I used to work in the adult fiction room at a suburban library -- the greatest job I ever held. It was better even than working as a counselor at a French camp where I received $200 a week for making moon eyes at a guy named Jean-Michel from Winnipeg. At the library, I brewed coffee, compiled reading lists, led a monthly book discussion, recommended titles to patrons, and never ceased to be amazed that every ten days, someone handed me a check for such "labor."
Read moreYou Will Love This Book! From Mom to Me Again: a Review
That's me in the hammock, inhaling a book that I'm hoping you will read too so we can all talk about it. It's titled From Mom to Me Again: How I Survived My First Empty-Nest Year and Reinvented the Rest of My Life by Melissa T. Shultz.
Before we get to the book, did you notice who else is in the hammock with me? Nary a soul. There is yet another mother bird in the garage with two babies in the nest she built atop the garage door engine, but as far as my human babies, they've flown elsewhere for the summer.
Read moreBereaved
This week I witnessed the ushering in of grief. A tsunami, a spilled glass of milk, a strike of a match. Cold waves, contents released, heat. It materialized out of nowhere. In a blink, my friend is whisked away to a new country, a land of sorrow, where I cannot follow.
I remain here, shaking, sad, troubled.
Read moreTop Ten Love Stories
The best job I ever had was working in the fiction room of a library. Walnut shelving, Persian rugs, a sunken garden, leather chairs, hot coffee, and thousands of novels -- really, I should have paid them! In my time employed there, I heard readers recommend one particular book over and over again. I tried to snag it, but for two straight years, it was perpetually checked out.
When we moved to Wisconsin, a very kind neighbor welcomed me to her book group. At the end of my first meeting, the other members graciously invited me to select the next month's title. I knew this was a kind of test. But thanks to the library job, I didn't hesitate. With much conviction, I recommended that elusive novel.
Read moreWeekend Listicle // Eight Reasons to Love and Hate the Film "Joy"
How was your holiday? I saw the new Jennifer Lawrence film, "Joy", which is loosely based on the life of inventor/entrepreneur Joy Mangano. I went with some of my college kids who have been home for the past couple of weeks. It's so fun hanging out with them, but I basically had to shutter the shop. Thus, the premise of the movie about a beleaguered working mom felt very relevant personally. Maybe it does for you too.
Read moreFive Must-Reads for the Summer
Growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, along the shores of Lake Michigan, summers never seemed terribly hot. When the heat did arrive, I had a favorite place to hide -- the bookmobile. Did you grow up in the era of the bookmobile? In my neighborhood, the Waukegan Public Library's bookmobile arrived on the same day each week and I would be waiting, sweaty, my bicycle discarded in the weeds, my shoulder bag full of last week's selections. Oh what cool comfort I derived from inside that book-lined van.
Forty years later, I still love children's books. What is it about them that is so appealing? (By the way, Anthropologie carries reissued sets of vintage children's books and they can't keep them in stock.)
Read moreThe Goldfinch
I am on vacation this week and rereading my favorite book of 2014: Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. Please, for the love of all things good, promise me you'll read it someday soon.
It is the story of kid named Theo who goes to a museum with his mother to see her favorite painting, The Goldfinch. There is a bombing, his mother is killed, and somehow, he emerges from the wreckage with the painting. A nutty premise but consider the photo below of a terrorist bombing of the Islamic Art Center in Cairo, Egypt one year ago. Nothing in this book is a stretch.
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