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Linda Stankard

NonfictionMemoir

Finding the familiar comforts of the kitchen

Review by Linda Stankard

Struggling to cope with her mother’s sudden death, Donia Bijan finds a source of solace and inspiration (fittingly) in her mother’s kitchen. Packed in drawer is a stack of recipes, mostly handwritten, which provide the catalyst. In Bijan’s skillful hands, these recipes become a storytelling medium, and Maman’s Homesick Pie is at once a compelling portrait of her remarkable Iranian parents, a chronicle of her culinary career from a stagiaire (an unpaid apprenticeship) in France to award-winning chef and restaurateur in Palo Alto, and a lavish taste of Persian culture and cuisine.

As she takes us from the early years of her parents’ marriage, when they worked at the hospital her father built “brick by brick” in the outskirts of Tehran—he as a much-in-demand obstetrician and her mother as a registered nurse and midwife—to the family’s exile under Khomeini and ultimate immigration to America, she smoothly melds savory tidbits—“Feta cheese and shelled walnuts with piles of fresh mint, tarragon, and basil”—into her prose like egg whites being gently folded into a batter. New to America, her parents “quickly set about acquiring driver’s licenses and social security cards,” but also brought the comfort of familiar foods and aromas into their home: “Slowly we had been stocking our pantry with turmeric, cumin, saffron, cinnamon, allspice, dried fruit, lentils, fava beans, and basmati rice. In Iran, I had climbed onto the kitchen counter to look at my mother’s cooking spices, opening them one by one, taking in their prickly scent. Now, it reassured me to see them lined up again like stepping stones across a vast ocean.”

Through the legacy of her recipes, her mother again helps her bridge the “ocean” between past and present. Each chapter ends with anecdotes and a couple of mouthwatering recipes like Ratatouille with Black Olives and Fried Bread or Braised Chicken with Persian Plums. “In most Iranian homes,” she tells us, “there is no better way to begin a story than with a cup of tea, served hot, in a glass to better see its amber hue, with two lumps of sugar, and a dish of sweets.” Try it for yourself by making a pot of Persian Cardamom Tea and a Persimmon Parfait before curling up with this compelling, poignant and most delectable book.

Struggling to cope with her mother’s sudden death, Donia Bijan finds a source of solace and inspiration (fittingly) in her mother’s kitchen. Packed in drawer is a stack of recipes, mostly handwritten, which provide the catalyst. In Bijan’s skillful hands, these recipes become a storytelling medium, and Maman’s Homesick Pie is at once a compelling […]
NonfictionTechnology

An inside look at Google’s early days

Review by Linda Stankard

Douglas Edwards was “employee number 59,” the director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google from 1999 to 2005. In I’m Feeling Lucky,Edwards gives readers a behind-the-behemoth look at the then-“young” search giant and the absorbing personalities of those who worked there. Although he includes a glossary, you don’t need a technical background or a fluency in geek-speak to find this book fun and fascinating.

Edwards is a straightforward writer, explaining things as he goes. For example, he tells us founding members Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose the name “Google” in part because it “played to their sense of math and scale. . . . Google is a play on ‘googol,’ which is the number one followed by a hundred zeroes.” Even if you’re not an Internet whiz, Edwards writes, “At least you know what Google does. It finds stuff on the Internet.” When he was a Noogler (new hire), he admits, “I didn’t know what a web indexer, a pageranker, or a spidering robot was. I didn’t know how dogmatic engineers could be. I didn’t know how many Internet executives could squeeze into a hot tub or how it felt to ‘earn’ more in one day than I had in 30 years of hard work . . . but I do now.”

I’m Feeling Lucky is an insider’s view of the “Google Experience,” from its famously nonhierarchical corporate structure to the bricks and mortar of the Googleplex itself. Edwards makes clear that his book is not, however, a full history of the company, nor does he delve into current concerns or controversies. “I include only what happened between my first day in 1999 and the day I left in 2005,” he explains. “We weren’t yet worried about network neutrality, street-view data gathering, or off-shore wind farms.” His days were the days when the big issues were “develop the best search technology, sell lots of ads, avoid getting killed by Microsoft.” But what days they were! Prepare for (to quote some chapter titles) “A World Without Form,” where you may encounter “Managers in Hot Tubs and in Hot Water,” or “Rugged Individuals with a Taste for Porn,” where “Mistakes Were Made” but there’s “Real Integrity and Thoughts about God,” too. All in all, I’m Feeling Lucky is an insightful and illuminating peek behind the curtain of Google’s early days.

Douglas Edwards was “employee number 59,” the director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google from 1999 to 2005. In I’m Feeling Lucky,Edwards gives readers a behind-the-behemoth look at the then-“young” search giant and the absorbing personalities of those who worked there. Although he includes a glossary, you don’t need a technical background or […]
NonfictionMemoir

Facing fears with the First Lady

Review by Linda Stankard

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” Most people reading that quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, if at all disenchanted with themselves for leading less than robust lives, would feel a momentary rekindling of their “inner warrior” attitude. They would take it as a gentle reminder and might silently vow to wrest more out of life, to challenge themselves more frequently, to be a little braver and bolder. But when Noelle Hancock sees it written on a chalkboard in a coffee shop, she adopts it as her mantra—literally! My Year With Eleanor is a delightful memoir of her journey out of fear and anxiety with the former “First Lady of the World” as her imitable guide.

At the book’s opening, Hancock has been seeing a therapist, Dr. Bob, for about a year (a decision that came about, she writes, “when I realized I knew more about Jennifer Aniston than I did about myself”); her lucrative, but less-than-soul-fulfilling job as a blogger for a celebrity-themed website has just gone kaput; and her next birthday looms ahead. When she discusses the Roosevelt quote with Dr. Bob, he says, “This could be a good project for you. You should run with this,” and ultimately, she does.

Delving further into Eleanor Roosevelt’s writings, she is moved and inspired by Eleanor’s life story: her early timidity, her heartbreaks and sorrows, and her eventual triumph over immobilizing insecurity. Buoyed by Eleanor’s example, on her 29th birthday, Hancock begins a year-long struggle to “do one thing each day” that scares her before she turns 30. With no paying job, and her parents still wishing she’d go to law school, she kicks off the project by taking a trapeze class, and after much heart-pounding trepidation, she finally hops from the elevated platform and takes her first “exhilarating and dreadful” plunge toward self-confidence.

With unwavering and witty self-analysis (and Eleanor’s “mentoring”), Hancock embarks on an uncomfortable but never-a-dull-moment voyage of self-discovery and daring. Sometimes her challenges are more physical—sky diving, hiking Kilimanjaro and taking fighter pilot lessons—while some are fear-provoking on other levels—like singing karaoke, doing stand-up comedy or volunteering in a cancer ward. But whether she is confronting terrifying sharks in a diving cage or her tangled feelings about her boyfriend Nick, she demonstrates how thrilling it can be to face your fears. I double-dare you to read this book!

 

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” Most people reading that quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, if at all disenchanted with themselves for leading less than robust lives, would feel a momentary rekindling of their “inner warrior” attitude. They would take it as a gentle reminder and might silently vow to wrest more out of […]

The beauty of the open road

Review by Linda Stankard

I’ve always wanted to hit the open road, but my dreams always included having all the comforts of home around me in the form of a well-stocked RV. For Robin Harvie, this unfettered freedom comes from running: the liberating euphoria of mile upon mile of self-propelled motion in the open air. “Running outside is being in a sort of magical kingdom under whose spell I feel happiest,” he explains in his eloquent memoir The Lure of Long Distances, adding that the challenge to conquer distance and terrain reveals a “world of light and beauty, offering a temporary escape from the human condition. It is the closest thing we, as runners, can get to replicating the explorer’s step into the unknown.”

But it is not all light and beauty; blood, sweat and repeatedly forming and breaking blisters are par for the course (pun intended), and the great outdoors can also be unmercifully cruel. Logging thousands of lone miles in preparation for marathons, Harvie notes “how implacable the natural world can be when we cast ourselves into it with only a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and our sneakers to protect ourselves.” Despite knowing what agonies lie ahead, Harvie decides to test life and limb in the Spartathlon, the oldest and most rigorous footrace on earth. Modeled after Pheidippides’ legendary trek in 490 BC from Athens to Sparta, the nonstop journey starts at the foot of the Acropolis and ends (for those who finish) 152 miles later in Sparta. (152 miles!)

The Lure of Long Distances attempts in part to answer the elusive question of why we run, but whether it is to escape, to process grief, to feel “intoxicating freedom and self-empowerment” or for any number of other reasons, the motivation is highly personal. Harvie admits us into his world and motivations as he chronicles his progression from marathon runner to ultra-distance runner and his year-long preparation for the Spartathlon. As he chronicles the 6,000 miles he logs in getting his body and mind in condition, he intertwines his personal story with a poetic mix of history, running lore, inspirational anecdotes and pithy quotes such as this from Tennyson’s Ulysses: “To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield”—which, like his book, transcends athleticism and speaks to the adventurer in us all.

 

I’ve always wanted to hit the open road, but my dreams always included having all the comforts of home around me in the form of a well-stocked RV. For Robin Harvie, this unfettered freedom comes from running: the liberating euphoria of mile upon mile of self-propelled motion in the open air. “Running outside is being […]
Memoir

Coming of age in the 1980s

Review by Linda Stankard

By the early 1970s, the comforting idealism of the ’60s was already morphing into terrifying reality, bombarding a generation of young people with visually convincing scenarios of catastrophe and mayhem. “On every movie screen,” Heather Havrilesky wryly bemoans in the introduction to Disaster Preparedness, “airplanes plummeted to the ground, earthquakes toppled huge cities, and monster sharks ripped teenagers to bloody bits.” The world was obviously a precarious place and conventional methods of self-preservation offered no succor. People who “exited calmly with the crowd . . . were always the ones to perish first. Only a small band of survivors willing to plot out their own escape route and battle their way through untold mishaps had any hope of making it out alive.”

So plot she did. Armed with a dark sense of humor, a toughness nurtured by parents unwilling to feed her fairy tales or “comforting myths” and a stoicism stemming from the seeming indifference of a God disinclined to provide the simplest sign of celestial reassurance, Havrilesky formulated her own plans for any emergency, from nuclear war to the taunting of her preteen peers. Droll, insightful and tenaciously honest, Disaster Preparedness chronicles her roller-coaster journey through the confusion of childhood, the devastation of her parents’ divorce and the angst of a teenager coming of age in the ’80s. “In 1986,” she vividly recalls, “heartbreak drove a canary yellow ’78 Pinto with The Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley’ playing in the tape deck. Heartbreak looked just like Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High . . . and quoted Pee Wee Herman liberally, even when he was breaking up with me.”

At times hilarious, at times achingly sincere, Disaster Preparedness delivers a fun-to-read memoir laced with frank self-reflection as our heroine marches toward adulthood, doggedly traversing life’s mountains—loss, shame, regret—and begins the thorny search for love. Fans familiar with Havrilesky’s pointed humor from her work as a staff writer at Salon.com and as a commentator for NPR’s “All Things Considered” will recognize her candid voice and sharp wit, but will also find complexity, depth and tenderness here as she ultimately renders compassionate, loving portraits of her parents, shares her darkest secrets with best-friend intimacy and wrestles gritty optimism from an uncertain world.

By the early 1970s, the comforting idealism of the ’60s was already morphing into terrifying reality, bombarding a generation of young people with visually convincing scenarios of catastrophe and mayhem. “On every movie screen,” Heather Havrilesky wryly bemoans in the introduction to Disaster Preparedness, “airplanes plummeted to the ground, earthquakes toppled huge cities, and monster […]
Animals

Supercavers explore dangerous depths

Review by Linda Stankard

Magellan, Amundsen, Armstrong: If the mere mention of these names ignites your passion for exploration, discovery and adventure, James M. Tabor’s latest book will indulge you on all counts and then some. Blind Descent chronicles the deadly dangerous, awe-inspiring quest to reach the Earth’s core and the race to get there first by two fiercely competitive men of polar-opposite personalities—the quiet, self-effacing Ukrainian, Alexander Klimchouk, and Bill Stone, the brash, commanding (and sometimes controversial) American.

Far beyond the relative tameness of commercial caves or even the daunting challenges of spelunking, this mission takes the men and their teams “thousands of feet deep and many miles long” into the uncharted subterranean mysteries of the supercave. Danger is ever-present; falling, flooding, asphyxiation, hurricane-force winds, hypothermia and the “particularly insidious derangement called The Rapture” (to name just a few of the many hazards) pose ongoing threats to life and limb. Compounding the tension and peril is the added menace of living and maneuvering in unrelenting, unnerving darkness.

Tabor’s you-are-there style captures the excitement of these expeditions with the immediacy of an Indiana Jones movie, and the ensuing human dramas which unfold—deaths, divorces, liaisons and love affairs—are equally compelling. He also deftly handles the science involved, explaining how these endeavors offer important insight into subjects ranging from pandemic prevention to new petroleum preserves. And then there’s the ever-evolving equipment angle, like the dogged, problem-solving Bill Stone’s invention of the MK1 rebreather, the breakthrough technology that first thrilled divers in 1987 when Stone stayed underwater an incredible 24 hours. The device now allows cavers to get past the formidable underground rivers and lakes that previously blocked their passage to greater depths.

“Caves are scientific cornucopias,” Tabor writes, but “only quite recently have sophisticated batteries and digital recording technology made it possible to take cameras far down into supercaves,” bringing these expeditions the kind of attention their “mountaineering, aquanaut, and astronaut counterparts” have long enjoyed. In Blind Descent, Tabor’s access to actual video footage and photographs (some stunning examples are included) as well as logs and journals enhance his exhilarating prose. A former contributing editor to Outside magazine and Ski magazine, and the writer and host of the popular PBS series “The Great Outdoors,” Tabor’s many talents culminate in this risk-it-all tale of tragedy and triumph.

Magellan, Amundsen, Armstrong: If the mere mention of these names ignites your passion for exploration, discovery and adventure, James M. Tabor’s latest book will indulge you on all counts and then some. Blind Descent chronicles the deadly dangerous, awe-inspiring quest to reach the Earth’s core and the race to get there first by two fiercely […]
Memoir

Rebuilding fractured bonds

Review by Linda Stankard

“Life goes fast,” Lee Kravitz observes in Unfinished Business: “Click. You are fifteen. Click, click. You are fifty-five. Click, click. You are gone. And so are the people who loved and nurtured you.” Realizing these truths all too clearly when he finds himself out of a job in his mid-fifties and suddenly adrift, Kravitz decides to take a year out of an otherwise workaholic existence and attend to the real currency of life—human relationships.

“All of us have unfinished business,” he writes. “It can be a friend we lost touch with or a mentor we never thanked; it can be a call we meant to make or a pledge we failed to honor. It can be a goal we lost sight of or a spiritual quest we put on hold.” When he makes his conscience-clearing “to do” list, it is long and complicated, and he is uncertain how his long-overdue overtures will be received; among the fractured relationships are a beloved aunt he has neglected for 15 years, a traveling buddy he borrowed $600 from and never paid back and a bereaved friend he never consoled. His inspiring journey of re-connection and redemption takes us to far-flung places—a refugee camp in Kenya, a monastery in California, a bar in Cleveland—and introduces us to a host of kind and kindred spirits from whom he gains strength, insight and encouragement.

In turn, Kravitz encourages us to act, to keep moving forward toward “true human connectedness” despite the demands and pressures of modern life. “The hurdles we face in tackling our unfinished business can seem impossibly high, but the first step in clearing them is usually quite simple: Write an email, or make a phone call. You can never tell when the weight you’ve been shouldering will slip away, leaving you a more complete and loving person.”

“Life goes fast,” Lee Kravitz observes in Unfinished Business: “Click. You are fifteen. Click, click. You are fifty-five. Click, click. You are gone. And so are the people who loved and nurtured you.” Realizing these truths all too clearly when he finds himself out of a job in his mid-fifties and suddenly adrift, Kravitz decides […]
Memoir

A JENaissance for reality TV addicts everywhere

Review by Linda Stankard

To: Jen_Lancaster@home
From: Linda_Stankard@home
Subject: Review of your latest soon-to-be-bestseller

Hey Jen! I just wanted you to know that when I was first asked to review your latest book, I hadn’t read your other books and had a slight case of up-in-the-air nose (Shame Rattle!) concerning the subtitle: “One Reality Television Addict’s Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto” (being pretty much a TCM gal myself), but I totally loved My Fair Lazy and I am soooo bringing Bitter is the New Black, Bright Lights, Big Ass, Such a Pretty Fat and Pretty in Plaid to the beach this summer so I can laugh and tan at the same time and catch up on all the Jen I have heretofore missed! You’re hilarious! I know (from your book) that you already have plenty of pink drink pals, but if you ever need a new BFF . . . I’m there! And your “JENaissance” mission—to achieve a higher state of cultural enlightenment—is not only fun to read and inspiring, it also provides justification for indulging in all my guilty pleasures: theater, dance, music, movies, art—and the eating and drinking appropriately paired with them. (You are awesome at writing all things epicurean!) (I like this “growing” and “enriching” business!)

Some of my favorite parts of your book are: when you are in Chinatown for your book tour and the “wizened old woman” in the bakery who reminds you of “one of those dried apple-head dolls” bullies you, but it all ends well with a steamed pork bun; your dog Maisy’s “Agenda” (more Maisy!); your love of animals in general and how you and Fletch take in those three abandoned kittens; your experience in the small, intimate theater and the guy who feels it necessary to have his seat even though you are sitting in it (ha!); your setting fire to the curtains in your Four Seasons hotel room (how gauche! LOL!) and of course how you sprinkle emails and letters throughout and . . . dang, I could go on and on, but I had better get to the review. I’m sure your fans won’t need any encouragement, but if there are any would-be stragglers like me out there, I will be sure to set them straight!

P.S. Your blog at jennsylvania.com is cool too!

 

 

To: Jen_Lancaster@homeFrom: Linda_Stankard@homeSubject: Review of your latest soon-to-be-bestseller Hey Jen! I just wanted you to know that when I was first asked to review your latest book, I hadn’t read your other books and had a slight case of up-in-the-air nose (Shame Rattle!) concerning the subtitle: “One Reality Television Addict’s Attempt to Discover If Not […]
Memoir

Building a life in a harsh landscape

Review by Linda Stankard

It’s the ’70s. Laura Bell graduates from college a pretty and promising young woman, but success nevertheless eludes her. While others eagerly and easily trade in their caps and gowns for careers and cars and families, she feels lost, unsure she knows how to make a grab for life’s proverbial brass ring. Comfortable around horses, drawn to a nomadic life and feeling “alone, unmoored and unworthy,” she believes she can hide her young, uncertain self in the wilderness of Wyoming, out among “the sage and rocks and transient lives of the herders.” She leaves the security of her parental home in Kentucky, takes up residence in a “sheep-wagon parked under the bare-branched cottonwoods of Whistle Creek Ranch,” and hopes for an inviolable escape. But the austere existence of a sheepherder holds surprises. “The isolation,” she writes candidly, “. . . tossed sharp splinters of life straight back up in my face, waking me to the crack of thunder, the smell of rain that hadn’t yet hit the ground.”

Part lyrical remembrance of a deeply intense relationship with nature in a sweepingly majestic landscape, part unswerving self-analysis, Claiming Ground delivers both beauty and unabashed reflection. It follows Bell’s journey down many trails: cattle hand, herder, forest ranger, masseuse. We see her as friend, lover, wife, mother, daughter. We witness her awkward progress in tendering tenderness; her anguish in divorce; her devastation in unspeakable loss; her brave willingness to put her battered heart back out there; her honesty. We admire her fortitude in rugged terrain and understand when she gives her all, “believing that a life can be built by hard work and a home created by sheer force.” We cry when she finds out it isn’t so, but take heart because she perseveres. “Time after time, things come together and they fall apart again,” she explains, “like breathing.”

You will find Claiming Ground in the memoir section, but it is not only a looking back; it is a guidepost to the possibilities ahead—the surprises that await us down our own trails.

Linda Stankard claims her ground in New York and Tennessee.

It’s the ’70s. Laura Bell graduates from college a pretty and promising young woman, but success nevertheless eludes her. While others eagerly and easily trade in their caps and gowns for careers and cars and families, she feels lost, unsure she knows how to make a grab for life’s proverbial brass ring. Comfortable around horses, […]
Memoir

An examined life worth living

Review by Linda Stankard

Phyllis Theroux’s captivating new work, The Journal Keeper, is a multi-dimensional pleasure. It brings to mind Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait, in which Rockwell shows us three images of himself: from the back as he works, in the mirror where he is observing his own face and on the canvas where he is rendering an interpretation of his image. Likewise, in The Journal Keeper, Theroux also offers us a multilayered view of herself that is at once whimsical and profound.

She is the writer simply writing, chronicling her life as it is lived, offering her observations, thoughts and reflections: “Yesterday afternoon, the sun shattered a jug of hydrangeas into shards of light on my dining room table. It was there for anyone to look at but I only did so in passing, the way a king glances casually out the carriage window at his kingdom.” She is the spiritually awakened writer, looking back over a lifetime of journal-keeping and realizing “a hand much larger and more knowing” was often guiding her pen across the page. She is the writer writing about writing: “It is like drilling for oil, having the faith that it is down there. But beyond or beneath that faith is the commitment to dig, whether the oil is there or not.” She is the writer/teacher, encouraging others to keep their own personal “ship’s log.”

And because mothers and daughters so often reflect each other, Theroux’s relationship with her aging mother adds yet another dimension to the narrative. On her mother’s 85th birthday, contemplating the loss she must inevitably face, she writes, “She is such a continual gift, when I imagine her gone I cannot quite see myself there.” Theroux’s account tenderly paints a portrait of her remarkable mother in her final years, displaying her own gifts as a caregiver and best friend in the process. But whatever her subject—growing old, spiritual growth, life in a small town, her students and teaching life, even a new romantic passion (at 64! Break out the old Beatles record!)—Theroux is able to reach deep inside and step outside herself with inspiring aplomb.

Linda Stankard lives multi-dimensionally in Rockland County, New York.

Phyllis Theroux’s captivating new work, The Journal Keeper, is a multi-dimensional pleasure. It brings to mind Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait, in which Rockwell shows us three images of himself: from the back as he works, in the mirror where he is observing his own face and on the canvas where he is rendering an interpretation […]
Memoir

Giving it all you’ve got

Review by Linda Stankard

In her previous memoir, the award-winning Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup established herself as a warm, witty and deeply moving writer, revealing how the devastating loss of her husband led her to open her heart in new directions. Following his unfulfilled dream, she threw herself into ministerial training and became a member of the clergy—and a living example of the advice she gives in her new book: “If your heart breaks, let it break open. Love more.”

Fans of her richly enlightening first-person narrative will surely love Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, which continues the story of her life as the backdrop for her observations and meditations as a wife, mother and woman of the cloth. And what a story it is! Braestrup’s memoir reads like a work of fiction: at 17 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, only to find out after two emotionally torturous years that she didn’t have the disease; in fact, she wasn’t sick at all. And the tales of her ministry with the men who work outdoors in the Maine Warden Service, often in grim circumstances—such as searching for the bodies of a pilot and his 14-year-old daughter—are full of understated pathos.

As Braestrup navigates the uncharted waters of a later-in-life romance and a new marriage, she is also witness to the heartbreak and turmoil that love brings to the fragile human heart, especially when so many “happily-ever-afters” end prematurely in divorce. And, as chaplain, she must also comfort those who are suffering the anguish of irrevocable loss—when death takes a loved one. “Life is short,” she recognizes, “and pain engraves its memories in your flesh.” Still, she believes that “every soul is called to love and serve,” and her advice remains straightforward and simple—love more. “Start with your siblings, or your spouse, or your parents, but don’t stop there. Love whoever needs what you have; love the ones who have been placed in your path.” In Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, with grace and style, Braestrup leads the way.

Linda Stankard is a Realtor in Rockland County, New York.

In her previous memoir, the award-winning Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup established herself as a warm, witty and deeply moving writer, revealing how the devastating loss of her husband led her to open her heart in new directions. Following his unfulfilled dream, she threw herself into ministerial training and became a member of […]
Self-HelpLifestyles

This little light of mine

Review by Linda Stankard

Maya Angelou, the renowned poet, writer, performer, teacher and director, calls on each of us to do nothing short of "something wonderful for humanity" in her new autobiographical book, Letter to My Daughter. In her introduction, Angelou explains that the title refers to her "thousands of daughters" of every color, religion and persuasion – women "fat and thin, pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered. I am talking to you all." (So listen up!) Now in her seventh decade, the famed author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings shares her remarkable life experiences (some downright terrifying) and down – to – earth wisdom ("The epitome of sophistication is utter simplicity") with humility and candor as she calls on women to play a special role in leading the way to a better world. Reminding us of America's noble ideals and lofty promise she asks, "Didn't we dream of a country where freedom was in the national conscience and dignity was the goal?" With faith, kindness and a sprinkling of poetry, Angelou's Letter to My Daughter sheds her gentle, intelligent light down the rocky road ahead.

SEA OF LOVE
Like Angelou, Marian Wright Edelman believes that women, as the bearers of life (and half the voting population), must become a stronger force for justice and decency. Edelman is the founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund and author of the bestseller The Measure of Our Success. She's an outspoken advocate for civil and human rights and her latest book, The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, urges personal activism, "standing up and reclaiming our children, families, communities, our moral values and our nation." Despite the "unjust odds handed them by the lottery of birth," millions of children, Edelman notes, "are living heroic lives" and deserve to be affirmed, empowered and celebrated. Written as open letters to our past and present leaders, our youth and all of us as citizens, Edelman asks, "What kind of people do we Americans seek to be in the twenty – first century? What kind of people do we want our children to be? What kind of choices and sacrifices are we prepared to make to realize a more just, compassionate and less violent society and world – one safe and fit for every child?" Edelman's book offers advice, anecdotes, statistics, resources and prayers to guide us – like a lighthouse if you will – to more stable waters in these turbulent seas.

YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN
The deeply moving story of Patrick Henry Hughes, born in 1988 with a rare genetic disorder that left him without eyes and with limbs that would never fully develop, is a source of inspiration for anyone battling against the odds. Despite being blind and unable to fully extend his arms, at nine months old the young Hughes displayed an uncanny ability – he could locate and play back the notes his dad struck on the piano. Today, thanks to his love for music and his parents' unwavering faith, Hughes, at 20, is already an award – winning pianist, singer and trumpet player and currently a student at the University of Louisville majoring in Spanish. I Am Potential: Eight Lessons on Living, Loving, and Reaching Your Dreams, by Patrick Henry Hughes, written with his father Patrick John Hughes and Bryant Stamford, tells his amazing story from birth to the present day by alternating between his point – of – view and his dad's. As they chronicle their journey and share their learned "life lessons," I Am Potential emerges as more than an incredible triumph – over – adversity tale or a beautiful father/son relationship saga. It also evolves into the story of how helping one boy fight to achieve his dreams gave so many others the opportunity to expand their own abilities and capacities – to become their best selves.

Maya Angelou, the renowned poet, writer, performer, teacher and director, calls on each of us to do nothing short of "something wonderful for humanity" in her new autobiographical book, Letter to My Daughter. In her introduction, Angelou explains that the title refers to her "thousands of daughters" of every color, religion and persuasion – women […]
Family & RelationshipsAging

Navigating the ‘new old age’

Review by Linda Stankard

In his new book, A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America, Dudley Clendinen, a former national reporter and editorial writer for the New York Times, chronicles the compelling life stories of the residents at a Life Care center in Tampa Bay. Here his mother, some of her closest friends from the Tampa area and other "sundry folk" have come to live out their final years. Clendinen describes their journey as "an exquisitely poignant and gritty and dear kind of odyssey," and he tells their tales with compassion, honesty and humor.

"No generation before has lived so long, accumulated so much, grown so independent in old age," he writes. Nor has a generation like their children, the baby boomers, "ever been as dazzled and daunted and consumed by the apparently endless old age of parents." As Clendinen navigates the unfamiliar territory of Medicaid, medications and medical staff, he learns a great deal about this "New Old Age." For several years, his mother, (a woman, in her prime, of "seductive charm, a charitable heart, steely determination, and canny intent") enjoys a full schedule, living in her upscale apartment at Canterbury, going out to dinner at the Tampa Yacht and Country Club. But after she suffers a stroke, she is moved to the nursing wing for the care she needs. As the years pass and she slips further away from him, Clendinen struggles to stay connected with her, to communicate with her and to do right by her.

He forms close ties with many of the residents, and over time, their remarkable stories emerge. Through these "Canterbury tales," we come to know "survivors of the Great Depression, D-day, the Holocaust, and of the American civil rights struggle." We come to understand their joys and sorrows as their tales take us back to their childhoods, their first loves, marriages and careers, and we are reminded of their incredible sacrifices and strengths. Now their children, the boomers, must be strong as they face caring for aging parents – while not getting any younger themselves.

Linda Stankard is a former activities director at a nursing home.

In his new book, A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America, Dudley Clendinen, a former national reporter and editorial writer for the New York Times, chronicles the compelling life stories of the residents at a Life Care center in Tampa Bay. Here his mother, some of her closest friends from […]

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