Blog Archives
My Days with Emma
Author Paul Dunion’s inspirational book deals with mindful aging and teaches readers to accept gracefully that life happens to all of us, not the other way around. Although our ego loves to believe we are in control, we forget how much of life is actually not in our control. Death is the only constant, and life is but a journey toward this final destination. The only way to stop being afraid of the mysterious and unpredictable nature of life is to relinquish this assumption of being the one doing the aging and instead realize how it is our lives that age us. With a candid yet philosophical style, the narrator discusses the ordeals one has to face in becoming an elder.
My Days With Emma certainly puts the spotlight on Emma as a tribute and a genuine expression of the author’s gratitude for her contribution in enabling and encouraging him on a path of soulful aging, and understandably so, since Emma plays a significant role in Dunion’s life as both his spiritual mentor and life coach. But, although the book is centered on the theme of aging, it is not necessarily a book for the older generations. This is what makes it so fascinating. The narrator talks about his own fears and insecurities, but as a reader, irrespective of our age, we can relate to his experiences because aging can be relative.
It is not uncommon among us to compare ourselves with the younger members of a circle, be it in our professional life or social life. We often compare and then feel bitter about their success or victories when we associate their gains with their youth because, unlike other factors, we have no control over our age. This simple truth often leaves us feeling profoundly disillusioned and defeated. Yet, the fact that the knowledge and wisdom we gather over the years can be an invaluable resource that we can use to help others, in turn, doesn’t easily cross our minds. This is where Dunion steps in with his book to remind us. It gives the kind of validation and reassurance that we all deserve from time to time about our own worth in other people’s lives.
Pages: 214 | ISBN : 1639885714
I’m Done Aging for Good
I’m Done Aging for Good: How to Live Long and Healthy with an Age-Reversing Diet is the book you need if your goal is to lead a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. As a reader, you get advice from a health expert on what works and what does not work. As the author writes, I like that he encourages the reader to explore foods and not just restrict themselves to restrictive diets. You can enjoy all kinds of meals and still live a healthy life. This educational book is full of useful advice and health notes that can help you and your family. By the end of the reading, you will have changed your diet and your perception of food. Author Frederick Sabido’s advice comes from a professional point of view and also adds personal experiences that have helped him.
We all grow old every day, and the author is here to share with you how to age gracefully through what you consume. Frederick Sabido starts his discussions by writing about the causes and effects of aging and why we age as humans. I appreciate the author’s comprehensive approach when discussing this subject, as he delves further into sub-topics that will help the reader understand better what he is talking about. The author touches on cognitive decline and male vs. female fertility decline after a certain age, among other topics. The author then discusses issues like memory loss, mutations, and oxidative stress, among other causes of aging.
Other topics covered through the chapters include sexual health, the skin, hair, anti-aging foods, the significance of vitamins in the body, how to overcome aging, and finding time for Pilates. Frederick Sabido’s book is the ultimate health guide as the author writes about topics that will help you take care of all organs in the body. The author does not just talk about outer organs but also shares knowledge that will get you to improve kidney health, your heart, liver, lungs, and other organs. The author rarely uses technical terms when discussing topics and ensures that he has included definitions for vocabulary that may not be common knowledge. I like that the author ended the book by talking about injury recovery. The notes on recovery tips for injuries are as important as the notes on dieting.
I’m Done Aging for Good is a must-have if you care about your health. Some of the major lessons in the book will make you look and feel young and improve your lifestyle. This is an important read for anyone interested in nutrition, vitamins, and healthy lifestyles.
Pages: 145 | ASIN : B0B6GS7X83
Making Your Mark | Leaving a Legacy | And then… A Grand Exit That’ll Have Their Tongues Waggin’
Have you ever wondered whether you will have an impact on the world? An experience that, even after our departure, will live on in everyone’s memory? Than Making Your Mark, Leaving a Legacy, And then… A Grand Exit That’ll Have Their Tongues Waggin, by Peter Davidson, speaks about just that phenomenon! It comes with an abundance of ideas, such as starting a collection you can leave for those close to you or succeeding. Some may even consider you a hoarder during the process but giving your children or grandchildren your prized coin collection, season tickets, or concert tickets could be a tremendous amount of fun. It would really be of great importance for your legacy in the long run. Peter Davidson gives ideas from hypothetical situations and real-life examples to leave your mark.
A section of the book includes the celebration of life party and a final farewell for Timothy A. B. Smythe, leaving everyone who knew Timothy and Timothy himself with a smile. It was the best section of the book. Recognizing that his days were numbered, he organized a “Living Wake” with the support of his friends and family. Then, soon after his passing, a wild celebration honored everything about his life. The coffin was modeled after Timothy A.B. Smythe’s favorite vehicle. The entire ceremony was emotional and touching. This scene would leave you in tears.
A great book is presented here. It does a great job of making light of a very horrible circumstance. The author sets out to help readers prepare for what will eventually come and to make the best of the situation, even presenting ways to make it a time to remember for family and friends that remain. A few noteworthy aspects of this book include the author’s constant encouragement to readers to always see the positive.
Overall, the book is enjoyable to read and offers readers a little push to ensure they make a “Grand Exit.” One of those few keepsakes that kept me happy all the way to the finish. I’d give it a perfect score and suggest this book to everyone who has a handle on life and is searching for the next big step.
Pages: 287 | ASIN : B0B3W5YTYZ
An Irresponsible Teenage Scamp
Iolanthe Woulff Author Interview
STAINER follows Ben Steiner, a Jewish Columbia undergrad who is a decent person but wishes to be “in” with the “in crowd.” What was the initial idea behind this story and how did that transform as you were writing the novel?
Since I wrote the book forty years ago, I must confess that I cannot precisely recollect what the initial idea was. I just sat down and started scribbling (longhand, on legal yellow sheets) and eventually the novel emerged. However, as I explain in my Author’s Preface, the manuscript was an overwritten mess. I was a complete amateur, and made every mistake in the book… (okay, that was a truly cringe-worthy pun.) But now that I think of it, I did have a vague notion that I wanted to somehow skewer an acquaintance of mine, and decided that the cleverest way to accomplish that would be to turn them into a rotten character in a book. Which I did… and no, I won’t tell you which character, but suffice it to say that nowadays my intended skeweree is rich, fulfilled, aging much better than I am, and utterly unaware of my –or my novel’s– existence. Which, all things considered, is exactly as it should be.
Of course, at a distance of four decades, I am now able to perceive things in the novel that weren’t apparent to me at the time I wrote it; by which I mean that there’s more than a trace of autobiographical heartbreak in the story. And I think we’ll leave it at that.
Ben goes through some strikingly personal conflicts throughout the book and his character is meticulously developed. How did you capture the thoughts and emotions of a 70’s Jewish teen?
Easy… I was a 70’s Jewish teen. Well, not technically… even though I was already in my mid-twenties when I wrote STAINER, my mindset remained that of an irresponsible teenage scamp, and I simply wrote prose in the same the way I spoke/ thought/lived; in other words, from the viewpoint of extremely arrested adolescence (ahem.) Luckily for me, it turned out that I had a knack for accurately capturing the mood and lingo of the times in my writing… who knew?
Ben meets P.T. Deighland, a wiseass from Princeton, who is clearly up to no good. What were the driving ideals behind the characters relationship throughout the story?
“Driving ideals”? Hmm… I have no clue, other than to suspect that the relationship between ‘bad-boy’ P.T. and ‘good-boy’ Ben somewhat reflected the two sides of my own slightly schizophrenic persona; which, in those days, remained more-or-less in a constant state of conflict. To all outward appearances I was definitely a good boy, but like many such young fellows, secretly wished that I had the nerve and coolness to behave like one of the bad boys. Because, after all, the bad boys always got the girls… didn’t they? But, like Ben, my efforts to attain bad-boy status were ultimately doomed to failure, and came at a heavy cost.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have a new novel under way, and it’s as different from STAINER as STAINER is from SHE’S MY DAD. I can only write stand-alone novels; the mere thought of doing sequels or a series is a stupefying bore. For me, once a story is wrapped up, that’s the end of it, and then I’m off to build a new world, with new characters, new problems, new everything. It’s the only way I can stay interested enough to keep going.
As to when the new book will be available, who knows? All I can say is, stay tuned… I do believe it’s a pretty good yarn.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
New York City, 1975: Decent-hearted but spoiled Jewish college kid Ben Steiner is naively possessed by an overwhelming desire to be cool. At a springtime party on the night of his twenty-first birthday, he meets two people: Rebecca Glaser, the longed-for sweet girl of his dreams, and P.T. Deighland, a beguilingly knavish wiseacre from Princeton. Seduced by Deighland’s bold irreverence while simultaneously succumbing to his own temptations, Ben makes a cascading series of unfortunate choices which not only threaten his budding relationship with Rebecca, but expose him to ruin at the hands of a ravishing but ruthless fashion model named Anthea Montague.
Against the background of a vanished period in American history, STAINER offers a bittersweet nostalgic trip back to a less complex world, during a time of incautious excesses that, while deceptively fun and carefree, in due course forced many unwary youngsters like Benjamin Steiner to learn some necessary –albeit painful– lessons about growing up.
Rose Above Their Limitations
Laurie Lewis Author Interview
The Dragons of Alsace Farm is a beautiful story about love and family. What was the inspiration that spawned this novel?
Thank you. I appreciate that so much. After my father’s passing, our previously happy, healthy mother began exhibiting signs of what we assumed was depression, along with anxiety attacks and confusion. After years spent trying to get a diagnosis, it was finally determined that Mom was in the early stages of dementia. Soon after Mom’s diagnosis, we found a young couple with mild disabilities who wanted more independence. They moved into Mom’s home for a time, offering farm help and companionship in exchange for rent. Mom believed she was helping them, and they felt they were helping her. I watched how the three of them rose above their limitations to lift and serve one another. Although I changed the nature of the challenges facing Noah and Tayte, and made Agnes a composite character, it was Mom and this young couple who ultimately inspired the final book.
The bond that develops between Noah and Tayte forms over their mutual love of the elderly woman Agnes. Was there anything about the characters’ relationship that you pulled from your own life?
A bond can develop when people share sorrow. The diagnosis of dementia, or any traumatic diagnosis, can have a dramatic impact on a family. Some people will pull together to protect, and stay connected to, their loved one. Others run away. It’s occurred in our family, and families I’ve interviewed have expressed similar fractures. I did use that experience of shared sorrow to help Noah and Tayte bridge the emotional gap they couldn’t overcome on their own.
Noah, I think, goes through a dramatic transformation. Did you plan the slow personality change or did it happen as you were writing?
It was planned, but earlier drafts had him even more guarded than Tayte, and as the manuscript progressed, and after chats with editors, I decided to soften him a bit, and make him more hopeful and endearing. I needed the readers to cheer for him early on. I have had several experiences with emotionally guarded youth, and interestingly enough, most of these young people were wonderful with small children and the elderly—people less likely to render judgment. I think that acceptance helps them lower their guard. That’s what Agnes does for Noah. She validates the goodness he has been trying to cultivate, and she strengthens his hope for a future that is brighter than his past.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be published?
Thanks for asking! I’ve got two projects in progress. “The Shell Game” has been in the works for over a year. It’s a complex political suspense novel about two last-chance people who arrive in a dying West Virginia mining town. A tip from a ruthless informant sends fallen journalism phenom, Jackson James, to Cutler’s Ridge to chase down a story lead involving three high-level passengers headed for the town in a private plane that didn’t file a flight plan.
Young scientist, Tallie Brown’s, mother forced the two of them to live a life of seclusion. When her emotionally distant mother dies in an accident, she leaves behind a newspaper article and a cryptic message that leads Tallie to Cutler’s Ridge. But the townspeople make it clear they don’t like any strangers, and worse, they seem to fear the shy, reclusive Tallie Brown.
Even the other stranger in town, reporter Jackson James, puts Tallie on his radar when Tallie predicts the fall of the private plane he came to track, right before it falls from the sky, killing everyone on board. James uncovers some strange truths about the town and Miss Brown. She has no recorded birth certificate, and the town is riddled with twenty years of secrets that involve the halls of congress and a local military base. I hope to launch “The Shell Game” before Christmas.
Also, I’ve been invited to contribute a volume for Gelato Books’ highly successful “Destination Billionaire’s Romance Series.” Romance is a new genre for me, but it’s been really fun. You’re hearing it here first—my volume will be titled “Sweet Water.” It debuts in March. I’ve been torn about whether to use my name or the pen name Addison Tayte. We’ll see. . .
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Fears and secrets are the dragons we each must face. . . In need of his own redemption, Noah Carter finally confronts his childhood hero, the once-beloved uncle who betrayed him. Instead of vengeance, he offers forgiveness, also granting Uncle John a most curious request—for Noah to work on the ramshackle farm of Agnes Deveraux Keller, a French WWII survivor with dementia. Despite all Agnes has lost, she still has much to teach Noah. But the pair’s unique friendship is threatened when Tayte, Agnes’s estranged granddaughter, arrives to claim a woman whose circumstances and abilities are far different from those of the grandmother she once knew. Items hidden in Agnes’s attic raise painful questions about Tayte’s dead parents, steeling Tayte’s determination to save Agnes, even if it requires her to betray the very woman she came to save, and the secret her proud grandmother has guarded for seventy years. The issue strains the fragile trust between Tayte and Noah, who now realizes Tayte is fighting her own secrets, her own dragons. Weighed down by past guilt and failures, he feels ill-equipped to help either woman, until he remembers Agnes’s lessons about courage and love. In order to save Agnes, the student must now become the teacher, helping Tayte heal—for Agnes’s sake, and for his.
LITERARY TITAN 