9/28/2010

A Letter to my Book Club for Liberal Thinkers

I so very much believe in and love the idea of serendipity, or is it synchronicity? Both I believe. I woke up with a headache and feeling so tired yesterday, that I decided not to go to work. I kept having dreams of having to pack and unpack way too many clothes for a short trip and couldn't fit anything and didn't have the time or place to put it all. Anyway, the dreams were troubling and I believe were the result of feeling guilty for not having gone to work. I put the radio on now and again, listening briefly to Morning Edition or Brian Lehrer on WNYC, but found the news also troublesome. I was thinking I had made a bad choice.

Then at about 1:15 PM (yes, I can pass the better part of a day in bed, I'm a bit ashamed to say), I again turned on the radio. Well, let me skip forward to when I left a comment on the WNYC website, the Leonard Lopate page... Comment: Sherril from Morris Planis, NJ
How very serendipitous that I stayed home from work today, and while still in bed at 1:15 PM, I turned on the radio to hear Leonard's interview with Barbara Kingsolver about her newest book,
The Lacuna
Last night I hosted our monthly Book Club meeting and you'll never guess what we read and enthusiastically discussed!

As an aside, Kingsolver, as the audio reader, pronounced Lacuna, with a long u, not the yu sound she used in the audio book; something we mentioned in our discussion; I'm thinking she pronounced it so, only in certain contexts, but I digress. The interview was interesting and it almost sounded to me like they were sparring a bit. I think perhaps Kingsolver is a bit feisty, or maybe it was Leonard Lopate. In any case, they definitely hit upon matters and opinions about which we spoke in our Book Club discussion last night. Take a listen to the interview and see for yourselves.

I also listened to another interview on the Leonard Lopate show, which fascinated me and led me to consequently purchase the Kindle edition of the book (my first Kindle purchase)
My Massai Life
by Robin Wizowaty
. It's a memoir about a young woman who wanted to escape her boring, mundane suburban Illinois life and did so by going to live with a Massai family in rural Kenya.

I kept WNYC on, even after I got out of bed, and went on to listen to and watch on the computer, the program "Sound Check", which was being broadcast at WNYC's new Green Space. The first segment was David Byrne who has recently released an audio book version, of his book,
The Bicycle Diaries
It sounded fascinating and
I intend to reserve it from the library. The next segment was Angelique Kidjo, which I enjoyed so much, I proceeded to buy tickets for her upcoming concert at Carnegie Hall. I will attend the concert with my son for his birthday. The final segment , Phil Collins, was also enjoyable and I bookmarked the new album, "Going Back" to consider purchasing at some later date (I also took notice of his abundance of gray stubble, though he does have children under five years of age (yikes!).


So, all of this to say that I think I was most definitely MEANT to stay home today, lest I would have missed all of the above, and would not have been any the better for it.
Don't you agree?

Sherril


From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings. ~Helen Hayes


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