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The day after the elections, I connected with my cousin’s daughter who lives in NY and worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign and also worked for Planned Parenthood. She’s an amazing young woman, who moved to NYC for school so she could experience life outside of her hometown.
I knew she’d be down and I was concerned that she’d lose her fire for fighting for what she believes in due to the outcome of the election. First, I texted her – she sent me pictures of the sit-in that she was participating in as a peaceful protest of the disregard for the popular vote. Later on in the day, she called me. She called to describe how she was feeling and the beauty of the protest she’d attended. She spoke about the power of the circle and the amazing dichotomy of being in a place filled with hate and love at the very same time.
Listening to her made me think about my experience recently reading Gloria Steinem’s My Life on the Road. I was moved by her stories of the people she’d met and the experiences she’d had while on the road being a voice for women’s rights. I couldn’t help but be thrilled that my young cousin experienced the listening circle, so similarly described by Steinem. I told my dear friend to find a wonderful bookstore in Brooklyn and buy this book.
The mark of a good book is when you can find a similar thread in one’s life and then recommend the book to that person. At her age, I’m not sure I would have been exciting about this book; but she’s exactly ripe for the reading. That said, at my current age, I loved this book! The stories, the idea of listening circles and the bonds created by womanhood – they resonated in the deepest crevices of my soul; in a most surprising way. I don’t think I was as prepared for reading this book as I’d originally thought. I knew it would be interesting but I didn’t realize the stories would stoke some of the fires that have been kindling within me, as of late.
Grab your favorite drink, sit in your favorite chair and start reading. Trust me.
PS. I’m talking to everyone.
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A few months ago, I finished Grace Jones’s book, I’ll never write my Memoirs – and it was one of the best books I’ve read in an incredibly long time. Seriously. The book is incredibly well written and shows sides of Grace Jones that I suspect not many people will recognize. The book isn’t really written based on a timeline of some sort, but it touches on the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. It touches seriously sensitive topics, like emotional and physical abuse, sexual identity and sexual preference, and gender identity, suicide, feminism, and what we do for beauty. The book also touches on the AIDS epidemic and how it affected those who were close to it; as well as continuous but sporadic thread on religion and spirituality. A theme throughout the book is the theatrics of life, and when to play to the crowd and when not to. The book is phenomenal; and when I closed it, I thought how sad it was that my dad never had a chance to read it (not sure he would have, but still – I believed he really loved Grace Jones). I wonder if he’d glimpsed the true person behind the public Grace Jones, would he have still liked her?
This is a book to be shared. In fact, I think its an important book for young women to read. Grace Jones is blunt and honest about the pitfalls of the world she created and lived in. She’s brazen about the woman she became for the public, but the importance of knowing when to reel it in is a real conversation she has throughout the book in numerous ways. The book is honest and raw and thrilling in ways I didn’t even expect. There are nuggets of wisdom throughout the whole book, you just have to realize the rip roaring stories all lead up to a moment of reflection. I can’t imagine you would, but don’t allow yourself to gloss over the stories. If you do, you might miss the point of what she’s trying to teach you.
You know when you are bored and you think about the famous people you’d like to sit around the Algonquin Roundtable with for lunch and a chat? Grace Jones made the top of that guest list…the top. But without the makeup and the outlandish clothing. I just want to chat with the real Grace Jones, because I think she might just well have some of the best lessons to share.
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I recently finished the first short story in the newest Straub book, Interior Darkness; and if you like Peter Straub, you are going to love this book! If you, like me, find it more horrifying to contemplate what people are willing to do to each other, then this collection of shorts is going to be incredibly satisfying! Here’s a good, albeit short, interview with Peter Straub conducted by the Miami Herald that will give you a bit of insight into the compilation of this book.
If you like horror, and you are a fan of the psychological terror of human behavior, order this book!
Summary: An American icon renowned for his bestselling novels, Peter Straub displays his full and stunning range in this crowning collection. He has consistently subverted the boundaries of genre for years, transcending horror and suspense to unlock the dark, unsettling, and troubling dissonances that exist on the edges of our perception. Straub’s fiction cracks the foundation of reality and opens our eyes to an unblinking experience of true horror, told in his inimitable and lush style with skill, wit, and impeccable craft.
With uncanny precision, Straub writes of the city and of the Midwest, of the depraved and of the righteous, of the working class and of the wealthy—nothing and no one is safe from the ever-present darkness that he understands so well. “Blue Rose” follows the cycles of violence and power through the most innocent among us, leading to a conclusion that is audacious and devastating. In the darkly satirical masterpiece “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff,” a stern estate lawyer known as the Deacon hires a pair of “Private Detectives Extraordinaire” to investigate and seek revenge on his unfaithful wife. “The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” follows a man and his much younger lover as they explore their decadent and increasingly sinister fantasies aboard a luxurious yacht on the remotest stretch of the Amazon River.
Interior Darkness brings together sixteen stories from twenty-five years of dazzling excellence. It is a thrilling, highly entertaining, and terrifying testament to the prodigious talent of Peter Straub.
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Baggage is a new thriller from S. G. Redling, the bestselling author of Flowertown, The Widow File, and Redemption Key.
Over the years, terrible things keep happening to Anna Ray on February 17. First, there was the childhood trauma she’s never been able to speak about. Then, to her horror, her husband killed himself on that date.
A year later and a thousand miles away, Anna tries to find solace in the fresh start of a new job in a new place. She takes comfort in her outspoken cousin Jeannie, the confidant and best friend who’s there whenever she needs help. On the eve of the dreaded anniversary, Anna and Jeannie hit the town, planning to ease the pain with an alcohol-induced stupor and then sleep…
But when Anna awakes on the darkest day of her year, she has no idea that fate is about to intervene in the form of a pair of gruesome murders with eerie similarities to her violent past. This time, however, she won’t be an abandoned daughter or a grieving widow. This time, she’ll be a suspect.
Bio: A fifteen-year veteran of morning radio, an avid traveler, and a so-so gardener, S.G. Redling currently lives in her beloved West Virginia. She is the author of several novels including: Ourselves, Flowertown, Damocles, Redemption Key, The Widow File, and Braid.
Here’s a link to Baggage by S. G. Redling.
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Journey to Death: A Lucy Hall Mystery is the first installment in a new crime series starring a reluctant young detective tested to the very limits of her endurance. Leigh Russell takes the reader on an exhilarating adventure from the idyllic tropical beaches of Mahé into the island’s Dark Cloud Forest.
Lucy Hall arrives in the Seychelles determined to leave her worries, and her cheating ex, behind. Newly single and tagging along with her parents on their romantic break, Lucy promises herself the holiday of a lifetime in sun-soaked Mahé. Her father, having lived and worked on the island in the seventies, is keen to show her the paradise he once called home. But appearances can be deceiving and, as Lucy soon discovers, the island is hiding dark secrets that threaten to turn their dream holiday into a nightmare.
As the number of strange and violent incidents rises, it becomes clear to Lucy that someone on the island is out to get them. Could her father’s past hold the key that might save all of their lives? And will Lucy discover the truth before it’s too late?
Here’s a link to the book Journey to Death: A Lucy Hall Mystery by Leigh Russell
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Leigh Russell is the internationally bestselling crime author of the Geraldine Steel and Ian Peterson series. Having reached #1 on Kindle and iTunes, Leigh’s work has attracted glowing reviews in the UK and USA. Her titles regularly appear on bestseller lists and have been shortlisted for prestigious industry awards including the CWA Dagger. After studying English at the University of Kent, Leigh went on to teach, specializing in supporting those with learning difficulties. Leigh guest lectures for the Society of Authors, teaches creative writing courses in Greece and runs the manuscript assessment service for The CWA. She is married, has two daughters, and lives in London.
Thomas & Mercer is the mystery and thriller imprint of Amazon Publishing, showcasing first-rate fiction, from cozy mysteries to heart-stopping thrillers, from bestselling authors including Blake Crouch, Marcus Sakey, Robert Dugoni, Barry Eisler, Mark Edwards, and Leigh Russell to name a few.
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‘A rare talent’ – Daily Mail
‘Unmissable’ – Lee Child
‘Taut and compelling’ – Peter James
‘One of the most impressively dependable purveyors of the English police procedural’– The Times
‘Good, old-fashioned, heart-hammering thriller. A no-frills delivery of pure excitement’– Saga Magazine
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I got about halfway through The Emotional Edge and decided beyond a shadow of a doubt, I’d already four others like it; and its most reminiscent of Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Archetype books. I’m not well-versed enough to discuss the differences in these books in regards to Jungian theory, but it seems like each could have been the other with a teeny-weeny difference in what we call our ego, id and superego.
That said, everyone learns and absorbs differently. For some, Morissette’s The Emotional Edge may be a better tool to help live life to the fullest. The author does a good job explaining, and giving examples of, the Parental, Child and Adult archetypes, as well as the sub-archetypes under each. For the most part, this book seems like a supplement to course work – walking the reader through figuring out what archetype(s) s/he may fall under, how to communicate through (or around) that archetype and how to transcend said archetype. Having checked out the author’s SWAT Institute, it does seem aspects of the book are being used in some of the training courses.
I wish I could say I liked this book and recommend it to everyone, but I can’t and I don’t. I think this is one of those books you should really leaf through at the bookstore before you buy it. As with many self-help books, this one will only speak to certain people; and you may not be one of them. Had I not been sent this book for an honest review, I would never have picked it up. There is nothing new here, other than maybe the idea of an emotional age, that a good therapist couldn’t help you learn to do in a bit more personalized way that might actually help. I’m not sure I think the idea of an emotional age is a new concept and if it really helps knowing, but that would be the new in a whole lot of old.
One final note regarding the book jacket. Often times, red is an angry color. I don’t think I understand using a red to yellow umbra fading. I thought for book that was supposed to be uplifting, this was a terrible choice from a marketing perspective.
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Super foods Every Day by Sue Quinn is an interesting little cookbook. So interesting, in fact, that the 14-year-old pseudo-daughter took one look at it and said, “I want that!” …that’s a first.
This little 160-page book is laid out in the best way possible for quick digestion. The first eleven pages gives a pretty good primer for what defines a super food and the individual benefits of each superfood. After the primer, every two pages is a recipe. The first page has a beautiful picture of each individual ingredient, a list of the ingredients and amounts needed for the recipe and a quick look at the vitamins and minerals the dish contains. The next page shows a quick blurb on the potential benefits of the dish, a beautiful picture of the finished product and the directions for putting the dish together.
This small book is about the size of a small tablet and sits in your hands quite nicely. However, I think the binding makes a bit difficult to put it on the kitchen counter open to the recipe being made. For someone experienced in the kitchen, probably not an issue, for a 14-year old trying to learn to make things she thinks are yummy and healthy, not being able to just go back and forth to the book is a turn off.
I think its also important to remember superfood doesn’t mean healthy. The subtitle for this book is 65 recipes for optimal health. I would have liked to see the nutrition breakdown for each and every recipe because I’m not sure the recipes in this book fall under the “optimal health” heading. Let’s take the Nutty Grilled Lettuce (p72) as an example.
The potential benefits of this meal are:
1. protects against cardiovascular disease and cancer
2. lowers cholesterol
3. regulates blood sugar
4. supports skin health
5. antibacterial
the ingredients include:
1. 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
2. 2 tablespoons of crème fraiche
3. sea salt flakes
4. freshly ground pepper
5. 3 large romaine lettuce hearts
6. extra-virgin olive oil
7. 3 large hard boiled eggs
8. 3 tablespoons of hazelnuts
If you are trying to prevent cardiovascular disease and have a genetic proclivity towards high triglycerides leading to high cholesterol, then I’m pretty sure both mayonnaise, crème fraiche and 3 large eggs are right off your list of optimally healthy ingredients. …And maybe romaine lettuce does have the benefits listed above, but this meal, as is, doesn’t even come close to the potential benefits listed.
My family, due to health reasons, works really hard to have optimally healthy meals every single day. Even after the example above, this is really one of the first cook books I’ve received for review (this one from blogging for books), we’ve been able to consider trying out the actual recipes. With a few minor tweaks and substitutions, this book could help one truly eat as healthy as possible from breakfast to dessert.
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Occasionally, reviewers get books that we hope beyond hope we won’t have to write a negative review. This is not to say we don’t want to write a negative review; the challenge is the subject matter.
In The Rising: Murder, Heartbreak, and the Power of Human Resilience in an American Town, by Ryan D’Agostino, the subject matter is the about a man whose whole family, wife and two girls, were brutally murdered after a home invasion turned bad. His head was bashed in with a baseball bat, and the amount of blood lost was such that he should have died. Seriously, difficult subject matter. And so, it is really quite difficult to write a negative review about a book written by someone about a story like this one.
I am from Florida, specifically, the area Tyler Hadley took a hammer to his parents’ heads. I’ve read the multiple articles full of sensationalism, flowery language and bad metaphors about this particular local crime. I understand the delicate nature of writing about crimes and the people they affect; and I recognize a great many of us want either the true-life crime which includes all the gory details, or the story of heartbreak and resilience. What I don’t understand in either case is writing an article or story which includes filler – just write the story. I believe if you don’t have enough to fill a book, then don’t write a book, write a series of articles.
The Rising: Murder, Heartbreak, and the Power of Human Resilience in an American Town is one such book that I feel should have stayed a series of articles. First, the book, despite all the assurances that it isn’t, feels like a clever advertisement for the Petit Family Foundation. Second, if one didn’t know this was an actual event, one would think it was crime fiction. There’s just too much waxing on poetically in areas where the flowery metaphors and the half-developed ideas just isn’t necessary.
One point of contention for me is the author ponders over and over again how the book’s primary subject could possibly gone on living. The first time the author asked us to join him in considering this question, I couldn’t help but think maybe the guy is Catholic – at which point, if you commit suicide, you won’t go to heaven, thus never seeing your wife and daughters again…if you believe in that stuff. Even when the author was discussing the religions of the primary subjects, he never seemed to make this connection.
Interestingly, The Rising: Murder, Heartbreak, and the Power of Human Resilience in an American Town is classified under the Faith genre on blogging for books; sadly, there is little discussion of faith and often any points to the regard of faith are never fully developed. In the places you can buy the book, you will find it listed under categories like biography & memoir, personal growth, love and loss, death & grief, murder and mayhem. The way this book is written, there’s more murder and mayhem, and less of the other stuff – and I really don’t think this is what the author was trying to accomplish.
Then, there were the silly metaphors used:
“his voice a hostage of dread”
“But deep in his eyes lived staunch goodness, a firm goodness of right and wrong” (in his eyes?!)
“screamed down the driveway about a million miles an hour” (no he didn’t)
“like a blind woman searching for a bible” (just weird – too bad the faith reference to the bible didn’t work)
“a bullet head and metal shavings for eyes” (seriously?!)
“looks like a detective from the Chicago PD” (meaning what?)
Further, there are glaring inconsistencies where the author waxes on about how everyone in the state knows about the crimes, but there’s a witness from the state (an FBI agent) who knows nothing about the case, until he’s called to be a witness. There are many pages about the success of the subject’s career and the amount of time he’s traveling and never really home, this is backed up by someone’s statements (probably the wife’s sister) that she held the family together (and she’s goes into detail)…and yet the author really tries to hammer home the surviving subject’s “instinct” to protect. This is on page 108 of the hard copy I received for review by Blogging for Books. This section would have been so much more powerful if the author had discussed PTSD (which people other than the military suffer from) rather than go on about how protective the guy was; because if I was an asshole, I’d write about all the examples in the book where he probably wasn’t, but the author didn’t pay attention to the inconsistency.
Other inconsistencies float through the book every couple of pages, some are minor (he drove to the UCONN games – though the page before talks about how his sister had a route on UCONN game pickup, like it was written in stone), and some are major disjointed areas in the timeline like “Jennifer fell into the routine” though she’d already had two daughters and been a part of the routine for years by the time the author says this in the text; and dates on pictures being one year, when the picture seems to be saying its another year. Further, in said picture (page 36), height is called into question – the author previously tells us Mr. Petit is one height, but if you look at the door jam and Hanna’s husband and Jennifer, you really have to question the author’s description of Bill’s height; because even if Hanna’s husband is on a step, that’s a really big step…and the date on the photo isn’t the same as the date referenced in the book caption.
The studious reader will most likely, at this point (again, page 36), realize everything the author has to say must be taken with a grain of salt, thus an opportunity is missed and Mr. Bill Petit’s story becomes little more than a tragic event that happened to someone else; and the book becomes little more than clever advertising for both the Petit Family Foundation and a possible future run for a political office.
The events on the night that forever changed Bill Petit’s life were (and are) tragic. It is admirable that he was able to go on with life without being strung out on heroin or self-destructing; and his family probably deserves a great deal of credit helping him through the process – Hanna is exactly the same type of sister I strive to be within my own sibling relationships. This is why there is a reviewers’ conundrum – its very difficult to seperate the writing of the story from the story itself. It is my hope the next time someone wants to share the Petit Family tragedy as a way to consider our ability as human beings to be resilient, it will be written by a journalist, but instead by someone who has an ability to not sensationalize or aggrandize anything about the story or the people. Someone who has the ability to take an in-depth look at death & dying, grief, love & loss and share with us the truly stunning ability we have as human beings to be resilient in spite of seriously difficult situations should write this story…this family deserves no less.
You can buy the book directly from the publisher
About Ryan D’Agostino: RYAN D’AGOSTINO is the editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics magazine. Previously, he was an articles editor at Esquire, and he has written for The New Yorker, Ski, and other publications.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
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The sign of a good book is from the moment you open the cover you know exactly who you can share the book with and know they will have a similarly positive experience. I believe this applies to just about all books. That said, I have just discovered what it means to have a great book in your hands. I didn’t really expect the excitement I felt while leafing through this new book. I couldn’t wait to share it with my mom – a matron of the kitchen in her own right. I couldn’t wait to share it with my sister – a matriarch who has 2 out of 3 children finally out of the “No, I won’t eat it!” stages. I couldn’t wait to share it with my cousins – the ones who have figured out there’s more to life than ramen AND the one who is a staunch vegetarian. And more than anything, I can’t wait to share this book with my pseudo-daughter who is beginning to realize she likes to cook and sees the health benefits to knowing there’s more out there than a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy’s (even if it is right down the street).
This great book I speak of is Giada De Laurentiis’ newest cookbook, Happy Cooking: Make Every Meal Count…Without Stressing Out. My mouth watered, my eyes wondered if they’d every seen food photography as beautiful and my nose kept hoping for a scratch and sniff page at the very least. I could almost hear the pancetta frying in the pan. The book is a full enough sensory experience that you might look around to see if Giada is hanging out at your stove …at least, it will make you wonder if that’s even a possibility.
I rarely review cookbooks, because more often than not, the recipe used for writing the book is the most bland and unimaginative aspect of said cookbook. I could tell from the minute I opened the box from Penguin Random House, this cookbook was not going be of the same ilk. The cover jacket is beautiful with samplings of the many recipes found in this 312-page book of yumminess. And of course, for fans who can’t help but feel the infectiousness of Giada’s smile, there’s three pictures that make you want to invite her over for espresso brownies (made with black beans, of course) and coffee or tea.
As I leafed through the book, I realized Giada was taking me on a trip down memory lane. I couldn’t help but think about my own life passages (neat phrase, Giada) and how the way I thought about food changed through each one. While taking me on this mini-journey, she made sure I was also getting the staples needed to get through each and every day – breakfast, lunch and dinner with the most nutrients and minerals available. I, happily, went along for the ride and really, was most satiated when I got to the VERY last page of the book, and my tour guide reminded me to be good to myself.
While I am not one to make smoothies or my own juices, I found I was a tad bit curious about the pineapple-ginger smoothie that takes the honored place of first recipe in the book. I’m not sure I’d every think of pineapple, ginger and cayenne pepper as going well together (does that make me unimaginative?). I’ve started writing this review, made tea, started a load of laundry, came back to the review and am still wondering…why is this the first recipe in the book?
Three smoothies/blends and a ‘nutella’ milk later, I got to my breakfast staples, homemade granola and overnight oats. I have come to believe breakfast is an incredibly important meal – no matter what time of day your breakfast comes. Throughout my life, I have worked odd scheduled jobs where maybe my day started with the majority of society, or maybe it started at 3pm because my writing was better in the evening. Regardless, I have found a slow carb burning breakfast was the best for a busy work day/night. Happy Cooking certainly delivers various options to keep you from getting bored with plain oatmeal. I felt like I went from my daily breakfast to a time when I lazily enjoyed weekend brunch after divorce was imminent. I truly learned to cook during this life passage; but I always felt brunch was better cooked by others. I went through stages where I’d try making big social brunches – the William Sonoma brunch cookbook I used to own was incredibly used and when I went through my gluten-free stages, I tried like hell to master good morning/lunch food – but I always felt it was a lot of work. Because…I never thought to cut, chop and prepare the parts I could the night before. Dumb right? In fairness, when I was truly experimenting with brunches, there was copious drinking on weekend nights…years ago, of course, but still… Giada makes pulling off brunch look a bit easier than I previously remember.
The next chapter might just be my favorite in the book. This section opened up possibilities that are right in my wheelhouse. One of the best moments in my life what the first road trip my partner and I took with his children. We were going to the Poconos and I was scared, nervous and overflowing with every other emotion that one is wont to experience the first time you spend an incredibly long time in a car with your partner and his kids that you aren’t sure even sort of like you. Before we’d left, I dug deep into my childhood memories to find the just right things for this trip. See, my mom used to have this super-duper bags filled with snacks, and everything else three small children might need on a road trip from Florida to New York. I knew this was the solution to making every situation work out okay in a cramped up car.
I couldn’t help but smile while I was reading through this next chapter titled, “Snacks and Small Plates”. It made me think about that first terrifying trip and the beautiful relationships I’ve developed with these kids over the last ten years. Even now, when we travel, there’s healthier snacks than we’d find on the road, like homemade bags of trail-mix and fruit leathers. The kids are much older now and their palettes have developed in wonderfully exciting ways. Weekend movie nights are full of veggies and dips and small healthier appetizer meals rather than big comfort food meals. This chapter is a heartwarming reflection on the moments I’ve shared with my family as they’ve grown and matured.
The next two chapters, “Salads & Seasons” and “Soups & Stews”, felt incredibly earthy to me, like farmers’ stands and root cellars. That said, I live in Florida, I’ve never seen a root cellar in my life…HA! But, in my mind’s eye, I have this idea they feel and smell like dirt. I have no idea if I’m right, but if I’m not, I will be incredibly disappointed. This summer, I grew my own kale, lettuce and cucumbers. I was able to harvest each and add to a few salads, and in the case of the kale, to many different dishes. There has been little else in my tiny little culinary world that has been as satisfying than to feed my family food that I grew. The recipes in this chapter are innovative and interesting – I know I will be thrilled to try them; and I think though they may be a bit hesitant, the rest of the family will probably enjoy the flavors each recipe melds together.
Where soups and stews are concerned, I get great joy from making large pots of healthy-ness that my family will only be better for having eaten. Often times, either will include beans, root veggies, a leafy green like kale, Swiss chard, brussel spout or cabbage and homemade broth. Sometimes, though, I want more. I found “more” in Happy Cooking, by way of a curried cauliflower soup and a lentil, kale, mushroom soup. If you are looking to increase your soup/stew repertoire, Happy Cooking is my suggestion.
This cookbook goes in-depth on “Pastas and Risottos” – from the standard pasta and veggies recipes to wonderful looking dishes with gluten-free pasta. There’s recipes for Marinara Sauce and Pesto; and an informative look at olive oil and pasta shapes. Coming from a family whose paternal grandmother was Sicilian, this was a fun chapter to browse through.
One of my other favorite chapters is “Weekends and Holidays”. From the classic pot roast (like mom used to make) to the backyard seafood bakes we used to thrown in my backyard in Virginia (after the 40 mile trek across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and back to get the seafood), this section runs the gambit on both life passage memories and variations on the classic holiday meals. If there is a “meat as the focus” chapter, I really feel this is it. This section talks chicken, beef, pork, lamb, fish, and other seafood more than the rest. Sprinkled throughout this section, if you are paying attention is some really great advice for entertaining and throwing a party. Probably one of the most important chapters in this regard for how to pull off the party of the century without being stressed out.
Of course, the final chapter of any good cookbook should be “Sweets and Treats”…Happy Cooking doesn’t disappoint at all. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the different varieties of sweets and treats. Like all the other sections of the cookbook, Giada takes a practical and pragmatic view on this particular type of food – eat in moderation, and don’t deny yourself. Doing so will only cause you to eat “more fake processed junk foods”, which really isn’t all that good for you.
Besides good food, this book is chockfull of instruction from how to choose chocolate and pasta to kitchen remedies and how to take the stress of being in the kitchen. As someone who loves to make my holiday gifts, I particularly loved the addition of gifting ideas in the “Sweets and Treats” chapter. This is one of the best cookbooks I’ve read in a very long time. Though it may be a bit intimidating for my 15 year old as a gift, its certainly something she’ll enjoy browsing and experimenting from over the next few years, while learning little tips to make parties a bit easier to throw for her friends. Likewise, though my mom has probably more than 50 years in the kitchen, there are things in this cookbook that will excite her enough to try out various recipes for entertaining she might be doing. And of course, this book is perfect for anyone in between these two levels of experience.
If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, I highly recommend Happy Cooking: Make Every Meal Count…Without Stressing Out by Giada De Laurentiis.
About the Author – Giada De Laurentiis is the Emmy Award-winning star of Food Network’s Everyday Italian, Giada at Home, and Giada in Paradise; a judge on Food Network Star; a contributing correspondent for NBC’s Today show; and the author of seven New York Times bestselling books. She attended the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and worked at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant before starting her own catering company, GDL Foods. Born in Rome, she grew up in Los Angeles, where she now lives with her daughter, Jade.
You can Buy the Book directly from the Publisher’s Website. You can Find Giada’s Book Tour Dates Here. Visit the Giada Weekly site and subscribe to her weekly newsletter!
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
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This is going to be a different type of review – more of a spotlight, really. I was given an opportunity to review Beth Thomas Cohen’s new book Drop the Act, It’s Exhausting! – I took it. To my dismay, I received an uncorrected galley. For those of you who have never seen one of these, they are really tough to get through if you have any sort of attention-to-detail deficit disorder (when there’s a deficit in attention-to-detail, you have a reaction that should be attributed to a disorder). Uncorrected galleys tend to require proofing on the miniscule level that will someone with an editorial background insane. Unfortunately for Ms. Cohen, I am working on a project that requires me to have my editor hat on for most of the day, allowing my reviewer hat to collect a bit of dust. Sadly, I’ve been unable to finish reading through the galley.
That said, I read enough to know the premise of the book is good enough to spend the $13.00 on a paperback. I wasn’t sure when I read the summary I would be a good candidate for a possible review, but I was intrigued. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell a woman in the fashion industry (of all industries) could tell anyone about taking off their masks and dropping the act. Intriguing, isn’t it? Enough for me to take the opportunity for a possible review.
Ms. Cohen delivered an answer – the fashion industry keeps her honest and true to herself. I suspect when you meet her, she’s probably one of the most WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) people you’ve ever met. Though I’m not sure I completely agree with EVERYTHING she writes about in the book, I find her honesty and bluntness refreshing for this type of “better your life” book. Despite being written from a woman’s perspective and addressing women’s challenges, I think the “lessons” about how to stop trying to be someone you aren’t and just accept the lovely imperfections we are, are lessons everyone should embrace. Men, as well as women, also chase the elusive “enough” and need an injection of “embrace the suck” as much as women do.
This book is perfect for [some] women; though, it probably shouldn’t be considered the next great book on feminism. This is one woman’s view of “how things should be” and it only really takes into account the things she has experienced. Drop the Act, Its Exhausting! is not a manual; and I’m not sure it should be treated as such. That said, I absolutely agree that we should never be ashamed or apologetic about talking about how we really feel about anything. The draw of this book is the idea that maybe if we all stopped tiptoeing around the bullshit and just tromped right through it and into the front door, we’d be a more healthy and happy society will less pretense about how much bullshit there really is. (Ps. I’m the one in the family people go to when they want to hear the hard truth, rather than the feel good stuff).
I loved what I read and might buy the book in paperback so I can read the finish product. If I do, I will write a more indepth review.
But for now, here’s a video and some background about the book and the author:
Drop the Act, It’s Exhausting! (Taylor Trade; November 4, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4930-0852-0) is one woman’s call to embrace the imperfections in our lives and air our “improper” thoughts about relationships, love, sex, parenting, careers, self-- esteem, and self--image. By no longer being ashamed or apologetic about how “we really feel,” women will become more aware of who we are and more accepting of ourselves and one another. With wit, candor, and refreshingly blunt observations, Beth Thomas Cohen proves herself the prime example of how freeing, fun, and unifying it can be to drop the act and live a not so put-- together life.
Beth Thomas Cohen grew up the product of a biracial couple in the suburbs of Manhattan and launched a successful career in the fashion industry. She married a Jewish man and had two beautiful girls.
DROP THE ACT, IT’S EXHAUSTING! is her ode to all of the women out there who wear masks every day.
It covers the following topics with honesty…and lots of wine:
* Love and Marriage
* Pregnancy and Parenting
* Body Image and Aging
* Judging Others
* Not Having it All
Beth Thomas Cohen has been in the fashion industry for sixteen years. As cofounder of the public relations agency B’ squared Public Relations, Beth launched new fashion brands and breathed life into older ones. She previously worked as senior director at Lividini & Co., in--house public relations director at the luxury/accessories company Lambertson Truex, and worked in the fashion department at O, The Oprah Magazine.
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I’d never heard of the Satellite Sisters until I was offered the opportunity to review their book, You’re the Best, on sale October 27th, 2015. If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting them, I’d suggest brewing a nice cup of coffee, sit down with your device in your favorite comfy chair, go to: satellitesisters.com and be prepared for incredible podcasts on every topic under the sun. You will very quickly find yourself wanting to define yourself as a Satellite Sister and wondering if you could pull all the women in your life together to create something as awesome.
The book, You’re the Best: A Celebration of Friendship, is probably best described as a quaint little book peppered with the intelligence and humor found in their national radio show. The book truly reminds me of one of the many small little books of friendship my mother had on the bookshelf in our den when I was a child in the 70s. The book is a fabulous little thing that celebrates the women in your life, biological sisters or not, who always know exactly what you need from them and the difference between when to apply the “someone needed to say it” piece of wisdom maybe you were avoiding and just listening and letting you talk through the enormous circular path you might need to find clarity. You’re the Best: A Celebration of Friendship is exactly about those wonderfully momumental women in your life. There are vingette essays and Laugh Out Loud lists including birthday party expectations, packing lists for your girls’ weekends, and even some of the best (and probably worst) dating advice ever received; all organized under headings for the many facets of our lives – life, love, family, play and change. This tiny little book is packed chockful of moments we’ve all shared with our own versions of the best women in the world – its an enormous tribute to sisterhood and every single thing that means to each and every one of us.
If you are looking for a special gift for your chosen sisters (what I call my satellite sisters), I highly recommend this wonderful book. At a little over 153 pages, this is a perfect book for light weekend reading with time spent smiling and laughing at their own shared memories with you. The book goes on sale October 27th, and can be found here. I highly recommend buying the book in hardcover so you (and your sisters) can enjoy the great cover art.
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J. D. Horn’s newest foray into the paranormal world is due out on November 15, 2015. The book is titled, Shivaree, and will most certainly take revenge on the enemy in a way few will expect.
I’m a fan of Horn’s storytelling technique. He has a knack for easy reading without getting too immersed in the superfluous details that sometimes weighs down the paranormal genre. While I’m not really sure why he has succumbed to the formula (write about witches, and then tiptoe through the tulips without waking the vampires, but be careful not to step in the werewolf dung), I thought he did a pretty decent job of introducing a new possible series.
I felt Shivaree was not as rich as the Witching Savannah series, of which there are three books and a prequel coming shortly. Though the Korean War was used as the romantic background for the couple in the story, I’m not quite sure why. I suspect maybe there’s a statement about post traumatic stress here, or there’s some sort of commentary to be had that life before, during and after war sometimes gets incredibly muddled and causes all sorts of disasters. The Korean War could have been used (and one might argue, was used) as a stepping stone for one of the strong women characters to not-so-softly address feminism and the increasing desire of some women, at that time, to fight the oppression found in a patriarchel society. I’m just not sure, and really sometimes, a story is just a story. Frankly, I think there were some interesting missed opportunities to make a few statements about war and its traumatic and tragic effects on every life affected.
These missed opportunities make it a bit difficult to really figure out who exactly this story was about. That said, this is a clear deliniation from his earlier series, where one knew exactly who the protagonist was in the story. It wasn’t really until the last book that the reader began really considering there may be someone a bit more important to the story being told.
Shivaree touches on domestic abuse, incest, manipulation, and the effects of war. The story is chock full of strong female characters (in their own rights). However, for some reason, I couldn’t immerse myself in the time period, which was sort of important to some of the story. I would have liked to have skipped the part where one of the main women in the story was a M.A.S.H. nurse in Korea and instead made her a field medic in, say, the first Gulf War. The story would have still worked, and there wouldn’t have been too much break in reality for a younger generation of reader. I suspect though, Horn is of the age where maybe one of the men or women in his family went to Korea and worked in a M.A.S.H. unit. So, this detail may be a tribute of sorts.
I feel I’ve read enough of Horn’s work to know this isn’t the richest story he’s told. Frankly, I’m a bit saddened by this news. One hopes, over the course of time, an author doesn’t just start telling stories for the sake of telling stories. At 290 pages, Shivaree seems to be a surrender to a genre formula that only rewards readers with mediocre plots, at best. J.D. Horn is a better storyteller than this, in my humble opinion.
That said, I look forward to Jilo, the prequel to the Witching Savannah series, due out Spring 2016.
I received a digital copy of Shivaree for an honest review from the publisher, 47North, via NetGalley.
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I was drawn to the article below due to its mention of Dorothy Parker, as I really enjoy all things Dorothy Parker and Algonquin Roundtable – its probably more the time period than the actual people, though I really admire Parker’s bluntness. Most everything I’ve ever read about Parker – and I assure you, I’ve read more than my fair share – highlights the fact that she was often drunk, but never really approaches it in a way that makes her seem as pathetic as possible. I always wondered why many of the women who were both authors and alcoholics weren’t treated with the same romanticism as the male writers of the same ilk.
Below is a good look at this phenomenon while introducing three books by women authors who are admitted alcoholics. This is a truly interesting read about the view of the literary drunkard and the difference in whether or not said drunkard was male or female.
Read the Full article:
Drunk Confessions: Women and the clichés of the literary drunkard.
The contours of the void aren’t always obvious, not even after its existence has been seen and reckoned with. That is probably why, in pretty much every alcoholic’s memoir I’ve ever read, the need to drink is described in simple language, even cliché. For Sarah Hepola, in her new, best-selling Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, it’s “a God-shaped hole, a yearning, a hunger to be complete.” For Mary Karr, in Lit, a book governed by a poet’s love of wordplay, it’s simply a “black hole.” For Caroline Knapp, writing Drinking: A Love Story before either of them, it’s a “pit of loneliness and terror and rage.”
The paradox of the alcoholic’s memoir is that the feelings are not less powerful for being described in such a pedestrian way. If you are the right kind of reader for them—which is not to say a fellow alcoholic, as I am not—these books go down easy. It may be in part a voyeur’s thirst for stories of abjection that makes them such compulsive reading—that’s another cliché, a critical one—but good writers can take your curiosity and mold it into an empathetic movement. Empathy needs a supporting note, because it’s a self-help word, and we live in a culture that both guzzles and disdains self-help mantras: The understanding of self and others is obviously the only escape from addiction. If the point is to get out of your own head, then understanding yourself as part of a community is what will pull you out.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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So…until the last quarter of the article, I had no idea it was a lead in for Franzen’s new book, Purity. I’ve never read Franzen’s novels, anything I have read by Franzen sort of seemed like a bit like he was speaking to hear himself speak. In hindsight, I think maybe I’ll pick up one or two of his books to “see for myself”.
I’ve been holding on to this article for a while until I had to time to just sit, read and digest. Truth be told, the title of the article was actually sort of nauseating, but I was interested in what Christian Lorentzen had to say. I’m glad I read it, as it was well-written. If you get nothing from it, its as good an explanation as any on how Franzen became so popular.
Read the Full article:
Jonathan Franzen’s Great Expectations: How America’s foremost novelist became its leading public moralist.
In his self-appointment as America’s moralist, Franzen has suffered from the lack of a worthy female foil, as Mailer had in Sontag, Cynthia Ozick, and Germaine Greer. Oprah was too big for him; when he was talking about her, he was talking to himself. Perhaps because he’s lonely at the top, Franzen elevated Jennifer Weiner — the best-selling but subliterary novelist who’s led the #Franzenfreude charge, claiming that he’s sucked up the oxygen of review attention in a sexist literary culture — by accusing her of “freeloading” on a good cause with the aim of self-promotion. It was the best favor he could have given her. With every interview, often with obscure campus magazines, Franzen seems always to forget he has a habit of confusing his mouth with a shoe. Promoting Purity, he told an interviewer that he’d entertained the idea of adopting an Iraq War orphan, in part to learn about the way young people think.
He can’t really believe that he’ll ever put a stop to online distraction or rein in those pesky cats, but his literary statements do carry weight, especially when he goes to bat for an unknown pen pal like Nell Zink. In Farther Away, Franzen says of Roth: “For a while, Philip Roth was my new bitter enemy, but lately, unexpectedly, he has become a friend.” Franzen has always conceived of writing as a competition, with all writers everywhere, living or dead, aligned either with him or against him, or both at once. His critical writings often read like peace treaties or declarations of war, or like the posturings of a permanent undergraduate at pains to take a side. They frequently contain eccentric statements about what it means to read a novel, like this one: “My small hope for literary criticism would be to hear less about orchestras and subversion and more about the erotic and culinary arts. Think of the novel as a lover: Let’s stay home tonight and have a great time; just because you’re touched where you want to be touched, it doesn’t mean you’re cheap.”
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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Two days ago, I was putting the finishing touches on the warm fuzzy feelings I had about the book stack I’d just plowed through, when I decided I’d look through what Kindle had in the cheap book recommendations for me. I was surprised when I found a Crichton novel for $0.99; I was even more surprised when it was one I hadn’t previously read.
Crichton has always made me think about the possibilities of “what if”. I love the contemplation of technology or medical breakthroughs going bad and how they might cause more harm than good to not just a few people, but a whole society, and maybe the world. Frankly, its the same reason why Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is at the top of any favorite story list I will ever make.
My experience in reading State of Fear was exciting. I read all 641 pages in a span of a few hours, and I truly didn’t want to put it down at any time. I was engrossed. Now, its incredibly important for me to note, I didn’t really care about the environmental and global warming statistics that were riddled throughout the book. The book is fiction, and I assumed all the technical blathering was too – on both sides of the argument for global warming. I say that with the full knowledge the author included footnotes and listings to the articles which informed the science and tech in the book. However, what I do care about was an idea in the book that still resonates today, 11 years after this book was published.
The idea that we live in a state of fear is still apropos and all one has to do is watch the evening news (on any of the channels) to hear (and see) it. How many times a day is there Breaking News that isn’t really breaking news? How many times a week is there some Crisis or other being scrolled across the bottom of the screen? How many times do we hear news anchors and pundits talking about how ‘this’ will cause a crisis of magnanimous proportions, because experts have deemed it so. We have a financial crisis every other week, a stock market plunging every few months (as I write this, “the stocks are plunging on new jobs report”), and “this year’s hurricane season might be yet the worst ever”…only its not. Has anyone else noticed the padding of the numbers they will be able to accomplish starting this year since they are now calling major storms in the Pacific ‘hurricanes’?
Last night, I heard one of the candidates pontificate how the Iran deal is going to lead to nuclear proliferation, and this politician isn’t the first to predict this or worse about the Iran Deal. It doesn’t matter the topic, our politicians know if they make their dire prediction and use rhetoric which leaves their constituents in a state of fear, the odds are people will get scared enough to think the “other side” is trying to kill them…or grandma. Frankly, no one knows. No one can predict the future. Sure, one can make a slightly educated guess, but the truth is, no one can predict the future and thus, no one knows what will happen if this treaty is signed or that law is enacted. Its all posturing to garnish support – the more scared you are, the more you will want the “right leader” for the job; and well, the right leader for the job is the one that recognizes your fears and understands you…right? (please note the dripping sarcasm).
The Crichton book may or may not have gotten it right depending on what side you fall under in the global warming debate; and he may or may not have gotten the details right or wrong regarding the history of our use of state of fear rhetoric coinciding with the destruction of the Berlin Wall. However, if he were still alive today, he’d recognize the same state of fear he was describing in this book. And frankly, I believe he might say it had gotten worse.
In this insanely long political season, its vitally important to our collective mental state to recognize the rhetoric when it is used. I believe we as a nation might actual become a bit less anxious and angry if we demand better from our politicians and our media outlets.
The book, State of Fear, is a good read. Its long, though, for the most part, not a difficult read. There are some long explanations about global warming and the way we use language; and while interesting, its vitally important to remember this book is fiction. If you get caught up in the global warming debate going on in the book, you will probably not enjoy the journey. However, if you remember global warming is the catalyst used to take a look at how language is used to get people to believe all kinds of things, right or wrong, you may enjoy the experience a whole lot more.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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I just had a wonderful week of reading a small book stack recommended by one of the teenagers in my life. Before I get into the books, I want to spend a tiny bit of time pleading with parents to read with their children/kids/young adults. One can learn a great deal about someone by checking out what they read and what specifically draws their interest. I have been humbled and truly touched that ‘the girl’ would share books with me that she thought were incredible.
In our household, we read and game with the kids, but her recommending books is sort of a new development. She and I have always talked about books, and over the last few years, when she reads a required book for school, I’ve also read it. I have always felt it important that someone is there for her to talk with about the books, since required reading for school isn’t often the best or most enjoyable books. This book stack, while on the vast summer reading list was comprised entirely of books she chose.
So, what did I glean from this group of books? This dear young woman is exploring her identity; by which I mean, who she is in a family, who she is in a group of friends, who she might be as a partner in a love relationship and what does a love relationship even mean; and most importantly, who she is in her own mind. And I can’t be more excited for her!
On to the books:
You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle –
I didn’t think I was going to like this one so I started with it. Turns out, it was better than I expected. The premise is five kids, followed on-camera every five years starting in kindergarten, as a way to document their lives for a documentary. The kids are all now sixteen-ish; and they all have experienced things that have made their teenage years a bit awkward. None of them really want to be on camera, though a few of them are trying to be this segment’s star. On the surface, if you are of a certain age, you can’t help but realize the characters in the book is based off all teen movie characters – the jock guy, the popular girl, the slow kid, the super smart kid and the loudmouth rebellious kid. Oddly, the characters reminded me of The Breakfast Club. I didn’t think the writing was the best, but the author did a great job on the character and story development. Each of the kids are struggling with who they are and their roles in the social constructs of school and teenage-dom. They all have a difficult time with idea of airing their lives on camera at this point in their lives; and the directors are finding this to be a bit frustrating. Over the course of the book, the group, who fell out of sorts with each other for various reasons, began to band together to help one of the girls. Being the book is written following “the formula”, this is the climax, the place where the characters begin to change and grow and the story begins to explore identity and the idea that people aren’t always the person you thought they were; that people have silent struggles that cause them to project the persona they want people to see. This was a GREAT book for that lesson.
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han –
I won’t lie, when I saw this title, I was a bit concerned. This book is a bit of an exploration of first relationships and what it might mean to be in one…BUT…its also about being “not the eldest” in the family and the growth a family goes through when the eldest leaves. Interestingly, this book was about a diverse family of American father, deceased Korean mother, and three daughters struggling to become young women with few close examples. The eldest had taken on the role of the mother in a lot of ways with the raising of her sisters and the organization of the household responsibilities. When she leaves for college in Sweden (…telling of the amount of pressure), the middle child who has always been deemed less responsible and ‘together’ is left in charge of her youngest. In some ways, this book was a jumble of missed opportunities. The author touched on the family keeping the Korean traditions alive, but seemed to stop with vague references instead of the difficulties this might cause to one’s identity. There also seemed to be a bit of inconsistency to the way the eldest acted towards the book – rather the strong girl who raised her sisters, she became a bit whiny and obnoxious. The author seemed to be trying to explore a sisterly relationship that was slightly off and thus, written as more of a cliche. All that said, I still enjoyed the book. The middle sister was, by and large, the protagonist in the story. I enjoyed watching her growth from young girl to young woman as the story progressed. Her main challenges were in trying to figure out how to balance being a homebody (as her sister had been) to dating and being well-liked and well-respected while still fulfilling her familial responsibilities.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green –
Its important to note I didn’t want to read this book when it went through its marketing hype stage. I believe a hyped up book is never as good as the marketing team generating the hype. I also believe people fall all over themselves trying to write amazing reviews for well-hyped books; and the challenge becomes not falling victim to the hype. That said, The Fault In Our Stars is one of the best books I’ve read all year. Truly. I laughed, I sobbed, I silently cried, I got angry, and I was taken aback by the finality of it all. The way the author was able to touch all of my emotions in 300 pages was incredible. The idea of loving someone as wholly as written about in this book, knowing full well, the relationship is going to end almost as soon as it starts in a death…that’s courage. I think maybe if more people loved as openly and intensely, with no pretense as Augustus did, the world would be a better place, for sure.
A Step From Heaven by An Na –
This book is a wonderful short novel of 160 pages about a family who moved from Korea to the United States. The book is another exploration of identity as we follow Young from the time she is four (in Korea) to when she is leaving for college (in the US). This time though, the reader is exploring what life would be like as a child from another country, who learned English (via school) before her parents and thus had to translate and help the parents navigate the new world. The book is well-written with incredible insight as the author is an American-raised child of Korean immigrants. Throughout the story, we experience a life where the child becomes the parent, not just in the sense of helping her parents to assimilate to the new culture, but also in exploring new ideas versus traditional ideas, specific to familial roles. This small book is jam-packed with many different arcs that all start with Young and end with Young. The most difficult part of the book is getting past the first couple of pages – they seem odd until the reader realizes what is happening, and the story is being told from a perspective based on a four-year-old’s memories. I tell you this, because I tried to make this my second book, but it ended up being the last one I read, because I wasn’t “getting it.” Once I did, the reading was easy, and I was rewarded in a way that made me very happy. This book ended up touching a place that most don’t; and when I closed the book, I felt I’d had a gentle reminder to “remember the good stuff.”
Again, my reading week was great! I felt as if I have a better understanding of what my favorite young woman is experiencing in her life – and that she’s reminded me how difficult it can be to be a teenager. I think maybe its time for me to pull out my book stack and all the books that were and are meaningful to me, and share them with her. I look forward to the conversations she and I will have over books in the future, particularly those silent ones that are hiding in our book stacks.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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I love this article from the Wall Street Journal about the books Coach Derrick Fisher and General Manager Phil Jackson have assigned members of the NY Knicks. When Jackson took the job as GM for the NY sports team, I couldn’t wait to see the reading list he would assign. Recognizing the teams were slightly transient and there would be changes over the next few years, I felt I hadn’t quite seen the full glory of a Phil Jackson Required Reading List. This year, I think, will be different.
I’ll post the list of who’s reading what, but until then, this article will suffice. It talks about the books Fisher has already assigned the rookies’ and interestingly, Jackson discusses the decrease in reading due to electronic devices. My advice – buy everyone on the team a paperwhite (at least), and get them all Kindle accounts so they can read on their phones if they don’t have their reading device. …just saying…
Read the Full article:
Paging Through the Knicks’ Summer Reading List
The book is one of several that Fisher, the Knicks’ second-year coach, has handed out to some of his players as a kind of summer reading list. He picked up the habit from team president Phil Jackson, who coached Fisher for nine years in Los Angeles and was known to give books to players during his Hall of Fame career with the Bulls and Lakers.
“Part of [assigning books] is to give them a sense of who their coach is, so they can understand how I view performance, competition and self-improvement,” Fisher said. “Plus, I just like to share information—training secrets, how to recover after practices and games, nutrition. Those are things I like to share to help guys out. And sometimes it’s easiest to share them in the form of a book.”
To this point, Fisher’s reading assignments have been for young, first-year players, and they have focused on cultivating a positive mentality—probably the most sensible subject for a team that went 17-65 last season.
Besides giving “The Positive Dog” to Porzingis, he gave “Developing the Leader Within You,” by John C. Maxwell, to first-round pick Jerian Grant and Gordon’s “Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else” to Cleanthony Early, the team’s top selection in the 2014 draft.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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From the very first mention, How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis has been in my book stack. As I’ve mentioned previously, I was an avid reader as a child, but I didn’t meet Jane Eyre or Jo March until I was in my 20s – interestingly, when I was trying to make my way through the male-dominant world of the military. Point of fact, as a child, I eschewed these books while my younger sister gravitated towards them (sorry sis, for being obnoxious – you were right). This past year, I’ve been on a sort of existential journey to understand who I am and what things shaped how I see myself – and how the cultural iconic ‘things’ of the late 70s and all of the 80s impacted who I’ve grown up to be.
The concept of this book is very much like my personal journey and since hearing about it, I’ve done my own exploration into what books I read when and how the underlying points may or may not have changed my thinking about the world around me. I’ve always gravitated to the huge stories with epic quests and journeys required to move the protagonist through one stage of life to the other. I’ve realized every ten years, I go on my own existential quest. And every quest is an exploration of a different facet of me. This was has been way more expansive in that I’ve looked at music, books, cultural icons and societal and political views of both my childhood and early adulthood.
The article below is good insight if you haven’t heard about the book or have heard of it, but haven’t figured out if you are interested enough to read it.
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In ‘How to Be a Heroine,’ Lessons From a Brontë and Other Badasses
As a successful journalist, playwright, and now author, Ellis certainly forged a path different to that of most of the women around her while she was growing up. But quite how and why her life took the direction it had done, she couldn’t put her finger on until she sat down and mapped the choices she’d made against those of the literary heroines who’d inspired her along the way.
From Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid, through Little Women’s headstrong Jo March, Sylvia Plath’s damaged alter ego Esther Greenwood, Cold Comfort Farm’s practical Flora Poste, Forster’s romantic Lucy Honeychurch, and Salinger’s mysterious Franny Glass, to name but a few—How to Be a Heroine is a meditative trip down memory lane, and a love letter to the books that Ellis identifies as having helped shape the woman she is today.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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This summer, I took time off from reading and writing to do arithmetic. It paid off, as I now have a college degree. This great accomplishment has been a long time coming – a really long time. Now, I’m ready to power read my way through the last weeks of summer and into the fall. As the writer below says, “I’ve lost touch with the power a book holds.”
I found the article below at one of my favorite sites, freepeople.com. I’ve read a few on the list, but what I loved most about the list is there is both fiction and non-fiction, and really great summaries of all the books. There seems to be some fabulous choices to add to a bookstack; and honestly, I’m thinking about an actual book (not my kindle) and a cup of tea, with my wonderful new quilt (thank you Quilts of Valor) across my legs. That, my friends, is the beginning of explorations into the power a book holds. And I can’t wait!
Even if you don’t read all of these, if you are looking for something to read during these dog days of summer, I’d say this is a great list to focus your attentions.
I’ve lost touch with the power a book holds. The summer is already half-way over (how?!) and I haven’t had the time to read even just one. Is it really lack of time? Or is it just me prioritizing other things? It’s both, and I’m to blame. Seeing as I write every single day for my job, reading should to be a pastime that is more frequent in my life. Actually, it’s necessary. The more you read, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you know. Words have the power to enrich the soul, to inspire. I realized the other day that I haven’t read a book in quite some time, and I felt really bad about it. I have a strong desire to improve my writing, and I believe reading other’s work is the door to new perspectives, different points of view, a fresh verbiage. To get myself jumpstarted, I asked my friends here at home office to recommend the best of the best. The books that leave pages marked in their lives, the ones that make them laugh, the ones that help them grow. The summer isn’t over yet, and it’s never too late to start a reading list that can then be carried on into the seasons ahead.
Read the Full article:
It’s Not Too Late To Start A Summer Reading List
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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One of the best memories I have of my father is watching the movie Dune with him. The movie is one of the worst movies EVER, but he absolutely loved it and watched it every time it came on. A few years ago, I read the book for the first time in its entirity. It was on the bookshelf when I was a kid and I tried to start reading it, but I could never really understand what it was I was reading.
I loved the book more than I loved the memory of watching the shitty movie with my dad. It was an awesome story about an ecology that was in jeapordy and the lengths a society would go through to save their planet. Super cool.
The article below is a look at Dune at 50 and how the story changed the world.
Read More: Dune, 50 years on: how a science fiction novel changed the world .
In 1959, if you were walking the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, you might have encountered a burly, bearded extrovert, striding about in Ray-Ban Aviators and practical army surplus clothing. Frank Herbert, a freelance writer with a feeling for ecology, was researching a magazine story about a US Department of Agriculture programme to stabilise the shifting sands by introducing European beach grass. Pushed by strong winds off the Pacific, the dunes moved eastwards, burying everything in their path. Herbert hired a Cessna light aircraft to survey the scene from the air. “These waves [of sand] can be every bit as devastating as a tidal wave … they’ve even caused deaths,” he wrote in a pitch to his agent. Above all he was intrigued by the idea that it might be possible to engineer an ecosystem, to green a hostile desert landscape.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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Below is a chapter excerpt of The Enduring Power of To Kill a Mockingbird, Life Books. This book takes a look at the lasting effects of Harper Lee’s book novel, the making of the film and the world Lee lived in, and how the issue of civil rights affected the stories she wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird and the upcoming Go Set a Watchman.
Read More: How To Kill a Mockingbird Reflects the Real Civil Rights Movement.
Life Books has just released The Enduring Power of To Kill a Mockingbird, a volume exploring the lasting influence of Harper’s Lee’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel, the making of the classic film with Gregory Peck, the world of Lee and her upcoming book Go Set a Watchman—as well as the issue of civil rights at the time that she was writing Mockingbird. Below is an excerpt from one of the chapters dealing with the subject of race in America:
In 1960, when To Kill a Mockingbird was published, much of white America viewed the coming together of the races as immoral, dangerous, even ungodly. A white woman would never admit to doing what the Mockingbird character Mayella Ewell does, breaking a “time-honored code” by kissing Tom Robinson, a black man. And after being caught, she seeks to save herself from the scorn of society by accusing Robinson of raping her.
Such an accusation was a death sentence for an African American man. “Rape was the central drama of the white psyche,” says Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer prize–winning Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. “A black man raping a white woman justified the most draconian social control over black people.” The vigilante punishment for such a sin was lynching, as would have been the case with the mob of white men smelling of “whiskey and pigpen” who herd up to Maycomb’s jail to cart away Robinson. While they are stopped, in Mockingbird, because Scout Finch shames them, many real-life incidents went unchecked. Between 1882 and 1951, 3,437 blacks in the United States died that way, 299 of them in Alabama.
This article was written by: Rachel Baker – Click to follow on Twitter; or you can follow her at The Crafty Veteran on Bloglovin. You can also follow her writing about women veteran interests at Shield Sisters
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