Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

"Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Scottish writer Gail Honeyman caught my eye at the library on a book display for Mental Health Awareness Month. The cover and the title drew me in (although I ended up “reading” as an audiobook on a driving trip – the accent of the Scottish main character is spot-on). At the beginning of the book, Eleanor appears to be an eccentric young woman with a one-dimensional, rigid, and highly judgmental world view. She seems to take every experience and interaction so literally that she can’t fathom why a barista would need to know her name when ordering coffee. She's baffled at why anyone would have reason to eat in a restaurant where food is more expensive and more likely to have been touched by unclean hands. I felt the book started slow, but, as it progressed, I realized the tempo was probably part of the author’s scene-setting to lay out Eleanor’s narrow world perspective. Bit by bit, Honeyman brings the reader into the story of ...

I’ve long been a collector of travel guides. There’s a stack on my bookshelf of books about Spain, Mexico, Italy, Thailand, France, England, Scotland, Israel and Egypt among others. Then I stopped buying travel guides somewhere in the mid-2010s when the internet put travel planning at my fingertips in real time. In today’s digital world, old fashioned travel books may seem to be obsolete. Who wants to travel with a 300-page book when the same info is available right on your phone? Not to mention, so much of the info in a hard-copy travel guide is outdated the day it’s published. For recent post-covid travel, however, I’ve become a fan of travel guides again. I enjoy going to the library and checking out a stack of books about my travel destination. I vicariously pre-travel to my destination running fingers over the colorful maps, pondering the adventures to be had in various parts of a new city. Then I pick my favorite book of the bunch and buy a copy at the local bookstore (my lat...

One of the interesting exercises in "Life in Five Senses" is creating a "Five Senses Self-Portrait." As part of my personal accountability to pay better attention through my senses, I'm sharing my self portrait that I'm updating regularly. Seeing The stillness of the ocean, the lake, any large body of water My weekly flower arrangements especially when I pop in the ceramic flowers bought on a trip to Germany A bright blue sky The vivid colors of sunset over water Big dogs running and chasing balls on the beach My yellow bike Hearing My dog’s toenails tapping through the house on the hardwood floors The barred owls in my neighborhood at night Neighborhood kids playing outside on a summer afternoon The deep resonant strum from a single acoustic guitar The natural sounds of my neighborhood as I take a walk without earbuds. Early morning chirping birds outside my window The laughter and music of my Sip N Strummers '70s music playing in a   ra...

(Writer's note: I wrote this review in 2019 shortly after the book came out. The podcast mentioned below is still online and is as relevant today as it was when the interview was done in 2019. This book is a must-read for anyone who thinks they might have an understanding of this complex story). Rarely does a book appeal to all my “reading” senses – well written, important message, compelling story and human connections. “Grace Will Lead Us Home” about the shootings at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church is one of them. J ennifer Berry Hawes  wrote the book while a reporter for the Post and Courier and witnessed first-hand many of the details surrounding this tragedy. Currently she writes for ProPublica. When I read writing by an author whose work really grabs me, I like to mark up the pages and go back and read those favorite lines over and over. This book is dog-eared with turned-down pages, numerous bookmarks and notes scribbled in the margins. For anyone who thinks they...

 As a lifelong news nerd, I love reading about the machinations of a newsroom – How do news stories actually get to the front page? Who decides if the tone of a news story is right? When do reporters know when they have gathered enough information to accurately report the truth?   My interest in the news gathering process is what prompted me to pick up “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life” off the shelf at Litchfield Books recently. The title and cover art could lead a bookstore browser to assume this book is an intriguing work of fiction. However, a quick glance at the dust cover describes real-life backroom stories written by Margaret Sullivan who was the first woman to serve as the public editor at the New York Times and was later media columnist at the Washington Post. Most newspapers in markets the size of South Carolina don’t have a public editor. This is a role many large news organizations have on staff to provide an outsider’s per...

My normal reading habits lean toward the elements of a well-balanced diet. I like to have several books going at once wanting each to supply me with something different. I like to have one book that teaches me something, one that entertains, and one that’s just “junk food” reading. But recently I found myself with three “teachable” books going at once (stay tuned for reviews of the other two). It was unintentional, but so interesting to find these three books were perfectly aligned to read in tandem. They all pointed me strongly toward similar types of practices carried out in different ways to increase my capacity to be present to the wonder of my daily world. Roger Hutchison ’s recently released book “ The Art of Calm ” is the perfect mix of thought-provoking, easy reading, insightful and practical helping bring new awareness to our daily lives. Roger is a former Columbia resident, and I knew him many years ago when he was on the staff at Trinity Cathedral in Columbia. He and his...

Another historical fiction for the win with “ The First Ladies ” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. After I really enjoyed “The Personal Librarian” earlier in the summer, this newest book by the same authors piqued my interest. This is the story of friendship, political will, and a passion for righting wrongs that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Black activist Mary McLeod Bethune shared.  Many of the issues familiar in today’s culture – race, gender and divisive politics - played a big role in how these two women made their way through their individual and shared lives. Together, they wielded a behind-the-scenes power that changed the course of the civil rights movement in our country. Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune’s lives ran parallel and intersected repeatedly both in spite of and because of their shared vision for civil rights, equal education and social justice in the country. Plus, they forged a personal friendship that crossed racial lines unh...

My dream has long been to quit life and join the band. While I’ve taken up music lessons in recent years (see photo at the end), this book allowed me to vicariously live out that dream without the messiness, madness and complexities of doing it in real life. My fascination with the behind-the-scenes intrigues of being in a band played out in every chapter of this book. “ Daisy Jones and the Six ” (2018) by Taylor Jenkins Reid chronicles the rise and fall of a successful ‘70s rock band, The Six, and its lead singer, Daisy Jones. Written in a format that could be called an “oral history,” each chapter is narrated in first person from the various characters’ perspectives. The narrative feels more like an interview than traditional prose. Daisy is a strikingly beautiful and hugely talented young singer who makes her way to the stage in a band called “The Six.” The story weaves through the drama, successes, secrets, failures and personal demons of these seven people, their families and...

"Hello Beautiful” by Anna Napolitano is the sweeping story of a large chaotic family in the late ‘70s – early ‘80s with more than its share of eccentricities. It’s a book about love, loss, low lows and high highs, family, forgiveness, grudges and grace.   The Padavano family of four girls and their parents live in a working class Chicago suburb. Alcoholic father + mother mired in unfulfilled dreams = four daughters who heavily depend on each other while, at the same time, also learn to rely on their individual strengths. Willams Waters, a broken young man saved only by his basketball talent, joins the family by way of his marriage to the oldest daughter, Julia. The imbalance that results throws the entire family into a series of life-altering changes. Each of the characters is developed enough to firmly illustrate their individual superpowers. For William, his superpower begins as talent in basketball. For Julia, it appears to be her ambition. The second sister Sylvie, only...

“The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray was such a delightful surprise. Historical fiction isn’t normally my top reading choice, but to stay true to one of my summer reading goals, I’m trying out new genres and new writers. This one was spot on. The book follows the life of a young woman in the early 1900s who is hired by the mega-wealthy financier JP Morgan to be the personal librarian for his extensive manuscript and art collection in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City. While this was a perfectly acceptable type of position for an unmarried young white woman of the time, the intriguing story line of the book is based around the fact that Belle da Costa Greene is actually Belle Marion Greener, a Black woman. The book builds from Belle’s family story that includes her father, Richard Greener, the first Black Harvard graduate who spent his life as an activist for equal rights. Belle’s father leaves the family over the fact that her mother...

The books I enjoy the most typically sit unfinished with one chapter remaining. They deliciously hang out in my reading stack or on my audiobook list the same way the last bite of my favorite chocolate cookie sits wrapped up on the counter. I savor the thought of it. I visit it occasionally. I conjure up visions of slowly consuming that last morsel. “It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs” is one of those books. It sat unfinished in my audiobook app for five days. I just didn’t want it to end. This book is the memoir of NPR anchor Mary Louise Kelly ’s “year of no do-overs” as her 18-year-old son entered his senior year in high school. Her job as the anchor of NPR’s afternoon news show, “All Things Considered,” meant she went on air every weekday at 4 p.m.   - the exact time of her sons’ weekly Monday soccer games. (Her younger son was a high school sophomore at the time and also a soccer player). Every year, Kelly had told herself, this would be the year that she wou...

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. That’s one of the many reasons I walked out of Square Books in Oxford, MS , recently with writer and illustrator Maira Kalman’s newest book,“Women Holding Things. ” I knew her of art only because one of her paintings depicting a soulful basset hound graced the cover of Strunk and White’s latest edition of “The Elements of Style.” That dog enticed me to upgrade my college-issued version of this grammar book several years ago. After picking up the display copy of "Women Holding Things" on the bookstore table, I was immediately intrigued by this book’s title and cover art. I flipped the book over to look for the typical reviews or author bio. To my delight, I found only the following quote: Nothing on the dustcover or the book flaps gives the reader any intel about the author, the artwork or the contents of the book. As I flipped through the pages with sparse words and expressive paintings, I found myself holding this book close with...

  “ Our Best Intentions ” by Vibhuti Jain revolves around an Indian immigrant family living in a small, well-to-do New York suburb. The father, Barbur Singh, is raising his teen-aged daughter, Angela, alone after his wife abandons the family when Angela is a young child. With a singleness of focus and a remarkable innocence about the ways of the world, Barbur attempts balancing the grueling schedule of his small business with ensuring Angie has what she needs to succeed in her highly competitive high school swimming career. During summer vacation, Angela stumbles upon a fellow high school student who has been stabbed on the school’s football field. This discovery drops Barbur and Angela squarely into an unfamiliar world of the community’s upper crust shattering their innocence about what’s right and wrong. The book has all the elements of a well-told story. The characters are developed with plenty of subtleties that ultimately converge at the end. Jain touches on many aspect...

Maybe it’s my age or maybe it’s the fact that some of my current work has me skirting around the edges of politics again. I’ve recently devoured three podcast episodes and re-read a book that took me back to the policy issues and politics of the '70s and '80s that interestingly continue to shape our state today. The old adage of "the more things change, the more they stay the same" certainly plays out when looking back at how we got to where we are today. First the podcasts All three of these podcast episodes brought up political and policy issues from the '70s and '80s that still taunt South Carolina today. All three are must-listens for anyone who works in or around legislative politics and state government. ·       Podcast hosts and former state senators Vincent Sheheen and Joel Lourie spent an hour in conversation on “Bourbon in the Back Room” with long-time editorial writer Cindi Scoppe from the Post and Courier . She covered the State House for The Stat...

Stories of local folks who’ve found national acclaim always interest me. And if they’re in the world of journalism or politics even more so. That’s part of the reason I picked up Craig Melvin’s book, "Pops," on a recent trip to the Richland Library. While I don’t know Craig personally, we’ve got enough mutual friends that I feel a little kinship with his story. While this book focuses on Craig's path to the Today show set, it’s more than just his professional story. This book explores his journey to understand and accept an unaccountable father who battled alcoholism and who wasn’t very present in Craig’s growing up years. The timing of the book lines up with Craig’s own journey as a father to his young children, Delano and Sybil. Craig’s storytelling skills from years in television translate nicely to the page with a writing style that’s conversational and descriptive without sugarcoating the challenges his family faced. He deftly balances facing down the demons he d...

Is there anything that we take for granted more than the power of our five senses? Gretchen Rubin’s new book, “ Life in Five Senses, How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World ,” stunned me out of complacency. It reminded me about the riches we overlook daily because we fail to pay full attention to what we are seeing, tasting, touching, smelling and hearing. Gretchen studies the five senses through the lens of connectivity to the world around us – a simple premise – but likely something most people easily forget to appreciate. By overlaying art, literature, food, science, family and the natural world, Gretchen chronicles her personal sensory exploration. A reader can choose to ride along on her journey or use her journey to plot their own path. I did a little of both. The author responds to a potentially life-changing medical issue as a jolt to examine the power of her own senses. Her research includes enough scientific data to be credible, but not boring, f...