What Can Dream-Home Style Say About You?

I have bought and sold many homes over the years, from the affordable two-bedroom starter condo to the five-bedroom floorplan with a pool, and I am now at the stage where an empty nest and aging knees are pushing toward downsized, single-story simplicity. But because my oldest son is in the process of buying his first home, I began to think about architectural styles again--and what our preferences say about us. It is an interesting question for fiction writers, who must create believable characters and their environments. If the protagonist lives in a romantic Victorian, an anonymous suburban tract home, an austerely decorated urban loft, or a luxurious mountain lodge in the pines, readers will make different assumptions about likely background, lifestyle and psychology. Of course, the house we dream of owning and what we can afford are not always the same; and a dissonance between desire and reality has its own interesting character ramifications. But let's assume you can attain that dream home. What does your choice say about your personality? Some research shows that if you like a Craftsman home, you tend to value home and family, and thus a style that is classic, functional and good for down-to-earth entertaining. If you dream of an ornate Victorian with turrets and gingerbread, you are probably both an art lover and a detail-oriented fan of traditional order. In contrast, if you yearn to move into an urban loft with an Industrial look--lots of exposed brick, raw wood and steel--you're a more casual, eclectic soul, maybe with a tattoo or two. If you're not sure which home architecture really calls to you, discover your style preference with the attached quiz. You may be surprised! http://www.stylishhome.com/Design/Style-Maker-Quiz

On Father's Day: Fatherhood, Filial Duty in Flux

Father's Day is on its way, and I will be getting in touch with my 90-year-old dad, and my adult children will come home to celebrate their own father. Fatherhood certainly has changed significantly since celebration of "Father's Day" gained U.S. popularity in the early twentieth century and even since it became a fixed national day of recognition in 1972. Today's fathers are no longer the married breadwinners and disciplinarians of yore; they are also single dads, gay dads, stay-at-home caregiver dads, adopted dads, step-dads, and even transgender dads like Caitlyn Jenner. Overall, modern fatherhood trends are a good thing, since research shows that fatherly love is as important to a child's social, emotional and cognitive development as motherly love, and new fathering norms allow for greater care giving and interaction than in the past. But it seems to me that something also has been lost in the last century, and that is the concept of filial duty. America's current youth-oriented, self-fulfillment culture has relegated many filial duties to the moral dustbin with wifely obedience and whipping naughty children. You have to go to conservative religious tracts to read about children's duties, into adulthood, to honor, respect, obey, and take counsel from parents, and then care for them in old age. Is this erosion of filial responsibilities a good or bad trend for American society? Yes, government programs and professional caregivers have actually improved conditions for many older parents compared to past reliance on private filial care and financing. But what about emotional and social consequences? Well, junking fatherly input is probably fine for children with stifling, abusive or neglectful fathers; but it may not be so good for those whose loving dads could impart confidence, ethics and the wisdom of experience. Yes, we have a more creative, open society if unfettered from conservative parental tradition; but lack of parental guidance also can create a society adrift, without communal morality or understanding of its past. So while I'm definitely not advocating a return to patriarchal rule, perhaps we should salvage a bit of what was best about the "good old days" on this Father's Day. I'll try harder to show dear old dad how much we honor him and care about him, even if we don't follow the old requirement to physically care for him. More important, I'll try harder to heed the lessons earned by his longer years--right and wrong. For a glimpse of what other cultures can teach us about honoring elders:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/what-other-cultures-can-teach_n_4834228.html

Need Presidency Bidder Insight? See Their Books

One way to gain insight into the 2016 presidential hopefuls is to read their own words. A surprising number of Democrat and Republican primary candidates are authors, some even with best sellers. Granted there is often an excess of one-sided opinion and manipulated fact, but politicians' books still reveal their core values, goals and leadership style. So let's start with the most prolific writer: Democrat front-runner Hillary Clinton. Besides scholarly articles and innumerable columns, she is the author of five books, starting with It Takes a Village in 1996 to Hard Choices in 2014 (although I'd discount political revelations from her book of kids' letters to the First Pets). The recently published Hard Choices is a memoir of her years as Secretary of State, but most reviewers agree that while it is "serious, sober and substantive" (NY Times) on policy issues, the book disappoints by failing to reveal much about Hillary herself. Sales have been disappointing as well. The crowded GOP field has been more successful with publishing. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson scored the New York Times best seller list in 2014 with One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future, touting individual responsibility and bashing Obamacare. Marco Rubio also had a best seller with his memoir An American Son, but it was followed this year by the low-sales American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone. As an example of how presidential ambition impacts an author's tone, consider Rand Paul's 2012 book Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds versus this year's Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America. In 2015, Texas Tea Party icon Ted Cruz joined the conservative fray with A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America, expressing views that "have made him a political lightning rod and the most googled man in Washington," per Amazon's blurb. And presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee this year debuted God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, which posits a struggle between the "Bubbaville" American heartland and the "Bubbleville" coastal big cities, including D.C. Regardless of sales, the anti-Washington stance of Paul, Huckabee and Cruz doesn't mean a party win as Texas Republican Rick Perry can attest; he published Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington in 2010 before his unsuccessful try for GOP nomination. What about Jeb Bush? With embarrassingly puny readership, Jeb Bush penned Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution back in 2013, espousing a demand-driven system. There are more presidential hopefuls (Bernie Sanders, Bobby Jindal, Elizabeth Warren, etc.) who've written books, but I've run out of space! For more GOP authors, see http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/2016-book-race-gop/2015/01/30/id/621851/

Once a Rare Breed, Female Sleuths Proliferate

Ever since Nancy Drew, I've liked female sleuths in mystery fiction, especially because they were once a relatively rare breed. Now women mystery-solvers--police detectives, medical examiners, journalists, psychiatrists and detecting psychics--proliferate in publishing. In fact, the 2015 Edgar Award nominees included two good examples. Karin Slaughter, known for her Will Trent crime-solving bestsellers, was nominated for her first stand-alone effort, Coptown, about two disparate police women, one defying her privileged background by entering the force and one out to prove herself to a family with a police background. They become uneasy partners in 1974 Atlanta on the hunt for a serial killer targeting cops. Another finalist for the 2015 Edgar, as well as the Mary Higgins Clark Award, was Invisible City, a debut work by Julia Dahl. Protagonist Rebekah Roberts, whose mother abandoned her as an infant to return to her Hasidic faith, moves to New York to pursue a journalism career, also putting her near Brooklyn's Hasidic community, where her mother might still be living Covering the story of a murdered Hasidic woman, Rebekah ends up immersing herself in her secretive, unwelcoming world to get at the truth. Of course, I put both books on my bookshelf, but, as I did so, I noticed titles featuring favorite female detectives of the past. I think they're worth a visit from modern mystery fans. I mean, who doesn't love Agatha Christie's sharp-eyed old spinster Miss Marple? Join the village gossips in A Murder Is Announced, a deftly plotted piece of misdirection, to appreciate her. While you're "across the pond," drop in on Harriet Vane, the mystery novelist extraordinaire paired with dashing Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night, sometimes called "the first feminist mystery novel." And of course, re-read P.D. James' An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, where England's mystery queen championed her first woman detective way back in the 1970s. To see the other 2015 Edgar Award nominees and winners, go to http://www.theedgars.com/nominees.html