Reverberations: A Daughter's Meditation on Alzheimer's
by Marion Agnew
Marion Agnew
Most people think Alzheimer's Disease is the same as memory loss, if they think about it at all. But most people prefer to ignore it, hoping that if they ignore it hard enough, it will go away. That was certainly Marion Agnew's hope when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Yet, with the diagnosis, Marion's world changed. Her mother — a Queen's and Harvard/Radcliffe-educated mathematician, a nuclear weapons researcher in Montreal during World War II, an award-winning professor and researcher for five decades, wife of a history professor, and mother of five — began drifting away from her.
To keep hold of her, to remember her, Marion began paying attention, and began writing what she saw. She wrote as her mother became suspicious on outings, as she lost even the simplest of words, as she hallucinated, as she became frightened and agitated. But after her mother's death, Marion wanted to honour the time of her mother's life in which she had the disease, but she didn't want the illness to dominate the relationship she'd had with her mother. This moving memoir looks at grief and family, at love and music. It is a coming-to-terms reflection on the endurance of love and family.
To keep hold of her, to remember her, Marion began paying attention, and began writing what she saw. She wrote as her mother became suspicious on outings, as she lost even the simplest of words, as she hallucinated, as she became frightened and agitated. But after her mother's death, Marion wanted to honour the time of her mother's life in which she had the disease, but she didn't want the illness to dominate the relationship she'd had with her mother. This moving memoir looks at grief and family, at love and music. It is a coming-to-terms reflection on the endurance of love and family.
The book is published by Signature Editions and is available at their web site.
Meet Marion: informal hangout/signing at Calico Coffeehouse on Saturday December 14, 2019, from noon to 5 p.m. I won't be selling books there, but I'm happy to sign anything someone buys, either from the publisher (http://www.signature-editions.com/index.php/books/single_title/reverberations_a_daughters_meditations_on_alzheimers) or another bookseller.
I'll Read That For You:A bluffers guide to 101 books you should read before you die.
By Margie Taylor
By Margie Taylor
Margie Taylor, book reviewer extraordinaire, wrote many wonderful reviews for this blog. Now she has collected 101 of them in a book called I’ll Read That For Your: A bluffers guide to 101 books you should read before you die. It is available at Amazon and the Amazon site lets you peak at the table of contents. Readers, you will be bowled over. Below is the Amazon review.
Margie Taylor
So many books and so little time! If you're too busy to read all the great books but want to be able to hold your own in literary conversations, this book is for you. In 1500 words or less author and journalist Margie Taylor tells you what the book's about, what you need to know about the author, and offers up her own personal evaluation. Her random sampling of books, taken from the 2010 edition of "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die", are engaging, lively, and informed. Read the reviews and decide if you want to read the book yourself. And if you don't, at least you'll know what you're missing.
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