Today was an ordinary day.
It had its ups and downs; pleasant surprises came between the mundane and the irritating
and you’ll look back at it tomorrow with clarity, perhaps, but its details will be sketchy in
a decade. It was an ordinary day which, says Gary Younge, also means an average of
seven kids in the U.S. lost their lives to a bullet. In “Another Day in the Death of
America,” he explains.
Someone always has to be first.
That can be a good thing, or a bad one. Good, if it’s a cafeteria, supermarket queue,
electronics store, or conga line; better, if free samples are involved. Bad, in experiments,
taste-testing, first-on- last-off and, as in the new novel “Darktown” by Thomas Mullen,
first in a dangerous new job.
You never have to explain yourself when you’re together; everything said (and unsaid) is
understood. There may be many years between you, but it doesn’t matter. There may be
differences in background, but no worries. Nothing keeps you apart, and in the new book
“Elizabeth and Michael” by Donald Bogle, that might be because you have everything
in common.
At the end of the day, you’re out of gas.
There’s nothing left in your reserves, not a drop. You’re done, wondering if this is as far
as you’ll ever go but somehow open to new suggestions. So read “The Full Tank Life”
by Ben Tankard. It might just rev your engine again.
There’s no magic wand to change the things that’ve been on your mind lately:
social issues, inequality, poverty, politics, apathy, violence. Those ills didn’t arrive quick
and they won’t leave quick but, says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, they can be repaired.
Never be afraid of….
Your Mommy and Daddy have taught you that. Never be afraid of spiders, big animals,
lightning, or loud noises. Always be brave, they say, and so you are – and in the new
book “Brave Like Me” by Barbara Kerley, you’ll see how that courage you’ve got
helps them, too.
You never knew what you didn’t have.
There were times in your childhood when cereal was supper because there was nothing else. When birthday toys seemed gently pre-loved, hand-me-downs were new to you, and you were none the wiser.
In every love life, there’s always “the one that got away.”
He got away because you were both too young, too scared, too broke, or too different.
An accident, a murder, a surprise can happen in an instant that can seem like a lifetime. It
doesn’t take very long – or does it? The odd thing about time is that it’s shapeable, as
you’ll see in the new book “83 Minutes: The Doctor, the Damage, and the Shocking
Death of Michael Jackson” by Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne.
In every love life, there’s always The One That Got Away.
He got away because you were both too young, too scared, too broke, or too different.
Things were said that couldn’t be unsaid, done that shouldn’t have been done. It just
didn’t work out then, but now…? In the new novel, “I Almost Forgot about You” by
Terry McMillan, he’ll never get away twice.
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