Month: November 2007

Anne Tyler takes us with 40-year-old Delia as she steps off the ladder of her family life and starts over from the bottom. How often we have felt like doing the same. The death of a father, increasingly cooler relations with her teenagers, long resentment of her doctor husband’s seemingly superior attitude, and (most of all) anger that he seems to have married her to inherit her father’s medical practice all combine to send her walking off the beach during a family vacation, into the van of a plumber returni

As in Ordinary Life and True to Form, Elizabeth Berg speaks through the lips of children with remarkable sensitivity, as pre-teens Ginny and Sharla tell us about their early years with a “perfect” mother and their lifelong resentment of her leaving them to pursue a successful career as an artist.

The story alternates skillfully between the adult and the childhood memories, evoking our liking and sympathy for a frustrated wife, a bewildered husband and two unforgiving children, recreating their world for us in loving and illuminating detail.

We also carry away its message, that in order to become true adults we must let go of all the bitterness we harbor toward our parents.

David Snowdon writes a very readable memoir about how he came to know and study a large group of retired nuns for research into the problems of aging, including Alzheimer’s Disease, for which this study was and continues to be a premiere data source.

It is a pleasure to become acquainted with and see pictures of these lively and appealing women who have selflessly donated their brains to research for the benefit of us all.

For anyone wishing to understand the causes and  progress of and the  different outcomes and possible palliatives for this disease which 85% of people 70 to 90 will develop, this book is a goldmine of information in an easily understandable form.  Surprisingly, the age group 90 to 105 appears to have survived or avoided the risks of  developing Alzheime4r’s.  They are “home free”.

I have loved every one of Fannie Flagg’s novels about the little Missouri town where neighbors, especially women, keep track of all that goes on.

In this episode, Elner Shimfissle gets an early glimpse of heaven and former neighbors now residing there but returns to tell the tale.

In her lighthearted tone, Flagg still manages to remind us of serious problems including abused children and wives, racial disharmony, problems at modern hospitals, profiteering lawsuits and others. She also leaves us with encouragement about what good folks can do to alleviate those evils.