Recap - God Never Blinks by Regina Brett

Follow-up - I originally published this review on April 11.  It would have been Jim's 61st birthday.  Regina Brett's God Never Blinks is the only nonfiction book to make my list of favorites.  It hit home when I read it.  It made the July list, and it remains the book that meant a great deal to me following Jim's death.  It's a book that would fit so many transitions in life.  I've never met the author, but I can't thank her enough for this important book.

Jim would have turned 61 today. And, I can't tell you how much it means to me that so many of you gave books to libraries in his memory. There will be books in Jim's memory in Alaska, England, Ireland, Florida, Utah, Texas, and small towns all over the country, especially Ohio, and, of course, in the Glendale Library System, where I work. So many of you gave money to my library that I've been able to order books Jim would have appreciated - books on baseball, thrillers, history, biographies, and physics.

But, I wanted to tell you about one I discovered that was so special that I used some of the money to buy copies for every library in our system, in Jim's memory. It's a book that helped me get through the last two months. I read a few essays, then put it down. But, it means so much to me. Regina Brett's God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours was the book I needed. And, Tuesday is release date for the book.

Before I tell you about the book, let me tell you about Regina Brett. Brett was born in Ravenna, Ohio in 1956. Ravenna is in Portage County, neighboring Mahoning County, where I was born in 1957. Regina Brett and I were at Kent State Unviversity at the same time. I never knew her, and she quit school when she became pregnant, but it seems so odd that someone with that similar beginning has written a book that means so much to me.

When I turned fifty, Jim threw a surprise party I will never forget, bringing in my family without tellng me, and secretly working with my staff. When Regina Brett turned fifty, she wrote a newspaper column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer about fifty lessons life had taught her. Her lessons came from her life as a single parent, working on her problems with her relationship with God, battling cancer, and her difficult childhood as one of eleven children. The column went viral, appearing in church bulletins, newsletters, and small-town newspapers. That popular column became the book, God Never Blinks, with Brett's soul-searching essays.

If you haven't read the book, Brett's lessons sound like platitudes. There are titles such as, "Life isn't fair, but it's still good." That one hit my heart. How about "Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does." There's the lesson, "All that truly matters in the end is that you loved." And, perhaps, Brett's most important message is, "No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up for life." These stories are honest, and heartfelt. They touched me, moved me, and made me cry at times. I haven't argued with God about Jim's death. I didn't need Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

I needed the lessons of Regina Brett's God Never Blinks. For Jim's birthday, I wanted to share this book with you. And, it may be an important book to share with others who are going through hard times. Life goes on. It was my mother who said, "Life will be different. It will never be the same. It can be just as good, but it will be different." These are two wise women from Ohio, my mother, and Regina Brett, with lessons to help people keep on living.

Regina Brett's website is http://www.reginabrett.com/

God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours by Regina Brett. Grand Central Publishing, ©2010. ISBN 9780446556521 (hardcover), 241p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure - My review copy was an ARC I picked up at our Main Library, where it had been sent for librarians to preview.

My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space by Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Scottoline Serritella

Lisa Scottoline is best known for her mysteries, but I love her essays.  She and her daughter, Francesa Scottoline Serritella, write the "Chick Wit" column that appears on Sundays in The Philadelphia Inquirer.  These essays are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, but always about living life as women and family.  These are essays from the heart.  We're lucky when those columns are put together in a book, such as the new one, My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space.

Although I review a variety of books here, it's no secret my passion is for mysteries.  So, I loved the opening essay, "A Woman At The Wheel."  Lisa confesses she had a girl crush on Nancy Drew, and what woman who grew up reading mysteries didn't?  And, she admires all those women who grew up to be her target audience, women of strength, wit, and hearts.  Those are also the women in her family, Lisa, Francesca, and Lisa's mother, Mother Mary.

Don't think Lisa Scottoline's essays are the only funny ones in this book, though.  Some of Francesca's are even funnier.  Wait until you read the one about trying to get her mother ready for a date.  And, her story, "Some Enchanted Evening," about the best night of her life, is magic.  But, I won't steal her punch line.  You have to read the story. 

Lisa Scottoline is my type of woman.  She reads the obits for the stories of lives.  And, she complains there are no more stories on TV, just reality shows.  She says, "We might have to go back to reading books."  And, she grew from a child who loved books to a "Library Slut."  Definitely my kind of woman.

And, even though Lisa Scottoline challenges men to be man enough to read her books, it's women who will find their lives and their hearts in this book, My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space.

And, if you'd like to share the experience of this book for yourself or as a gift, I have the chance to give away two copies of it.  The contest starts today, and will end Thursday, Dec. 2 at 6 PM MT.  If you'd like to enter, email me at lholstine@yahoo.com.  Your subject line should read, "Win My Nest Isn't Empty."  Your message should include your mailing address. Entrants only in the U.S., please. The winners will be selected by random number generator. I'll notify the winners and the publisher will send out the books.  Good luck!

My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Scottoline Serritella.  St. Martin's Press, ©2010. ISBN 9780312662295 (hardcover), 256p.

Lisa Scottoline's website is http://www.scottoline.com/

Francesca Scottoline Serritella's website is http://www.francescaserritella.com/

*****
FTC Full Disclosure - The publisher sent me a copy of the book, in hopes I would review it.

I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron's book of essays, I Feel Bad About My Neck, was probably a bestseller because so many of us could identify with the essay by that name.  I actually prefer her latest collection, I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections.   While Ephron seems to tell more personal stories.  At the same time, there are so many articles about aging and change that it's easy to relate to them.

The essay, "I Remember Nothing" starts by saying it's easy to start down that slippery slope of forgetting names and words.  Ephron used the same memory tricks many of us do, scrolling through the alphabet, trying to remember the first letter of a word.  But, then she goes into details as to events in her life that she can't remember, such as meeting Eleanor Roosevelt and covering the Beatles on their first trip to the U.S.  Then, she brings it back to something we can all relate to; "The Senior Moment has become the Google moment, and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound, doesn't it?"  I love it that she admits we can't retrieve the memories of our lives, but we can retrieve facts.

Ephron's collection includes stories of her mother, comments about chicken soup, e-mail, and getting older.  It may be a glimpse into her life, but it also contains reflections on our own lives.  The humor, the nostalgia, the bittersweet recognition, will all make a connection for those of us who are women of a certain age.  I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections will become a collection to pass between friends.

I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron.  Knopf, ©2010. ISBN 9780307595607 (hardcover), 160p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure - Library book