Organic Granny

"Your habits are how you embody your identity." Atomic Habits , by James Clear My husband and I have been married for over fifty-three years. We have been relatively healthy for most of this time, but a health crisis in 2022 prompted us to learn more about changes we might need to make if we plan to avoid dementia, and particularly Alzheimer's Disease. We subscribed to an online group that focused on lifestyle medicine with scientifically-sound evidence base for the beliefs held by the group's neurologist leaders. We learned that our whole-food, plant-based diet was a good start to our plan to optimize our health by keeping our arteries clean and our microbiome in good working order. Exercise and stress management were also on the agenda, as well as reading and learning new skills, such as a foreign language or a musical instrument. The group hosted a Book Club for its online members. My husband was in the midst of treatments for cataracts, so I took on the role of re...

How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery My rating: 5 of 5 stars Such a beautiful, uplifting little book. My husband found it in a local 'little library' and after reading it, proceeded to press it upon me. I was reading something "serious" at the time and let him rave on about it, barely hearing what he had to say. And then there was that afternoon when I ran out of reading material and really, really craved something for my eyes to lap up as I fell asleep that night. Why do I forget how much pleasure and de-stressing happens for me when I read books about cutie animals and embrace my inner animal lover? This book is also a 'serious' memoir of the quintessential vegan-lifestyle gal who has been shamed for her love of animals-- of actually seeing herself as an animal as a little girl-- by her militaristic father and status-seeker mother from childhood on. Her father wanted her to join the Military. She didn't, and actua...

                                                                                         It seems to me that Kunio Yamagishi may have decided upon a particularly deep emotional challenge for himself as a writer of historical fiction. What if instead of writing about a lonely man who undergoes extreme emotional deprivation and finds true love and/or personal happiness in spite of that deprivation I write about a person who-- like many humans we hear about-- only experiences blurry glimpses of personal happiness through the course of his life. Would those dim hopes be enough to sustain him into natural death in old age? What are the choices in life when all your dreams evaporate?   Yes,  The Return of A Shadow  is possibly the saddest book I hav...

Stop What You Are Doing And Read This! by Carmen Callil My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was deeply into a detective-mystery novel when my husband ruptured my thrall (twice!) to suggest that I might want to read this book of essays on the power and joy of reading literature. I was irritated and made rude dismissive gestures. However... I ran out of something to read and decided to pick this up. I apologized to my husband for my unspoken assumptions. This slim and quickly read book contains eleven essays by twelve esteemed writers talking about their individual love stories around reading. It was a little like stepping back into an English Lit class at University nearly 50 years ago, but, really, a great pleasure to have the rich experiences and rewards of books and reading reiterated in a time when the electronic media would sometime make "old school" literature and literary pursuits seem outdated and without value in a changing world. Not so. Since reading this book m...