Jean Harkin's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-writers-mill"
Escape from Chaos via Book Travels
Like everyone else, I’ve tried to escape from our troubled, chaotic year. Books have been a great pathway out. Coincidentally, the last two books I’ve read (and reviewed here on Goodreads) involved travel on the road.
“Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain” by Michael Paterniti (2001) is a memoir by a young man who followed up on a fascinating lead—to meet the pathologist who had absconded the Princeton, New Jersey, medical center with Albert Einstein’s brain after he died in 1955 and kept it for forty years. Young Paterniti became the road trip driver for elderly Dr. Harvey, who then wished, near the end of his life, to return the brain to Einstein’s daughter in California. The book details this cross-country adventure with humor and insight.
“The Long Haul: a Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road” by Finn Murphy (2018) is the memoir of a truck driver who contracted for long-distance moving companies for over thirty years. His narrative reveals the inside story of the truck-driving lifestyle, hard work, and relationships forged on the job. Murphy’s observations of the private lives of “shippers” (moving company customers) reveals much about ordinary and extraordinary human lives in America. His tales could not have been made up!
From this helpful navigator, I also learned some tips about packing, moving, saving stuff—and how to keep safe driving on the highway alongside trucks.
Besides reading, I went on a writing journey, contributing poetry and helping to edit The Writers’ Mill’s eighth annual anthology. The title is “Journeys Through Chaos: an Anthology to Bring us Together.” The challenges of this pandemic, political, and fire-devastated year inspired much of the journal’s contents. But there is also humor and some writings inspired by personal struggles and hardships.
The anthology will be uniquely published during the Writers’ Mill group’s November meeting. This publication will be our fourth “in meeting” upload, but our first to publish via Zoom. Leader Sheila Deeth will direct our efforts from final formatting, to cover design, to setting the purchase price, as the group participates through Zoom, hosted by our local librarian.
The Writers’ Mill 2020 collection will be available for purchase online soon after November 15 at a price likely under $9. Be sure to look for the colorful cover on Amazon and take a peek inside at an enticing blend of fiction, essays, and poetry. Profits from sales will go to the Cedar Mill Library in Washington County, Oregon.
“Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain” by Michael Paterniti (2001) is a memoir by a young man who followed up on a fascinating lead—to meet the pathologist who had absconded the Princeton, New Jersey, medical center with Albert Einstein’s brain after he died in 1955 and kept it for forty years. Young Paterniti became the road trip driver for elderly Dr. Harvey, who then wished, near the end of his life, to return the brain to Einstein’s daughter in California. The book details this cross-country adventure with humor and insight.
“The Long Haul: a Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road” by Finn Murphy (2018) is the memoir of a truck driver who contracted for long-distance moving companies for over thirty years. His narrative reveals the inside story of the truck-driving lifestyle, hard work, and relationships forged on the job. Murphy’s observations of the private lives of “shippers” (moving company customers) reveals much about ordinary and extraordinary human lives in America. His tales could not have been made up!
From this helpful navigator, I also learned some tips about packing, moving, saving stuff—and how to keep safe driving on the highway alongside trucks.
Besides reading, I went on a writing journey, contributing poetry and helping to edit The Writers’ Mill’s eighth annual anthology. The title is “Journeys Through Chaos: an Anthology to Bring us Together.” The challenges of this pandemic, political, and fire-devastated year inspired much of the journal’s contents. But there is also humor and some writings inspired by personal struggles and hardships.
The anthology will be uniquely published during the Writers’ Mill group’s November meeting. This publication will be our fourth “in meeting” upload, but our first to publish via Zoom. Leader Sheila Deeth will direct our efforts from final formatting, to cover design, to setting the purchase price, as the group participates through Zoom, hosted by our local librarian.
The Writers’ Mill 2020 collection will be available for purchase online soon after November 15 at a price likely under $9. Be sure to look for the colorful cover on Amazon and take a peek inside at an enticing blend of fiction, essays, and poetry. Profits from sales will go to the Cedar Mill Library in Washington County, Oregon.
My Year of Books, and Goodreads to You!
I’m starting off the new book year and looking back to share some of my 2021 reading highlights with you. Maybe you’re looking for a short book or a long book, a popular one or one you’ve not yet read, a book by an Oregon author—or something else. Here we go:
I read 36 books in 2021, equaling 9,197 pages! My average rating was 4.3 stars; I gave 5 stars perfect ratings to about 12, so not such a grumpy critic, was I!
The shortest book I read was “The Catalog of Small Contentments,” 120 pages by Portland poet Carolyn Martin. The longest was best-selling “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles. (576 pages.)
The most popular of books I read was “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Over one million readers on Goodreads shelved this book. The highest rated on my booklist was “The Point of Vanishing” by Portland-area author Maryka Biaggio.
All of my 36 books are reviewed on Goodreads; my first review of 2021 was “The Girl and the Bombardier” by Susan Tate Ankeny of Newberg, Oregon. I gave this book 5 stars. My last review of the year, also rating 5 stars, was “The Snow Child” by Alaska author Eowyn Ivey.
Other books I read in 2021 by Portland-area authors were “Claws for Concern” by Sheila Deeth, “One Long River of Song” and “Chicago” by the late Brian Doyle, “The Night Always Comes” by Willy Vlautin, “Fuzzy Logic” by Maren Anderson, “The Sound of Murder” by Cindy Brown, “Cat Conundrum” by Mollie Hunt, and “Where Lilacs Still Bloom” by Jane Kirkpatrick.
Happy New Year and Good Reading to All in 2022! If you’re browsing, take a look at the Writers’ Mill’s latest anthology, “The Floor Above,” available on Amazon. Profits go to the Portland-area Cedar Mill Library.
I read 36 books in 2021, equaling 9,197 pages! My average rating was 4.3 stars; I gave 5 stars perfect ratings to about 12, so not such a grumpy critic, was I!
The shortest book I read was “The Catalog of Small Contentments,” 120 pages by Portland poet Carolyn Martin. The longest was best-selling “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles. (576 pages.)
The most popular of books I read was “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Over one million readers on Goodreads shelved this book. The highest rated on my booklist was “The Point of Vanishing” by Portland-area author Maryka Biaggio.
All of my 36 books are reviewed on Goodreads; my first review of 2021 was “The Girl and the Bombardier” by Susan Tate Ankeny of Newberg, Oregon. I gave this book 5 stars. My last review of the year, also rating 5 stars, was “The Snow Child” by Alaska author Eowyn Ivey.
Other books I read in 2021 by Portland-area authors were “Claws for Concern” by Sheila Deeth, “One Long River of Song” and “Chicago” by the late Brian Doyle, “The Night Always Comes” by Willy Vlautin, “Fuzzy Logic” by Maren Anderson, “The Sound of Murder” by Cindy Brown, “Cat Conundrum” by Mollie Hunt, and “Where Lilacs Still Bloom” by Jane Kirkpatrick.
Happy New Year and Good Reading to All in 2022! If you’re browsing, take a look at the Writers’ Mill’s latest anthology, “The Floor Above,” available on Amazon. Profits go to the Portland-area Cedar Mill Library.
