To the Best of Our Knowledge

I’m on the public radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge this weekend, yakking about How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth), which just came out in paperback. (The segment is here. I start at the 16:29 mark.)

At the risk of being repetitive, not to mention braggy, I thought I’d re-post some of the reviews of the book, for those who have just arrived at the party.

Here’s Publishers Weekly calling it one of the Best Books of 2008 (somewhat  strangely, as the book came out in January, 2009). Here’s some hearty meat-and-potatoes from Time magazine’s website, and a steaming bowl of bouilliabaise from NPR’s Book We Like. Laura Miller’s Salon.com piece makes most other reviews seem like book reports by comparison. The Vanity Fair review isn’t online but you can get a taste here. Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time Out New York–you are all my children. The Guardian spells “marvellous” with two l’s–you’ll want to roll that second “l” as if your tongue were cradling a lychee or stray eyeball. And everybody loves a lady named Oprah.

I greet you.

How To Break Up the Banks

I have the world’s tiniest Op Ed in the New York Times today. It’s a list of 18 ways to break up the big banks. (It is here.) President Obama and Secretary Timothy Geithner, are you listening?

And I Want to Be a Paperback Writer

A nice review of “How to Live,” just out in paperback, from the Chicago Tribune. Click here.

UPDATE: My publisher has just ordered a second printing of the paperback! There WILL be Christmas at the Alfords this year!

Thought of the Day

I’ve met someone who speaks exclusively in single entendre.

The Tastiest $11.19 You’ll Ever Spend on Amazon.com

The paperback version of my book, “How to Live”: she has arrived! It comes with a reading guide for book groups–my publishers and I have had great responses from book clubs who have used “How to Live” as a springboard for juicy conversations about aging and the role of elders in society. Better yet, perhaps, the jacket of the paperback is sort of golden, or caramelly; as I told a friend recently, “You might not want to read this book, but you will definitely want to eat it.”

Thought of the Day

It’s freezing cold today. I’ve upgraded my wool scarf from chador to burka.

New Year’s Thought

Too much wassailing can lead to wassault.

All Things Considered

I had a fairly somber segment on “All Things Considered” on Tuesday–they’re doing a series of obituaries called “Lives of the Unnoticed,” and my team’s offering was about a beloved, if occasionally peevish, contributor to the travel website Fodors.com named Robespierre. (You can hear it here. It’s 4 minutes long. It didn’t air in NYC due to Chatty Cathy-ish pledge drivers.) (Another segment in the series– this one about animals who die on zoos–was really lovely; we learn that the Smithsonian National Zoo in Wash. DC brings in grief counselors for the zoo’s employees whenever an especially beloved  animal dies. Great off-mic grunting.)

Robespierre’s fellow Fodorites read his posts on the site religiously, and were hugely saddened by his death of cancer this summer–even though they’d never met him, and even though some had tangled with His Robespierreness over the years. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve cried twice on hearing the piece of tape in the segment wherein one of the Fodorites tells about calling Robespierre’s wife to ask what’s up when Robespierre’s posts abruptly stopped in July. Wish I’d met him.

I got to work with the supergroovy producer Wendy Dorr, who’s done a lot of stuff for This American Life. All thanks to my former Next Big Thing colleague Emily Botein.

Holiday Lies

I had a story in the New York Times yesterday about the lies that we tell during the holidays. The story is here; maybe it will help you.

How Is My Mother?

Because my mother is the de facto protagonist of my most recent book, some of you may be wondering how Ann is doing. Swimmingly. More specifically, though, you may be wondering how she is shouldering the burden of having been called by Oprah magazine, in their review of How to Live,  “a role model for the ages.” Shortly after the Oprah review was published in January, I reported, “It’s all muu-muu-wearing and elevated diction from Ann from here on in; don’t expect to be granted an audience unless you are bearing a tape recorder or honorarium. If you do happen upon her in the environs of a certain North Carolina retirement community or Costco and are unsure what the appropriate tone to take with her is, consider hushed awe.”

So here’s an update: Mom recently upgraded her room at her retirement community so that she could have a balcony. This balcony overlooks the reception area and parking lot. While many might hear this news and attach to it the word “busybody” or even “surveillance,” those of us who really know Ann and her Zen-like role-modeling  have a  more accurate term at hand. We call it omniscence.