Like so many others, I loved the Little House on the Prairie books and read them many times over throughout childhood and even as a teen. I remember watching Little House on television, too. I heard about Prairie Fires in a women writers group, it happened to be at my library, and I checked it […]
Nonfiction Book Review: Birth Order by Linda Blair
I’m fascinated by birth order, in case you couldn’t tell, and after reading Leman’s books and a few on oldest daughters, I discovered psychologist Linda Blair’s Birth Order: What Your Position in the Family Really Tells You About Your Character. One of the complaints out there about birth order is that it isn’t real, it […]
Nonfiction Book Review: Solitude by Michael Harris
The book Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World by Michael Harris caught my eye months ago when I was at the library to pick up the book Singled Out. It was on the same shelf. The promise of this book was that it would show the reader how to be […]
Nonfiction Book Review: The Other Side of Sadness by George A. Bonanno
If you’ve suffered the loss of someone close to you, you’ve experienced grief. You may have wondered if you grieved in a healthy way, the “right” way. I did. We’ve all heard about the five stages of grief and when we find ourselves in the thick of it, we self-monitor to figure out where we […]
Nonfiction Book Review: Four Funerals and a Wedding
If you’ve lost people close to you or experienced a long season of loss or grief, here’s something you may relate to: I’m now interested in learning more about grief and loss. Probably not a surprise. And as I’ve considered writing about my experiences, I’ve also become interested in memoir. These interests intersected as I […]
Nonfiction Book Review: My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD
As my mom lay in the cardiac intensive care unit after her 5 way bypass, she suffered three strokes. They impaired her vision and affected her balance. Supporting herself as a graphic designer was no longer possible. Her life was turned completely upside down. And the effects rippled out to the rest of us. As […]
Nonfiction Book Review: Caring for Your Aging Parents
In just 6 weeks, Mom went from an active working woman in her early sixties, taking care of Dad, to a bed-ridden stroke survivor with diabetes and vision loss. The months following this sudden change were stressful for the whole family as we all grappled with this new reality while also grieving Dad’s passing. As […]
Nonfiction Book Review: AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For
In the spring of 2011, after Dad had passed and we’d decided to move to Florida, I found the book, AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For by M.J. Ryan, at a bookstore’s closing sale. We were in the process of moving – our lives in transition as my spouse had already started […]