Reading is sexy. Just do it. In places like this. it’s lovely to watch someone read. “El problema es cuando cojo tu libro, no puedo dejarlo,” this reader told me. In other words, “The problem is that when I pick up your book, I can’t put it down.”
It’s a story that moves about a person who moves.
“Swimming. Flying in water. Disappearing in water. Being held by water. The buoyancy. The rhythm. I write like I swim and sometimes as I swim.” -MM
I love that readers take swimming breaks and come back to I am home., a book with a lot of water in it. And I love Galicia.
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One reader wrote to say, “The sentence I most relate to is: ‘I initially chose Barcelona for how I feel when in it: free and connected to something I cannot name or understand.'”
Have you ever had that feeling about a place? Barcelona is important in I am home. and in Lucy, go see. I am working on a short piece about our love affair, Barcelona’s and mine, and will share it with you soon.
“You write about it beautifully,” I was happy to hear.
Have you been to Barcelona? Come travel with me, and make yourself at home.
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This reader wrote: “Finished on Fire Hill overlooking Lake Superior. I love the style in which it is written–poetic and lyrical and very soothing. I love how you gave us few words sometimes and let us think about the situation. You put words together in the most beautiful way! Here’s to the success of your book! I just ordered another copy for a gift–”
It means much to me to read that the book is soothing. That was a goal of the revision–to highlight the beauty of life and make folks glad to be living it. As I have written before, boiling down a 432,000-word first draft to 48,000 words of essence is an exercise in pertinence and poetry. How to make life sing? Each reader creates a new book when filling the white spaces on the page with their thoughts, imagination, memories, and experience. I am home., now everywhere with everyone, becoming more. (and Wisconsin is on these pages, too)
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At Decatur Cemetery, this reader found the book an “engaging rollercoaster ride” because she related so much to the narrator’s nomadic life. She read part of it on a lovely porch swing overlooking the cemetery. I like to think the poignant cemetery moments of the book were read on that swing. Georgia is where I gave birth to my son and motherhood. Both are important in this book.
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Would you like it on a lake? Would you like it on a break? Would you like it walking down the road?
I like knowing the book has traveled to a region where my ancestors lived. This reader writes from Germany:
“I am sitting with your book now, on a patio by the lake outside Potsdam…I really enjoy the details of place you included, all of the sensory information and vivid visuals give me such a clear image of your experience of these locations that are so meaningful to you. It’s very generous to share such pieces of your heart. This is one of my favorite things about writing, traveling, even staying still. Getting to know a place intimately and trying to translate what I feel into something another can understand, at least in part. The honesty of your perspective on relationships also speaks to me. I deeply related to the experience of Iowa dinner parties becoming uncomfortable after speaking directly about taboo subjects. The book really is a delight.”
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I am home. in Washington Square Park. Amy “Absolutely loved it! It’s a memoir that feels like how memory works. A series of moments distilled to their poetic essence, full of beauty and grace. What’s not written heightens the poignancy of what is.”
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Who can ask for anything more?
One of myriad ways this book can be seen is as a love letter to my family, friends and hometown, and to Northeastern Iowa.
Yet also to France, Iceland, Spain, England, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, and California.
And many more. I love this planet.
This reader on the #mediterranean loves, like many other readers, the pace and clip and love and life on these #pages.
#beachread #summer #greatbook #travel #lifewriting
Join the conversation:
welcomewonder@mariannemaili.com
“The summer wind came blowing in from across the sea…”
Can you hear Frank Sinatra singing it as you look at this photo?
Available in hardcover and paperback wherever books are sold.
Marianne Maili 