Podcast appearances and mentions of Will Schwalbe

In this episode, Will Schwalbe shares some of his insights and experiences about forming deep friendships in adulthood. He discusses his latest book about an unlikely friendship that formed years ago and explores how their lasting connection is so powerful. In this episode, you will be able to: Understand the lasting impact and deep connection of friendships Discover the power of finding shared values among the differences between friends Embrace the challenges when conflict arises among friends Grasp the healing power of vulnerability in strengthening relationships Learn the immense value of giving and receiving support in friendships To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Imagine two students in college: one is a gay male, and the other is a straight super jock. The gay male is quiet and introverted, and the straight guy is extraverted to the point of being loud and into the old joke of throwing something at a person and shouting, “think fast!” Can you imagine these two guys being friends? How about dear friends for 40 years? Let's make it a little more interesting still: the straight guy would become a high achieving Navy SEAL. And he would also be the one to help his gay friend express his emotions more fully. Will Schwalbe wrote a beautiful memoir chronicling his friendship with Chris Maxey and very intimate details of how each man supported the other. The book is called We Should NOT Be Friends and it has received acclaim from seemingly every major news outlet and was even named a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. Those of you who know me know that I care a great deal about friendship. And this book hit a grand slam. So, I can't wait for you to hear my conversation with Will Schwalbe as we talk about friendship.

Will Schwalbe is an acclaimed memoirist and entrepreneur. Amateur chefs may know him best as the mind behind Cookstr, the world's largest free recipe database. Cookstr is owned today by Macmillan Publishing, where Schwalbe is now executive vice president of editorial development and content innovation. Schwalbe's authorial debut, Send: Why People Email So Badly and […]

Will Schwalbe joins the show today with some of these thoughts and more: It's better to say something than nothing. Make the hard phone call. Donate to the cause. Let friends help you. Ask questions. Look past what you think you know about people. Assume the best. These are all keys to long-term friendship I discussed with Will, author of We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship.The first part of the episode is a natural continuation of last week's episode about the benefit of having friends with different points of view and backgrounds. I inadvertently made a series! And in the second half, Will and I talked about the real work of maintaining a decades long, sometimes challenging friendship and why we should bother. Will and I discussed the quote he chose for the book's epigraph by British poet, David Whyte: "All friendships of any length are based on a continued mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die." We Should Not Be Friends will challenge your assumptions about friendship. Two of Will's previous books include Books for Living and The End of Your Life Book Club, which I know many people out there have loved. Will has worked in book publishing (currently as an editor at Macmillan); in digital media; and as a journalist, writing for various publications, including The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. He lives in New York.Show notes are HERE.Let's connect over all things friendship! Here's my Substack newsletter about friendship & more Instagram Twitter JOIN the Dear Nina Facebook group Ask an anonymous question Next Virtual Book Club Meetings

“How do you spot a ‘we should not be friends' friendship? It's when someone shows you who they are, and you like it.” Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club, tells us how an unexpected friendship with a polar-opposite grew into a lifelong journey through love, losses and triumphs. Schwalbe and Chris Maxey, former Navy SEAL and founder of the Island School, join us to talk about Schwalbe's new book, We Should Not Be Friends: A Story of a Friendship, meeting through a Yale secret society, the importance of vulnerability, what they learned about themselves and each other through telling this story and more live at Barnes & Noble Union Square with Poured Over host, Miwa Messer.     Featured Books (episode):  We Should Not Be Friends by Will Schwalbe  The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe  The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone  The Rediscovery of North America by Barry Lopez    Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).

Zibby interviews bestselling author, editor, journalist, and repeat MDHTTRB guest Will Schwalbe about his moving, funny, and wise new memoir We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship, which tells the story of his unexpected and life-changing friendship with Chris Maxey, a jock he met at Yale. Will describes Maxey (a nationally-ranked wrestler/frat boy turned Navy Seal turned eco-warrior and school founder) and shares the stories of their extraordinary forty-year friendship. He also describes what life was like as a gay man in the early eighties when AIDS struck, and lastly, he shares what it's like to switch between his writer and editor hats. Purchase on Zibby's Bookshop: http://bit.ly/3J1rYboPurchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3Zu4TU4Subscribe to Zibby's weekly newsletter here.Purchase Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books merch here. Now there's more! Subscribe to Acast+ and get exclusive access to the in-store author events at Zibby's Bookshop in Santa Monica, CA. Join today! https://plus.acast.com/s/moms-dont-have-time-to-read-books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, meet marketing executive and entrepreneur Bozoma Saint John, poet and writer Camonghne Felix, and writer and editor Will Schwalbe. Listen in to hear these authors reflect on their recent memoirs, and on what it was like to recount the intricacies of love, loss, and friendship while recording their audiobooks. Enjoy! The Urgent Life by Bozoma Saint John https://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/688798/the-urgent-life/ Dyscalculia by Camonghne Felix https://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/671602/dyscalculia/ We Should Not Be Friends by Will Schwalbehttps://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/586174/we-should-not-be-friends/

“A conversation that I hope this book sparks, because it's such a fun conversation, is the conversation about like, gay men being friends with straight men. But also straight women being friends with straight men. Like, you know, being friends, like a lot of times writings on friendship talk about women and their best friends or straight men and they're like bro friends, or even gay men and their gay friends. But I would love to see more writing about friendships across these artificial gender lines.” So says Will Schwalbe, someone I've had the pleasure of knowing for a long time. In fact, our lives have overlapped in strange and magical ways—a testament, really, to the way that we are all interconnected. Sometimes improbably. Besides being a long-time, venerated book editor, Will has written four books, including one of my long-time favorites—it's called The End of Your Life Bookclub, and it's a memoir about his mother, who died of pancreatic cancer. In her final years, Will and his mom read together, and discussed their lives through the prism of books. It's beautiful. And his latest book, which we discuss today, is also incredibly, and quietly, moving: It's called We Should Not Be Friends. It's about Will and a guy named Chris Maxey, or Maxey, who Will met his senior year of college in the ‘80s—Maxey was a world-class wrestler, who ultimately became a Navy Seal, while the bookish Will worked the Gay Men's Health Crisis phone lines at night. Point is: They could not have been more different.  The book is a powerful treatise on what friendship is—and what's required for intimacy, particularly in a culture where there aren't many examples of friendships between gay and straight men, or between straight men and women either. We explore all of this. MORE FROM WILL SCHWALBE: We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship Books for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life The End of Your Life Bookclub Send: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do It Better Will Schwalbe's Website Follow Will on Twitter and Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get ready for Earth Day by hearing about "Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World" by Katharine Hayhoe, with some tips for talking about climate change in ways that inspire action. Stephanie Dudek, Adult Services and Reference Librarian at Troy Public Library, is talking about books with Hudson Mohawk Magazine producer Brea Barthel. Another item discussed: "The End of Your Life Book Club" by Will Schwalbe. Also find out about April adult activities at Troy Public Library, including book clubs, Haiku Highway, and more. For details, see thetroylibrary.org. To find other libraries in New York state, visit https://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/libs/#Find.

Fairfield Public Library Fairfield, CT https://fairfieldpubliclibrary.org/learning-and-research/find-a-good-book/ Claudia Silk, Adult Services Librarian and OBOT co-chair Jennifer Laseman, Head of Teen Services and OBOT member Mary Coe, Branch Reference Librarian and OBOT co-chair 2022: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune https://fairfieldpubliclibrary.org/OBOT/ TJ Klune's website: http://www.tjklunebooks.com/ OBOT History: https://fairfieldpubliclibrary.org/OBOT/history/ Previous OBOT selections: 2008: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Reling 2009: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick 2010: Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea 2011: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer 2012: The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf 2013: Wonder by R. J. Palacio 2014: A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett 2015: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 2016: So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson 2017: Books for Living by Will Schwalbe & A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers (no OBOT in 2018) 2019: Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson 2020: Running With Sherman by Christopher McDougall 2021: Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

First Draft Episode #322: Jennifer Niven Jennifer Niven is the Emmy Award-winning #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including YA novels All the Bright Places, Holding up the Universe, Breathless, and Take Me With You When You Go (with David Levithan). This episode is brought to you by Laura Sibson's Edie in Between, a modern-day Practical Magic about love, loss, and embracing the mystical, available now. And by The Splendor by Breeana Shields, out from Page Street Publishing now. Links to Topics Mentioned In This Episode: Penelope Niven, biographer and author of Carl Sandburg: A Biography and Carl Sandburg: Adventures of a Poet, Thornton Wilder: A Life, Steichen: A Biography, memoirist (Swimming Lessons: Life Lessons From the Pool, From Diving In to Treading Water) and co-author of James Earl Jones's autobiography, Voices and Silences. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven, Missoula, and more Carl Sandburg, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (for Cornhuskers and Complete Poems) and biographer (for his four-book series, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years). Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club and Books For Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life, and co-author of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better with Dave Shipley Jennifer's original agent, John A. Ware, who passed away in 2013. Read his obituary in Publisher's Weekly. Jennifer's current agent, Kerry Sparks at the Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency David Levithan, editorial director at Scholastic and the author of many young adult novels, including Boy Meets Boy, Every Day, and co-author with Rachel Cohn of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. Ava Dellaira, author of Love Letters to the Dead and In Search of Us. Listen to her First Draft interviews here and here.

We talked about how we all need to plan to Return to The Real World.   As such, we talked a lot about how we communicate (previously, during, and after the pandemic) with students, faculty, and fellow staff. Dennis and Dana's "I Dare You To" selections are the books discussed during the show: Eats, Shoots & Leaves:  The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss Edit Yourself: A Manual for Everyone Who Works With Words by Bruce Ross-Larson The Grammar Bible: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Grammar but Didn't Know Who(m) to Ask by Michael Strumpf and Auriel Douglas Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe (link is to an updated version of the book) The Tyranny of Email: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox by John Freeman Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, And Get Real Work Done by Jocelyn Glei Find out more about CCCSFAAA at cccsfaaa.org.  Have feedback for Dennis and Dana?  Got a topic you want us to discuss?  Email us at wbcccsfaaa@gmail.com. "What's Brewing, CCCSFAAA?" is a Studio 1051 production.  Studio 1051 is a creative collaboration of Dennis Schroeder and Dana Yarbrough.

Will Schwalbe has spent most of his life in publishing: at William Morrow, and then at Hyperion, where he was Editor in Chief. In January 2008 he left Hyperion to found a startup called Cookstr.com and ran that for six years. It's now part of Macmillan Publishers, where he has worked since 2014. His books include Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do it Better with his friend David Shipley. The End of Your Life Book Club, about the books he read with his mother when she was dying. And Books For Living, about the role books can play in our lives and how they can show us how to live each day more fully and with more meaning. He lives in New York City with his husband David Cheng In addition to Books for Living, we talk about Faber, Sonny Mehta, Rohinton Mistry, reasons for reading, adults reading to children - and their conversations, greater powers, book clubs, cook books, Christopher Isherwood, giving and sharing conversations about books for birthdays, tyranny, and my new venture, Literary Retreats.

Dana and Dennis started the show by talking about Dana's busy day ahead, which led into talking about Email Etiquette training offered recently at LA Mission College.  In particular, we talked about how email etiquette is even more important now as most of us continue to work from home. The training session was based on the book SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home (2007), updated in 2010 and retitled as SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do it Better - by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.  Two other books offered inspiration for the training: The Tyranny of Email by John Freeman and Unsubscribe by Jocelyn Glei. We wrapped the show with Dana's "I Dare You To Watch" The Social Dilemma on Netflix.  We'll go deeper into this topic in future shows.   Find out more about CCCSFAAA at cccsfaaa.org. Follow CCCSFAAA on Twitter at @CCCSFinaidAssoc. Find this and future WBC podcast episodes at What's Brewing, CCCSFAAA (WBC) podcasts.  Find us also in Google Podcasts, the Apple Podcasts app, and on Spotify. Have feedback for Dennis and Dana?  Got a topic you want us to discuss?  Email us at wbcccsfaaa@gmail.com.   "What's Brewing, CCCSFAAA?" is a Studio 1051 production.  Studio 1051 is a creative collaboration of Dennis Schroeder and Dana Yarbrough.

Chris and Emily have a good old fashioned catch up. They talk about books they have been reading, do some Couch Biblio-Adventuring, and interview author, editor, and podcaster Will Schwalbe.

We are back with the second episode where we talk about some books about Books & reading and some special focus on the book - End of Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe. Other books Mentioned in the episode - An uncommon Rader by Alan Bennett I'd rather be reading by Anne Bogel The library book by Susan Orlean The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Matilda by Roald Dahl Too much Happiness by Alice Munroe People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Kaytee is recording with a guest host this week as Meredith is traveling, and I think you’ll really enjoy hearing from her! You’ll hear a “bookish moment of the week” from each of us: an author event with a tiny sidekick, and a special bookish gift from a friend. Next, we discuss our current reads for the week. This week’s choices have romance, non-fiction, and historical fiction novels! We’ll move on to a short Slow But Steady update from each of us, as well as a couple listener updates For our deep dive this week, we are taking a peek at Lori Lynn’s reading life, and the ways she uses reading to balance her mental health. It’s a really interesting conversation about how reading looks different for each of us. Finally, this week, we are Pressing Books Into Your Hands. We’ve both brought a non-fiction pick this week, and they are certain to spark conversations! As per usual, time-stamped show notes are below with references to every book and resource we mentioned in this episode. If you’d like to listen first and not spoil the surprise, don’t scroll down! *Please note that all book titles linked above are Amazon affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. Thanks for your support!*   . . . . . 2:10 - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 3:01 - Episode 17 with Delia Owens interview! 3:28 - Glennon Doyle Meton (on tour for Love Warrior) 3:30 - Anthony Doerr (on tour for All the Light We Cannot See) 4:10 - A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer 4:54 - Currently Reading Bookish Friends on Patreon 6:11 - The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren 8:30 - Anna Hithersay on Episode 22 10:10 - The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 10:36 - The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez 10:49 - The Happily Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez 11:04 - Viral social media post about ExLax from Abby Jimenez 12:11 - The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory 14:38 - The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon 17:56 - Olivia Twist by Lorie Langdon 18:03 - Audiobook Sync program (not happening now, but you can sign up for the email list so you know when it comes around next summer) 18:34 - Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 19:48 - A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas 20:54 - The Parasol Protectorate (series) by Gail Carriager 21:51 - Fair Play by Eve Rodsky 22:13 - Mary Heim on episode 24 and episode 36 28:09 - Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud 29:29 - Lunch Lady (series) by Jarrett Krosoczka 30:14 - Another Bookish Friend (Patron) Shout Out! 30:18 - Currently Reading 2019 Reading Challenge 30:54 - Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery 30:59 - Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery 31:06 - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 31:59 - The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor 32:39 - Book People in Austin, TX 33:41 - Harry Potter (series) by JK Rowling 34:00 - Middlemarch by George Eliot 34:21 - Outlander by Diana Gabaldon 34:51 - Serial Reader App 35:54 - The Post Party Podcast 43:59 - Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski 44:55 - Jessie Bear books by Nancy White Carlstrom 45:13 - Little Bear books by Elsie Holmlund Minarik 45:36 - Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman 45:55 - Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery 48:18 - Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey 50:19 - Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey 51:09 - Being Mortal by Atul Gwande 51:12 - The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe 52:32 - But That’s Another Story podcast with Will Schwalbe 52:51 - What Should I Read Next podcast 54:16 - Connect with Lori Lynn: @lorilynn_tucker or @lorilynntucker_doula 54:25 - The Post Party Podcast

Will Schwalbe is the New York Times best-selling author of The End of Your Life Book Club and Books for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life. He is also the host of Macmillan Publisher's podcast, "But That's Another Story with Will Schwalbe." Will and I share an intense love of books! Hear how certain books have helped him through emotional challenges like loss and why Will says "I'm not the same reader when I finish a book as I am when I started." Hear about his crusade to rebrand reading, how one influential book recommender can save your life, and why he loves naps.

Today’s guest is Will Schwalbe, devoted reader and host of the But That's Another Story podcast. Will believes if we all asked the question “what are you reading” more often, it could change the world, and has a few absolutely delightful literary superstitions...Anne and Will chatting all about the downside of conquering your TBR, misremembering poetry, bookstore serendipity, and Will’s attempt to convince ANNE to read a super ambitious classic she just haven’t had the nerve to pick up yet. Click over to the podcast website for a list of books mentioned in this episode: http://whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/184Check out But That's Another Story on the podcast platform of your choice!Connect with Will on his website: http://willschwalbe.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/WillSchFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/will.schwalbe

Author, editor and entrepreneur Will Schwalbe loves to talk about the books that have changed his life. He's written two books to the subject, The End of Your Life Book Club, which was about the books he read with his mother while she was dying, and Books for Living, about the role books can play in our lives and how they can show us how to live each day more fully and with more meaning. In this podcast he talks about a few gems: The Importance of Living, Giovanni's Room, A Little Life, and Why I Wake Early among others.   

In the book End of Your Life Book Club, author Will Schwalbe recounts the final days of his mother's life, and sharing books with her. This was the inspiration for Emily Akins' new podcast Beginning of Your Life Book Club. What Will was able to have with his mother through books at the end of her life is what Emily wants as a mother for her kids at the beginning of theirs. There may be no one adding more to the kids book podcasting community right now than Emily. Emily is the editorial director at Hallmark, and recipient of the Barbara Marshall Award, which grants one member of the creative community a 6-month sabbatical to pursue personal work. Emily' project: her podcast which is now up to 6 episodes and has interviewed Will Schwalbe, Kelly Baker, and Daniel Miyares. In this episode, I talk with Emily about her move from Hallmark into kid lit, the goals she has for her show, and how it's bringing value to the creative community. Beginning of Your Life BookClub, which you should definitely subscribe to: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-beginning-of-your-life-book-club/id1438003627?mt=2 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Will Schwalbe, host of the new podcast But That's Another Story, joins the Clever Cookstr to talk about memorable meals that tell stories, and the cookbooks that changed his life. Read the transcript at https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/house-home/food/the-stories-food-can-tell Check out all the Quick and Dirty Tips shows: www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts FOLLOW CLEVER COOKSTR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CookstrCooks Twitter: https://twitter.com/cookstr Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/cookstr/

Please Support The Show with a DonationWill Schwalbe is an author, entrepreneur, and journalist. He is also perhaps the most delightful, interesting and thoughtful person you've come across in a while. His love of books is infectious and as you know, Eric is a bibliophile himself so when the two talk about books and reading as they do in this episode, the result is one blissful experience. Do you love reading? Did you used to love reading but it's moved out of the spotlight of your life? Have you wanted to cultivate a love of reading? Are you looking for some really wonderful books to read? Are you alive and breathing? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then this interview is for you.He is the author of Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting and Embracing Life, The End of Your Life Book Club and SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better Omax3 Ultrapure go to www.tryomax.com/wolf and try a box for freeIn This Interview, Will Schwalbe and I Discuss...The Wolf ParableHis book, Books for Living, Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting and Embracing LifeThe importance of readingThat reading isn't binaryThat every time we read, we become better at readingHow reading can promote empathyHow we connect through booksThe practice of "visiting your books"How he chooses which book to read nextThe way books can be a bio of your lifeThe primary emotion he has at the beginning of reading a bookLive to work vs work to liveThe freedom to quitThe freedom of mediocrityGood being the enemy of greatYou write the books you needThat our devices allow us to rob ourselves of silenceHow reading is an artThe "can't you tell I'm reading" faceHis favorite books that he's read recently that were written recentlyWill Schwalbe LinksHomepageTwitterFacebook Please Support The Show with a Donation

Almost everyone has been leveled, reshaped, or lifted by a powerful book at least once in their lives. In his new show, Will Schwalbe is telling the universal stories of how and why reading changes us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Authors are, without exception, readers, and behind every book there is... another book, and another. In this episode of the podcast, we're joined by two writers for conversations about the vital books and ideas that influence inform their own work. First, Cory Doctorow talks with B&N's Josh Perilo about his recent novel of an imagined near future, Walkaway, and the difference between a dystopia and a disaster. Then we hear from Will Schwalbe, talking with Miwa Messer, about the lifetime of reading behind his book Books for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life.

This week, Martha's guests are Will Schwalbe, Sharon Weil, James Allen Hall, and Edwidge Danticat.

Will Schwalbe, Roxane Gay, Kinokuniya and books, lots of books!

Author of Books for Living Interview starts at 19:07 and ends at 43:15 "One of the reasons I come back to Lin Yutang is a marvelous story he tells, in 1937, about being in the most famous tea house in China. And the tourists there are so busy taking photographs of themselves drinking tea that they don't enjoy the tea. And I thought to myself, ‘We blame too much on the machines.' Constant connectivity is our fault. It's not the fault of the little items we hold in our hands. And it's been a problem—distraction and impatience have been with us since the dawn of time. So my first thing is to blame myself and not the machine. News “How Alexa Won CES” (video) by Geoffrey A. Fowler at The Wall Street Journal - January 6, 2017 “Amazon's Alexa is everywhere at CES 2017” by Jacob Kastrenakes at The Verge - January 6, 2017 LG press release on Smart Instaview refrigerator - January 4, 2017 “Mattel's $300 Echo clone will read your children bedtime stories” by James Vincent at The Verge - January 3, 2017 “Lynx Robot is Alexa's best disguise at CES 2017” by Andrew Gebhart at CNET - January 5, 2017 “Get Ready, Your Robotic Roomate is Moving in” by Aki Ito at Bloomberg - January 6, 2016 “Murder Suspect's Amazon Echo device could help solve the case” by Chris Graham at The Telegraph - December 28, 2016 “Bentonville PD Says Man Strangled, Drowned Former Georgia Officer” at 5News - February 23, 2016 “Police ask: “Alexa, did you witness a murder?” by Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica - December 28, 2016 Bentonville Police search warrants in Bates case Amazon Books page at Amazon.com Tech Tip ereaderiq.com Interview with Will Schwalbe Books for Living by Will Schwalbe “The Need to Read” by Will Schwalbe at The Wall Street Journal - November 25, 2016 (Behind a paywall; try Googling “The Need to Read by Will Schwalbe”) Wonder by R. J. Palacio The Importance of Living by Lin Yutang “Cabdriver's Book Club” by Ryder Ziebarth at The New York Times - March 11, 2013 The Golden Age: A Novel by Joan London Three Lives & Company bookstore in New York City Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine by Jane E. Smith (not available on Kindle) Watership Down: A Novel by Richard Adams The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo “Lessons on How to Live, in 26 Books” by A. J. Jacobs at The New York Times - December 23, 2016 Next Week's Guest Paul Slavin, CEO of Open Road Integrated Media Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named "Well, You Needn't." This version is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording" CD. Please Join the Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!  

~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #136 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio "It's never too late to learn anything for which you have a potential . . . and the limitless potential of love within each person [is] eager to be recognized, waiting to be developed, yearning to grow . . . If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work. This does not mean pain. Love, especially, is learned best in wonder, in joy, in peace, in living." —Leo Buscaglia, in Love: What Life is All About Nurture or nature. Acquired or known. A natural or skilled. There are some capabilities we each have that come more naturally to us: the ability to sing like a songbird or swim like a fish. This is not to say that practice and expert coaching won't help, but in each of these instances, there is an innate ability that advances the individuals that apply themselves to such great lengths others may not reach. On the flip-side, there are skills that anyone can learn if they choose to, and here is the good news. One of these skills is how to love. We are not born knowing how to love well. We learn by observing those who raise us, observing the world we are born into and by what we read, view and absorb. The catch is not all of us are watching how to love well. Some of us will have a distorted view, some of us will be limited by what we see while others will observe healthy, kind, thoughtful ways of loving. While there are many wonderful ways to express love, there are essential components, and that is what we'll be discussing today. And if as an adult you have come to discover the models you observed were not healthy, you can absolutely change and become a student again learning how to love well, and thereby enriching your life moving forward. Life, a well-lived and savored life, is a life asking of each of us to acquire skills to be successful. As I mentioned yesterday in the first post of 2017, often those of us who make mistakes along the way as we travel through life are not trying to make mistakes or incapable of improving. Instead, we are doing what we were taught, what we know. We are less skilled. But we can absolutely improve. Take a look at 26 ways you can learn to love well: ~A more detailed discussion is shared on today's episode of the podcast, so be sure to download and take a listen for further explanation on each point.  1.Experiment with your own life "Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life." —Herbert Otto 2. Forever be a student One cannot give what they do not possess. To give love you must possess love. One cannot know what they do not study. To study love you must live in love. One cannot appreciate what they do not recognize. To recognize love you must be receptive to love. One cannot have doubt about that which they wish to trust. To trust love you must be convinced of love. One cannot admit what they do not yield to. To yield to love you must be vulnerable to love. One cannot live what they do not dedicate themselves to. To dedicate yourself to love you must be forever growing in love. —Leo F. Bascaglia 3. Cultivate your own contentment "When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love." 4. Find, unearth, your true self "Be able to love, heal and accept yourself, so you can then offer these gifts to others." Many times we seek out love in order to alleviate our own suffering, and the suffering is due to a conscious or unconscious refusal to take the time to get to know ourselves. 5. Be mindful Coming to understand how to create moments of joy for yourself enables you to give that joy, thus the love, to others. 6. Be kind 7. Practice love One must live love. Take action. 8. Stop objectifying love Love is not a thing to possess. You already have it, love, within you, now you just need to tap into it, foster it, practice it and then live in love. 9. Build within yourself trust, self-respect and confidence 10. Become a good listener Learn your partner's "love language". "To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. To know how to love someone, we have to understand them" and that begins with listening well. —Thich Nhat Hanh 11. Stop labeling Stop making assumptions, stop jumping to conclusions. Let go of stereotypes about cultures, groups, etc. 12. Let go of being perfect, and just be human "A base for love and the potential for growth in love is also present in each man. Love is then a process of 'building upon' what is already there. Love is never complete in any person. There is always room for growth." "If you know, accept and appreciate yourself and your uniqueness, you will permit others to do so. If you value and appreciate the discovery of yourself, you will encourage others to engage in self-discovery." 13. Be vulnerable "Man may know that only by being vulnerable can he truly offer and accept love." —Leo Buscaglia 14. Open your palm "And then, the lover, to learn and to change and to become, also needs freedom. Thoreau said a wonderful thing: 'Birds never sing in caves.' And neither do people. You've got to be free in order to learn." —Leo Buscaglia 15. Let go of expectations, but have clear boundaries 16. Cease placing conditions "Others can and will only give what they are able, not what you desire they give. When you cease placing conditions on your love you have taken a giant step toward learning to love." 17. Be patient "The human seeking love will find that love is patient. The lover knows that each person can enhance [their] knowledge of love and bring them closer to themselves . . . each person will grow at their own rate, in their own manner, at their own time, by way of their unique self. Therefore, it's helpless to berate, judge, predict, demand or assume. Love must be patient. Love waits. This doesn't mean that love sits passively forever, if necessary, for the person to grow. Love is active, not passive. It is continually engaged in the process of opening new doors and windows so that fresh ideas and questions can be admitted." 18. Learn how to communicate well 19. Become an expert of understanding your own emotions 20. Meet your emotional as well as your physical needs "A human's basic psychological needs are these. She requires to be seen, recognized, appreciated, heard, fondled, sexually satisfied. She must be allowed the freedom to choose her own way, to grow at her own rate and to make her own mistakes, to learn. She needs to accept himself and other human beings and be accepted by them. She desires to e an 'I' as well as a 'we.' She strives to grow into the unique individual that she is." 21. Be present  "Love lives in the moment." 22. Believe the world is good because it is  23. Help others reach their full potential "As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, As soon as I, in a love relationship, do not lead the other person to themselves, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, it is not true love." 24. Create an everyday life to savor "Another responsibility of love is to create joy. Joy is always an integral part of loving. There is joy in every act of live, no matter how menial or repetitive . . . you can make the day a chore; dull, nerve-wracking, frustrating, a waste of time. Or the same day can be taken on with energy, enthusiasm and a determination to make it one of the best days of your life, for yourself and those about you." 25. Stand in your strength "It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong." —Leo Rosten 26. Become love "For to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the dedicated, the knowledge of the scholar, and the fortitude of the certain."   Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, the allegory of true love" https://youtu.be/MCmZ2jrQooE ~Books mentioned in the episode: ~Love: What Life Is All About by Leo F. Buscaglia ~How to Love by Thich Nhat Hanh Petit Plaisir ~Books for Living by Will Schwalbe   Download the Episode

Editors at the Book Review discuss what many notable people were reading in 2016, and Will Schwalbe talks about "Books for Living."

Pull out a cozy blanket - it's time to find out what you'll be reading this winter! As always, Ann and Halle end with what they're reading this week. Books and other media mentioned in this episode: Ann's picks: Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman (releases December 6, 2016) The Dry by Jane Harper (releases January 10, 2017) The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (releases January 10, 2017) Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran (releases January 10, 2017)  Hey Harry Hey Matilda by Rachel Hulin (releases January 17, 2017) Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough (releases January 31, 2017)- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (releases February 7, 2017)- The Jetsons (TV)- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch- Ernest Cline books Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (releases February 7, 2017)- Coraline by Neil Gaiman- Stardust by Neil Gaiman- Stardust (film)- The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Halle's picks: Books for Living by Will Schwalbe (releases December 27, 2016)- The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe Small Admissions by Amy Poeppel (releases December 27, 2016) Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia (releases January 3, 2017) The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen (releases February 7, 2017)- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen- The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction- Episode 26 - Short Stories- In the Country by Mia Alvar Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson (releases January 10, 2017)- The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson- Episode 2 - What to Read After The Girl on the Train - Rear Window (film) The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker (releases January 31, 2017) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (releases February 28, 2017) The Fortunate Ones by Ellen Umansky (releases February 14, 2017) What We're Reading This Week: Ann: The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney (releases January 24, 2017)- "The Gone Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on the Train" (FiveThirtyEight article by Emily St. John Mandel)- The Girl Before (film) Halle: Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed- Serial: Season 1 (podcast)

Take This Man (Simon & Schuster) Join us this evening and welcome back an icon of literary Los Angeles, Brando Skyhorse! From PEN/Hemingway award winner Brando Skyhorse comes this stunning, heartfelt memoir in the vein of "The Glass Castle "or "The Tender Bar," the true story of a boy's turbulent childhood growing up with five stepfathers and the mother who was determined to give her son everything but the truth. When he was three years old, Brando Kelly Ulloa was abandoned by his Mexican father. His mother, Maria, dreaming of a more exciting life, saw no reason for her son to live his life as a Mexican just because he started out as one. The life of "Brando Skyhorse," the American Indian son of an incarcerated political activist, was about to begin. Through a series of letters to Paul Skyhorse Johnson, a stranger in prison for armed robbery, Maria reinvents herself and her young son as American Indians in the colorful Mexican-American neighborhood of Echo Park, California. There Brando and his mother live with his acerbic grandmother and a rotating cast of surrogate fathers. It will be over thirty years before Brando begins to untangle the truth of his own past, when a surprise discovery online leads him to his biological father at last. From an acclaimed, prize-winning novelist celebrated for his "indelible storytelling" ("O, The Oprah Magazine"), this extraordinary literary memoir captures a son's single-minded search for a father wherever he can find one, and is destined to become a classic.  Praise for Take This Man "Take This Man is a grand story full of fantastic characters--characters whom the author brings vividly to life because they ARE his life. Skyhorses's shifting identity creates an intense quest for meaning, a kind of whodunit memoir that explores the sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, often absurd, and always fascinating childhood that the author, no matter his lineage, has no choice but to claim as his own. Pour a shot of Wolff's This Boy's Life, add a jigger of Moehringer's The Tender Bar, throw in a splash of Rivera's Family Installments, and this is what you get: a heady cocktail of memories with a twist."--Kim Barnes, Author of In the Kingdom of Men and In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country "Take This Man is as astonishing a memoir as I've ever read. Brando Skyhorse's beautifully-told tale of his truly bizarre childhood and his search for a father moved me in a way that few books have. I will never forget Skyhorse's charismatic mother and grandmother, nor the tortured triangle the three of them formed. I was reminded at times of Geoffrey Wolff's "The Duke of Deception", and also of "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls and "The Tender Bar" by J.R. Moehringer. But I guarantee that this is a family story unlike any you've read before. It deserves to become a classic."--Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Your Life Book Club "The details of Brando Skyhorse's life are as outlandish and attention-grabbing as his name. Imagine the kind of mother who advertises you for adoption in the back of a magazine and then denies it to your face, or the kind of stepfather who calls his prison 'Arizona State, ' as if discussing his alma mater. Take This Man is a funny and harrowing and touching portrait of the abyss in families between what we know we should do and how our hearts lead us to behave."--Jim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway and You Think That's Bad "A beautiful, compassionate, but also hilarious and hair-raising tale of one boy's life, the lies and truths his mother told, and the damage and the magic she created. Brando Skyhorse is an irresistible writer with an incredible story."--Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle "This gorgeous, wrenching, ultimately uplifting book is a testament to the large and generous heart of its author. Brando Skyhorse has made art out of the chaos of his own extraordinary family history, and, in so doing, has raised the bar, not only for memoirists, but for us all."--Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of Still Writing "Take This Man reaches beyond the bounds of my imagination. We use the word "survivor" with disgracefully casual ease. But this writer truly survived being held hostage, raised by wolves. Brando's grandmother and mother are terrifying and mesmerizing. Their cruelty to their biographer was audacious, calculated and thrilling to read. Stories molested him and nourished him. And it is with relief that I read in Take This Man flashes of Brando's bitterness and heat, sane fury directed at the Scheherazades who toyed with him. Whatever else they did to him, when he escaped he knew how to tell a story, and this is one hell of story."--Geoffrey Wolff, author of The Duke of Deception Brando Skyhorse's debut novel, The Madonnas of Echo Park, received the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award and the Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The book was also a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. He has been awarded fellowships at Ucross and Can Serrat, Spain. Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Writers' Workshop program at UC Irvine. He is the 2014 Jenny McKean Moore Writer-In-Washington at George Washington University. 

Kathryn interviews spoken word artist Sheri Booker, author of “Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home”. What started as a seemingly simple summer job at a West Baltimore funeral home quickly turned into nine years of life changing experiences for Sheri Booker. Her memoir recounts Booker's formative years spent learning about the culture of urban funerals, the business of life and death, and the variety of responses to grief and loss. Kathryn also interviews New York Times bestselling author Will Schwalbe on his book “The End of Your Life Book Club”. To pass the time in between cancer treatments, Schwalbe and his ailing mother Mary Anne would talk about the books they were reading. Once by chance they were both reading the same book, sparking an informal book club between the two. Schwalbe is the founder and CEO of Cookstr.com and has written for the New York Times and the South China Morning Post.

Kathryn interviews spoken word artist Sheri Booker, author of “Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home”. What started as a seemingly simple summer job at a West Baltimore funeral home quickly turned into nine years of life changing experiences for Sheri Booker. Her memoir recounts Booker's formative years spent learning about the culture of urban funerals, the business of life and death, and the variety of responses to grief and loss. Kathryn also interviews New York Times bestselling author Will Schwalbe on his book “The End of Your Life Book Club”. To pass the time in between cancer treatments, Schwalbe and his ailing mother Mary Anne would talk about the books they were reading. Once by chance they were both reading the same book, sparking an informal book club between the two. Schwalbe is the founder and CEO of Cookstr.com and has written for the New York Times and the South China Morning Post.

Alex Witchel and Will Schwalbe have written two powerful memoirs about being an adult and coping with your mother's deteriorating health. Two very different stories that still resonate with each other in powerful ways.