And Ode to The Big Easy and to growing up
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Bookshelves groan under the weight of numerous coming of age stories as well as numerous odes to various cities around the world. Few of those loved cities have suffered such a major, and publicly recorded disaster as New Orleans has. The city has been written about so much that many of us feel we know her streets and denizens well despite never setting foot on her streets. In Anything But Ordinary, Michael DeVault weaves just a slice of the Crescent City with the story of a twelve year old boy sentenced to community service in a nursing home for a summer. There he encounters a half-dozen eccentric elderly residents who become and extended family to him, and those who work at and administer the home. The residents of "the Row" come from central casting of off-kilter and free-spirited characters who find their bond in their differences. More importantly they are the living reflection of the city in which they live - reveling in the fact that they are different and unique and flaunting the conventions of `the rules'. We are not treated to an extensive travelogue; most of the story takes place inside the nursing home, or the apartment the twelve year old protagonist Billy shares with his mother. Rather we see the city through the character traits of the row's residents. Billy's an outsider from Minneapolis who learns to love his new friends, and by extension his new home. Into this world comes another out-of-towner, the home's new administrator and his young daughter. The administrator is the antithesis of New Orleans - brash, demanding, forward and forceful, while his daughter is caught up in her own world in a desperate search for her long gone mother and is a character to fit right into the city. The clash of cultures, just like the clash of nature and the government's delayed reaction with the city leads to disaster and heartbreak. However, in the routine of the day-to-day and the ordinary, we come to love a city that is anything but.
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In this gentle and lyrical book, 7-year-old Jamie navigates the frustration of being overlooked in a big family, the pain of being belittled by an older sister and the joys of making a new friend. It is a remarkable little book that really brought me back to what it's like to be a child, when the most important things in life were to be noticed and included.
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I find this little book quite poignant because Dr. Seuss has managed to squeeze the hard won wisdom of adulthood into an innocuous text and without being cynical or disingenuous, tells the young reader that life will be both sweet and sour. It is at heart, though, an exhortation to go out and find the world and be all that you can be. I think this is a wonderful message in a time when there is much concern and fear for the wellbeing of our children which could result in diminished opportunities and fewer adventures as we attempt to shield them. The book is well made and comes in a protective sleeve. Its quality and the removing of the sleeve impressed my daughter and gave our bedtime read a ceremonial flair.
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These days, it seems like it's a rite of passage to go through the just-graduated-and-I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing, trying to discern out who you really are and what you really want to do time, usually not too long after graduating from college. Tony Tulathimutte's Private Citizens is about that exact time in the lives of four people. Confused social activist Cory, insecure tech worker Will, unstable grad student Henrik and self-destructive wannabe writer Linda all knew each other at Stanford and live in and around tech-boom San Francisco, and the story follows each of them in turn as they try to figure out the obstacles in front of them: Cory's inheritance of a flailing nonprofit, Will's inability to cope with his hyperambitious, emotionally withholding girlfriend Vanya, Henrick's loss of funding for his research and recurrence of bipolar disorder, and Linda's drug issues and infatuation with her own perceived genius. They're not friends anymore, per se, more like people whose lives intertwined in college as roommates or in ill-fated relationships, and never came completely apart. And as their lives get more complicated and harder, they find themselves coming back together.

Both Tulathimutte's characterizations and grasp on the thorny knot it can be to be a millennial are strong and ring true. Cory and Will and Henrik and Linda all feel like real, if highly magnified, people. None of them are especially likable, but all of them can be sympathetic. They're all experiencing the fuzzy mess of trying to check your privilege, of trying to find the right boundaries between your online life and your real one, figuring out your own niche in a crowded world, living up to the praise and expectations you've been inundated with for your whole life. It's trendy to dismiss millennial malaise as a bunch of whining from spoiled brats, but Tulathimutte understands that it isn't that simple. We were raised to believe that you earn a medal just for showing up, that you can be anything you want to be...and when it turns out that your life isn't particularly special, you can't shake the feeling that it's your fault, somehow, that you've failed yourself and wasted your potential. The writing is maybe a little heavy on esoteric word choices, but it's sharp and incisive and compelling. I'm not sure how I felt about the end, though...it felt like a bit of a departure from the rest of the book, at least in part. But maybe when I read it again (and I plan to), knowing how it winds up, it'll fit more cohesively.
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"When you're big, you can do that." What child doesn't look forward to the day when they're big, and they can do all those things they've been told they can't do when they're little? But what does it mean to be "big"? Just HOW big does one need to be? Is "big" like the ruler in front of the rollercoaster that says "You must be taller than this to ride"? How long does getting big take?

With fun, vividly colorful, collage illustrations by Clare Fennell, Coleen Paratore tells young readers just what it really means to be "big." Little people can be "big," too. Getting big takes a lot of little steps. On each page, kids learn that being big is more than being older, richer, and having more "stuff." Big is about becoming independent, about using resources wisely, about helping others, and about being an involved member of your community. "BIG" is a great introduction to these concepts - bright and fun without being "preachy" or getting bogged down in details. Exactly what it means to be an "active citizen of your city, country, world" means is something that's still likely to go over the younger reader's head without additional explanation. It's something teens still struggle with, and adults do, too, sometimes. But I think it's the perfect opening for a conversation between parents and children about just what it means to be "big" and why those things matter.

This is a book parents can feel good about, too - "Little Pickle Press is dedicated to helping parents and educators cultivate conscious,responsible little people by stimulating explorations of the meaningful topics of their generation through a variety of media, technologies, and techniques." Their printed books are made using green energy and recycled materials, with care for the environment.
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Browsing through these little poems is like browsing through moments of my own memory. The poet grew up in middle class, middle America family like mine, but the truths she shares are universal.
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This is a "little book." You know what I mean: you take a look, think you can knock this book off by lunch time, and that'll be that.

But, Love in the Little Things is bigger than that. Yes, the reading is quick and easy, but the ideas loom larger than their appearance. Hmmm ... kind of like Jesus of Nazareth ... growing up in a non-descript way, living a quiet family life, full of hidden things beyond this earthly realm, beyond our imagining.

And that's what Mike Aquilina shows us: that family life is a very real reflection of the Trinity. It's the path to holiness for those of us who are called to this vocation.

But, these little vignettes aren't heavy-handed lectures. They are charming tales about Mike (often self-deprecating), his wife, Terri (adoring), and their delightful children (abundant fatherly love abounds.)

In "It's Verse than I Imagined" (and yes, many of the titles are punny, as are Mike's blog post titles), Mike takes a look at his daughter Mary Agnes's growing awareness of the unrelenting ways in which life will break our hearts. He inserts a line from one of my favorite Gerard Manley Hopkins poems at the perfect moment -- and every parent will face a version of this moment -- and in doing so, elevates this essay from sweet and charming to profound.

And, he keeps doing that. In short pieces about his wife, his children and his parents, he shows us, time and again, that family life is bursting with opportunities to grow in holiness. Bishop Thomas Tobin, of Providence, called this book "a domestic catechism for the domestic church," and it is that, indeed.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record -- every time I read a writer I love, I say I want that writer to live next door to me, and come over for copious amounts of coffee (I think Mike would approve the beverage choice ... one of the essays is entitled, "For the Love of Coffee" ....)

I'm afraid it's true again. It's no secret that I love Mike Aquilina, and I would love for Mike and Terri to move in next door. I'd love to meet their poetic Mary Agnes and their blunt Isabella (who, in "The Truth About Butterfly Princess" told her father, "That's OK, though. I'll bet you were really handsome back when Mommy married you.") I'd love to talk to Rosemary, the "great and cute saint," to meet sneaker-wearing Michael, who pays as much attention to what's on his feet as does my Anne-with-an-e, and to hug their little Gracie, whose encounter with beloved Papa John Paul II was as sweet as it was enviable.

In other words, I'd love to meet the whole crew. You will, too, after reading Love in the Little Things. And, while you're being charmed by these tales of family life, you just might pick up some tips and inspiration for that long and winding road to heaven along the way.
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Love ones and your life a lot history and the way towards your feature and grow up and take responsibility
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This memoir is a book that gave me a bout of nostalgia. I relived my own school and university days, the successes, the accolades and the failures, some of which appeared to be too awesome to contemplate at the time. Most educational institutions, at all levels of complexity, usually radiate a very special ivory tower ambience. Documenting the nature of that milieu and how it influenced the formation of Tali Nay is the subject of this book.

In this book, Tali Nay shares the story of her schooling at the primary level, the secondary level, the university level and finally on the job front. To this end, she mentions the seemingly insignificant, everyday events that have affected her at a deeper level than she knew at the time and affected her decisions and actions later on. She mentions many of her teachers and their influences on her life, her friends and roommates, her own competitive drive, her first encounter with dishonesty, sundry successes, disillusionments and failures, her involvement with music and theatre, her graduation ceremonies, (both from secondary school and university) and finally her search for a job, among others. We get to see an intimate glimpse of Tali Nay, the person, intelligent, sensitive, caring, deeply philosophical with a wry sense of humour, and with wide ranging interests and accomplishments.

Some gold nuggets from Tali's graduation speech that reveal the author's persona are worth mentioning. Here they are.

1. There is never a need to be cruel or unkind to someone because we never know how much a "Hi" or "How Are You" can do for someone who is struggling.
2. Failures are a normal part of life.
3. If you've had the time of your life, don't stop striving for more.

This is a book to be savoured, a little at a time. Though it is relatively fast paced and quite skillfully written, one can miss out on a lot of juice if one exercises one's speedreading skills. This book also poses questions about the efficacy of our educational systems: are they truly doing their job of preparing students to face the future, confidently and without fear?

Speaking for myself, I enjoyed the book very much. As I said earlier, it brought back memories of my own days spent in the isolated, semi-protected environment of my old school. I believe also that you, the reader, like me, will also find your own story, reflected somewhere within its pages.

Strongly recommended.
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Mike is growing up in this one. This is Album is the logical next step on coming of age story that he's been putting together with the last three. There are a few songs on here that are amazing, some others not quite so much. I think, for listening, head banging pleasure, this album deserves only three stars. I gave it four because of how it fit's in to Mike's self documentarian style. It's very uplifting and possitive, which I personally appreciate more than teenage angsty drivel.
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This story is about Amory Blaine, a young man whose story we follow from his early childhood of great privilege through his college graduation to see him develop a great skepticism. It may have been his life's great economic downturn, maybe it was his poor luck at love, or maybe a mix of these and more led Amory to his new perspective. As readers we feel sorry for what has been forced to endure, but the silver lining comes as Amory and his mates discuss love, politics and growing up. The opinions they share are substantial, eye-opening, and they still ring true generations later.

This book was recommended to me a few years back by a friend. I asked her what her favorite book was and this was her response. It obviously took me awhile to get around to reading it, but I am glad I did. Better late than never, as they say.

I feel the book is best broken up into three sections: pre-college, college and post-college. And the first and third sections were my favorites. The pre-college section covers his childhood as Fitzgerald writes him as an Elizabethan "mack daddy." I laughed continuously as the young man with the silver tongue would, always minding his manners, attempt to seduce any woman he encountered.

The college section, which is the majority of the book, we begin to see the transformation of Amory Blaine. Through a group of friends that I found similar to the Dead Poets Society from the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/movie-of-the-same-name/dp/B000B8QG1S/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">movie of the same name</a>, Amory begins to finally see pain, suffering and injustice. He is handed a social conscience and wears it from then on as a badge of courage. This section of the book grew a little monotonous for me and was where I had to strengthen my resolve to get through it.

The post-college section, though somewhat pessimistic, was my favorite part of the book. In this final few chapters to the book I believe I found why my friend had recommended it. While I agreed with some of Amory's arguments at the end of the book and disagreed with others, I found them all to have merit. I must admit that I am even depressed that many of Amory's complaints about the state of society still plague society today. I applaud the author for writing a book that is still relevant so many years later.

This Side of Paradise is a short book where you may breeze through the beginning, lose interest in the middle, and become somewhat empassioned towards the end. I did not love this book, but I enjoyed parts of it a good deal. I'm glad to have now read some Fitzgerald other than just&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Great-Gatsby/dp/0743273567/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Great Gatsby</a>.
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This memoir clearly shows the path a person can take while growing up to have a tremendous impact on the betterment of the world.
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Lenny Lianne's newest volume of poetry, The ABCs of Memory, from ScriptWorks Press, mashes two books of poetry, with opposing ideals, together, a tradition that hearkens back to Blake,  An Alphabet from An Ample Nation, and An Alphabet of Modest Means. Memory strikes a contemporary chord, cherishing the past while tightening the belt on the future, a theme most Americans could identify with in these recent years of economic recovery.

Lianne's ABCs are broad in depth and range, and touch on cultural milestones such as Elvis, Nancy Drew, Wonder Bread, 9-11, and Ty Cobb, as well as personal memories of her family. These poems are celebrations, elegies, and like the titles of the books, or parts suggest, hint at a plethora of riches, or a plethora of troubles, big and small.

Lianne speaks with authority about young men drafted into war in "Basic Training" and young boys peeking at their Centerfold cousin in "Finding the Playmate of the Month." Lianne doesn't just recount these memories, invented or real, but often questions them, mourns for them without evoking false pride or anger.

The ABCs of Memory could easily fall into sentimentality, we are talking about memories. We are talking about cultural heroes. Lost wonders of the good old days, but Lianne does not allow the poems to do so. She steers them towards a unified bridge, another great American tradition--unifying the country through poetic voice, where all emotional landscapes butt up against each other, like so many state lines running parallel and perpendicular. One of the finer poems, "Velocity and Other Variables", begins as a memory of boys throwing olives but ends as a meditation on war, as if all the world's violence is seeded in the youthful volley of spitballs, baseballs, and olives.

This volume manages to be both grand and humble, her form is crafted, though not too formal for non-academics, but her language is direct and frank, allowing images and emotions to breathe, puffing up, or shrinking up as they will. Mostly the perspectives are from the white middle class, a shrinking population as America trudges forth in the 21st century. That's not a criticism, mind you, but rather a reminder that what made the country great in the 20th century was the ordinary people in the middle who built, loved, sang, drank, died, and fought for something we used to call the American Dream. Something that perhaps belongs in America's euro-white-centric past. And in that sense Lianne's book is an elegy for the American Dream, as it once was, for that ideal is changing with globalization and a leaner economy. The ABC's of Memory is a reminder that the voice of America has gotten broader and deeper, and more complex.
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Lee Kravitz a self-described workaholic magazine editor, suddenly finds himself without a job in his mid-fifties and instead of jumping back on the treadmill picking up elsewhere, he decides to do some evaluating of his chosen path and choices in life.  Especially he notes that he has some "Unfinished Business" that is worth examining.  This is where this book begins.

As anyone can imagine, when you get to your mid-fifties, there are things that you mull about and think, you could have done better.  It's stuff you either you left undone, shouldn't have done or wanted to do.  Or there could be family relationships that could be better or friends you really wanted to catch back up with.  The author decides he needs to sort out this unfinished business before he moves on and gives himself a year to do so.

As he looks up old friends and family, pays off old debts, attends to obligations left undone and thanks the people he should have years ago, he realizes how rewarding attending to these loose ends becomes.  He finds new connections from old, a new way to look at things including a new joy in life in the process.
While reading this; I felt the author crafted a very personal but accessible story.  He examined his life before work and the man he used to be. Strange how we all look back at ourselves as if we are separate from the people we now are.  I felt he was honest and critical with himself and you can see how in a busy life; items like this get left behind.

I like the fact that he put each issue in it's own chapter, despite the fact, that I'm sure all the various issues might well have been overlapping. It made it pleasant to read and you got a sense of completion.  What I found heartening, was even though he had expectations of what he would find in each case, he realized quickly how wrong he was, but in a very pleasant way.  I think what most of us find when we look back, our viewpoint has changed and we see things differently.  Two points the author discusses was his experiences with a bully and one where he looked up a former mentor.  Even though both effected him very personally, in retrospect, in the case of the bully, the bully's actions towards him actions were never personal, he was just collateral damage and in the case of the mentor, he never saw the insecure young man, but a wealth of potential.  If only we could learn to step back and examine things less personally when we are in the midst of our lives.

CHAPTERS WITHIN WERE (Based on an Advanced Copy):
PREFACE: Compiling the List: Finding Ten things that Truly Matter
CHAPTER 1: Finding Sorrow's daughter: Finding a Long-Lost Relative
CHAPTER 2: I'm so Sorry for Your Loss: Making a Condolence Call
CHAPTER 3: The Check is in the Mail: Paying a Long-Overdue Debt
CHAPTER 4: I've been Thinking of You Since the Planes Struck: Reaching Out to a Distant Friend
CHAPTER 5: Forgive Me the Harm I Wished on You: Letting go of a Grudge
CHAPTER 6: Thank You Mr. Jarvis: Seeking Spiritual Guidance From a Mentor
CHAPTER 7: On the Road to Mt. Athos: The Road not Taken
CHAPTER 8: The Day Eliot Ness Set My Grandfather Straight or Did He?: Healing a Family Wounds
CHAPTER 9: I remember Nana: Eulogizing a Loved One
CHAPTER 10: The Circle Grows Wider: Keeping a Promise
CHAPTER 11: Moving Ahead: The Journey of a Lifetime

Not everything was tidied up neat with bows, but that's life.  I'm sure Lee's journey ahead will be even more examined and his unfinished business a shorter list.  However as a reader this compels me to imagine my own list.  What about you?
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ORDINARY BOY is anything but ordinary. The down-to-earth, emotionally honest and ambitious sweep of this novel place it among such works as THE OUTSIDERS for its portrayal of a boy determined to overcome lifes burgeoning realities as he navigates his overwhelmingly awkward and yet unnervingly beautiful teenage years.

Longo threads her own style of blunt, honest humor throughout this dark, dramatic work, showing that life can be funny and tragic at the same time, and adding colorful nuances that punctuate the realities in the poor side of town. The roller coaster of first love, the uncertainty of defining oneself, and the struggles against small-minded bullies unaware of their own shortcomings skillfully accentuate this engaging family drama.

Like so many of us, Curtis Price seeks to escape the confines of his financially strapped situation and the personal anchors that weigh him down, desperately trying to make sense of the world hes growing into. He is resilient and he is determined, but the unexpected could upend everything he's worked so hard to achieve. Will his dreams fade into the drab alleys and smoky bars of Osprey Falls, or will he prevail and attain escape velocity?
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What contrasts there are in the life of this eminent NY Times columnist, and this memoir focuses primarily on the hardscrabble world of his childhood and adolescence. The clarity and melodiousness of his writing style puts us right into the center of the tiny northern Louisiana communities where he grew up. He does not shrink from describing family disfunctions--shootings and threats of shooting, affairs, effects of alcohol and drugs and all--but the honesty of his telling is riveting.

After a few traumatice experiences (a menacing cousin, his mother with a gun, deaths of those he loves), Blow resolves to change his life, and he turns from a withdrawn child to a leader at school. He moves on to Grambling and becomes incredibly successful in school (youngest frat president, class president) and then wins an internship at the New York Times, again getting a "youngest ever" title. After Grambling, his life up to the present is compressed into a relatively few short pages, probably a wise approach given his still young age, with much success still likely to come.

Yes, this is a book that I recommend, but I have several concerns with it that any potential reader should be aware of.

First, once Blow shares his decision to change to make something of himself, his narrative of his exploits and accomplishments becomes uncomfortably egotistical, to the point of leading this reader to begin questioning if he really was as "perfect" as he says. In the end, however, his rapid rise at the Times and his clearly accomplished writing style would seem to affirm all those plaudits he gives himself. Still, it was sometimes uncomfortable to read this unvarnished narcissism in some places. It does help in peering into Blow's personality to consider the two men he says he most admired in his youth. Martin Luther King is probably to be expected, and the rationale Blow shares is reasonable. But the other hero is a total surprise--Prince Charles of England? By the time I had finished the book, however, this choice of an aloof, arrogant, and egotistical man seems like a pretty reasonable choice. I will let other readers see if they see the similarities of the lives of the two Charles.

The other issue that I struggled with is the extended account of the hazing activities at Grambling while Blow was a student. The descriptions are harrowing and very difficult to read but I am glad he included them, to make sure we all understand why this is still a problem that needs to be addressed. Hardest for me to read, and to accept, was not just that Blow ended up tacitly supporting such a practice by becoming president of the fraternity. Though he did resign after two years, and though he does honestly admit to participating in some of the brutal aspects of the hazing routines, I ended the book still troubled by what seems to be too much acceptance by Blow of the entire ritual.

So be aware of these concerns, but still, read the book for its gritty picture of Blow's early life, for an understanding of the lifelong impact a single act of molestation, and for some background into the views that Blow expresses in his regular TImes columns.
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In this day and age, we are told to shirk conventionalism, seek originality, see life in its true colors and peel off all glossy veneer in search of the truth. Grit has been the new cool for some time now, and it is glorified in literature, even poetry (lose the constraints of rhyme; use free-verse). But when it comes down to expressing love, no struggle for originality is needed other than the evocative manifestation of genuine emotion.

In poetry, this is called a love sonnet. Its beauty, its message, is brought forward through a conventional structure (fourteen verses in iambic pentameter) but that only strengthens its effect. Take Kevin M. Jacksons collection of sonnets which, according to the authors note, he started writing at the age of sixteen: from the first time a teenage boys heart flutters at the sight of a girl to the struggles of a committed relationship, the words flow effortlessly, beautifully, and the rhyme is not a constraint but a vehicle. Excitement, joy, doubt, fear, regret are all seeped in the kind of love that has the power to infuse even darkness with the glow of hope. Now tell me that this isn't the outlook we all need in our lives, no matter what were after, or how weve decided to go about achieving it.