Category: book
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Laugh out loud
Leigh Anne Jasheway, in her book Don’t Get Mad, Get Funny, offers a new approach to resolutions. These are four of her suggestions: * Do something daily that makes you laugh out loud. * Eat right 90 percent of the time. * Focus on what you did right every day, instead of what you did…
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A smart cookie
“’I could’ve been somebody, you know?’ my mother says,” Sandra Cisneros writes about Esperanza’s mother in her book The House on Mango Street, the story of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. The mother “has lived in this city her whole life. She can speak two languages. She can sing…
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We all have felt other
“Writing in a younger voice allowed me to name the thing without a name,” explained Sandra Cisneros in the introduction to the 10th anniversary edition of her book The House on Mango Street. The book is the story of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. The thing without a name…
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Read a long book
James Patterson, the author, is planning to publish books for people who don’t read. These new BookShots novels will be shorter, cheaper, more plot-driven and more widely available. My first reaction when I read about Patterson’s plans in the March 22, 2016, issue of The Dallas Morning News was to vow to find a very…
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A legacy of bluebonnets
Today, when Lady Bird Johnson’s name is mentioned, many Texans—like me—think first of the countless bluebonnets that blossom along the highways of our state every spring. In the years before she died in 2007, “those who remembered her only as the wife of an unpopular president may still have disparaged her Southern drawl, but closer…
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Lady Bird’s beautification team
When Lady Bird Johnson launched her beautification campaign in 1965, people hadn’t yet realized the importance of conservation and protecting the environment. To educate the country, Lady Bird sent out Senate and cabinet wives and other women friends to give speeches throughout the country. “When Jane Freeman, wife of Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman, was introduced…
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The marriage that made a president
Betty Boyd Carroli, in her book Lady Bird and Lyndon—The Hidden Story of a Marriage that Made a President, concludes that Lyndon never would have succeeded as a senator or made it to the White House without the help of Lady Bird. Lady Bird Johnson was “an invaluable asset who served as sounding board, financial…
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A woman’s clothes
El habito no hace la monja. Or, in English, the habit does not make the nun. We like the Spanish version much better than the English version: Clothes do not make the man. We found this bit of wisdom in a delightful book by Charles Aranda called Dichos—Proverbs and Sayings from the Spanish.
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Wasting time?
Andar por last ramas. Or, in English, walking through shrubbery. If you are walking through shrubbery, you are wasting your time, says Charles Aranda in his delightful book Dichos—Proverbs and Sayings from the Spanish.
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A little poison
Un poquito de veneno no mata. Or, in English, a little poison will not kill. We found this reminder about the importance of moderation in a delightful book by Charles Aranda called Dichos—Proverbs and Sayings from the Spanish.