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Two Books & One Movie / Reviews by Me 2/24/2021
February 24, 2021
Posted by Mary Beth

Go ahead, ask me what I’ve been doing lately…

…

The movie we watched is Nomadland directed by Chloe Zhao.

Quarantine Diary #332 Reading about Trees & Living with Cats
February 8, 2021
Posted by Mary Beth

My personal goal is to write this in one day. Sometimes my thoughts and ideas fly and dip like ‘always soaring never landing’ albatrosses – but do you know what happens to people who pursue albatrosses? They end up in the drink. Which is where more of my writing ends than you’d think.

Quarantine Diary #320
January 27, 2021
Posted by Mary Beth

How many feelings have you cycled through since the Inauguration? I’ve been the Lance Armstrong (without the drugs or cancer) of ups, downs, responses, relief, and outrage.

I read that the Twitter word trending last Thursday morning was “slept.” As in “I slept well last night for the first time in four years. How about you?”

Ayad Akhtar's "Homeland Elegies" & Do We Understand Colonialism?
October 22, 2020
Posted by Mary Beth

I heard part of an NPR / Fresh Air interview with writer Ayad Akhtar so I borrowed the book from the library and read it.

Outpedaling ‘The Big C’: My Healing Cycle Across America by Elizabeth McGowan
August 21, 2020
Posted by Mary Beth

“A powerful, rollicking adventure that takes us across America and deep into one person’s life-and-death experience.”

Carl Zimmer, one of America’s foremost science writers

 ...

Outpedaling ‘The Big C’: My Healing Cycle Across America

A Book Review by CAMILLE-YVETTE WELSCH
August 21, 2020
Posted by Mary Beth

Outpedaling "The Big C": My Healing Cycle across America Elizabeth McGowan Bancroft Press (Sep 6, 2020) Hardcover $28.95 (268pp) 978-1-61088-514-0

Quarantine Diary #141 8/5/2020 "Red Dust"
August 5, 2020
Posted by Mary Beth

I just finished reading “Red Dust – A Path Through China” by Ma Jain.  It is a remarkable book that asks more questions than it answers.

Quarantine Diary #70 6/4/2020 What's Your Frame?
June 4, 2020
Posted by Mary Beth

Started this yesterday and couldn’t figure out how to say it clearly. Let me try again…

…

It seems as if nearly all social media has turned into a referendum and compendium of ways to think about Racism in America. This is good. This is necessary. Keep reading and keep sharing.

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Speaking of things that do not work
Quarantine Diary #58, 5/11/2020 - Traveling to China in a Book
May 11, 2020
Posted by Mary Beth

As you may have noticed, I didn’t post anything yesterday. I had a nice day with an early morning walk (before the hard rain aka snow), talking on the phone with my kids, and reading.

"Death Comes for the Archbishop" and How to drive to the Y without a map.
August 20, 2019
Posted by Mary Beth

I read Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the Archbishop” when I was in high school. I heard it was an important book which made me curious (still does), so I borrowed it from the library and read the whole thing.