Posts tagged divorce
September 12, 2010 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged adoption, cruelty, divorce, father, fiction, happiness, healing, marriage, mother, pedophilia, rape, relationships, self awareness, storytelling, writing
Chosen: A Novel
By Chandra Hoffman
Published August 24, 2010 (Hardcover) Harper
Seems I’ve been attracted lately to novels that, in some way, address babies and children. In a word – family! Chandra Hoffman’s novel, Chosen, seduced me instantly with the topic.
There’s a sweet tone to the book – Chloe’s mostly – even though Hoffman also tells the story in the voices of Penny, Paul, and Jason. A pregnant woman, the husband whose wife finally gives birth, and Penny’s difficult boyfriend. We also see Francie’s posts on the adoption site – Francie, a woman who has not been able to have a child of her own.
Chloe is an adoption worker who handles both the desperate parents wanting a child, willing to do anything to have a child, and the frantic parents-to-be, who are not sure whether to (1) end it, (2) have it and adopt it out, and (3) have it and keep it. The waters keep getting muddied. A lot. Especially when you blend in meth mothers and the violent cons who get them pregnant. Especially when one baby goes missing. Read the rest of this entry »
July 24, 2010 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged aging, boomers, divorce, fearless, intuition, nde, Near Death Experience, old, optimism, positive thinking, psychic abilities, self awareness, storytelling, trauma, writing
The Return of Intuition: Awakening Psychic Gifts in the Second Half of Life
By Kathryn Harwig
Published August 1, 2010 (Paperback) Llewellyn
My mother did not teach me how to avoid my stepfather’s sexual acts when I was a kid, but she did teach me how to lift my forehead to keep wrinkles from forming, so that I would appear younger longer, and men would want me. I obeyed. The irony was not lost on me.
But she successfully planted in me a shame of growing old. So while I love the title – The Return of Intuition - the subtitle Awaking Psychic Gifts in the Second Half of Life makes me want to hide. Or tease the math. Read the rest of this entry »
May 13, 2010 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged abuse, dancing, diabetes, diet, divorce, EMDR, father, fearless, feelings, happiness, healing, healthy diet, love, marriage, physical health, rape, self awareness, stepfather, therapy, trauma, women food and god, writing
Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
By Geneen Roth
Published March 2, 2010 (Hardcover) Scribner
There have been only two sizes of clothes in my closet for the past twenty years – fours and smalls. You may conclude that I do not need to read a book like Women Food and God. But I do.
Because inside my wicker hamper – that I bought in New York City when I was 21 and working for a fashion and beauty boutique PR agency – I have Read the rest of this entry »
March 1, 2010 · Filed under Author Interviews, Book Reviews · Tagged abuse, alcoholism, career, divorce, expressing grief, father, father's death, fearless, fiction, grief, healing, inspiration, love, mother, novel, optimism, rape, relationships, schizophrenic, stepfather, storytelling, therapy, thriller, trauma, winter garden, writing
Winter Garden
By Kristin Hannah
Published February 2nd, 2010 (Hardcover) St. Martin’s Press
I am stunned by something that occurred. Today’s interview with Kristin Hannah about her newest novel Winter Garden for Open Book with Diana Page Jordan was recorded a few weeks ago. Before I sent off the WAV file, I made certain to listen to it – and I sat through it twice – to be sure it sounded just right. There was something deeply personal I had said to Kristin behind the closed doors in the bookstore where we recorded. I had no idea how it would come across. And, I didn’t know if I would have entrusted myself to speak the same words live.
I wasn’t sure what I would hear when I played back the digital recording. But it surprised me that I didn’t make any edits.
Read the rest of this entry »
February 17, 2010 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged bestseller, cleaving, divorce, fearless, julie & julia, love, marriage, meat, reading, recipes, relationships, self awareness, storytelling, trauma, writing
Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat & Obsession
By Julie Powell
Published December 1, 2009 (Hardcover) Little, Brown and Company
I interviewed Julie Powell many years ago at a downtown Portland hotel. She was escorted in as if she were a princess, and, perhaps, in a way, she was. She’d hit the NY Times bestseller list with her first memoir Julie and Julia. You’ll recognize the title from the movie that’s just out, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Cleaving is Powell’s follow-up.
I selected the book from my stacks this afternoon the way I always do. Intuitively. But, I’m not digging Read the rest of this entry »
February 12, 2010 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged child rape, divorce, humor, love, marriage, memoir, nice Jewish guy, rape, starter marriage, stepfather, storytelling, suicide attempt, trauma, workout, writing
How To Get Divorced By 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage
By Sascha Rothchild
Published January 26, 2010 (Paperback) A Plume Original
If you’ve known me awhile, you know I’ve been divorced nearly seven years from a man with whom I had two sons. But you may not know that I was married before. For precisely three-years and one-week. They call them starter marriages now. I’ve got about twenty years on Sascha Rothchild, but she was smarter – and funnier. She was the one who wrote How To Get Divorced By 30.
Sascha’s hilarious, strikingly non-chronological account of how she married – and divorced – the obvious guy at the obvious time – hits a bit close to home. She opens the book with Read the rest of this entry »
February 2, 2010 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged boyfriend, dating, divorce, fearless, girlfriend, happiness, humor, inspiration, love, manifest, marriage, optimism, passion, personal ads, positive thinking, relationships, self awareness, valentine's day, writing
Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland
By David Rose
Published on February 2, 2010 (Hardcover) Scribner
It’s nearly Valentine’s Day, and I’ll put it out there. It would be nice to be some really great guy’s girlfriend. I was married all my post-college life. Until divorce, nearly seven-years ago. We’d gotten married on Valentine’s Day. In retrospect, not a good move. Every V-Day, I can’t help but think how dumb an idea that was.
I’m rambling. This is why I picked up Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland. I was in the mood to read real personal ads.
David Rose, who edited the book after being cupid’s postmaster at a literary publication in London, Read the rest of this entry »
August 26, 2009 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged aging, dancing, divorce, goals, happiness, healing, inspiration, positive thinking, reading, relationships, stepfather, therapy
By Mark Atteberry
Published July 2009 (Paperback) Standard Publishing
Put me in an LBD and I am happy. The cover of So Much More Than Sexy grabbed me for that very reason. And there is that nuanced nod to what I have been working on lately. Read the rest of this entry »
August 19, 2009 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged abuse, alcoholism, divorce, healing, inspiration, marriage, mother, physical health, self awareness
By Rachael Brownell
Published August 2009 (Paperback) by Conari Press
I love to drink. So I don’t.
Drinking, when I was a teenager, allowed me to be as promiscuous as I wanted. Each me was on a different channel, and after I played, I changed the channel – so it wasn’t me who had been naughty. That was another woman who peeled off her clothes in front of everyone and danced, and became the body-in-the-bed. I loved to drink the guys under the table when I was a young radio personality — before my sons were born. I’d go on the air drunk the next morning, and my husband/DJ would tell me I sounded relaxed, the best I’d sounded all month. And when we went to Nashville to the Country Music Awards, I stayed drunk all week, once sitting on Toby Keith’s lap Read the rest of this entry »
July 4, 2009 · Filed under Book Reviews · Tagged birth, divorce, fearless, healing, motherhood, physical health, writing
By Alice Eve Cohen
Published July 2009 (Hardcover) Penguin Group
Celebrating Freedom today, and my mind riffs on a number of topics. That six years ago today, my ex-husband moved out, eleven days after we divorced. I spent that day, clearing out what was left of our marriage. Then I parked a block away from where all the people were celebrating together, and, by myself, watched the fireworks from my open convertible. That today, I cleared out more stuff. Read the rest of this entry »
