Tag: Books

Posted in 2025, Books, life, thoughts, Writing

Why Write?

Posted on by nancyb422

Why Bother
Because right now
there is someone
Out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words
— Sean Thomas Dougherty 2018

I heard this poem this past week while attending an author talk by Monica Woods for our town’s “One Book, One Wallingford”. The participants in the program read her book “How To Read A Book”.

She recited this poem when discussing her journey in writing. She had a manuscript for her book “The One-In-A-Million Boy” which was rejected in 2008 (or so). She tossed it in a drawer and her husband kept encouraging her to send it to another publisher. She didn’t, but in the meantime wrote a memoir, “When we were the Kennedys” and a play! Her husband kept encouraging her to re-submit it. But next she wrote “How To Read A Book”. Then, she submitted the cast-away manuscript and it was published.

I have no plan to write a book but her story and the poem she recited really struck me because I alternate between writing, and wondering why I write. Who cares what I have to say or feel? Who am I to feel like anything I say matters?

Reading that poem encourages me to continue to write and hope that someone out there nods in agreement or at least pauses to contemplate my words.

Posted in 2024, Books, leisure time, life, Politics, relaxing

A Book of Politics

Posted on by nancyb422

In the run up to the November election, I am reading “Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate” by Bob Woodward.

Currently reading – published in 1999

Obviously, since it ends with Clinton (his first term), it’s an older book, however, since I turned 18 during Carter’s reign, it’s all pretty new to me!

It tells of the various scandals of the presidencies, beginning with the end of Nixon, his resignation, and his pardon by Gerald Ford. That was very controversial and seemed to guarantee Ford would be a One and Done president.

It also brought about the ethics bill and the creation of independent councils and special prosecutors. This was due to Nixon firing his appointee to investigate Watergate. Of course the first time it was used was to investigate Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s chief of staff for his “alleged use of cocaine” at Studio 54 in New York! This was based on testimony by the 2 owners of the club who were charged with skimming millions of dollars off the top of the club’s profits and it was requested by Carter’s Attorney General. So odd and such a waste of time and energy to come to a No Probable Cause decision by a grand jury.

I read a biography a year or so ago on Jimmy Carter, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life” by Jonathan Alter. It was very interesting and gave me a greater appreciation for him. He was out of his league in Washington and I think he could have done so much greater good if he hadn’t wasted his time there. Of course, he’s nearly 100 and had many, many fruitful years after 1980!

I was in college during the uprising in Tehran and the taking of hostages and my school was big on, and made most of their money with, their English as a Second Language program so we had many rich South American, Asian, and Middle East students there. I remember long nights of them watching the news in the recreation room. I remember hating that the hostages were freed after the exchange of the presidency between Carter and Reagan. I was not a fan of Reagan.

I’m currently on the Reagan Era, the Iran Arms Deals, the Contras, and Ollie North. There were a lot of powerful men hiding a lot of crazy shit – or were they really hiding it?

It’s a heavy book of 517 pages but close to 80 of those pages are notes and an index. I may have to have a few palate cleansers nearby because I fear some sections I may slam the book in aggravation!

Have you read it or anything similar? Do you enjoy non-fiction books?

Posted in 2024, hobbies, leisure time, life, thoughts, Writing

What I Can’t Get Rid Of

Posted on by nancyb422
Daily writing prompt
Do you have any collections?

I don’t have collections in the true sense of the word like Beanie Babies, salt and pepper shakers, or baseball cards.

My collections are:

My vast amount of family photos dating back to the late 1800s, and early 1900s on both parents’ sides of the family. Many formal portraits including families, first communions, and wedding parties. Informal photos are in photo albums and labeled with dates and locations!

My mother’s postcard collection. She had a big album with all the cards categorized by location. I hung onto it and finally took them out of the album. Someday I will write some stories about some of them.

My yarn, knitting needles, and knitting books. I have baskets of yarn and a slew of knitting books! I kept the yarns by weight in file cabinet drawers until I repurposed the file cabinet for my ancestry work. I was going to get rid of a lot of the yarn but never got around to it. I guess it’s time to put the yarn away again before any moths get to it!

Do books count? I have a lot of those and I keep buying more!

But if you’re thinking my house must be filled to the rafters, you’d be wrong! All of my “collections” are in a very large room over our garage that serves as our workout room in two-thirds of the room and my “she-space” in the remaining part. We’re lucky to have such a wonderful space!

The garage/workout/she-space built 2006
My She-Space
Posted in 2024, life, thoughts, Writing

I Can Lead and I Can Follow

Posted on by nancyb422

Are you a leader or a follower?

I am very comfortable leading a conversation, a discussion, or directionally around a location.

For some people, it’s their tendency to take over because they were a leader in their profession. I admire people who don’t do that. I like watching everyone have the chance to lead if they want.

But if I’m leading people around a location and lose my sense of direction, I get flustered and someone else has to take over! This happened to me in Vienna Austria with friends we met on a river cruise. One of the men stepped in to help me because I had us hopelessly lost!

I am also able to follow in those situations. When I don’t know the subject well, I listen to what other people say. If someone knows exactly where we are headed, I say “Just tell me where to go!”

Posted in 2023, Books, life, thoughts, Writing

To Replay Your Life

Posted on by nancyb422

It was late 1987 and I had recently moved to California to live with my soon to be husband. I moved my belongings by UPS so there wasn’t a lot of extra stuff (books!) that came with me.

Always looking for something to read I surprisingly found a book on a shelf. It was “Replay” by Ken Grimwood published in 1986.

It was about an overweight, unhappy in his marriage 40-something man who has a heart attack at his desk. But…..he wakes up, in his dorm room at 19 years old.

It takes him a little while to realize where he is but then he does what would be expected – he DOESN’T get involved with the woman in his unhappy marriage, and he starts betting on all the major sports events!

It goes on from there and everything is great – until he “dies” again but comes back a little older, and a little older….. He realizes, he can live his life as crazy as he wants to because he’s “replaying” his life.

After a few times, he discovers that there are others who are doing the same.

I’ve read this book 3 or 4 times and It is a fascinating premise. Die and end up back in your early adulthood with the knowledge you left your existing life with. As they say “hindsight is 20/20”! What would you do? Would you want the ability to come back and right wrongs? Change behaviors? Go to the love of your life faster without dealing with all the dopes first?

I’ve contemplated it. I think about what I would do and how I would make sure I found my husband – just sooner!

Posted in 2023, Books

Books on Repeat #1

Posted on by nancyb422

I have so many books to read in my bookcase but that doesn’t stop me from buying more, or going to the library. Or, rereading one!

Since I just finished one I’ve read before, I’ll tell you about it and why I do.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society takes place mostly on the island of Guernsey, part of the British Channel Islands during 1946.

It is an epistolary novel which means it’s in the form of letters. Some short, some long between an author, her publisher, his sister, her suitor, and the people living in Guernsey after World War II that move the story along.

Guernsey was occupied by the Germans during the war before the Allies landed in Normandy. The letters weave the present days of 1946 with the stories of the townspeople during the occupation.

It’s heart warming and educational and now I would like to visit Guernsey. Since that won’t happen any time this year or next, I’m going to find books about the island and the occupation.

This book is a “palate cleanser” when you’ve just finished something fairly intense and just can’t jump into something else right away. That’s why it’s the perfect re-read!

Posted in 2023, Books, Writing

Where A Book Can Lead You

Posted on by nancyb422

Have you ever read a book and wondered how the author grabbed that thought or feeling out of your brain? Wondered how they can tap into that emotion you thought was long buried? It can bring tears or smiles or a renewed feeling of confidence.

This book reads like a group of short stories. But, what’s interesting, is a character from one chapter might just pop up in another one! The first chapter is about the young woman who writes the book and her family life growing up. She goes away to college and has signed up for a Creative Writing class, telling her parents, who wouldn’t have approved, that it was a core requirement. In her first week, her professor tells the class to “Write me a story”. He tells her she’s a gifted writer but her story reads like she’s just observing, he wants more emotion.

The book she writes is named “Theo”. It makes the rounds of publishing houses and is rejected all around. It finally gets read by a book editor tasked with reading piles of manuscripts that arrive daily at a small publishing firm. Once finished reading she emails her boss with two words, “This One”.

It’s read for an audible book by an actor who is losing his Hollywood looks. By a widower, but someone struggling with family dynamics. And so on, through about nine people in total. All suffering in some way, who either happen upon the book, have it recommended, or bought, or left behind for them.

All the characters who read the book were struggling with something in their life. All found something to renew themselves, either to carry on or gave them a new pathway forward in their life.

I bought this book at Barnes and Noble from the New Fiction shelf but I’d never heard of it, just something that caught my eye! I guess it was meant to be.

Posted in 2023, Books, Writing

Short Stories

Posted on by nancyb422

May is Short Stories month and I enjoy reading them. This book caught my eye at the library last week so I checked it out.

The title doesn’t really seem to match the stories which all contain some type of illicit affair. A high school senior with her teacher, a couple of long distance relationships that get by between visits with phone or computer sex, and few, there are 11 stories in all, with the same characters at different stages over the course of a few years.

They were humorous for the most part and I actually enjoyed them (I spent most of the afternoon reading!), but in some of them I was fearful they would get caught, or annoyed that they could be so rotten to their spouse.

I cast no judgment but know it’s not something I’d ever do to my husband of 35 years! But in my 20s at the end of a couple of shitty relationships……

Posted in 2023, Books, Writing

Make Me a Time Traveler!

Posted on by nancyb422
Daily writing prompt
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
View all responses

If I could be a character from a book or film I would want to be a time traveler in one of Connie Willlis’s books! Doomsday Book, Black Out, or All Clear. To examine the past and travel back to the middle ages or WWII would have been amazing to explore and bring back information to use in their research.

Sometimes it was scary being in the middle of the plague or the bombings in London but they made it through.