Tag: gift


The Perfect Book for Coal Lovers (and Also Haters)

It’s Coalmas! Around this time of the year, some people threaten to leave coal in our stockings like it’s a bad thing. Pfft. Geologists know coal is actually a very amazing rock and very cool to have a lump of.

If you’re not convinced that holding a several hundred year-old shiny black flammable vestige of a really unique geological era is a fabulous thing, or if you just want to marvel at its remarkable past, let me suggest Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese. This is one of the best books I read in 2022. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a coal miner’s daughter with a soft spot for rocks that burn. I would have loved it even if I hated the vile, polluting stuff.

(more…)

Dana’s Pandemic Holiday Shopping Guide

Ah, yes, it’s that time of year again, where the holidays bunch up like they’ve put off celebrating til the last minute and suddenly it’s time to give All The Gifts. Of course, this being 2020, and many of us being in America where the ostensible leader can’t see reality past his artificially inflated ego, this is a complicated holiday season. Many of us will be socially distancing still. Viruses don’t take holidays, even when we wish they would.

Thanks to eCommerce, though, we can still give our loved ones some nice little gifts if we don’t want to skip that part, many of which will help while away a long pandemic winter. Let’s explore!

(more…)