Guest Post by Jaimie Hanson

Creativity. Merriam-Webster defines creativity as “the ability to create.” In Called to Be Creative, author Mary Potter Kenyon not only writes about creativity, what it is, what it means, how it affects and benefits us mentally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually, but she does so by graciously giving the reader a glimpse into her own life throughout the book. This book will grant the permission we often feel we need to be a little (or a lot) creative, and you will be inspired and encouraged, for yourself, and I dare say for others in your circle, as you read through the pages. The chapters, each with their own creative focus, are supported by research and resources throughout the book and the easy-to-do exercises at the end of each chapter allow for the very guidance and reference we seek. Write in the margins, underline the ah-ha moments that speak to you, and get your creative self active.

Called to Be Creative, whether read individually or with a group (yes, even a Zoom group), belongs in everyone’s hands. It’s a book club book, a girlfriends group book, a book for those who are single or married, it’s even a book for guys (and dare I say it would be a fun challenge to create a space and opportunity for that to happen!). It’s perfect for families, for creative minds and those who don’t see themselves that way. A teaching tool for young moms, homeschool moms, and moms looking for a way to cure summer boredom. Add this book to your reading list, discover or uncover the creativity within you, embrace the creative opportunities, and be ready to be amazed as you laugh and smile, enjoying the creative moments within your everyday journey.

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Called to be Creative by Mary Potter Kenyon. Workman, August 2020.

Reviewer bio: Jaimie Hanson lives in the Midwest with her family. She enjoys writing and photography. You can find her sharing both on her blog at jelizabethhanson.com.

Guest Post by John de Graaf

Ginny Sassaman knows happiness! As a co-founder of Gross National Happiness USA and a participant in the national Happiness Walk, she’s been studying the subject for many years.

Her approach in these marvelous sermons is both personal and social—she knows we need to change both our behaviors and some of the policies that wreak havoc on our planet, which is actually making us less happy. She doesn’t shy away from the tougher questions. I especially like her sermon on beauty, an issue of quality of life that has been too often ignored in happiness research, surveys, and action.

In chapter fourteen, “The Extraordinary Value of Everyday Beauty,” Sassaman writes about a friend who took her own life; how that friend had collected objects of beauty as a way of mitigating her pain:

“Mandy may have carried more pain than most, but, just as all flowers need the sun, all humans need beauty. Piero Ferrucci, whose book on kindness is like a happiness bible for me, has written another invaluable text: Beauty and the Soul: The Extraordinary Power of Everyday Beauty to Heal Your Life. Ferrucci insists that beauty, far from being frivolous, is a primal need. ‘Beauty,’ he writes, ‘is not like a distant satellite, but like a sun that gives life and light to all areas of our life.’”

This is just one example of how Sassaman combines thoughtful stories and research in her sermons. I found great value in all of them and I think you, dear reader, will too. Don’t miss this book!

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Preaching Happiness: Creating a Just and Joyful World by Ginny Sassaman. Rootstock Publishing, May 2020.

Reviewer Bio: John de Graaf is an author, filmmaker, speaker and activist. He is a co-founder of The Happiness Alliance and co-author of the bestselling book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic.

Guest Post by Chang Shih Yen

The global pandemic and associated lockdown is an extremely stressful time for everyone. During this difficult period, I found this book helpful. The Book of Knowing is written by Gwendoline Smith, a New Zealand-based clinical psychologist. It provides strategies on how to change your thinking to change the way you’re feeling.

This book is aimed at teenagers and young people who are feeling overwhelmed and anxious, but it is suitable for anyone going through difficult situations. Smith makes the point that you cannot change reality. As Smith says, “Reality just is and shit happens!” You may not be able to change reality, but you can change how you feel about reality and change the way you think. Smith gives tips and strategies on how to do this, including firstly how to identify thought viruses, or negative ways of thinking, which go on to affect how we feel. Your feelings towards any situation are based on your beliefs and the way you think. So if you can change your thinking, it will help you feel better.

Smith’s writing is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Her writing is straightforward and also funny. It is an easy read with illustrations that make the content accessible to everyone. Overall, it was a helpful book during a stressful time.

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The Book of Knowing by Gwendoline Smith. Allen & Unwin Book Publishing, February 2019.

Reviewer bio: Chang Shih Yen is a writer from Malaysia, seeing through the pandemic in New Zealand. She writes a blog at https://shihyenshoes.wordpress.com/

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Guest Post by MG Noles

 The Only Dance There Is is the story of Dr. Richard Alpert, the man who had it all. He had attained the pinnacle of success as a tenured professor of psychology at Harvard University. He had the cars, the girls, the motorcycles, and the friends. He was regarded as a genius by colleagues and students. He was the cool professor all the kids wanted to study with.

It was the 1960s, baby, and Dr. Alpert was riding the wave of social evolution. He wanted to change the world and yearned to break free of the post-1950s zipped-up norms that continued into the early ‘60s. Continue reading “A Study in the Miraculous: The Only Dance There Is”

Guest Post by Suzanne G. Beyer

I just finished reading Library Girls of New York, Carolyn Rhodes’s 2019 memoir of growing up in two New York City libraries. I had no clue that Andrew Carnegie provided an apartment above NYC libraries for the custodian and his family to live in. But there’s a lot I didn’t know until I read her book.

You’d think that such an upbringing—no picket fence, no grassy yard, no flowerbeds—could be a reason for an under-privileged childhood . . . quite the opposite for author Rhodes! Continue reading “Step Into the Library with Carolyn Rhodes”

Guest Post William V. Ray

As a retired teacher, I’m someone whose reading habits haven’t been much affected by the pandemic. I’m usually reading several things at once. Currently, I’ve caught up with Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. I used to teach one of her novels but had never read this early but nevertheless striking piece of writing. It is a remarkable read not only because one senses on every page the relentlessly probing mind of the author, but also because of the window it provides into the emergence of the individual who is now recognized as breaking ground for the feminist movement. Although she is not alone in being someone who slowly departs from a bourgeois, Catholic background, she is particularly well suited to describe the journey.

I’ve also been reading Kevin Young’s poetry. At his best, he is one of the poets that makes me wonder at his ability to put together words and images that, while seemingly simple, knock one over with their power to reveal. Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015 is an excellent survey of his work, showing his range—from searing exposés, as it were, of the enslavement of African Americans to concise universal cries such as the two-line poem ¨Grief¨:  “In the night I brush/ my teeth with a razor.” Cultural icons—Basquiat, Jack Johnson, Miles Davis among others—appear.

For those of us lucky enough to be able to get out to enjoy nature in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Sydney Lea’s most recent book of poetry, Here, is a nice companion. You can read my short review on Amazon.

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Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir. HarperCollins, August 2005.

Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015 by Kevin Young. Knopf, September 2017.

Here by Sydney Lea. Four Way Books, September 2019.

Reviewer bio: William V. Ray is a retired English teacher who has also been a textbook editor, freelance writer, and, of late, a café owner. His published work includes textbooks as well as poetry and poetic prose. His work appears in Poetry East, The Write Launch, Subprimal Poetry Art, Pudding, The Opiate, The Art Bin, Painters & Poets, Mass Poetry, Poetry Pacific, and elsewhere. He is the editor of the online journal The Courtship of Winds. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.  For more detail, please visit his page at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamvray

Guest Post by Christine Noelle

Months into the pandemic, I found myself longing for “the good ‘ol days” when it felt safe to travel, and I could focus long enough to immerse myself in a story. Once I read a book nonstop, cover-to-cover during a flight from New York to Seattle. If I read the book again, could it bring back a feeling of normal, when COVID-19 made our daily lives feel so foreign? I pulled the book from my shelf and, to my surprise, I liked that the word safe was in its title.

Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life by Abigail Thomas is a groundbreaking collage-style memoir containing elegantly written vignettes that seem unrelated, but build to a beautiful, meaningful whole. Thomas offers an intimate unfolding of pivotal moments that shaped her life: pregnancy at 18, joys and fears of being a single mother of three by age 26, love and frustration within her marriages, and the tragic death of her second husband. Readers of Safekeeping will bear witness to the art of sensory perspective: the before, the during, and the here-and-now, as told through stories that are poetic, visceral, and universal. The normal of life we all know.

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Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life by Abigail Thomas. Penguin Random House, April 2001.

Christine Noelle is a writer and marketing consultant living in the San Francisco Bay area. She is a traveler and lover of trees. http://www.christinenoelle.com

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Guest Post by Karen J. Weyant

Sue William Silverman’s life is hanging by a thread.

Or, at least that may be the initial reaction a reader may get from Silverman’s latest collection, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences. The title itself suggests that Silverman’s book is a catalog of death-defying experiences and yes, there are somber essays that explore her survival as a sexual assault victim and her hypochondriac ventures into the medical world. But other essays are more lighthearted, such as the one piece where, as a middle-aged narrator, she tells about her adventures at an Adam Lambert conference.

In essence, Silverman’s book is a nonlinear exploration of her life arranged into three sections adapted from the Three Fates of Greek Mythology: Clotho (the spinner) Lachesis (the measurer), and Atropos (the cutter). Sometimes, her essays tell stories in the traditional narrative form, while others use more experimental styles. However, read together, this collection is more than just about surviving death: it’s really about having hope and resilience in life.

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How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences by Sue William Silverman. University of Nebraska Press, March 2020.

Reviewer bio: Karen J. Weyant‘s essays have been published in BioStories, Briar Cliff Review, Carbon Culture Review, Crab Creek Review, Coal Hill Review, Lake Effect and Waccamaw. She is an Associate Professor of English at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York.

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