Tag: good book

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I am home. in Marco Island, Florida.

“I am well into the book now. It is so brilliant! I feel so many different emotions reading it and I love the bits of irony and humor you bring to the stories, along with the questions you raise.

Now that I know how important water was to the story, I am pleased that I made it my first book to read by this new pool we are going to after we work out.

I appreciate the way you have moved between the dramatic passages and the lighter, witty, thought-provoking chapters of the story….changing, variously, the time frame, the tone and the location. It gives the narrative an interesting momentum and energy that for me is very engaging.

I am savoring each chapter and each story like I don’t want it to end. I love the style of writing,

I ordered Lucy, go see. and it should arrive just in time so I can roll from one to the other. Congratulations on publishing this amazing book!”

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I am home. on the screen in Kansas.

What a wonderful reception for I am home. from the GO Book Club in Shawnee, Kansas! Because of the time difference between the Kansas City area and Barcelona, I was unable to appear live so I recorded this video in which I answered questions these readers sent me.

I could probably write another book to answer each of the following:

This book has a different format and flow than most books. What were your thoughts when creating the structure of the book?

Why did you write the book the way you did? Aka not in chronological order of how things happened… 

As I read, I felt you had such inner peace and calmness even in the midst of turmoil. Any thoughts or tips on how you achieved this?

Do you think you will move again? Is there one place that will feel like home and where you will eventually want to stay or is home what you make it?

When you move to different countries, what do you miss about other countries? What commonalities or differences do you see in different countries and what do you miss most? 

You said you think about silence as voice, as a choice, as a speechless voice or unspeakable silence. Can you explain what you mean by that? It’s brilliant. I’m curious how you came to that conclusion?

Where are your favorite places you’ve ever visited?

Again, you can link to the video with the answers here.

If you’d like me to appear at your book club, just send an e-mail to welcomewonder@mariannemaili.com .

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Coming back to home.

Another from KK’s list of Scintillating Sentences. This one hints at the humor peppered throughout the book. I love it when readers tell me they laughed out loud while reading. Cried and laughed. Two great releases. A male reader who speaks English as a second language recently wrote, “Yes, some pages made me cry.”

“That seems a good thing– a good grieving cry does wonders,” I answered.

“Yes, it’s good because you feel pain going out,” he replied.

Pain going out. I love that.

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I am home. in beauty. “Is Iowa really that pretty?”

A view over the Mississippi at Dubuque, Iowa.

The Mines of Spain, Dubuque, Iowa

A lovely place to begin a new book. The backyard patio. July 2016. Rush Street, Dubuque, Iowa

Freshly picked snacks.

Inspiration from Norah Ephron the day before I began writing I am home.

I have gorgeous winter photos, too, but they are currently in storage in Iowa and I am in Barcelona.

A reader hosting her book club in Kansas next week with I am home. has known me since she was a toddler. When she sent me the club’s questions, she wrote, “You’re getting rave reviews. Someone in the book club asked me how you’re so positive after everything you’ve been through. She asked if Iowa is really that pretty.  I told her it’s prettier than anyone gives it credit for. And I told her you have always seen beauty in everything and you make others appreciate things more, you have a gift. You have always been so good about living in the present and enjoying life.”

Available everywhere books are sold.

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I am home. in great hands.

Montse “…loved the storyline, the way it was written and presented. Very easy to read, and you are hooked from the very first page!

Marianne’s writing is simply yummy, and extremely entertaining.

I thoroughly enjoyed every page of it and would highly recommend it to everyone.

I am home. is a must-read.”

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I am home. in Florida.

A reader sent this photo from Miami and it has left me speechless for a while. I think about motherhood when I look at it. Then I look at the breasts of what appears to be a child because of its size and what seems to be a breast-less woman holding her, and why do I think it is a woman? Because of the shape of the waist and the hips. And that breastlessness makes me think of St. Agatha. And then there is the size of the feet and I am home., a traveling book, at the feet, of this image of bigness seemingly protecting smallness. And this makes me think of another reader’s comment about how the book is about the extraordinary of the ordinary, though this image is hardly ordinary. I could probably ask someone who knows. Look at it, though, above all, headless. Headless. What happens when we lose our heads? Or when we get out of our heads and decide to live with the body and place less focus on the mind? We each have our own answers to these questions that I like to think about when I look at this image. I am home. is filled with similar questions and occasional attempts to answer them. In this way, it is also about acceptance of things as they are. It can also be a statement about being home anywhere in any way.

And when I look at it, for some reason, this sentence that many readers have liked from I am home. floats into my mind: These three bodies-the one I came from, mine, and the one I gave life to-all connect to one happiness.

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I am home. in the book.

A reader recently met with me and showed me all the asterisks and dog-eared pages in the book marking the places that moved her most. It was delightful to find that many of the sentences I had struggled with were in that group.

You can probably imagine my pleasure in reading this later: “I am home. is a book about searching and connecting with yourself, with loss, with love, with who you are and who you want to be, through life experiences and change. In I am home., this path is seldom straightforward, much like the author’s discourse, which gently goes back and forth in time in a way that seems almost unconscious, much like our thoughts, and our emotions. In this search for home, the author’s voice comes through as genuine and honest where self-respect and dignity are non-negotiable conditions of this search.

I thoroughly enjoyed I am home. Maili’s writing is uplifting and insightful. It’s inspirational.”

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