A RANDOM BOOK REVIEW: THE
END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB, by Will Schwalbe
First, let me admit that I fell in love with Mary Ann
Schwalbe. A fascinating woman. She was a classmate of John Updike at
Harvard/Radcliffe. She chose both to work and to raise a family, with three
children, at a time when most women were required to do one or the other, but
not both. She started her career as a London actress. She became head of a girl’s
school and director of admissions at Harvard. She founded the Women’s
Commission for Refugee Women & Children and spent months at a time in
refugee camps around the world. She was a woman of simple but profound faith in
God.
Throughout it all, she was a
reader.
After she was diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer, she and her son, Will, formed their book club. He often went
with her to doctor’s appointments and treatments, and they discussed what they
were reading in those times, from The
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to The
Elegance of the Hedgehog. [As one who has spent a lot of time in such
places, this sounds like an excellent plan, although I used to make my fellow
patients in the treatment room sing songs I “enhanced,” like Chemo Pushers Ball and Gonna Wash that Cancer Right Out of My Bod.]
One of the fascinating things
about Mary Ann’s reading: she always read the end of the book first, because
she didn’t want to waste her time on an author who didn’t know how to end a
book.
If you want to meet a
fascinating woman, or get a lot of good book recommendations, I recommend The End of Your Life Book Club.
John Robert McFarland
One of the great things about
having more clothes and gadgets and sports equipment and tools than one could
ever need or use up is that the only gifts left are books. So almost all my
reading is from gift books. I think this one was from daughter, Katie Kennedy,
whose Learning to Swear in America will
be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.
My novel, VETS, will be
published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015.
In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: ”Some people are nice… and if
you talk to them properly, they can be even nicer.” Colm Toibin, in Brooklyn.
I tweet as yooper1721.
I also write, once in a great while, Christ in Winter:
Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/
MY OTHER BOOKS:
NOW THAT I HAVE
CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and
Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and
Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount,
called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”
AN ORDINARY MAN
[HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent
with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for
killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full
circle…
THE STRANGE
CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a
preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really
a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know,
I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of
questioning the call.
WHEN FATHER RODE
THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0
If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty &
the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml
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