Review of Change Your Life Without Getting Out of Bed, by SARK

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Change Your Life Without Getting Out of Bed

The Ultimate Nap Book

by SARK

Fireside Books (Simon & Schuster), 1999.  96 pages.

http://www.planetsark.com/

I’ve recently discovered SARK’s delightful books.  They’re gift books, and they are works of art.  She hand writes them with colorful rainbows of ink, with the pictures and the words expressing the exuberance.

This particular book is especially fun.  I started to say that it’s in defense of naps, but I think it’s better to say that this book is in celebration of naps.  There’s nothing defensive about her attitude toward taking naps!  Instead, she explains how much wonderful good naps can bring into your life. 

She gives reasons to nap, permission to nap, pleasures and benefits of napping, nap tips, nap quotes, and even describes fantasy naps and gives ideas for micronaps for parents.  (I like this one:  “Pile ALL the pillows on top of Daddy, and see how long it takes you!”

I finished reading this book on a day when I was scheduled to work 12:30 to 9:00.  Usually, I try to get lots done on such mornings.  That day, I did not have a “productive” morning, but I did have a very lovely one!

“Our lives are full of choices.  You can choose to nap.” — SARK

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Review of Love, Magic & Mudpies, by Bernie Siegel

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Love, Magic & Mudpies

Raising Your Kids to Feel Loved, Be Kind, and Make a Difference

by Bernie Siegel, MD

Rodale, New York, 2006.  241 pages.

Here’s an inspiring book of musings and tips on inspiring your kids.  I read them through at the rate of about one musing per day, which gave me a nice little daily dose of inspiration.

Bernie Siegel says in the introduction:

“The title of this book says it all.  Love is necessary for our survival and is the key ingredient for both the parent and the child.  Children see the magic in everything, and loving parents can and will experience so many magical moments while raising their children.  Mudpies can be fun at times and also leave us covered with dirt.

“When you look at your children and yourself, I’d like you to accept that you are all part of this special magical relationship.  While creating your family, I’d like you to be in awe of life and its wonder but not hesitate to dive into life and take the risk of a mud bath now and then, too….

“I want to help parents not only survive the ups and downs of parenting but help them make it a blessing, too.  The magic excites and enlightens us, while the mud can become the fertilizer for our lives and relationships.  In this book, I will share with you the gems I have garnered from my medical practice and family life.  From my experience as a father of five, grandfather of eight, pediatric surgeon, counselor to those with life-threatening illnesses, and a Chosen Dad for suicidal and abused children I have met, I know our childhoods have a profound effect on our lifelong health.  I’ve seen that what we learn in our earliest years has a direct effect on our self-esteem, behavior, and choices.  It makes me realize that the parenting we receive is truly the number one health issue in most people’s lives….

“Remember, parents are the co-creators of life; so decide what you desire to create, and begin now.  Your children are the finest raw material you will ever have to work with.”

This book is full of helpful, encouraging, and inspiring ideas and advice.

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Review of Confessions of an Amateur Believer, by Patty Kirk

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Confessions of an Amateur Believer

by Patty Kirk

Nelson Books, 2006.  271 pages.

Starred Review.

http://www.amateurbeliever.com/
http://www.thomasnelson.com/
 
Patty Kirk grew up Catholic but wandered away from God and traveled all over the world.   When she came back to America, she married a Christian farmer, and ended up becoming a Christian herself.  This section from “About the Author” summarizes what the book is all about:

God began infecting every aspect of her daily life, converting every struggle to a miracle and holding her to account for every apparent victory.  She fought hard against these changes, in her marriage and parenting, her work, her mind.  She recorded her battles with God in free-form spiritual writings part praise, part lament, part exegesis, woven together with narratives of her daily life and her sometimes unwilling research into what it means to believe in God.

This book is a collection of those essays on spiritual things.  They are beautifully written and full of insight.  Those who follow my Sonderquotes blog will recognize Patty Kirk’s name, as I read through the book slowly, and so often found highly quotable paragraphs.

These are musings or meditations on life, God, the spiritual journey.  The author is open and honest, and readers will find her a kindred spirit.  She’s not afraid to talk about things a lot of us feel, but don’t necessarily know how to express as well.

This book explores how, having begun to believe as a child and lost sight of God for half a lifetime, I came not only to recognize him again but, by struggling with scripture and my own habits of unbelief, to acknowledge and celebrate his active participation in my life.

I love the picture she presents of God in these pages, a God who loves us, and who is not mean.

A big thank you to John, a Sonderbooks reader who recommended this book to me!

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/amateur_believer.html

Review of Our Own Selves, by Michael Gorman

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Our Own Selves

More Meditations for Librarians

by Michael Gorman

American Library Association, Chicago, 2005.  224 pages.

http://www.alastore.ala.org/

I’m a new librarian.  I got my MLIS degree one year and one month ago.  All the same, once something becomes a job, there’s a danger that it will become “just a job” instead of a calling.

Reading a book like this one, slowly, one meditation per day, helped to remind me why I’m so proud and happy to be a librarian.  It reminds me that, despite the day-to-day little annoying details, I am doing a good work from a noble tradition.

As Michael Gorman says, “One of the great intangible benefits of library work is the sense of self-worth that comes when we realize that, no matter how humdrum the day or week, we are playing a part in bringing the good things of life to everyone and improving our communities, one life at a time.  A library serving a community of any kind (a village, school, city, college or university, corporation, government) enriches that community, which would be impoverished and weakened if that library did not exist.”

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Find this review on the main site at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/our_own_selves.html

Review of Breakfast Epiphanies, by David Anderson

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Breakfast Epiphanies

Finding Wonder in the Everyday

by David Anderson

Beacon Press, Boston, 2002.  155 pages.

http://www.beacon.org/

Finding God in the ordinary is a way of seeing the world.  It’s a willingness to suspect God when no other fingerprints match.  When we encounter the sublime, terrible, inexplicable, we can stop silent in our tracks and whisper the words of Jacob as he awoke from his ladder dream:  “Surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it.”  Or we can shrug it off as a weird coincidence.

Here’s a little book of musings about everyday events and what they mean in the bigger picture.  I actually read this book over breakfast, one short chapter per day.

A nice opportunity to stop and think for a moment, instead of simply letting life rush past.

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Review of Miss Alcott’s E-mail, by Kit Bakke

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Miss Alcott’s E-mail

Yours for Reforms of All Kinds

by Kit Bakke

David R. Godine, 2006.  255 pages.

http://www.godine.com/

Kit Bakke begins, “I was home alone, that rare treat for the working mother, when it occurred to me to write to her.  To Louisa May Alcott.  Why not?” 

She goes on to explain why writing to Louisa resonated with her life.  And apparently she pulled it off!

“I wish I could explain more about the mechanics of our correspondence, but I can’t, because, other than frying six surge protectors, I don’t know how it worked.  I sent my letters and chapter drafts to Louisa by e-mail from my Seattle living room, and she received them as handwritten ink on paper in her roms in Dr. Lawrence’s house in Roxbury, Massachusetts.  She once told me my handwriting was neat and extremely legible, so there was definitely something odd going on.  She wrote to me, using well-worn ink pens and paper, and they showed up in Times New Roman in my Outlook inbox.  I was grateful for the technology transfer, as her own handwriting was also less than copperplate.

“It’s one of those Internet Effects, I guess.  Or a Heisenberg thing, or Brownian motion gone amok.  I didn’t want to inquire too closely for fear the magic might vanish.”

What follows is a series of essays about Louisa May Alcott’s life and the parallels with Kit Bakke’s life in modern America, framed by letters (no, e-mails) purporting to be from Louisa herself.

I loved the idea of this book, because when I was a girl in 6th or 7th grade, I actually spent quite a bit of time daydreaming about bringing Louisa May Alcott into the present to show her all the advances women have made.  I don’t think any other author ever prompted such a reaction, but I distinctly remember thinking out what I would say to Louisa May Alcott if I could pull this off and meet her.  So imagine my delight, more than thirty years later, to learn that Kit Bakke in some sense managed to do what I daydreamed about as a child.

I think it was Louisa’s zeal for “reforms of all kinds” that prompts this sort of reaction from her readers.  We want her to know about the progress that was made, and about the good that came from her own efforts.  Kit Bakke did some work at reforms of her own in the sixties, so she tied those stories in with her thoughts about Louisa’s life.

This book is a fascinating blend of musings on life in modern America combined with historical information about Louisa May Alcott and her times, as well as the personal touch from imagining Louisa’s reactions.

This book will be most enjoyed by people who have read and loved Louisa May Alcott’s books, but there are millions such people out there.  For myself, I want to find a copy of some of her less-known books for adults mentioned, such as Work.  I will be able to read it with new appreciation into the background and what it meant in Louisa’s life and times.  Reading Miss Alcott’s E-mail reminded me of an author I loved in my childhood, and told me more about her work for adults, which I have yet to discover.

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Review of Free for All, by Don Borchert

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Free for All

Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library

by Don Borchert

Virgin Books, 2007.  223 pages.

Starred Review

I loved this book.  Why should I need to read a book about working in a library?  Haven’t I seen it all myself?  Reading these pages filled me with the delighted recognition that our customers at Herndon Fortnightly Library are not the only eccentrics out there.  Besides, Don Borchert showed me the funny side of the quirky situations that face library employees every day.  He gave me permission to laugh about them.

For example, one afternoon I read this passage:

“Legally, they aren’t required to give us a great deal of information:  a home address, a phone number, a driver’s license if they’d like to show it to us.  But some people are screwed up.  They will make up addresses; they will say they have no phone, no driver’s license.  The less information you have on them, the less able you are to get a hold of them when the books drift overdue and cruise into lost territory.

“Some patrons put down post office boxes as their home address.  This is not a happy thing, because when the patron has $750 worth of missing books it is impossible to knock on their post office box and ask them politely where the books are.  At this point, they are gone.  But if the DMV puts the post office box on their driver’s license, it’s good enough for us.  If it is not on their driver’s license we are dubious.

” ‘I can’t get mail where I live.’

“This statement, too, makes us suspect, because as far as we know the mail goes everywhere.  When we are lied to in the first tentative moments of the relationship, we know it will end in tears, accusations, and large fines.”

In the very next week, we had a potential new customer come in who gave a post office box as his address and wanted a card given to him on the spot.  (Our policy is that we will mail it.)  Two people discussed our policy with him for a half hour before the employees decided to walk away!

I thought it was funny — I just read about that in Free for All!  Of course, I might not have found it so amusing if I had been one of the ones trying to explain our policy.  The customer seemed to think that repeating his excuses for not having a street address over and over again would make us change our policy.

Perhaps I found this book so much fun because working in the generic American public library is still fairly new to me.  I got my start with eight years working in a library on an American military base in Germany, which has very different clientele.  Now for a year and a half, I’ve worked at two public libraries in Virginia, and the situations I have encountered seem to precisely match those described by Don Borchert in a small branch library in Southern California.

In fact, that may be half the fun.  The library where the author works could almost be the exact library that my parents took me to when I was a young child, in the South Bay area of Los Angeles.  Almost forty years later, it’s amusing to realize that library was so much like the one where I work now (though of course without the Internet, or even computerized checkout back in those dark ages).

He did give me a new appreciation for why so many kids hang out at the library after school:

“Four hours a day is too much for a child, too much for most adults.  Even if doing a thing is fun, do you want to keep at it for four hours a day, twenty hours a week?  We are adults.  We are paid to be here.  It is a job — one of those real jobs I had successfully avoided for years.  Four hours a day for a child in the library is close to four hours of minimally supervised hell.

“When a child is dropped off for that many hours, it’s free day care, pure and simple.  The library is heated in the winter, air-conditioned in the summer, there are adults in charge, and there are clean restrooms.  By not thinking about it too closely, or too clearly, parents think they are doing a good turn for their children.  The kids get to catch up with their friends, get a leg up on their homework, and relax after a hard day of schoolwork.  And that is the flawed yet attractive theory they are going with. . . .

“But plenty does happen at the library, especially when you’re given four hours a day to think about it.  You’d think a kid doing homework from 3:30 to 6:30 every day would be cutting a dazzling, high-profile swath through school, but there’s a wrinkle.  We don’t make them do homework.  We are not their parents.  We don’t have a vested interest in their success.  Not surprisingly, a lot of the kids dumped off at the library for three and four hours a day are the same kids who wind up taking summer school because they failed their subjects the first time around.

“Maybe, their disgruntled parents think, if you have to do four hours of homework a day and still don’t understand it, it’s too hard.”

If you work in a library, you need to read this book for the laughs of recognition.  If you don’t work in a library, your eyes will be opened to see that it’s much more than the ultimate quiet job.  Libraries do provide an interesting perspective on human nature.

I love the description of libraries Don Borchert gives to open his book:

“A library is an idea more than anything else, and it is an idea that is impossible to swallow in one or two big bites.  The library is patrician, elitist, and democratic, stocking biographies of NASCAR drivers, pornography, antidemocratic literature, comic books, and the works of the great thinkers from the past two thousand years.  Once a book hits the shelf, the library is loath to get rid of it no matter what outrage it causes.  The only way a library will discard a book is if it is ignored.  The scandalous ones do not get ignored until they are passe. 

“The library offers books on every subject imaginable, in a variety of languages, and offers state-of-the-art computers with free word processing and Internet services.  A mecca for scholars and students of all ages, the library is the dullest place in the world — 91 percent of the time.  It also attracts the homeless, the mentally ill, occasional pedophiles, Internet junkies, unattended children down to the age of two, con artists, thieves, beggars, cultish homeschoolers, and people who are in general angry with every level of state and federal government.  Most of these people decide to fill out an application and get a library card.

“This makes librarians inordinately happy.  We love seeing new patrons wandering around, browsing, looking at what’s on the shelves.

“Why?

“Because there is a belief that once you begin to open books, you will become a better person.  It is Pandora’s box, but in a good way.  You are inching toward the promised land, page by page.  And it doesn’t matter if you subscribe to this theory or not.  The subscription has already been bought and paid for.

“We are all misfits, poseurs, and clowns.  We are heartbroken and lonely, failures in life, criminals and frauds.  Most of our successes are pleasant illusions.  Through the books on the shelves, the library becomes a support group and lets us know that we are not alone.  Once we realize we are not alone, we can relax, set our burdens down, and move on.”

Truly, this book shows us that as library workers, we are not alone.

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www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/free_for_all.html

Review of The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri J. M. Nouwen

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The Return of the Prodigal Son

A Story of Homecoming

by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Image Books (Doubleday), New York, 1992.  139 pages.

Starred Review

This book is not quite like any other devotional book I have read.  The focus and structure of the book involves the author’s encounter with a painting:  Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son.  This painting, of course, presents a story from the Bible, in a way that gives the characters new life.

Henri Nouwen first saw a poster of the painting, then the painting itself, at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.  He says, “A seemingly insignificant encounter with a poster presenting a detail of Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son set in motion a long spiritual adventure that brought me to a new understanding of my vocation and offered me new strength to live it.  At the heart of this adventure is a seventeenth-century painting and its artist, a first-century parable and its author, and a twentieth-century person in search of life’s meaning.”

He tells about his own encounters with the painting and what it meant in his life.  He writes about what the painting must have meant in Rembrandt’s life.  And he talks about how we have the opportunity to stand in the place of each character in the painting.

All that I have lived since my first encounter with the Rembrandt poster has not only given me the inspiration to write this book, but also suggested its structure.  I will first reflect upon the younger son, then upon the elder son, and ultimately upon the father.  For, indeed, I am the younger son; I am the elder son; and I am on my way to becoming the father.  And for you who will make this spiritual journey with me, I hope and pray that you too will discover within yourselves not only the lost children of God, but also the compassionate mother and father that is God.

The result is a beautiful and inspiring book with thoughts that will stay with you.

Here are some passages that stood out for me:

http://sonderbooks.com/sonderquotes/?s=nouwen+prodigal

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Review of The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men

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The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men:  Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay, or Dead, by Jill Conner Browne

Well, this book is very irreverent and, how shall I say this?  Not very respectful toward men.  But oh my goodness, it is funny! 

As the author says herownself:  “The reader should not infer any degree of fairness intended by these descriptions; they are used purely for the sake of conversation and, we hope, for laughs.  It is not in my job description to be fair to men or to even seem fair to them.  It’s a little late in the history of the entire world to introduce an element of fairness, and beyond even my considerable powers to bring it to bear, anyway.”

She goes on to describe, with great hilarity, many types of men you’ll find out there:  The Bud Spud, the Dud Spud, the Crud Spud, the Fuddy-Dud Spud, the Pud Spud, the Blood Spud (also known as the Man Who May Need Killing), the Scud Spud, and finally every woman’s dream, the Spud Stud.

And so it goes.  I should mention that Jill Conner Browne does not confine herself to mocking men, but also gives plenty of hearty laughter toward those of us who love them — and the things we’ll go through to try to attract them.

I’m afraid, in my present Being-Divorced state, the chapter I found most utterly hilarious was “Surviving the Wang Wars” about all the delightful ways women have gotten revenge on men who didn’t treat them as well as they deserved.

“Alas and alack, love does occasionally derail, and when it does, it usually wipes out entire neighborhoods, releases a massive cloud of terminally toxic gas, and the cleanup can take years.  And while it may be true that it is not always their fault when things go awry, it is no less true that we certainly believe that it’s always their fault and we want 100 percent of all the blame to be laid not so much at their feet but rather on top of their bodies, making it impossible for them to breathe and continue living in any real sense of the word.  What would really make us just oh so happy is to be allowed to murder them ten different times in ten different ways and then finally feed the remains to the wood chipper.  But hardly anybody ever really gets to do that.  And so, barring that ultimate satisfaction, a number of Queens have demonstrated characteristic Queenly Resourcefulness in their dealings with errant mates in ways that are not likely to land the perpetrator in the slammer, and that’s a Good Thing.  I share them with you as food for thought — fodder for your consideration as alternative strategies should you find yourself currently in possession of a man who is just beggin’ to be killed.”

Now, I should mention that the Sweet Potato Queens do not advocate criminal activity.   Jill Conner Browne says, “Even in Louisiana they will sometimes put you in jail if you kill one.  We’ve stated repeatedly that we are unequivocally against killin’ ’em, even when they practically beg for it by their every word and deed.  If you do, you will miss quite a few St. Paddy’s parades in Jackson while running from the law, and you’ll be a Yam on the Lam.”

if you’re feeling tempted to commit violence, The Sweet Potato Queens will get you laughing so hard about it, you won’t need to any longer.

With lots of silly but all too true insights, I think the uplifting message of the book is summarized in this paragraph:

“Throughout this book, I’ve been carrying on about men and finding them and getting them and keeping them and deciding whether or not to kill them, and if so, how, and so on.  And that’s all funny and mostly true and all that, but the real truth is you are enough — just the way you are, just who you are.  You are a complete entity, a whole person, right there in the skin you’re in.  You don’t need to have a guy to be happy.  Admit it:  You have more fun with a gang of girlfriends than you’ve had on the absolute best date of your entire life.  If somebody comes along who treats you right and makes you happy and you can do the same for him, well, that’s just dandy.  But I’m telling you, the only way that I know to get and keep a happy, healthy relationship is first to create a happy and healthy life for yourself without one.  This is your life to live.”

Preach it, Sister!

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Review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:  A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver

HarperCollins, New York, 2007.  370 pages.

Starred Review.

Barbara Kingsolver has a marvellous ability to make you think.  She has a way with words, coupled with ideas that challenge today’s society.

In Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Barbara Kingsolver and her family became locavores –attempting to eat food that comes from the local area, rather than food that had been shipped hundreds or thousands of miles to reach them.

Along the way, she tells us about the journey, drawing us into her story as only Barbara Kingsolver can.

Her daughter provides the book with recipes, and her husband provides sidebars of information about such things as the food industry’s dependence on petroleum.

She sets up the book going through each month of a year, beginning in late March, ready for asparagus.  The whole concept of certain foods being available in certain seasons is one that I, along with most American consumers, am not used to.  She writes about their garden and farm adventures in each season of the year, and her daughter provides recipes to go with each month’s particular abundance.

Barbara Kingsolver can make thought-provoking entertainment about anything, from locking your house to make sure no one gives you zucchini to breeding turkeys.  (Are there any turkeys left that know how to sit on a nest?  They don’t need to in modern America, where they are bred to be hatched from incubators and sit in a small, enclosed space.)

It was unfortunate reading this book in the winter, because I, unlike the Kingsolvers, had not stored up fresh food to tide me over.  However, in April the local farmer’s market will start up, every week right next to my workplace.  I will look at the food being offered with
completely new eyes.  In fact, reading this book opened my eyes to the small labels in my grocery store produce section, telling which foods come a relatively short distance.

Most of all, this book made me hungry!  All the descriptions of fresh food, grown without pesticides and not shipped thousands of miles convinced me to think about trying this approach not as some sort of noble sacrifice to help the environment, but to partake in some of the deliciousness described.

This review is posted on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/animal_vegetable_miracle.html