes this a high-profile investigation, bringing with it unwanted attention from Senior Inquisitor Ailan Malvaceä of the Sucra, the King’s secret police. The manner of the victim’s death makes this […]

Book Summary Veganism is more than a healthy lifestyle choice—it’s a moral imperative. Society continues to engage in widespread animal oppression, slaughtering billions of helpless living creatures each year. Vivisectionists and researchers torture and kill in the name of science, while corporations and governments plunder nature’s last remaining treasures. Author, vegan, and dietician Stephen Saunders, […]

Story Summary LAST SONG AND DANCE is an illustrated novel which tells the grim story of Cy Sullivan, failed alcoholic author who has returned to his hometown after years of scandal and disgrace, not in triumph but simply to die. He has but a week to compose his great American novella, Curse of the Blue […]

Book Summary What does it take to win a Nobel Prize? Deceit, fraud, even murder? Set in the competitive world of cutting-edge medical research, The Prize is a science thriller in which jealousy over the discovery of a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease leads to fraud, betrayal and violence. Pam Weller makes the discovery of a […]

Summary: A Police Action is a gripping coming-of-age Vietnam War-era romantic novel. It is the story of two lost and confused young adults. It is love at first sight when nineteen-year-old Samantha Powers meets James Coppi at the Country Honky Tonk in Colorado Springs. There are just two problems to a storybook ending for Samantha’s […]

Story Summary: The essence and meaning of transcendent love between two people—the kernel of human existence—is often found in the crucible of war. Such was the love between Bosko, a Serbian boy, and Admira, a Bosnian girl, who were caught in one of the most barbaric and brutal periods of the last century: the breakup […]