I Forgot a Good One

Olga, I love your most varied list! I would hate it my friends only read one genre.

The one I forgot-A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. On New Years Eve four strangers meet at the top of a London building known as a suicide spot. They all have their reasons for being there. The book follows their travels and travails as they look for meaning outside themselves. Hornby is an author who can put a humorous twist on even the darkest subjects and he always makes me think.

I heard the rerun of a show with the author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle on Diane Rehm yesterday. I also heard the him on Whad'Ya Know a while back and he sounds interesting. Has anyone read the book? We won't hold the fact that it's an Oprah pick against it. Hey, here's an idea. Why not make this our first group read and we can discuss it when Robin picks the day for our WalkTalkCoffee?

ED. to add-great minds think alike-Robin and I simultaneously posting!

~Judy

Walkabout - Reid Park - January 3rd

I'll be parked behind Einstein Bros. on Broadway & Alvernon at 0730 on Saturday, January 3rd. Bring your walking shoes and a couple of unmarked bills for coffee & bagels...the passcode is "Feliz Nuevo Ano."

Shall we begin our "asynchronous group reading exercise culminating in synchronous discussion" (note I didn 't say Book Club, either!) in February or March, but come with ideas for which book to choose on January 3rd?

Oh...bring three copies of a tried-and-true wintertime recipe you would like to share.

~ Robin

In the spirit of

confession in a safe environment, knowing that you all will fall off your chairs laughing, but that's ok; the inhabitants of my bookstand are:

Empire of Lies by Andrew Klavan (also a modern set thriller--somehow recommended by my mother through my husband, making it even weirder)--so far my opinion is "ick. Is it even worth finishing?"

You: Being Beautiful by Drs Roizen & Oz (got it for the section on skin; I do think they cite relatively current evidence and have a fairly balanced traditional med vs alternative ideas in their books)

Have a New Kid by Friday by Dr Lehman (if Robin has a penchant for work-related books, I have one for family/relationship/self-help ones)

Heidi (reading it to the girls at bedtime)

The Language of Love by Smalley & Trent with
The Two Sides of Love by Smalley & Trent

House of Daughters by Sarah-Kate Lynch (haven't read it, but think I saw previews for a movie of it that looked interesting?)

The Sex-Starved Wife by Davis ( no idea, the hubby wanted it)

and Real Change by Newt Gingrich. (haven't started it yet).

I also have been reading voraciously--most recently having finished the Twilight series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I guess I'm reading lots--but not anything that requires intense concentration.

Olga

On My Nightstand

I've enjoyed the Nelson Demille books I've read-let us know about Wildfire.

I haven't been reading a lot of hardcopy lately. I do have a big, thick magazine thing I found at Bookman's called Artful Blogging which has been very inspiring. My folder marked Art Design Creative Blogs has grown and grown in the time I've been off and I allow that part of me to grow and expand. Some eyecandy for you all: A Fanciful Twist and joyouslybecoming I've started 2 new blogs, Straw Cottage and Tucson Snowbird and have one incubating. which will follow the redecorating of the Airstream. This finding my voice and connecting with others in the same pursuit has been a wonderful adventure.

I am reading the Myth of You & Me by Leah Stewart which grabbed me in the first 90 pages but I'm not very far into it yet. It's the story of a friendship between two women and the end of that friendship.

An idea for the walk, talk, coffee-perhaps we could all read the same book and have a little discussion (notice I'm not calling it a book club-too rulebound).

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving-we do have so much to be thankful for.

~Judy

Time to read is a good time, indeed!

The fact that you are now reading voraciously, Judy, does not escape me! Brava!

What's on my bedside table?

Just finished...Footprints of God, by Greg Iles. Current state thriller with futuristic implications.

Just getting started with...Hardwiring Excellence, by Quint Studer. Finally, a book that lays all the accountability for patient, family, staff and physician satisfaction on the (senior) leader's shoulders and provides the tools for a leader to get comfortable accepting that accountability and nurturing it into something truly great. You all are just going to have to forgive me for my penchant for enjoying work-related books!

Soon to begin...Wildfire, by Nelson DeMille. Shayne abosolutely loved this one.

Anyone want to set a calendar for getting together this year...monthly or every other month, maybe? I'm thinking something like meeting on the first Saturday morning of the month or every odd month (whatever) to walk around Reid Park and then have coffee & a bagel at Einstein Bros. across the street afterward? Your thoughts?????

~ Robin

Catching Up

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was reading The Secret Life of Bees. Disappointing and 50-75 pages too long. If you haven't read it, it's the story of a young white girl of 13 or so and her black nanny/housekeeper. The setting is the south just after the passage of the Civil Rights Act as they take off on an odyssey to escape the girl's abusive father. This of course after the girl breaks the nanny out of the hospital where she is being held in lieu of jail after being beaten by white men while trying to vote. Then they miraculously find the nanny of the girl's mother who was shot and killed (the mother, not the nanny) when the girl (I can't even remember her name, that's how forgettable it was) was 4 and she has always been told that it was her fault. There was just way too much going on or I've become a cynic.

I also re-read Siddhartha. Having originally read it at 16, it was a very different book at 51 and I'm glad I re-read it. There is a passage when Siddhartha wants to leave the path chosen for him by his father. His father of course disagrees but Siddhartha stands for days awaiting his father's blessing. Finally the father sees: " Then his father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his home, that he had already left him" and Siddhartha leaves on his epic journey to enlightenment. In the midst of raising young men, this scene resonated with me. Letting go is hard.

Next it was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Another journey (notice the theme here?) as she and her family move back to her husband's family home in North Carolina to live a more self-sustainable life. For about a week I was ready to move back to Ohio (actually I get those urges about twice a year) and live in a little farmhouse and grow tomatoes. But then I would often be thinking: "I don't believe you just said that!" as someone made a comment about a black or a Mexican or a rape victim or a Catholic. An example of those "pockets of the Real America" big, hairy warts and all. About the book, I admire her writing, as usual, it but it was a bit depressing as it once again reminded me that we do live in the middle of a big, dry desert which is not meant to sustain life for long.

I've also discovered a new (to me) poet, Mary Oliver, and in keeping with my journey theme here's a favorite:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save. ~Mary Oliver

You can read others here: http://www.allspirit.co.uk/maryoliver.html#journey And of course she has several books.

Much better than policies and such!

What books are on your bedside table?

~Judy

One flash of lightning by Stephanie JT Russell

One flash of lightning: A Samurai path for living in the moment

From page 7: "Integrity, candor and depth are human signatures that bridge the Samurai Way across centuries to a timeliess truth of self-excavation and spiritual awakening. May the visceral poetry of the Samurai Code ignite in you an appetite for the heat of inner change. May one flash of lightning fix your gaze on the hard-won prize of a heaven unchained."

...a heaven unchained... I am veritably transfixed by this idea.

Have been in touch with my "seeking" side (not half as much as the Ohioan among us) and this tiny tome (94 page pocket book) is both a gift and a sign for me.

Namaste!