Category: Fantastic Friday Reads

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

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Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.

After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?

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Unusual Phenomenon: My Review of Strange Weather Anthology Edited by Marlene Mesot #FantasticFridayReads #Nonfiction #Inspiration

What Amazon Says

No one can do anything about the weather, but we have captured it. Strange Weather Anthology: True Quirks of Nature is a collection of 15 true life stories from the 11 talented authors who lived through them, captured in vivid detail, in prose and verse. Some entries also include actual photographs.

Have you been through a hurricane…on a ship, seen balls of fire and strange flashes in the sky, dodged tornados while driving, seen a vivid or double rainbow or experienced strange rain patterns, unexpected torrential storms, different weather patterns at the same time, or woken to find myriads of giant snowballs everywhere?

Look inside for these awe-inspiring stories told from a personal perspective, including short autobiographies and where to find these remarkable authors.

Buy from Amazon.

My 4-Star Review

I met most of the authors in this anthology through Behind Our Eyes, a writers’ organization to which we belong. Many of the pieces were submitted to our group’s email list for critique before they were published here. I enjoyed rereading them.

Some stories fascinated me, like “Discriminating Rain” by Cleora Boyd and “A Giant’s Snowballs” by John Cronin. Others, like “Neptune’s Revenge” by Carol Farnsworth and “Balls of Fire” by Leonard Tuchyner, made me glad to be snuggled in my recliner. I found Patty Fletcher’s piece, “The Passion of Life’s Storms,” inspirational. The photos add a nice touch, and some are well-described for the benefit of those unable to see them.

This is a good book to read when you’re safe indoors with no threat of dangerous weather. It made me grateful that I’ve never experienced a tornado, hurricane, or squall at sea. I hope I never do.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

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Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***

Exercise Influences Life: My Review of The Pilates Class by Stevie Turner #FantasticFridayReads #Fiction #Inspiration

What Smashwords Says

The Pilates Class is a humorous look at the lives and loves of several different characters attending a Pilates exercise class for the first time.

Roger is a down-to-earth builder type, Judy is the harassed single mother of four teenage boys, and Thelma is a librarian who usually looks as though she’s been sitting on a wasps’ nest for most of her life.

Neville is on the lookout for a woman (any woman will do), and Julian just wants to be young again. Edie is the wrong side of 70, and Roz is a size zero fitness queen.

These characters, together with one very overweight Alice, all meet up for the first time at their local Pilates class. Petra, the class instructor, has no idea what she has let herself in for!

Buy from Smashwords.

My 4-Star Review

Author Stevie Turner and I have been following each other’s blogs. Recently, she offered a promotion code on Smashwords that would allow readers to get The Pilates Class for free. I took her up on this and am glad I did.

This book definitely has some humor. Although I didn’t care for some of the characters, I liked how others evolved in the course of the story and how some connected with others as a result of the class. I would like to have seen a more satisfying outcome for a couple of the participants. But overall, the ending isn’t bad.

The Pilates instructor does an excellent job describing the various moves. You could try some of them at home before joining a class. But even if, like me, you’re happy with your current workout, you’ll find this book highly entertaining.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

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Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***

Poetry with Spirit: My Review of And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou #FantasticFridayReads #Poetry #Inspiration

What Audible Says

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say, It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Thus begins “Phenomenal Woman” just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou’s third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh – and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it.

“It is true poetry she is writing,” M. F.K. Fisher has observed, “not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity…. It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night…it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes.”

Buy from Audible.

My 5-star Review

I enjoy listening to books being read by their authors, and Maya Angelou’s narration didn’t disappoint me. She reads her poetry with flair and even sings some of the verses. Her explanations of some of the poems add a nice touch. These works demonstrate her spirit in the face of the adversity of her sometimes difficult life. I highly recommend this short, delightful collection to even those who don’t usually read poetry.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

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Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

***

A Different Approach to Poetry: My Review of Musical Tables by Billy Collins #FantasticFridayReads #Poetry #Inspiration

What Amazon Says

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the former United States Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love, a collection of more than 125 small poems, all of them new, and each a thought or observation compressed to its emotional essence

“Whenever I pick up a new book of poems, I flip through the pages looking for small ones. Just as I might have trust in an abstract painter more if I knew he or she could draw a credible chicken, I have faith in poets who can go short.”—Billy Collins

You can spot a Billy Collins poem immediately. The amiable voice, the light touch, the sudden turn at the end. He “puts the ‘fun’ back in profundity,” says poet Alice Fulton. In his own words, his poems tend to “begin in Kansas and end in Oz.”

Now “America’s favorite poet” (The Wall Street Journal) has found a new form for his unique poetic style: the small poem. Here Collins writes about his trademark themes of nature, animals, poetry, mortality, absurdity, and love—all in a handful of lines. Neither haiku nor limerick, the small poem pushes to an extreme poetry’s famed power to condense emotional and conceptual meaning. Inspired by the small poetry of writers as diverse as William Carlos Williams, W.S. Merwin, Kay Ryan, and Charles Simic, and written with Collins’s recognizable wit and wisdom, the poems of Musical Tables show one of our greatest poets channeling his unique voice into a new phase of his exceptional career.

3:00 AM

Only my hand

is asleep,

but it’s a start.

Buy from Amazon.

My 4-Star Review

This collection intrigued me when I read about it in Reader’s Digest. But at first, I found these short poems disappointing. Reading them was like drifting into a deep sleep, only to wake up five minutes later.

I soon realized, though, that these poems are short slices of life, some of which ask questions.

Take, for example, “Dog,” in which the narrator asks why a particular canine is running in her sleep. In “The Mohawk Diner, 3 AM,” the narrator asks if a cake stand in a diner was installed while he and a companion, or perhaps a lover, were sitting silently at the counter. In “Last to Leave the Party,” the narrator describes how someone in a white dress impacted him.

Some poems, like “Code of the West” and “Twisting Time,” made me laugh. Others, like “Thelonious Morning,” caused me to shake my head. But as I continued reading these poems, it dawned on me that many of them made sense in their brevity. Although I prefer collections with short and long poems, this one is definitely a worthwhile read.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

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Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

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