My Featured Posts for 2013 are:
* Poems in Your Post - A reliable weekly feature of accessible yet exquisite poems offering fresh vision and solace through aesthetic excellence.
* Mom and Me - Monthly cross-generational reviews in a variety of genres. Whether you're 40 or 80, you'll find interesting new books. Mom and me hope to inspire other mother-daughter pairs to challenge themselves and enrich their relationships through good books.
* Book Club Books - Reviews of those texts my IRL book group is reading, with a special focus on which ones provoked the most interesting conversations. Get your next great (if sometimes polarizingly delicious) book group books here!
* Besties - Books bound to become your literary best buds. As a longtime teacher of teens and adults, I feel that these ones will hold wide appeal and make a lasting impact on your life.
* Random Acts of Action Reading - Books that spurred me to take action in the world or helped me to embrace my life's journey. My hope is that they may do the same for you.
Truth for you: I feel astonished and grateful when people visit this blog, read the poems, respond to the reviews. Thank you, thank you for visiting me today. And please let me know how I may be of use.
Contact me at actionreaders@gmail.com.
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"About" Archive OR Last Year's Me: Astonishing how we shift and grow with each annum.
My one-year experiment in reading for change.
Every book I read, I take action. Then I write a review and I tell you about it. Every month, I create a magical tale for you in which one of my various alter-egos gallivants around adventuring and actioning all over the place, hero-wise. Just my little way of saying: Here's what I did and here's why it's changing my life or saving the world. (or possibly not, but we'll cross that bridge if ever we come to it. Fingers crossed: so far, so good...)
Oh, don't get me wrong: I'm no Pollyanna, and my actions aren't really likely to save the world (anytime this week, that is). But I'll tell you this: They might just save me.
And why should you care?
1. I'll give it to you straight about the books I read. It'll be painless and clean, like ripping off a bandaid. And it'll smell good, like a peppermint patty or rosemary-pear upside-down cake. Or Orbit, mojito flavor.
2. You'll get a new superpower: the ability to redeem even the most annoying book with your own quick, fun, and easy action.
3. You're SO cutting edge right now. When this reading-for-change thing takes over the world of bibliophiles and students of all ages, you can say you were one of those uber-hip early adopters.
4. Social change makers and personal development gurus are the new rock stars. Practice this, and you are one step closer to a cover shoot with Brad Pitt or Oprah or Angelina Jolie or Pink or Jay-Z or your own socially-conscious celeb du jour.
5. You love rags-to-riches, triumph-over-challenges, bootstrappy real-life sagas. This is shaping up into one of 'em.
Yeh, but who are you?
I'm Laurie and I live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet: the Pacific way, way Northwest. If I walk five minutes from my house going east, I'm staring at a gorgeous alpine lake. If I walk five minutes from my house going west, I'm staring at the Pacific Ocean, dotted with layer upon layer of San Juan Islands. I live on a quiet cul-de-sac off a cul-de-sac (we like to call it 'the polyp' - 'the aneurysm 'seemed just a tad too dire) in a suburban neighborhood with my Dave.
So what else is there to know?
Book lover, bird lover, dog lover, people lover, tree hugger.
Sing? Yes. Showtunes? You betcha. Dance? Yes. Cook? Yes. Yoga? Yes. Walkies? Yes. Chickens? Yes. Two.
Drama queen, Shakespeare freak, poet, sometime teacher, wildlife rescuer, backyard homesteader.
How did I get started on this blog and then found this ActionReaders movement?
I can't really remember. Some things just come so naturally, you don't exactly know when they began.
But suffice to say that at one point I had just read so many books, essays, poems, billboards, recipes, magazines, websites, etc., etc., etc. that I said to myself, "ENOUGH! What is the POINT??" because I rarely ran into anything NEW.
Then, lightbulb moment: Read fewer books, but DO SOMETHING with them. Hence: ye olde "choose one thing" after each book, redeeming all through action. And the rare new idea or brilliantly written work shines everso brightly regardless.
Finally, I realized: If this is working for me, I should really share how this simple adjustment in our habits as readers can transform your life.
And if it works for an individual, what could happen if we all started doing it as a group? Answer: we could change the world. And so we shall.
Questions for me? Bop back to the main page and comment, or write to me at ActionReaders@gmail.com. Promise to write back...
