"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." ~ Dorothy Parker
"There is always a lot to be thankful for. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt." ~ Unknown
"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been." ~ Madeleine L'Engle
The sign in the middle is my favorite even before I read the book: "Not a Through Street" is also an "Evacuation Route." Yikes! Need I say more?
Acclaimed psychologist Ethan Kross explores the silent conversations we have with ourselves. Interweaving groundbreaking behavioral and brain research from his own lab with real-world case studies — from a pitcher who forgets how to pitch, to a Harvard undergrad negotiating her double life as a spy — Kross explains how these conversations shape our lives, work, and relationships. He warns that giving in to negative and disorienting self-talk — what he calls "chatter" — can tank our health, sink our moods, strain our social connections, and cause us to fold under pressure. The good news is that we’re already equipped with the tools we need to make our inner voice work in our favor. These tools are often hidden in plain sight — in the words we use to think about ourselves, the technologies we embrace, the diaries we keep in our drawers, the conversations we have with our loved ones, and the cultures we create in our schools and workplaces. This book gives us the power to change the most important conversation we have each day: the one we have with ourselves.
This book debunks common myths about aging and cognitive decline, explores whether there’s a "best" diet or exercise regimen for the brain, and explains whether it’s healthier to play video games that test memory and processing speed, or to engage in more social interaction. Discover what we can learn from "super-brained" people who are in their eighties and nineties with no signs of slowing down — and whether there are truly any benefits to drugs, supplements, and vitamins. Dr. Gupta also addresses brain disease, particularly Alzheimer’s, answers all your questions about the signs and symptoms, and shows how to ward against it and stay healthy while caring for a partner in cognitive decline. He likewise provides you with a personalized twelve-week program featuring practical strategies to strengthen your brain every day.
A wife and mother is given the chance to start over at the risk of losing everything she loves. A second chance is the last thing she wants. When 39-year-old Maria Forssmann wakes up in her 17-year-old body, she doesn’t know how she got there. All she does know is she has to get back: to her home in Bienville, Mississippi, to her job as a successful psychiatrist, and to her husband, daughters, and unborn son. But she also knows that, in only a few weeks, a devastating tragedy will strike her husband, a tragedy that will lead to their meeting each other. Can she change time and still keep what it has given her? This novel explores the responsibilities love lays on us, the complicated burdens of motherhood, and the rippling impact of our choices.
After splurging to buy her childhood home in the Catskills, recently widowed Mikki Lincoln emerges from retirement as a freelance editor. With her ability to spot details that others fail to see, it’s not long before Mikki earns clients — and realizes that the village of Lenape Hollow isn’t the thriving tourist destination it was decades ago. Not with a murderer on the loose. When perky novice writer Tiffany Scott knocks at her door holding a towering manuscript, Mikki expects another debut novel plagued by typos and sloppy prose. Instead, she finds a murder mystery ripped from the headlines of Lenape Hollow’s not-too-distant past. The opening scene is a graphic page-turner, but it sends a real chill down Mikki’s spine after the young author turns up dead just like the victim in her story. Mikki refuses to believe that Tiffany’s death was accidental, and suspicions of foul play solidify as she uncovers a strange inconsistency in the manuscript and a possible motive in the notes. Then there’s Tiffany’s grandmother and husband, who aren’t exactly on friendly terms over the local area’s planned rejuvenation efforts. Unable to convince police that they are focused on the wrong suspect, Mikki must rely on her keen eyes to catch the truth hidden in Lenape Hollow. As she gets closer to cracking the case, only one person takes Mikki’s investigation seriously — the cunning killer who will do anything to make this chapter of her life come to a very abrupt ending.
Mitch Albom wrote at the end of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven (2018): "The Next Person is about the mistakes we think we make, and how they are part of what connects us to the human core. Finding Chika is about how those same connections allow us, at any age, even with the most unlikely pairings, to make a family." So I put this book on reserve.
Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince. With no children of their own, the forty-plus children who live, play, and go to school at the orphanage have become family to Mitch and his wife, Janine. Chika’s arrival makes a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delights the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says, “No one in Haiti can help you with.”
Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care can soon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part of their household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika’s boundless optimism and humor teach Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learns that a relationship built on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost. Told in hindsight, and through illuminating conversations with Chika herself, this is Albom at his most poignant and vulnerable.
3 comments:
What a wonderful set of books! I also enjoy seeing signs that just don't make sense so that one looks really fun.
You did well at the library. I need to see if I can find the book about retirement. My dad keeps telling me that I'm not devoting enough time into being retired.
Lots of variety for you! The sign book looks very fun.
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