Tag: Book

Mar
04

Writing the Decent Denver Novel

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Writing the Decent Denver Novel

Writing the Great American Novel seemed out of the question. So instead I set out to write the Decent Denver Novel. Why Denver, you ask? Why not Denver, I say. New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago, even Santa Fe, Missoula, and Las Vegas have scores of writers telling their

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Mar
04

Thirsty in Tanzania Africas Infrastructure Challenge of Climate Change and Development

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Thirsty in Tanzania Africas Infrastructure Challenge of Climate Change and Development

When most Westerners think of East Africa, the initial images that come to mind may be of civil war-torn Somalia, starving families in Ethiopia, and exotic safaris in Kenya. These representations can be traced to various elements in our information and communication streams — such as the last time you looked at a map of the region and saw a mysterious dotted line between Ethiopia and Somalia instead of a typical solid border. Or perhaps you recall the extensive media coverage from a couple of decades ago of Ethiopia’s tragic famine during the 1980s. You may even have a positive impression of East Africa thanks to the 1985 adventure drama, Out of Africa, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep (the film gathered seven Academy Awards and did wonders for Kenya’s tourism

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Feb
23

War Criminals Sell A St Load Of Books video

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War Criminals Sell A St Load Of Books video

How do you think Rumsfeld is signing the books he sells to his “fans”? Give your response on Twitter with “@LeeCamp”

This Blogger’s Books from
Chaos for the Weary
Lee Camp
Satiristas: Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians
by Paul Provenza, Dan Dion

Follow Lee Camp on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/LeeCamp
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Dec
10

Edible Radio Episode 63 Blue Plate Special with Mark Bitterman PODCAST

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Edible Radio Episode 63 Blue Plate Special with Mark Bitterman PODCAST

Blue Plate Special hosts Kurt and Christine Friese interview “selmelier” and author Mark Bitterman about his new book, Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes. We learn about this most necessary element in all its varieties. Also, a Pantry Raid preparing foods ahead of time or with house guests.
Edible Radio Episode 63: Blue Plate Special with Mark Bitterman.
Download this podcast.
Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.
Edible Communities presents Edible Institute, a weekend of talks, presentations, workshops, and local food & wine tastings, by some of the local food movement’s most influential thinkers, writers, and producers. January 29-30, Hotel Mar Monte, Santa Barbara, CA.

Follow Edible on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/edibleradio

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Dec
03

Fox News 2010 War on Christmas

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Fox News 2010 War on Christmas

The smell of roasting chestnuts from street-corner vendors. The sounds of joyful caroling. The sweet sight of children in mittens, building their first snowmen.
Ah, the Christmas season is here.
And, of course, that means: Get ready for another war on Christmas from our friends at Fox News.
Now that a giant corporation has taken control of Santa’s Workshop, after a historic leveraged buyout; and now that the formerly jolly St. Nick has, like so many Americans, been left jobless, the rabid gang at Fox will undoubtedly be determined to answer the mother of all Christmas questions: Is Santa Claus really the legendary symbol of good will and merriment that he’s cracked up to be — or is he just another Socialist-Fascist-Liberal giving free toys and candy handouts to Welfare kids?
Tune in this Christmas. If anyone can get to the bottom of this jingle-belling, toy-toting madness, it’s the gang at Fox News.
NOW ON SALE!
Twas the Night Before Christmas: 21st Century Edition (Andrews McMeel)
By Bruce Kluger and David Slavin
TwasTheBook Website
TwasTheBook on Facebook
TwasTheBook on Twitter
Sacked Santa (Santa’s Unemployment Blog, on Tumblr)

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
26

On Names

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On Names

There is a two-fold complaint nestled in the plumy thicket of today’s screed, good people. And while they (the individual issues of the complaint) are as intertwined as two pigs’ privates mid-coitus, they could not be more different on their face. Perhaps a metaphor about the mythological two-faced God “Janus” might have been a more palate-friendly image than that of two mud-dusted hogs bumpin’ uglies under the withering August sun, but to agree with that is a pledge to stop reading this column. Still reading? I thought so, dirtbag.
For as long as I have been consciously alive, i.e. not legally abort-able (nice try, Ma) I’ve been fascinated* with names.
*”Fascination” is currently defined by this column as “an overwhelming need to produce a quick column and any old topic will do.”
My fascination extends not just to the given name by which we govern our everyday affairs, but also to the creative and dark nom de plumes to which we assign the creations that we scrupulously refer to as “ours.” My good buddy named his penis “Fear” (and we wonder why Al Qaeda hates us). My car is the called “the Red Rocket” because it has the distinct coloring and shape of a canine phallus. Now were this column strictly about my friend and mine’s cock-centric whimsies (damn that sounds gay) it would be a pleasantly enjoyable piece, I can assure you (the column, not the… oh, never mind). But this column falls under the genus of “Books” and it is to “Books” that this column must pertain.
So from here-to-forth I will hold court on the subject of irritable names — those of both authors and their creations.
The catalyst for this here topic is none other than the protagonist for the popular Hunger Games young-adult series, Katniss Everdeen. This is by far the worst name I have ever heard for anything, worse even than “Sweet Fish Vaginal Deodorant” (actual product!), and yet, I can’t ejaculate it from my memory banks. Everyday of my life for the past several months, it has popped up in my cerebrum when I am choosing what flavor of pot pie I am choosing for dessert, deciding what psychic hotline to call, or arguing with my phone company that the psychic hotline ripped me off. Katniss Everdeen. Granted, Suzanne Collins wasn’t the first scribe to give their character an offbeat name (thank you, Deuteronomy), but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the most irritating. At least “Pippi Longstocking” has a certain “laissez-faire” genteelness to it. Pippi is soothing, Katniss Everdeen sounds like an ointment made by lepers for lepers. I recognize that you want your character to “pop” from the page ala Milo Minderbender or Kilgore Trout, but damnit, authors, you can do better. If you named your actual child “Beety Buggit,” guess what? They’d kick you right out of your local Gymboree. Even Vladimir Nabokov’s “Humbert Humbert” is pushing it. Hell, the name Vladimir Nabokov is pushing it; I don’t care what Russia thinks.
It’s odd when you realize that you’re no longer the carefree and dare-I-say Pippi Longstocking-ish free spirit you once were, and that nowadays your body cries out for normalcy, order, and fiber. In my youth, I gorged on the wildly inventive imagery conveyed by a name like Booger Farnsworth. These days, I hear a name like “Harry Potter” and I think, “Hmm, sounds like a good Christian Republican.” It won’t be long now before I mow my lawn in high socks while smoking a pipe. But on that day, I will still have the smug satisfaction that I never named a character Katniss. Also, the reason I am cutting my own grass is because I am not a multimillionaire like Suzanne Collins, so what the hell did I know?
Oh and since you’ve stuck around this long, you’ve earned it. The name I bequeathed upon my penis? Melville. Not because of the “white whale” thing though. It’s because my penis, much like Herman Melville, is not well regarded amongst its contemporaries, but one day, they’ll see. They’ll all see.

This Blogger’s Books from
The Dead Janitors Club: Pathetically True Tales of a Crime Scene Cleanup King
by Jeff Klima

Follow Jeff Klima on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/OhJeff

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
12

Christmas Crisis Santa Laid Off

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Christmas Crisis Santa Laid Off

Day 9: Dressed to Kill…Myself
Went to Best Buy for a job interview. Thought I had it, too, until they told me I had to wear one of those god-awful blue polo shirts. I told them I’m a winter — I look good in reds, whites, blacks, that kind of thing. I told them I had my own suit, too, but the asshats wouldn’t budge. You be the judge. I think I look like Papa Smurf.
Day 13: Shoot. Me. Now.
Day 15: Crash Test Dummy
Mrs. Claus said I should get a job driving a cab. Can I drive? Yes. A sleigh. Pulled by flying reindeer. In the middle of the night. That doesn’t mean I can drive a Crown Vic in the middle of rush hour! But I gave it a shot. (Note to self: check life insurance policy–she’s probably upped my coverage again.)
NOW ON SALE!
Twas the Night Before Christmas: 21st Century Edition (Andrews McMeel)
By Bruce Kluger and David Slavin
TwasTheBook Website
TwasTheBook on Facebook
TwasTheBook on Twitter
Sacked Santa (Santa’s Unemployment Blog, on Tumblr)

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
10

Friendship by the Book Dump Em by Jodyne L Spyer

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Friendship by the Book Dump Em by Jodyne L Spyer

It’s never easy to end a relationship—whether it’s with a hairstylist, babysitter, boss, lover or a friend. That’s because we get attached to the people who play starring roles in our lives and breaking up invokes a range of emotions—including guilt, disappointment, sadness, anger and fear of the potential consequences.
This is a pretty heavy subject but in Dump ‘Em: How to Break Up with Anyone from You Best Friend to Your Hair Dresser (HarperCollins, 2009), author Jodyne L. Spyer brings her wonderfully quirky sense of humor to the gravitas of getting rid of the thorns in your life. (I wasn’t surprised to learn that Jodyne’s sister is comedienne Sarah Silverman).
Dump ‘Em is a quick read—with lots of subtitles, lists, anecdotes, and insights from experts—that offers light-hearted and very practical advice on how to deal with the awkward situations that invariably arise when we have to let go. Jodyne recognizes the difficulty most of us have in saying no, saying goodbye, or setting limits and boundaries in a range of relationships and includes a chapter on each one (22 in all).
Chapter 9, Best Friends for Never, covers the serious groundwork that has to take place before you decide to dump a BFF and what you need to do to fortify yourself for the task. This includes some great advice from making sure you’re 100 percent certain it’s something you want to do, to thinking about other less grave options, to suggesting what to say when you set up the meeting or phone call.
What I loved most was that while the book and it’s title are witty, it recognizes that dumping anyone is a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly and clearly emphasizes the importance of respecting the relationship that you once treasured.
Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.

This Blogger’s Books from
Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend
by Irene S. Levine
Schizophrenia For Dummies
by Jerome Levine, Irene S. Levine

Follow Dr. Irene S. Levine on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/IreneLevine

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
09

PreChristmas Shocker Heads Roll at the PoleWall Street Takes Over Santas Workshop

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PreChristmas Shocker Heads Roll at the PoleWall Street Takes Over Santas Workshop

For more information, click the late-breaking video below…
NOW ON SALE!
Twas the Night Before Christmas: 21st Century Edition (Andrews McMeel)
By Bruce Kluger and David Slavin
TwasTheBook Website
TwasTheBook on Facebook
TwasTheBook on Twitter
Sacked Santa (Santa’s Unemployment Blog, on Tumblr)

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Nov
07

Stop the GBRRT George Bush Reputation Resurrection Tour

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Stop the GBRRT George Bush Reputation Resurrection Tour

Help me I think I’m falling in love with you again… Whoa, not so fast, big guy. This week’s start of the George Bush reputation resurrection tour has all the requisite trappings of a superstar artist tour. Oprah, The Today Show, etc. And we have early release teasers already. Former President Bush wrote a personal book — a book about his feelings. Of course he did. He had to. He couldn’t tour with a book about the truth and the mess he left this country.
George Bush left the White House as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. His approval rating was stuck in the 20s for months. The American economy was in a deep recession brought on by a period of unrestrained defense spending and financial risks taken by both the government and the private sector, most notably Wall Street. Job loss in the last year of the Bush presidency was the largest 13-month job loss since the payroll employment series began in 1939.
The auto industry was on the brink of collapse forcing a million more people out of work and the federal government had been stripped of its enforcement authority to keep big business in line at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Minerals and Mining Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services among others. Oil companies were running the drilling rules and ignoring safety concerns; health insurers operated unrestrained and the average American family’s health insurance premium rose from $6,000 a year to $12,000; credit card companies were pushing credit lines to poor people and then charging them usury rates when they tried to get out of debt. I could go on about his inept response costing lives and livelihoods after Katrina; his targeting of gays for political gains; his cronyism in giving contracts to his friends at Haliburton and Enron, etc. In short, rich people were getting richer, the middle class was getting ever more squeezed and we were doing more than driving into the ditch — we were heading for a full scale depression.
And that is just here in America. President Bush was responsible for the most catastrophic collapse in America’s global reputation since the second world war, brought on by launching an unecessary and costly war in Iraq against the tide of world opinion. In so doing he squandered good will for America which was at an all time high due to the attacks of 9/11 and divided the country at a time we were desperately looking for unity. Not only did the war cost the US over a trillion dollars directly. The costs of its impact are incalculable.
Absent the Iraq invasion, we would still be stuck in Afghanistan? Would the economic crisis have been so bad? Could we have spent that money at home educating our children to prepare for the future? Could we have insured the uninsured more cheaply? Would we have found a way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil rather than increase it? Would the federal debt be so high? President Bush denied us the answers to all of these questions. And more.
Well, the least we can do is deny him the ability to revise history. Or worse, gloss over it with a veil of nostalgia for the nicer days of profligate bliss rather than the messy job President Obama and the Democrats have done cleaning up.
Don’t be fooled by the GBRRT. Because we are all still living with the mess he created.

Follow Hilary Rosen on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/hilaryr

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Sep
27

Banned Books Week 10 Flashlight Worthy Books People Most Want Banned PHOTOS

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Banned Books Week 10 Flashlight Worthy Books People Most Want Banned PHOTOS

My website, Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations — a website of 396 original lists of book recommendations — is proud to support the 29th Annual Banned Books Week by bringing you this list of the 10 most “challenged” books of 2009.
What does “challenged” mean? It means someone requested the book be removed from their public library because of its “offensive” nature. As if, in this age of hot and cold running internet porn, a child would go to a library and check out a book to be titillated.
Fortunately, thanks to the hard work of librarians, teachers, parents, students and the American Library Association, most challenges go nowhere; if anything, they create more attention for the books in question.
So, stick it to the prudes. Take a look at the 10 books below and make an effort to read as many as you can. And when you’re done with those, the absurdity continues with the 10 Most “Challenged” Books of 2008 and the 10 Most “Challenged” Books of 2007.
“ttyl” by Lauren Myracle
1 of 11
National Punctuation Day 2010: The 5 Worst Punctuation Mistakes (PHOTOS)
5 Meanest Book Reviews Ever: Franzen, Foer, Larsson And More (PHOTOS)
Dust Jacket Sketchbook: A Cartoonist’s Take on the Literary World (PHOTOS)
‘Good Eggs’: A Comic About Infertility
Jon Stewart’s ‘Earth’: Everything An Alien Tourist Needs To Know About The Planet After Human Beings Are Gone (PHOTOS)
Constitution Day: Celebrate The Birth Of America With A New Illustrated Constitution (PHOTOS)
This young adult series is a repeat from last year and I’m sure the author is proud to have moved up from #3 to #1. People requested the books be removed from the library due to the following reasons: nudity, sexually explicit material, offensive language, being unsuited to the target age group, and drugs.
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Sep
22

A Conversation with Gail Caldwell On the loss of a close friend

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A Conversation with Gail Caldwell On the loss of a close friend

The death of a close friend is extraordinarily painful, made that much more difficult because bereaved friends typically evoke little sympathy and support. This occurs even when the emotional connection between two friends is as strong as the bonds between siblings, spouses or partners.
Aside from cultural traditions, one reason may be that friendships are such intimate, private and inexplicable attachments that they often defy rational understanding by outsiders. It’s easy for someone who doesn’t grasp the nature of a very close friendship to either be inattentive or even dismissive of the magnitude of such a loss.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gail Caldwell’s beautiful book, Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship (Random House, 2010), breaks new ground in allowing readers to understand the depths of a close female friendship and the pain associated with a sudden and untimely loss. I previously wrote about Gail’s book in an earlier post here but I was pleased to follow-up with some email questions with the author.
Irene:
Any woman who reads your book has to be envious of the close bonds you shared with Caroline. What role did the parallels in your lives–e.g. recovery from alcoholism, love of animals, being writers–play in your ability to connect so intimately?
Gail:
Oh, I think those parallels were essential, or at least very important. Particularly the dogs! We connected so profoundly over and through our love for Clementine and Lucille, and theirs for each other, that it was the initial glue of the friendship. The other parallels – a drinking history, a solitary writer’s life – were revealed more slowly, but probably had a great deal to do with our understanding of each other.
Irene:
I believe there was a nine-year age difference between you and Caroline. How did that affect your relationship? Was it something that you and Caroline were conscious of? Looking back, did it enhance, detract, or make no difference at all in your relationship?
Gail:
Certainly the age difference never detracted, probably because we were both in that midlife stage – old enough to be smart, young enough to be strong – that I tend to think of as women’s finest hour. And Caroline was so psychologically sophisticated, emotionally mature, that she never felt “younger” in any way that would be distancing. We probably played out a lot of the big sister/ little sister dynamics that any good friendship explores.
Irene:
You talk about the two of you being “moody introverts?” How do you think that personality archetype affects a woman’s ability to make and keep friends?
Gail:
I don’t know that it affects it in any way other than being a good selective tool. A moody introvert is probably not going to be drawn to a perky world-traveler who never gives yesterday a thought – any more than the world traveler would want to hang out with an armchair brooder! Friendship is such a complex mosaic; we are all drawn to one another for myriad reasons.
Irene:
When a woman tragically loses a husband, the men that follow in her life are often threatened that they’ll never live up to the ghost. Do you worry that your book will make it daunting for any other women to get close to you?
Gail:
I seriously doubt it. I suppose there’s always a mythology present when someone is conscious of a past love who’s now gone. But grief teaches you, if you listen, how to incorporate the loss and keep it as part of you, not shut the door on the future.
Irene:
How did other female friends react to the publication of the book? Were they jealous? Would you have been able to write such a book if Caroline were alive?
Gail:
No to both questions.
Irene:
How do you think your loss affected your ability to befriend afterwards? Could you ever connect with a woman (or man) who isn’t passionate over dogs?
Gail:
I think loss often presents the vast kindnesses of other people. In my case, I was surrounded by a lot of love and support, and I let all that in. I have friends of both genders who are not as passionate about dogs as I am, but the inner circle — well, there are probably leashes in most of their houses.
A former chief book critic of the Boston Globe, Gail Caldwell is also the author of A Strong West Wind and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism in 2001.
Follow The Friendship Doctor on Twitter.

Follow Dr. Irene S. Levine on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/IreneLevine

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Sep
10

911 Flashlight Worthy Recommends 9 Unforgettable Books About September 11 PHOTOS

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911 Flashlight Worthy Recommends 9 Unforgettable Books About September 11 PHOTOS

When I started Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations — a website full of hundreds of lists of great books — I thought to myself “This will be fun! Book Club Recommendations and Beach Reads.”
Little did I realize how eager people would be to see book lists on heavier topics such as The Holocaust, cancer and of course… 9/11.
As someone who adopted New York as my home just two years before 9/11 — and who watched the first tower fall with his own eyes — I debated whether to create this book list. In the end though it deserves coverage like any other topic; ignoring it won’t make it go away. I think that no matter your literal or emotional distance from Ground Zero on September 11, 2001 there’s at least one book on this list for you.
Finally, while in my opinion these are some of the best books about 9/11, I’m sure there are dozens of excellent titles I’ve missed. If you know of any, drop by Flashlight Worthy and let me know what I’ve missed.
’102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers’ by Kevin Flynn and Jim Dwyer
1 of 10
Celebrate Rosh Hashanah: 8 Favorite Fictional Jewish Characters In Books (PHOTOS)
‘The Great Typo Hunt’: America’s 10 Most Common Typos (PHOTOS)
The 11 Longest Words In The English Language (PHOTOS)
From ‘Witches’ To Wonka: 7 Film Adaptations of Roald Dahl Books (VIDEO)
Stories That Deftly Walk The Fine Line Between Humor And Drama (PHOTOS)
Katrina Aftermath: New Orleans ‘Coming Back’ (PHOTOS)
As someone who’s made his home in New York for the last 9 years — and literally watched the first of the Twin Towers fall — reading about 9/11 can be extremely difficult. This title — a literal minute-by-minute account from the moment the first plane struck to the moment the 2nd tower fell — strikes me as the perfect balance of dispassionate, inspiring and honest.
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Sep
08

Friends Monsters Lovers Bringing Mary Shelley Out of the Shadows

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Friends Monsters Lovers Bringing Mary Shelley Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows (NAL Trade, 2010) is my friend and colleague Joanne Rendell’s third novel. Each of her books is beautifully written; their stories are rich and engaging and all touch upon some aspect of female friendships.
In this most recent book, Clara Fitzgerald is the protagonist whose recent losses have set her adrift, personally and professionally. Her mother has passed away, and her career seems stalled while her fianc’s scientific research is poised to take off in an exciting new direction. As great as the potential is for his future, Clare can’t help – or ignore – that her emotional connection to him has slowly been slipping away.
I was delighted to speak to Joanne about her new book:
Irene: At the heart of Out of the Shadows is a friendship between the thirty-four year old protagonist, Clara, and an elderly Mary Shelley scholar, Kay. Why were you drawn to a story of intergenerational friendship?
Joanne: I thought it would be interesting and provocative to include an intergenerational friendship in Out of the Shadows because the novel explores, among other things, the fear of death and aging. Clara’s fianc Anthony Greene is a successful geneticist who is developing a drug that might fight cancer. His drug works on the genes associated with aging and thus has the potential to extend life too. Anthony is uneasy about getting old and his research clearly taps into his own fears of aging and dying. Meanwhile, Clara gains so much from her developing friendship with Kay who is in her eighties. Kay not only shares Clara’s enthusiasm for Mary Shelley, but she also offers wisdom and insight that only comes from having lived such a long life. Clara is struggling in her own thirty-something life and Kay provides guiding, astute, and loving light for her.
Irene: Did you base Clara and Kay’s friendship on an intergenerational friendship in your own life?
Joanne: Not exactly. Although, when I wrote Kay’s character, I was definitely thinking of an amazing older woman I knew when I still lived in the UK who was also called Kay. She was the grandmother of my then-boyfriend and she was such a smart, funny, and interesting woman. She’d traveled all over the world, lost her husband when she was just a young mother, and had a successful career as a university professor. She had so many interesting stories to tell. I loved her company and a few times we had dinner together, just the two of us. She devoured home-fried chips (French Fries) that were my specialty and I ate up her stories!
Irene: Intergenerational friendships are not unheard of but they are definitely less common than friendships among the same generation. Why do you think that is so?
Joanne: It starts with the school system, I think. Right from the start kids are put into classes with thirty other kids the same age. They spend the entire week (and most of the year) with this group of peers and the only adults they have much contact time with are their parents and teachers. They have even less time with retired or elderly people. From our earliest days we’re socialized into feeling more at ease with our peers than people in other age groups – which is a shame as it seems we could all benefit from more diversified social circles. The young can learn so much from older people, and vice versa.
Irene: Is this why you homeschool your son?
Joanne: Yes, it is one of the reasons. It’s funny, when we tell people that we’re homeschooling our seven year old son, the first question we are always asked is, “What about socialization?” But my response is always to question what “socialization” actually means. My son is not being socialized into spending every day with a big group of kids his exact age, it’s true. However, because he is not in a traditional school setting, we have a lot of time to socialize out in the world, meeting all kinds of people of all different ages. Benny has friends his own age, of course, but we’re often out on adventures (to museums, galleries, homeschool classes, zoos, and parks) and he’s continually socializing with a broad array of people. I’m hoping this kind of childhood will set him up for a lifetime of intergenerational socializing and friendships.
Irene: Why did you decide to write a book about Mary Shelley?
Joanne: I’ve always loved Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s a wonderful gothic novel, but it’s very thoughtful, daring, and extremely prescient too – even now, two hundred years after it was written. Frankenstein has had a huge cultural impact. It has inspired numerous novels, countless movies, and the name Frankenstein is known throughout the popular imagination. In spite of this, many people don’t know that a nineteen year old woman called Mary Shelley wrote the original book. Fewer people still know anything about this woman who led a rich yet tragic life, who married the daring romantic poet called Percy Shelley, and who was the child of two radical writers, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. In Out of the Shadows I wanted to bring Mary Shelley out of the shadows of the monster she created.
Irene: In Out of the Shadows, you alternate between the story of Clara and the story of young Mary Shelley preparing to write Frankenstein. Why did you decide to narrate the book like this?
Joanne: In many ways, Clara and Mary’s stories in the book are so different. Mary is a young girl growing up in early nineteenth-century London, while Clara is a thirty-something professor who lives in modern day New York City. But there are many similarities and echoes too. For one, Clara’s story resonates with Shelley’s most famous book. Clara’s fianc is not unlike Victor Frankenstein, in his ambition, his desire to extend life, and his creation of something so dangerous that it eventually causes him great troubles.
I think the stories of the two women speak to each other on other levels too. Mary and Clara are both on the cusp of finding themselves. They are searching for a way out of the shadows of those around them. For Mary, it is the shadow of her mother’s death, her father’s protection, and the life that doesn’t yet fulfill her. For Clara, she must find a way to live for herself, to pursue her own dreams, and not just follow her fianc’s career.
Irene: Your books always include a literary theme. In The Professors’ Wives’ Club it was Edgar Allen Poe. In Crossing Washington Square it was Sylvia Plath, and of course in Out of the Shadows it’s Mary Shelley. Why do you include these literary elements?
Joanne: I can’t help it! Literature has always been my love, my inspiration, and my life. I have a PhD in literature and even when I moved from academia to fiction writing I never stopped reading, or reading about, books. I’ve enjoyed including these literary themes in my novels, both as a way to pay homage these writers but also as a way to keep their works alive, loved, and thought about.
Friendship by the Book is an occasional series of posts on The Friendship Blog about books that offer friendship lessons.

Follow Dr. Irene S. Levine on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/IreneLevine

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Sep
03

Muhammad A Story of the Last Prophet

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Muhammad A Story of the Last Prophet

In this interview, Deepak Chopra discusses his reasons for writing “Muhammad: A Story Of The Last Prophet,” which captures the life story of the Prophet of Islam.

Follow Deepak Chopra on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/DeepakChopra

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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