What I’ve been Reading

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a week of Chiropractic appointments. I needed a little help with my back. It’s letting me know I’m not getting any younger. 😉 It’s feeling ten times better, so I’m planning on going back to work next week.

But enough about that, today I’d like to talk about what I’ve been reading. I just finished the memoir “When Breath Becomes Air.” It was written by a doctor when he found out he was dying of cancer. The cover and blurb are below:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?

NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage

Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

My Thoughts:

It’s a great story about finding your priorities when you know your time on earth is shorter. It helps you put things into perspective. Even though we don’t know when our last day will be. Make sure you don’t leave anything unsaid to the important people in your lives. I try to live each day like it’ll be my last. I started doing this long before I read the memoir much to my boys’ chagrin. They get tired of me telling them I love them all the time. Although, there was a time when they liked hearing it.

Anyway, this is a great memoir to read. It helps you find what you really value in life, and it makes you realize how precious life is, so don’t waste it. Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. If you get a chance, pick up the book. You’ll be glad you did.

I’ve started another thriller, but I’m always looking for book recommendations, so if you have any leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Friday Mindfulness

I saw this on Facebook and thought I’d share it with all of you. I love Anne Lamott. She is so wise.

Book Review of “The Glass Castle”

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I thought I’d share with you a quick review on a book I read a few months ago. It’s called “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls.

 

 

 

 

The perennially bestselling, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers.

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

My Thoughts:

This is a true story and that’s what makes it so heartbreaking. It’s the story of a brilliant but dysfunctional family. There were times when I applauded the parents’ nomad life and they way they taught their children about the moon and the stars. But it also left me angry when their children went hungry or didn’t have running water to clean themselves with. I can only imagine what school must’ve been like when they arrived with no lunch and wearing dirty clothes. It made me so sad to hear how they rummaged through the garbage for food. What parent does that to a child. So, be prepared when you read this because you’ll want to ring the parents’ necks.

The mother really was hard to swallow, she had a teaching degree but had a hard time holding down a job because she didn’t want to handle the adult responsibility. I found myself wanting to shake her because her kids were going hungry and the real kicker is at the end. When I found out there was a plot of land valued at around a million dollars that they could’ve sold and provided for their kids with that money.

So, there you have it, my thoughts on “The Glass Castle.”  Pick it up if you’re looking for a good read but be prepared for a variety of strong emotions. It’s a great read, especially if you’re feeling like a horrible parent. You’ll feel better about yourself after reading this.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. Have you read this book? If so, what are your thoughts? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!