A Few Good Reads...

A few non-financial notables I’ve been perusing lately….

Bottlenotes
This website is still getting off the ground, so there’s not a lot of activity, and some of it is simply promotional at this point, but I think this has potential to be a real community for those so inclined. Just filling out the introductory survey was moving for me – from radial button answers to ranking grape and sensory preferences in wine – to open-ended questions like When did you first taste wine? and When did you first love wine? they really sparked my memory and capacity for nostalgia. Something wine itself does. They also help you identify great promising new wines by price range, which is helpful when you’ve graduated from the two-buck-chuck at Trader Joe’s but are still budget-conscious.

Beanstock’d
The mission of the website is intended to incorporate ecologically sensitive information and green-propaganda into the delivery of pop culture gossip and news. Sort of like a Green E! channel. The combination is sometimes clumsy. But like all gossip networks, it’s sort of addicting prose. And as I don’t currently read anything else of that nature, I can somehow justify having it in my Google Reader.

TED
I feel a little embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of TED before a few weeks ago when a friend of mine sent me the link and recommended a few. The premise: tap amazing talent to give the talk of their lives in 20 minutes. In some cases that really means a talk about their life, and in others, it means a talk on the subject that fuels their life, and literally the best and most inspiring talk they have given and will ever give. Such a bold challenge for the boldest of characters living in this age inevitably produces inspiring little pockets of 20 minutes. My favorite so far in getting through the archives has been hearing Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, talk about genius.