It is with great pleasure that I present the first installment of my new Mother/Writer series: a look at Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favorite authors and, it seems, one of yours as well. Born and raised in rural Kentucky and trained as a biologist, Barbara Kingsolver now occupies a coveted place in American letters. Oprah-endorsed and [...]
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If you know me at all, you know that I love books. Luckily, my three kids all share my love of reading. My favorite moment of the day often happens at bedtime when we gather together on Big Brother’s bed to read, three footie pajama-clad cherubs smelling of soap and toothpaste, wide-eyed and ready for [...]
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I’m pleased today to offer you a guest post from Kristen K. Brown, author of the newly released book, The Happy Hour Effect. I read Kristen’s book a few weeks ago and have been using her simple, easy-to-implement tips ever since to help keep me calmer during the beginning of the always hectic holiday season. Kristen’s ideas [...]
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In Motherland, Amy Sohn offers a satirical, cynical look at life among the latte-sipping, Bugaboo-pushing parents of Brooklyn’s Park Slope. The novel, Sohn’s fourth, gets its title from the name one resident gives to this “land of child rearing, and nurturing, and nonstop care,” but Sohn’s six interwoven narratives reveal parents far more concerned with their own sexual [...]
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The books on my shelf never asked to come together, and would not trust or want to listen to one another, but each is a piece of a stained-glass whole without which I couldn’t make sense to myself – or to the world outside. – Pico Iyer I love books – both as objects and [...]
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I was a big fan of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, so much so that I created, and soon abandoned, a Happiness Project of my own, very much based on her resolutions. So it was with great anticipation that I bought and read her latest effort, Happier at Home. In Happier at Home, Rubin undertakes a new Happiness Project. [...]
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Last week I blazed my way through this summer’s “it” book, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. Even before Oprah made Wild the inaugural pick of her interactive online Book Club 2.0, friends and reviewers were lauding it as a must-read – This year’s Eat, Pray, Love! – so I was excited when my local book club (1.0) chose it as our October [...]
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Waaay back in April, my friend Elizabeth tagged me in a fun blogging meme, Eleven Questions. Here’s how it works: Post the rules (um, check). Answer eleven questions the tagger posted for you. Create eleven new questions. Tag eleven people to answer them. Let them know you’ve tagged them. The questions Elizabeth devised are so [...]
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Have you ever read anything by Geraldine Brooks? If not, get thee to a bookstore! One of my favorite contemporary fiction writers, Brooks draws on the journalistic skills she honed as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, combining impeccable historical research and vivid storytelling to spin tales that transport her readers back in [...]
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I almost missed it during my low-tech summer, but even I couldn’t ignore the hubbub last month surrounding Madeline Levine’s viral parenting article in the New York Times. In “Raising Successful Children,” Levine, a veteran psychologist, clinician, and educator, addresses a question I suspect many of us ask ourselves: we know that “helicopter” parenting isn’t [...]
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Those of you who have been hanging out here for awhile have probably already met my dear friend Bruce Dolin. Not only is Bruce a husband, father of two sons (at least one of whom “is able to use an electric hand-dryer”*), clinical psychologist, former director and screenwriter, blogger, and the author of my all-time favorite [...]
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I know I’m not the first or the only person moved at the beginning of January to reflect on the year that just ended. But, when I saw Tsh’s list of 20 questions for reflecting on 2011 over at Simple Mom, I knew I wanted to stop and write on them. What can I say? Cliche, thy [...]
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I love spending the last hour before sleep curled up with a book. Few things stir my soul like a good story and a well-turned phrase. And when those things coexist in the same book? Magic. I recently enjoyed two books filled with both, even though the feel of them was completely different. Most summers [...]
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I’m honored today to feature an interview with Linda Pressman, author of the newly released Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors, and Skokie. Thank you, Linda, for taking the time to offer such thoughtful insights into your book and the process of writing it. — When did you decide to tell this story? How long [...]
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With tremendous humor and heart, Linda Pressman tells the story of growing up as the sixth of seven daughters of two Holocaust survivors in Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors, and Skokie, her recently released debut. Linda, of the funny and heartwarming blog, Barmitzvahzilla, was my first blogging friend. She and I met through a [...]
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The spring before my freshman year in high school, I received a pamphlet from my soon-to-be English teachers telling me the books they had chosen for our summer reading: Watership Down, The Caine Mutiny, and The Clan of the Cave Bear. Who knows what inspired them to select that odd stew of rabbits, sailors, and [...]
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I read with interest last winter’s firestorm over Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. But I wasn’t so interested in Chua’s parenting style as I was fascinated by our culture’s seeming obsession with titles. Western parenting. Chinese parenting. Attachment parenting. Free-range parenting. Can any of us really claim to subscribe to any of [...]
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Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a holiday when we honor our war dead and, more generally, our deceased loved ones. (And when, less poignantly, we kick off the summer travel season with barbecues and beer.) I’m spending today with Husband and the kids. We’ll probably take in our town’s parade with its [...]
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I have long been a fan of Meagan Francis and her blog, The Happiest Mom, where she dishes on juggling life as a working mom of five (!) and dispenses advice on staying sane while doing it. So I was thrilled when Meagan teamed up with the editorial team at Parenting magazine to bring her [...]
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I just finished reading Julie & Julia, Julie Powell’s blog-turned-book about the year she dedicated to cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I came into the book with high expectations. Eagerly engaged in my own happiness project, I thought I’d be inspired by reading about Julie’s. Moreover, I really [...]
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Growing up, we had an expression in our family that I think originated with my grandmother: “Bad, but honest.” This expression was usually deployed when a child either readily admitted to a wrongdoing (“Kristen, did you knock over your brother’s Lego tower?”…”Yup!”) or provided an opinion that lacked social grace (a hopeful, smiling “Kristen, do [...]
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Last week I read Kelly Corrigan’s bestselling memoir, The Middle Place. I was deeply moved by Corrigan’s hilarious and heartbreaking account of balancing her roles as daughter, wife, and mother within “the middle place – that sliver of time when childhood and parenthood overlap” and during her battle against breast cancer. But what resonated most [...]
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For the past few weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed our discussion of Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s debut novel, Life After Yes. Thank you to everyone who has read and contributed to our lively conversation. Today I am thrilled that Aidan has agreed to join us to weigh in on some of the themes and questions that [...]
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Welcome to the third installment of our Life After Yes book club! (Looking for our discussions of the previous sections? Click here!) If the first section of Life After Yes is all about Identity, and the second section is all about Prudence and Predictability, then the third is about Honesty and Authenticity. And those two [...]
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Welcome to the second installment in our Life After Yes book club! (Want to know what this book club thing is all about? Click here! Still on an earlier chapter or want to catch up on last week’s discussion? Click here!) — As I did last week, I thought I would kick off our conversation [...]
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Welcome to the first installment of our book club for Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s Life After Yes! Please check out my thoughts on chapters 1-11 and then use the comments section to weigh in with your impressions, ideas, and questions. And, even if you haven’t been reading along with us, I hope you’ll chime in if [...]
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…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to [...]
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Once upon a time there was a girl. A brand new mom of two. Her teaching career on pause, she stayed at home with her newborn and 20-month-old sons. She loved those boys. She loved her Husband. She had a lucky life. She knew she did. But she felt sad a lot of the time. [...]
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To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly… to listen to stars and buds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to await occasions, hurry never… this is [...]
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Welcome to the final week of our book club for Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness! Whether or not you are reading along with us, please enjoy this overview of the final chapter by Katy Keim of BookSnob and then jump on into the discussion. And stay tuned for our upcoming Q&A session with Christine Carter! — This week [...]
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