This was an insightful and just plain fun read. Tony Danza--yes, the Hollywood Tony Danza--had a moment of self examination and questioning--where was he going in his life? For some reason he thought about years ago when he was a college student and had considered being a teacher. He decided to give it a try at 59 years of age, when most teachers are thinking of retirement and ending their active profession. Tony elected to give a tough school in the Pittsburgh area a try. They allowed him to come to the school for a year and to teach middle school English. This trial teacher and students were also filmed by A&E for a reality program called TEACH. The program was eventually dropped--not enough viewership--but Tony didn't quit. He made it through the entire semester with a deeper understanding of students, teaching and the educational system in the United States. Danza is honest with his feelings and emotions as he works in his journey. I really enjoyed the story!

McCullough recreates the Paris of the 1800's as a backdrop to the many Americans who chose then to live the life of the Expats. The Greater Journey evokes many Paris landmarks from Montmartre and the Palais Royal to the Tuileries and the Luxembourg gardens, undoubtedly highlighted in the Galignani's Guidebook, the Baedeker of the time, that still delight many a tourist today. While Washington D.C. was host to a mere 25,000 souls, Paris already held nearly 800,000 and was a cultural magnet. Many of the Americans who took the Great Journey definitely had the means to travel extensively throughout Europe and most of them were partial to the French capital although not particularly to the French.

Goldhill contends that the health care industry has its own private island and does not conform to market laws the way the "mainland" does. In fact, he draws a compelling picture about the absurdities of a system where costs and prices are dissociated and where the consumers are not the patients themselves but their surrogates, insurance companies, Medicare or Medicaid.
Although a Democrat, he has no love for the Affordable Care Act which he foresees as contributing to the dysfunction of the system by forcing people to have insurance. Using a fictional Becky, he assesses her health care contribution to be over $ 1 million over her lifetime. Becky does not see bills, is not concerned about the costs as she does not bear them directly. She does, however, suffer from a diminished income as increasingly, her premium, out-of -pocket costs and deductibles claim a larger part of her earning power.
The lack of transparency and accountability galls the author who advocates a larger role for patients and the elimination of comprehensive coverage traded for catastrophic coverage. Through health savings accounts and health loans, patients will find a better balance that does not rob them of both their money and their health.

Goldstone stunningly pairs two women unlikely to ever meet in the same period or at court: Joan of Arc, the simple farm girl from Domremy and Yolande of Aragon, Charles VII's mother-in-law. The first woman is as iconic as the second is unknown to the general public and yet their collaboration may well have wrested France from English hands.

As a child listening to my elementary teachers year after year recount Joan of Arc's exploits in pushing back the English, I should have questioned how a poor peasant girl from the Lorraine border could have swayed Charles VII, the weak French king who had succeeded the mad Charles VI, into mounting an offensive on the city of Orléans. As it turns out, although Joan took the initiative to travel to the closest garrison town to try to convince a royal representative of the excellence of her plans, she was aided surreptitiously by René, Yolande's third son and soon-to-be duke of Bar and Lorraine.