If Orphan Train has been on your to-read list since its release in 2013, consider bumping it up to your must-read-right-now list. I had been skirting around Christina Baker Kline’s bestselling novel and finally picked it up when I saw she was coming to the Des Moines Public Library’s Authors Visiting in Des Moines (AViD) series. Every…
Historical nonfiction is not a genre I normally dive into, but after listening to best-selling author Karen Abbott speak, I couldn’t be more eager to read her book. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy interweaves the stories of four women who risked everything during the Civil War. Abbott began her speech by saying that she prefers her protagonists to…
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” -Charles Darwin Over happy hour martinis and stuffed peppers one evening, my friend brought up a good point; Des Moines, the city we live in, has incredible opportunities for personal development that we could…
We’ve all been there. You’re about 5, 10 minutes into a run and you don’t know how you can go any longer. Your body doesn’t feel right…
