Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Life Stories

Classy Gift from a Classy Friend
an intriguing mystery in verse,
complete with whimsical illustrations
and this stylish cover design!
Thanks to my friend Megan --
a good sport, a good writer, an intense reader,
and a guest blogger -- for the above clever diversion
and for following serious suggestions:

Megan: I am delving into autobiographies and biographies right now. Listening to them when I'm out walking daily is a great way to enjoy them. I was doing podcasts before that and decided to try some audiobooks:
First I tried Einstein's but found it too technical! Haha!

Warren Buffett's 800 pager was great in my opinion.

Melinda Gates: The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World was excellent and I highly recommend.

Now I'm on The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson (Re CRISPR).
Megan: One of my favorite thrift stores has softcover books for 25 cents & hardcover for a dollar. I'm thankful that there seems to be a biography reader in the neighborhood!
I have Mark Twain's autobiography sitting on my nightstand -- several tomes! I'm sure they'll be really entertaining though.

Just finished Johnny Cash's short biography. Tina Turner's is sitting here as well, coincidentally since she had just passed away this week. My neighbor was throwing those out so I grabbed them, even though musicians are not a typical choice for me.

I read Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters earlier in the year, before she died. That was super interesting since I knew all the famous players that she was interviewing and had stories of! Couldn't believe she died a short time later and that she was 93! What a life she had, a groundbreaker for women in journalism and in the world!

I've also noticed that there seems to be a Larry McMurtry reader in the neighborhood too. I read one of his novels a long time ago for a book club and found him to be a beautiful writer; but these are cowboy stories, not biographies, so I'm passing on McMurtry for the moment.
My friend Beata
recommends this one:

One more bio / autobio
for summer reading:

Thanks to our friends Michele & Stephen,
and to Gerry for sharing this one with me:
Favorite passage:
"I enjoyed the rhythms [of the flight drills],
the poetry, the meditative chant of it all.
And I found deeper meanings in the exercise.
I'd often think: It's the whole game, isn't it?
Getting people to see the world as you see it?
And say it all back to you?
" (127)

Interesting comparison of Harry's book
to Bridget Jones' Diary

I find this connection especially appropriate
because no one wrote more sensitively about
the death of Diana than Helen Fielding did in
the sequel: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

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