Reviews and rates the best recordings of country artists and groups, provides biographies of the artists, and charts the evolution of country music.

Author Michael Erlewine writes: "Poetry for me has been a way to record my inner changes and spiritual experiences. I don't write poetry that often, but when I do it is always in response to some inner realization or other, something I am going through that finally becomes clear to me. And I don't just try to "write a poem." I use poetry as a way of clarifying my experiences, as a way to lock my emerging realization into a form that can serve to bring to mind again and again the actual experience I am trying to understand. If I can capture the experience in a poem, I know that I have realized something or other about myself and my life. And by carefully reciting the poem aloud to myself, by articulating each word with understanding, the idea the poem captures can live again and be present in the mind. " Michael Erlewine is an award-winning archivist of popular culture and renowned astrologer. Perhaps best known for founding AMG, the All-Music Guide, All-Movie Guide, All-Game Guide, Classic Rock Posters Guide, and other large Internet sites, Erlewine is also an expert photographer, author (some 35 books), lecturer, and counselor. Erlewine founded Matrix Software in 1977, the second oldest software company on the web, the only older being Microsoft. Erlewine is also a musician. He traveled with Bob Dylan in 1961, was lead singer and amplified harmonica player for the Prime Movers Blues Band (Iggy Pop was his drummer), and opened for Cream in 1967 during the Summer of Love at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Michael Erlewine has studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism for some 35 years and has traveled in Tibet, Nepal, India, and China.

"The Lama of Appearances" provides an introduction to an important Tibetan teaching that is little known here in the West, and that is that nature herself, the world of appearances, is a perfect reflection of the mind, and can be a trusted guide to learning and practicing dharma, in particular where there is no dharma teacher available. This full-color book contains 130 hi-res close-up photos of nature along with three dharma-related articles. The first, mentioned above, is an introduction to using the natural world for training in the dharma. The second article is the personal history of how the author went through preliminary and advanced practices in Tibetan Buddhism and achieved some preliminary recognition of the true nature of the mind. This is a personal story of learning meditation and other Tibetan practices, with all of their joys and trials. In particular, this story is about the author's adventures learning Mahamudra meditation, and how to practice it. And last, "The Seven Points of Mind Training," one of the key texts in Tibetan Buddhism, is presented, with all fifty-nine of its slogans, accompanied by full-page color photographs.

"Nature in the Backyard" was written as a photographic introduction for the author's grandchildren to the world of nature, in particular the critters living in our own backyard, nearby parks, meadows, streams, ponds, and forests. Many of the more common frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, butterflies, beetles, spiders, and others are included, complete with hi-res macro photos and details on where to find them, what they eat, and how to (or not to) handle them. Along with the photos is an article for adults on how an exposure to nature can be a life teaching in itself, an aid for children (and adults) to develop compassion and kindness toward all beings including each other.

I have been doing astrological readings for some forty-plus years. Back in the day, my most-used book was a little volume by Hugh McCraig called the "200-Year Ephemeris," which basically was a list of geocentric planets giving the planet positions at the first of each month. When I did a reading with a client, this was the book I reached for to see where Saturn or other planets today were in the natal chart. With the McCraig book in mind, I wanted to create something similar, but what I also needed were graphic wheels to see at a glance where the planets are in the zodiac and what major aspect patterns are present. The StarTypes Visual Ephemerides do all of this and more. Each month has a 360-degree open chart when with planets and aspect patterns drawn in plus a listing of the Sun, Moon, planets and lunar node by degrees and minutes. Given this information, it is easy to flip through the pages and watch the kaleidoscopic aspect patterns change in the sky - perfect for readings.