Shelf Life

Category: Culture

  • Article: 8 Retellings with a Bite of Darkness

    8 Retellings with a Bite of Darkness https://flip.it/YNAwhk

  • Luckiest Girl Alive book review|Lainey Gossip Books

    Luckiest Girl Alive book review|Lainey Gossip Books

    If You’re not following Lainey Gossip, may I suggest that you do. It’s all about pop culture including books, fashion, movies, celebrities, etc. with lots of fun videos including this one of Tom Cruise thanking people for seeing his latest movie Top Gun: Maverick while free falling from an airplane and talking on his way down. It’s all about getting the shot says Lainey, and he sure does.

    Here are a couple of posts from her site–and I mean who wouldn’t love a column titled Smutty Book Round-up?

    Here’s short bio from her website

    LaineyGossip.com is an entertainment news and gossip blog co-founded by Elaine “Lainey” Lui. The primary voice of LaineyGossip.com, she is also co-host of CTV’s daytime talk show “The Social”, and a reporter on CTV’s “etalk”, Canada’s number one rated entertainment news show.

    The site started as an email to small group of friends and colleagues in 2003 and spread by word of mouth to thousands of now loyal readers. It launched as a website in December 2004 and has since grown into an immensely popular entertainment destination visited by over 1.5 million monthly unique readers. Generating over 18 million monthly page views, it is now a leading international celebrity gossip source and a must read for well-read, educated females across North America.

    Aside from securing hot tips and exclusive party access on its own, the site has benefited from the access associated with Lainey’s role on CTV’s etalk, which she joined in 2006 as a special correspondent. With etalk Lainey has covered the Red Carpet at the Oscars, SuperBowl XLII, Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals, and other top tier events worldwide.

    In April of 2014 Lainey fulfilled a lifelong dream when her first book Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When a Mother Knows Best, What’s a Daughter to Do? A Memoir (Sort Of) was published (by Random House in Canada and Penguin in the USA).

    Bored yet? If not, below is a selection of clippings from a handful of magazines and newspapers over the past few years.

    Need more? See the our full bio here (PDF format) or email press@laineygossip.com for more information.
    Buzzfeed, April 2021
    Perez Hilton And Lainey Gossip Were Famous For Their Mean Blogs. Now They’re Trying To Change.
    By Saachi Koul

    ELLE

    Every day after I came home from high school, I’d run to my bedroom, turn on my enormous, whirring black Dell desktop, and read Perez Hilton — the up-to-the-minute celebrity gossip blog — for hours. Paparazzi hunting young famous women and bloggers updating their whereabouts by the second created the feeling that every It girl in Los Angeles was publicly spiraling… Link to full article
    Toronto Star, Jan 2021
    TV sensation Lainey Lui’s dogs, Barney and Elvis, may the best-loved beagles in Toronto. You have to meet them
    By Jillian Vieira

    ELLE

    There are dog people, and then there’s Lainey Lui. Along with husband Jacek Szenowicz, she’s pet parent to Barney, 10, and Elvis, 5, a pair of brotherly beagles who The Social co-host, eTalk co-anchor and founder of LaineyGossip.com fully admits are beneficiaries of an ultra-spoiled situation… Link to full article
    ELLE Canada, May 2020
    15 Inspirational Asian Canadians to Know
    By Patricia Karounos and Hannah Zeigler

    ELLE

    All of our best gossip comes from Elaine Lui – or Lainey, as she is better known. The Toronto-born writer launched her eponymous blog, Lainey Gossip, in 2004 while still working at Vancouver’s Covenant House. Two years later, she quit her job to preside over the site full time, and she’s been a regular fixture in our pop-culture routine ever since… Link to full article
    Chatelaine, Sept 2019
    Elaine Lui On Aging: Some Women Want To Embrace Their Wrinkles, But That’s Not Me
    By Courtney Shea

    Chatelaine

    I’m on TV several times a week for The Social and etalk, and one of the things I’m constantly hearing from audience members or on social media is, “Cut that hair!”—that it’s too long for my age. First of all: If you had my hair, would you cut it?… Link to full article
    The Cut, Nov 2018
    How I Get It Done: Elaine Lui of LaineyGossip
    Lisa Ryan

    The Cut

    You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who understands gossip better than Elaine “Lainey” Lui, the Canadian maven behind LaineyGossip.com. She’s been running the site for more than a decade, and parlayed it into a career as an entertainment journalist…. Link to full article
    BBC News, Sept 2017
    Canadian blogger Lainey Lui on why gossip is political
    By Jessica Murphy

    BBC

    Elaine “Lainey” Lui is keeping a sharp eye on Colin Farrell. The Irish actor is a few tables over in the lobby of a downtown hotel being interviewed for a film he’s promoting at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff). The festival, which runs until 17 September, is a busy time for Lui…. Link to full article
    The Ringer, October 2016
    Lainey Is Yours in Gossip: How a 12-year-old celebrity blog became essential again
    By Allison P. Davis

    The Ringer

    Elaine Lui has had her back to me for about 20 minutes, typing away on her Surface tablet. We’re tucked into her broom closet of an office in Toronto’s Bell Media complex, where Lui sits amid an immense but well-organized pile of stuff. A heap of designer shoes is stashed in a cubby; the walls are decorated in the style of collage-obsessed 19-year-old – there’s a Slytherin banner on her front door… Link to full article
    Slate, July 2016
    A Celebrity Gossip Expert Explains the Summer of Taylor Swift
    By Heather Schwedel

    Slate.com

    Taylor Swift is having quite the summer – from her breakup with Calvin Harris to the birth of Hiddleswift to Kim Kardashian’s receipts-apalooza, plus or minus a Nils Sjoberg, she’s been consistently dominating headlines. But what does it all mean? LaineyGossip.com is where many of the smart women I follow online turn for informed interpretation of the latest celebrity scandal… Link to full article
    The Walrus, March 2015
    IN DEFENCE OF LOW CULTURE: And praise of love, hate, discovery, jealousy, obsession, betrayal, and mean-girling
    By Elaine Lui for The Walrus Talks Creativity

    walrus-speech-mar15.jpg

    Elaine Lui is a Canadian television personality, reporter, blogger, and author. She runs the celebrity-gossip website laineygossip.com, reports for CTV’s etalk, co-hosts CTV’s daily talk series The Social, and wrote the mother-daughter memoir Listen to the Squawking Chicken… Link to see video
    Toronto Life, November 2014
    Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: the people who changed the city in 2014
    By Toronto Life

    toronto-life-nov14.jpg

    She’s the quirkiest, funniest and most watchable member of The Social, CTV’s answer to The View, and the active ingredient in its success. The show, now in its second season, reaches 2.4 million viewers weekly (up 300,000 from Season One) and has reeled in such high-watt guests as Katy Perry, Jessica Alba, Jane Lynch and Daniel Radcliffe. Her website, LaineyGossip, attracts… Link to full article
    FLARE May, 2014
    Mother Clucker
    By Maureen Halushak

    flare-may2014.jpg

    In her new “sort of” memoir, Lainey Gossip’s ELAINE LUI divulges her most personal scoop yet: the inner workings of her insanely close relationship with her mom, semi-affectionately known as the Squawking Chicken. Over dim sum, MAUREEN HALUSHAK observes the dynamic. Read on for the full experience, plus an exclusive excerpt… Link to full article

    https://www.laineygossip.com/Luckiest-Girl-Alive-book-review/Books/2063

  • Mindy Kaling, Amazon Publishing, and Amazon Studios Announce Mindy’s Book Studio and First-Look Deal, a New Home for Dynamic Storytelling

    Mindy Kaling, Amazon Publishing, and Amazon Studios Announce Mindy’s Book Studio and First-Look Deal, a New Home for Dynamic Storytelling

    Mindy Kaling, Amazon Publishing, and Amazon Studios just announced the launch of Mindy’s Book Studio, a boutique story studio that will publish books selected by Kaling from emerging and established diverse voices.

    “I had the best time working on Nothing Like I Imagined, and I am so excited to continue my relationship with Amazon,” said Kaling, about her last book, a collection of essays in which she reflected upon her new role as single mom, the perks of not having a husband, and her struggle with social anxiety. While dealing with all this, Kaling gets Kanye West’d (or should we now say Ye’d) at her best friend’s birthday, thwarts an “only in LA” crime, and learns what it means to have it all.

    Starting later this year, Mindy’s Book Studio will be publishing books across genres, from fresh romantic comedies and poignant coming-of-age stories designed to make readers laugh—and cringe—to gripping dramas with unforgettable female protagonists.

    Kaling, a multi-talented actress, comedienne, writer, and Hollywood-bruncher, is known for her insightful and hilarious books including Why Not Me and the delightful and upfront personal Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns). She currently has 11.6 million Twitter followers.

    The partnership between Amazon Studios and Kaling will adapt material published under Mindy’s Book Studio as feature motion pictures which will exclusively stream on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.  Kaling holds first-producer option on adaptations. Kaling has also signed her debut novel and new essay collection for publication with Amazon Publishing.

    “I’m passionate about bringing unique stories to readers and viewers, and I can’t wait to help discover and support talented new voices through Mindy’s Book Studio,” she says.

    From best-selling memoirs to some of television’s most beloved shows and characters, Kaling has entertained readers, viewers, and listeners alike for nearly two decades. Building on her relatable and hilarious take on love and relationships—as seen in her Amazon Charts best-selling essay collection Nothing Like I Imagined (Except for Sometimes) and Amazon Studios’ hit film Late Night (which she co-wrote, produced, and starred in)—Mindy’s Book Studio will expand Kaling’s beloved storytelling sensibilities to a new slate of juicy, unforgettable books that readers can access through subscription programs such as Kindle Unlimited, and in print and audio.

    “We are delighted to work with Mindy and Amazon Studios on Amazon’s first-ever book studio,” said Julia Sommerfeld, publisher of Amazon Publishing. “Mindy is brilliant at bringing to life highly entertaining, funny, sharp, and bingeable stories, and we can’t wait to collaborate with her on discovering and championing must-read stories from new and diverse voices.”

    “With her visionary voice, trademark wit, and tremendous artistic acumen, Mindy Kaling remains a relentless innovator in the creative community,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. “She is a pioneering artist, remarkable role model, and philanthropist who continues to tap into global and cultural zeitgeists as a source for her refreshingly authentic storytelling. We could not be more thrilled to expand our collaboration with her across Amazon to not only showcase her incredible talents but also introduce new, dynamic storytellers to our global customers.”

    Kaling is represented by 3 Arts Entertainment, CAA, The Lede Company, and PJ Shapiro. Sommerfeld, Lauren O’Connor, head of IP & literary acquisitions at Amazon Studios, and Carmen Johnson, editorial director of Mindy’s Book Studio, will work with Kaling to find unputdownable stories with the potential to come to life on the screen.

    In 2023, Amazon Publishing will also publish Kaling’s debut novel, a comedic and twisty page-turner under Mindy’s Book Studio. In 2024, Amazon Publishing will publish a new collection of personal essays in print, digital, and audio, offering Kaling’s latest reflections on life, motherhood, friendship, and being a boss. Amazon Studios has acquired first-look rights for Kaling’s forthcoming novel and essay collection.

  • Good Rich People and the Bad Games They Play

    Good Rich People and the Bad Games They Play

                Lyla and Graham Herschel like to play games. Not board or video games. Too boring for this ultra-rich restless couple who live in a home high up in the Hollywood Hills and not too far from Graham’s overbearing mother who would certainly win any mother-in-law from hell contest.

                No, the games they like to play involve destroying people’s lives. And that’s what they intend to do to Demi Golding, who they believe is a high earning executive at a tech company.

                In Good Rich People, Eliza Jane Brazier, sets up an unwitting match between these heartless trio and Demi, who is homeless. But they don’t know that. By luck—and the cunning of those always on the brink of catastrophe—she has the necessary information to take them up on an offer to live on their property.

                Typically, son, mother, and wife set people up so they lose everything—their jobs, reputations, and money. But Demi doesn’t have any of those to lose and she’s learned how to survive during her tumultuous childhood, a skill she really needs to try to outwit the threesome who, suffocating with boredom, have upped their game to include murder.

                Brazier, who lived in London for years but now resides in California, knows a little bit about homelessness and having to scrabble to survive. After moving to England, she lost her job and was lucky enough to be taken in by a kindly man who would become her future husband.

                “He was always taking people in and helping them,” she says about her musician spouse who is now deceased.

                The jobs she was able to find didn’t pay enough to give her security and so what writing about the ultra-rich versus the poor really resonates.

                It’s typical of Brazier to draw upon her experiences for her books.

                “I worked at a ranch in Northern California which is where my book, If I Disappear, is set,” she says in a phone interview where she’s working on her fourth book. Her third, set in Los Angeles where she lives, is already written.

                When I ask her if the real ranch was as creepy and weird as the one in her book, she laughs and tells me it was worse. Wow.

                Life is different now with the success of her books. Brazier says she was always a storyteller but didn’t have confidence in her writing ability. When she finally decided to give it a try, she spent a lot of time honing her writing skills and learning the business. Now, she not only is writing mystery novels but also is developing If I Disappear for television.

                “It’s still unbelievable,” she says about the turn her life has taken. “I’m still somewhat in denial.”

  • Capote’s Women: The Story of the Writers’ Swans

    Capote’s Women: The Story of the Writers’ Swans

    “There are certain women who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich,” author Truman Capote wrote about the beautiful, well-dressed, and style-setting women he called his “swans.”

    The ultimate arm candy for the wealthiest and most powerful of men, these women of the mid-20th century were trophy wives before the term existed. And they counted Capote, the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and creator of the true crime genre with In Cold Blood, his chilling recounting of the brutal murders of a Kansas family, as their best friend.

    In Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, New York Times best-selling author Laurence Leamer takes us back to a time and a world where jet-setting, making the best-dressed list, attending and giving A-plus list parties, and dining at the most wonderful places whether in New York, Paris, London, or wherever your yacht happened to be moored were what these exalted women excelled at.

    Obtaining their lifestyles depended upon a confluence of beauty, wit, moxie, and marrying and knowing when to discard husbands as they worked their way up and up. At times, divorce papers were barely signed before the next wedding was held.

    “You have to enter into their lives,” says Leamer, explaining how he so succinctly captured the personalities of the swans: Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C.Z. Guest and Lee Radziwill who constantly seethed because of the attention her older sister, Jackie Kennedy, always received.

    “Even though,” Leamer points out, “unlike Jackie she didn’t want to do the hard work that it takes to achieve something.”

    These women knew how to climb to higher heights. Gloria Guinness had transitioned from a childhood of constant motion in Mexico and marriage at age 20 to a man 27 years older to marrying a German aristocrat and a romantic involvement with a top Nazi during World War II. Her third marriage was to the grandson of an Egyptian King and her last, the biggest prize, was to a scion of the Guinness beer family who was also a member of Parliament. Other wins were modeling for big time designers and the best of the fashion magazines as well as being on the International Best Dressed List for several years.

    But ultimately, she wasn’t happy says Leamer who believes she committed suicide.

    There was also Barbara “Babe” Paley whose mother raised her   three daughters to marry money. Paley, who had been badly injured in an automobile accident when young, spent her life in considerable pain. Her husband expected perfection in all things and so she never slept in the same bedroom, so she could the loss of her front teeth.

    But being the best wasn’t always the answer to happy life. The swans may have had uber-wealthy husbands, but they didn’t have good husbands. Frequently husbands and wives were flagrantly promiscuous, and the swans often led separate lives not only from their spouses but also their children.

    “For them, to be a mom was to be hands-off,” says Leamer. “And the children often paid a price. They didn’t necessary learn to do anything because they were going to inherit a lot of money.”

    Ornamental to the max, these were women who did nothing but did it extremely well. And Capote, despite his great literary successes, spent a lot of time doing nothing with them. He listened to their secrets and ultimately decided to write a book revealing what he had heard. When an article he penned revealed some of those stories, the swans all turned against him, and he was exiled from the society he craved.

    “I went to a family wedding recently,” says Leamer noting the warmth and connectiveness that everyone had. “These women and Capote never had this.”

    It’s such a cliché to say money doesn’t buy happiness. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And it certainly is delicious to read about the lives of women who many thought had it all even though they didn’t.

    Online Book Event


    Join Laurence Leamer in an online event hosted by the American Writer’s Museum in Chicago when he reads from and discusses his new book.”

    When: October 13 at 6:30 p.m.

    How to Join In: This program will be hosted online via Zoom. To register, visit americanwritersmuseum.org/program-calendar/laurence-leamer-capotes-women/

  • VIRTUAL EVENT: Mary Adkins author of Palm Beach on Zoom

    VIRTUAL EVENT: Mary Adkins author of Palm Beach on Zoom

    This Tuesday, join Mary Adkins in a free Zoom event at 6 p.m. (CDT) as she is joined in conversation with Lucas Schaefer to discuss her latest book, Palm Beach (Harper 2021).

    As described by BookPeople, this thought-provoking page-turner from the author of When You Read This and Privilege is a powerful novel that uniquely captures the painful divide between the haves and have-nots and the seductive lure of the American dream, and is perfect for readers of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney and Emma Straub.

    Living in a tiny Queens apartment, Rebecca and her husband Mickey typify struggling, 30-something New Yorkers—he’s an actor, and she’s a freelance journalist. But after the arrival of their baby son, the couple decides to pack up and head for sunny, comfortable Palm Beach, where Mickey’s been offered a sweet deal managing the household of a multimillionaire Democratic donor.

    Once there, he quickly doubles his salary by going to work for a billionaire: venture capitalist Cecil Stone. Rebecca, a writer whose beat is economic inequality, is initially horrified: she pillories men like Stone, a ruthless businessman famous for crushing local newspapers. So no one is more surprised than her when she accepts a job working for Cecil’s wife as a ghostwriter, thinking of the excellent pay and the rare, inside look at this famous Forbes-list family. What she doesn’t expect is that she’ll grow close to the Stones, or become a regular at their high-powered dinners. And when a medical crisis hits, it’s the Stones who come to their rescue, using their power, influence, and wealth to avert catastrophe.

    As she and Mickey are both pulled deeper into this topsy-turvy household, they become increasingly dependent on their problematic benefactors. Then when she discovers a shocking secret about the Stones, Rebecca will have to decide: how many compromises can one couple make?

    EVENT GUIDELINES

    • Digital Doors Open at approx. 5:50PM CDT on August 10, 2021
    • Event Begins at 6:00PM CDT.
    • Cost: Free

    NOTE: Because this is a virtual event that will be hosted on Zoom, you will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing and sufficient Internet access. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.

    To register, click here.

    Reviews

    “Mary Adkins’ PALM BEACH is a rare page-turner that gives you all the fun and decadence of a beach read while exploring the relevant issues around wealth inequity. I opened it up and could not stop reading!”
    –    Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane

    “A look inside the world of the ultra-rich, PALM BEACH offers up moral complexity, page-turning plotting, and deep insight into motherhood and family. Delicious, addictive, whip-smart and full of heart.”
    –    Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen

    “Delves into the world of Florida’s wealthy excess. . . . it’ll keep readers turning the pages.” -Publishers Weekly

    “A smart page-turner.” –    Palm Beach Daily News

    ABOUT MARY ADKINS

    Mary Adkins is the author of When You Read This and Privilege. A native of the American South and a graduate of Duke University and Yale Law School, her writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Atlantic. She also teaches storytelling for The Moth. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

    ABOUT LUCAS SCHAEFER

    Lucas Schaefer’s work has appeared in The Baffler, Slate, One Story, Off Assignment, and elsewhere. He has been a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, and a writer-in-residence at the Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency, where he was the recipient of a GW Jackson Multicultural Society grant, given to artists invested in exploring race in their work. He lives with his husband in Austin, where he is at work on a novel. Find him on Twitter @LucasESchaefer.

    About BookPeople

    BookPeople has been the leading independent bookstore in Texas since 1970. Located in the heart of downtown, BookPeople has been voted best bookstore in Austin for over 20 years. BookPeople was voted Bookstore of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly in 2005. With visits from some of the most interesting and important authors of the past 50 years, as well as by Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, BookPeople is the destination bookstore in Texas.

    Location 

    BookPeople is located at the corner of 6th & Lamar. We’re right across the street from Waterloo Records and in the same complex as REI & Anthropologie.BookPeople
    603 N. Lamar
    Austin, TX 78703
    512-472-5050

    By purchasing a book from BookPeople, you are not only supporting a local, independent business, but you are also showing publishers that they should continue sending authors to BookPeople.

    Thank you for supporting Mary Adkins, Lucas Schaefer, and your local independent bookstore!

  • National Book Lovers Day: Celebrate By Learning to Download Books for Free

    National Book Lovers Day: Celebrate By Learning to Download Books for Free

    August 9 is National Book Lovers Day, a celebration for book worms everywhere. And lucky for us, our public library has its own collection of ebooks and audiobooks that we can download for free.
    Libby, the leading library reading app by OverDrive, lets users download ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and more at no cost. All you need to get started is a library card—and even if you don’t have one, an Instant Digital Card can be yours in 30 seconds with just a phone number. 

    Besides being able to borrow digital titles, OverDrive launched a new monthly blog series this July showing June’s top ten most popular books that had been borrowed digitally from the public library on Libby. Now in August, they’re sharing July’s top ten. On the list, you’ll find frequent New York Times bestsellers including Daniel Silva and Danielle Steel. Also among the Top Ten is T.J. Newman with their stunning instant bestselling debut title, Falling.

    As a reminder, Professional Book Nerds podcast always previews the upcoming month’s buzziest new books as well, and you can listen to their August episode right here. You can find July’s most popular new releases in the list below.

    The top ten new books from July

    The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

    Falling by T.J. Newman


    The Cellist by Daniel Silva


    It’s Better This Way by Debbie Macomber

    Nine Lives by Danielle Steel

    While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory


    The Therapist by B. A. Paris

    The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

    The Bone Code by Kathy Reichs


    Fallen by Linda Castillo

  • Griffin’s Heart: Working Through Loss

    Griffin’s Heart: Working Through Loss

                   It’s been ten years since actress Reagan Pasternak’s beloved cat, Griffin, died and since then, though life has been very busy with her career, marrying, and becoming a mother, she has missed the pet she calls a “soul mate.”

                   To help with her grieving, Pasternak who starred in Netflix/HULU/HBO’s “Being Erica”, HBO’s “Sharp Objects”, Syfy’s “Wynonna Earp,”  and BET’s “Ms. Pat,” began journaling her feelings, incorporating not only the pain she was feeling but also tools and techniques for processing her grief. It took a decade but now Pasternak’s book, “Griffin’s Heart: Mourning Your Pet With No Apologies” (Creatures Align Press $27.99) is available through Amazon.

                   Pasternak, in a phone call from her home in California, describes the book as an interactive memoir, keepsake,  and healing journal that she hopes will provide guidance for others who have lost a pet.

                   “I feel that animals get so forgotten after giving us so much love,” she says. “I wanted to honor them.”

                   Pasternak doesn’t consider herself a writer but says she felt compelled to write about all that she has learned while going through her own stages of grief. That includes reading about the brain and how it processes emotions and information, exploring different ways to heal such as music therapy, and taking up meditation to help with anxiety. Doing so helped with the loss of her other pets as well including another dog who just recently passed away.

                   “Everything began accumulating in my psyche, and one morning my husband said that I needed to finish the book,” she says. “I had started it, put it aside, had a baby, was acting—so I was busy. Every morning when I started writing the book, I’d ask myself to whom am I writing. I wanted readers to have something, so they knew they weren’t alone and to know they could get through. Then it just all came together in a cosmic way. I met an editor who thought it was a great idea and we started working together.”

                   The book contains exercises, chances to journal, and is a repository for readers to enter their own memories, melding their losses into what Pasternak sees as a keepsake.

                   Since the book was published, Pasternak has been receiving notes from readers who share their own stories of losing a pet.

                   “My husband and I read them and cry,” she says. “It’s so touching that these strangers are reaching out. I keep getting photos from people showing how they have placed the book next to the urn containing their pet’s ashes.”

    This outreach has inspired Pasternak to stay focused on the book and the stories people share.   “I just believe I’m helping change the culture of grief,” she says.

    For more information, visit www.griffinsheart.com/

  • Niksen: The Dutch Art of Doing Nothing

    Niksen: The Dutch Art of Doing Nothing

           “This isn’t getting the work of the world done,” my mother would announce to no one in particular whenever she had sat for more than a few minutes.  Whatever the work of the world was—and I never quite figured it out– since my mom had a full-time job, grew roses, looked after my grandmother who lived next door, took Judo classes, cooked Julia Child-style dinners, and co-led my Girl Scout Troop, it certainly meant she couldn’t sit around

           If only mom had met Olga Mecking, author of Niksen: The Dutch Art of Doing Nothing (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2021; $11.58 Amazon price).

           Niksen isn’t about getting the work of the world done. Indeed, it’s not about any work at all. Instead, niksen is doing nothing, according to Mecking. And no that doesn’t mean vegging out on the couch watching the entire last season of “Homecoming” or reading posts on Facebook.

    “It is doing nothing without a purpose,” she says. “I believe we’ve forgotten how to do things just because, not without any larger purpose like becoming healthier. We run or walk because we want to reach a certain number of steps and not because it feels good. The same way, we can do nothing because it feels nice and not because it will offer us certain benefits–even if it might.”

    Mecking, the mother of three children, who lives in the Netherlands and works as a translator and freelance writer, says doing nothing comes naturally to her.

    “As a child, I loved sitting around in my father’s favorite armchair and just daydreaming,” says Mecking. whose article on niksen in the New York Times garnered 150,000 shares in just a few days after it was published indicating an embrace of the concept.  “But since I became a mom, it became really hard to do nothing. But I also realized that I niks around quite a lot even if these are in-between moments like when I’m waiting for my kids to come home or taking the tram on the way to run some errands. So maybe I don’t have many long stretches of time. but I do have many short moments – enough to do nothing.”

    Not me. I often find myself repeating my mother’s phrase.  Though I continue to wonder what the work of the word really entails, I know that it won’t get done if I’m sitting. I ask Mecking, if I’ll ever be able to shed my past and be able to niks?

       “It can be very hard, and I think especially for women, it can be even harder,” says Mecking about the struggle to just do nothing. “Simply because we do more work that’s unpaid and unsatisfying. Men protect their own free time and women protect men’s free time and kids’ free time, but no one protects the free time of women.”

       But there’s hope.

       “I think it would help us to re-frame doing nothing and to think of it as something valuable,” she says. “For example, if you can tell yourself that if you do nothing now then you can do better work later on, that’s already a big step. If we can learn to value niksen and downtime and taking time off the same way as we value work that would be great.  We can try reframing doing nothing and describe it as something that we need, like food or water. Think about it. Our bodies can’t work all day long without a break, no? The same way, our brains can’t either. It is impossible to expect people to be working with their brains all day long, be it at work or at home.”

           But whether you can niks or not niks, it’s okay says Mecking.

       “Sometimes it just doesn’t work,” she says. “Maybe it won’t work for you. It doesn’t mean that you’re a loser. You have to find a way to relax that works for you, and if that’s doing nothing then awesome, but if that’s going for a run that is great too! But if you want to try niksen, start slow, and take a look at how you spend your time. You might find that you do more nothing that you realize.”

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    Several decades ago, George Saunders and his wife were visiting Washington D.C. when their cousin mentioned that anecdotal evidence indicated President Abraham Lincoln had surreptitiously visited the tomb of his 11-year-old son, Willie.

    For years, the story of Lincoln, so overcome by grief, that he stole into the monument where his son was interred, nagged at the edges of Saunders’s mind. But Saunders, who teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University, had never written a novel and besides his writing was mostly satirical in nature.

    “But this material has been calling me all these years,” says Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House 2017; $28). “It’s like their story was a stalker, it kept showing up at my window and it needed to get out.”

    Justifying his foray into a new literary form by telling himself he’d had a nice run regarding his career—Saunders is an acclaimed short story writer who is included in Time’s list of the 100 most influential people the world, he decided why not try “this Lincoln thing.”

    Saunders still had doubts about his ability to tell the story in the way the way it needed to be told. But having grown up in Chicago as part of a devout Catholic family and now having adapted some of the tenets of Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, he has written a book that though just recently released is already garnering great reviews.

    Bardo is a Tibetan concept–a kind of transitional zone says Saunders.

    “We’re all in the bardo right now that goes from birth to death,” he says, noting that Buddhists would call these transition stages reincarnation and noting that the book takes place just after that, in the bardo that goes from death to whatever comes next. “Now is the time to live–knowing that death is coming—if we can accept ourselves as a mess.”

    With all his research, Saunders has come to see how Lincoln persevered despite the immense weight of the Civil War, the deaths of so many Americans and that of his son as well.

    “We had a president back then who bent,” he says, “when others would have broken.”