I am going on vacation for 2 weeks starting at the end of July, and I'd love to have some guest bloggers fill in while I am gone so that the blog doesn't go dark. If you'd like to submit a guest post - a review or something else connected to books – please send me an email at [email protected]. Thanks!
I also have accumulated a number of books that I am not going to read, either from BEA or goody bags or elsewhere – and I'd like to give them away to EDIWTB readeres who might be interested. If you want one of the books below, leave me a comment with the title(s) you want to read, and I will do a drawing using random.org on Friday, July 17th. Make sure to leave me your email address.
The Gift of an Ordinary Day, by Katrina Kenison. September 2009. From Amazon: "The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition-boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town. It is a story of mid-life longings and discoveries, of lessons learned in the search for home and a new sense of purpose, and the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers–holding on, letting go. Poised on the threshold between family life as she's always known it and her older son's departure for college, Kenison is surprised to find that the times she treasures most are the ordinary, unremarkable moments of everyday life, the very moments that she once took for granted, or rushed right through without noticing at all. The relationships, hopes, and dreams that Kenison illuminates will touch women's hearts, and her words will inspire mothers everywhere as they try to make peace with the inevitable changes in store."
Once Was Lost, by Sara Zarr. October 2009. From Amazon: "Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. She used to believe in a lot of things. As a pastor's kid, it's hard not to buy in to the idea of the perfect family, a loving God, and amazing grace. But lately, Sam has a lot of reason to doubt. Her mother lands in rehab after a DUI and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. When a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, the local tragedy overlaps with Sam's personal one, and the already-worn thread of faith holding her together begins to unravel. In her third novel, acclaimed author Sara Zarr examines the coexistence of affliction and hope, and what happens when everything you thought you believed—about God, about your family, about yourself—is transformed."
AdaptAbility: How To Survive Change You Didn't Ask For, by M. J. Ryan. From the author's website: "Why is it so hard to accept change? Paradoxically, it is for the very reason that our brains usually work so well; we are designed to learn something and make it automatic. The problem is that when circumstances change, our “efficient” brains keep trying to do things the same old way. In AdaptAbility, Ryan provides strategies to retrain your brain and optimize your response to change, step by step: by first accepting the new reality, then expanding your options, and finally, taking effective action. She offers cutting edge tools for becoming calmer and less fearful, more flexible, creative and resourceful in your thinking. Best of all, as your “adapt-ability” increases, so does your confidence that, whatever life sends your way, you will be able to face it and find new ways to flourish."
Spent: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again, by Frank Lipman. From Amazon: "Americans seem to be suffering an epidemic of chronic fatigue. Some of this can be attributed simply to lack of sleep, particularly in the Eastern time zone, where 11 p.m. is the end of prime-time television. Also highly suspect are the many additives in much of the food we eat and toxins in the air we breathe. Lipman—founder and director of New York's Eleven Eleven Wellness Center, whose patients include Kyra Sedgwick and David Letterman—here presents a six-week program to detoxify, change eating habits, work daily exercise into one's schedule, and support those who are trying to clean up our environments."