“My advice to writers yearning for publication is to minimize description, and be sure you don’t stop the story while describing. You are a storyteller, not an interior decorator.” – Sol Stein, Stein on Writing
Category Archives: Read
‘cold tangerines’: keep your eyes out for another serving
cold tangerines: celebrating the extraordinary nature of everyday life
By Shauna Niequist
Zondervan, 2007
I needed this book. I didn’t realize it until about halfway through, but “better late than never.”
Painted with a “Faberge egg” brush – stunning, exquisite and slightly outrageous – cold tangerines (lower-cased) is divided into four parts. Stand-alone, first-person stories in each section include: spark, french class, carrying my own weight, lent and television, broken bottles, writing in pencil, island, and my favorite: old house.
Cold tangerines is spunky. Profound one moment, whimsical the next. At times you feel like you’re seated in the front row at the Improv; at others you’re sniffling and reaching for Kleenex. In each section the author sweeps us into her everyday life with pithy observations about family, unexpecteds, writing, Africa, vacations, friends: “True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves… Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways…, an opportunity to act on God’s behalf in the lives of the people we’re close to.”
Maybe what I like best about cold tangerines is that the author is Real. Genuine. Humorous, hearty. Disarmingly candid. She’s flawed and knows it. Niequist asks the tough questions and avoids the canned answers: “What if I’ve missed the cosmic bus to my best future because I was watching E!?” The author has an “eyes open” storytelling style about babies, loss, vulnerability, disappointment, being overweight, motherhood, heart attacks, “the healing effects of a barbecue” and jealousy “like a house fire.” The slice-of-life vignettes are Christian themed without being preachy or pompous. They reflect an author who’s cracked and chipped. Human and hopeful. Daring. Kinda kooky. Someone I can relate to.
This book is crunchy and quirky. As succulent as a cold tangerine on a scorching August afternoon. Reading this book is like walking into a dark living room on your birthday, bummed that no one remembered, and having people in party hats jump out and yell, “Surprise!”
I’m keeping an eye out for another serving.
“Marley & Me”: More Than a ‘Dog Story’
Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog
By John Grogran
Harper Collins, 2005
ISN: 13: 978-0-06-123822-2
I confess. I’m a dyed-in-the-Alpo, no-bones-about-it, unabashed, bonafide dog lover, but even feline fans will appreciate John Grogan’s Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog. An eloquent look at a “wondrously neurotic dog” and “what really matters in life,” this engaging, insightful epic recounts the zany escapades of a ninety-seven pound yellow Labrador retriever who “crashed through life with a gusto often associated with natural disasters” and the humans who loved him.
Marley begins when newlyweds John and Jen Grogan move to South Florida and begin budding careers as journalists at competing newspapers. An adorable “clearance puppy” turns their lives inside out and upside down for thirteen roaring, soaring, raucous, wonderful years – as only a “loopy” dog can.
A richly textured three-dimensional portrait of family life and love, Marley avoids maudlin sentimentality while offering honest “slice of life” vignettes to which anyone relate. It’s also wickedly funny. Catapult-like, this wild ride with “the world’s worst dog” races through mango snacks, gold necklace “dessert,” poodle distractions, drywall destruction, thunder phobias, ejection from obedience school, mishaps at Dog Beach, to loss, disappointment, kids and sleep deprivation, a scream in the night, job changes, moves, and the kind of unwavering loyalty, devotion, and crazy love that’s unique to canines.
Marley & Me is more than a “dog story.” Grogan’s nimble pacing, pithy observations and quirky chronicling evoke both laugh-out-loud mirth and hand-me-another-tissue sniffles. Marley makes you want to run, not walk, to the nearest mutt and hug him or her for dear life.
Speaking of which, Grogan’s first-person narrative runs the gamut of “everyday life” emotions: appreciation, apprehension, horror, humiliation, unbridled glee, intense sorrow, exasperation, exhaustion, effervescence and ebullience. Chapters include And Puppy Makes Three, A Battle of Wills, The Things He Ate, In the Land of Bocahontas, alfresco Dining, Lightning Strikes, The Big Meadow and Beneath the Cherry Tree. A special bonus is a reprint of Grogan’s January 6, 2004 column about Marley from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Saying Farewell to a Faithful Pal, that inspired the book (bring Kleenex).
Nuts as Marley is, we get the feeling that the world would be a better place if more humans lived and loved like this crazy yellow dog. Indeed, Marley and Me leaves no doubt as to why dogs, not cats, are tagged as “man’s best friend.” By the end of the book you’ll feel like you’ve known the Grogans for years, and that Marley was your dog, too. (Have I told you about Eve, our mellow yellow Lab? A Marley polar-opposite, Eve is by far and away the smartest member of our family.)
Even cat lovers will get this one. Four stars (for occasional language, adult themes.)
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Coming up:
Laughing All the Way: 10 Tips for the Hilarity Highway and a five-part mini-series: Write Away…
