Book Review & Giveaway - From Beer to Maternity

About The Book

Don’t look in the mirror, step on the scale, or say no to chocolate - and other suggestions for growing older gracefully!

Maggie Lamond Simone always had a witty and sarcastic remark at the ready as she grew up.  Her second grade teacher in fact worried about her being so flippant at such a young age; twenty years later, as a police officer escorted a drunken Simone away from the car she had just wrecked, she asked him to drop her not at home but at the bar where her friends waited. She quit drinking the next day.

When she finally came up for air, she was afraid that she wouldn’t be funny without the alcohol, but had a startling revelation: she wasn’t funny in the first place—the world was.

So words became her weapon of choice, and for the next 15 years she worked as a columnist in Syracuse, New York. She has since focused her immense talents and formidable mental skills on her nearly obsessive fascination with coming of age and parenting in America.

“People in their twenties today are not what they were in the 1960s,” she wisely concludes.  “Today they’re still kids. Back then they were middle-aged. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

Her new book From Beer to Maternity captures the wit and wisdom of her adventurous life as a late-blooming adult, and then wife, and then parent, and through it she shares the intelligent and wonderful insights she’s acquired with the rest of us.

“Well, really,” she complained to her mother after getting a puppy. “How hard can babies be? They wear diapers. They wake up, you go four feet and change them. You don’t even need slippers, for Pete’s sake.”

This collection of her columns and essays addresses dating, marriage, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause, all carefully selected and chosen because of the caustic wit and healthy disrespect for perfection – her trademarks - contained therein.

Maggie offers serious (no, humorous) advice (well, sarcastic commentary) for older people (yes, over the age of 30) who are having trouble with growing up or what it means to age gracefully, or are worried and even confounded by the concept of adulthood in general.

Her life-changing wisdom hath no bounds. For example, how you can tell when your body is aging along with the rest of you:

Of course, there are more concrete signs that one's body has, er, "peaked." A friend recently cried with delight, "Look! She has old lady arms just like the rest of us!" This would be a concrete sign. And if I ever wear a sleeveless top again in my life, you may feel free to observe this phenomenon.

Want more?  Okay.  Happy to oblige. 

You know your body is fading as fast as your mind when . . .

-You show pictures of your child to a colleague who says, "Your grandson is beautiful!"

-Salt and pepper are no longer a spice combination.  They're a hair color.

-Phrases such as "more of me to love" and "home again, home again, jiggedy jig" pop into your head with frightening regularity.

-You have used "sensible" and "shoes" in the same sentence.

-Hot baths are no longer a luxury, unless you consider it a luxury to be able to stand up straight.

-You wake up one day to find a Reader's Digest on the back of your toilet . . . and read it.

-10:00 p.m. has gone from "Woohoo! Party time!" to "Woohoo! Bed time!"

-The "locate handset" button on your telephone beats out the remote in order of importance.

-Clothes don't have to be fashionable.  They just have to be loose.

-You no longer ask someone to repeat something so you have more time to come up with a snappy response.  You ask him to repeat it because you didn't hear him.

Excerpt from Chapter 6, O Heather, Where Art Thou?, From Beer to Maternity

Accepting our aging is never easy – “The main weapon in the ‘I’m not old just because I remember eight-tracks’ arsenal is perception. ‘Old’ used to mean anyone over 30. When I hit 30, it meant over 60. Now it’s 120. I will accept I’m in the presence of someone old if her father fought in the Civil War” – but if we can laugh our way through it, it could be just a little more fun.

About The Author

Maggie has been a columnist in Syracuse New York for the past 15 years.  

Her columns have won six national awards, including four Gold awards from the PPA (Parenting Publications of America). The first was for an essay about breaking her daughter's leg, “so that's nice,” she says. “It was an accident.” Another was for her column about telling her son that she was a recovering alcoholic so that he didn't start off with the misconception that drunks are bad people; she’s a “very good person” when she’s not blasted. Her first national essay was published in Cosmopolitan, a coup which bought her a Golden Retriever named Decker, who is the subject of her children's book, LOSING DECKER. It is currently floating around in publishing limbo awaiting a publisher. Another, SOPHIE'S SOUNDS, was released in 2007. And TIMMY AND THE TIMEPIECE is floating with Decker somewhere, keeping him company and trying, most likely, to retrieve its shoe.

Her stories are included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Resolution (2009), P.S. What I Didn't Say (2009), Chicken Soup for the Soul in Menopause (2008), Chicken Soup for the New Mom's Soul (2007), Misadventures of Moms and Disasters of Dads (2005), and Hello, Goodbye (2004).

Right now, she’s a mother, and that’s a tough act to follow. 

My Take On The Book

I had never red any of the authors' columns and essays before, but I can tell that the author is the type of person that once you meet her you do not forget her. She presents an image of her life that are funny, humorous and sometimes roll-on-the-floor hilarious. I found myself reading and re-reading passages that I found to be overly funny. Some of the stories I could not relate to (such as mothering or menopause) but overall she even describes these foreign things to people so that anyone can relate.

Overall, the book was a great and fun read. The author's humor will open your eyes to the fun and light-hearted moments in a person's life. You will definitely find yourself laughing along as you read this book.

If this books sounds like one that you would like to add to your own collection, you can find it over at Amazon!

Giveaway

How would you like to win a copy of this book? I will be giving away 2 copies to a lucky reader! All you need to do is let me know why you would have an interest in this book to be considered. The contest will run for one week and will end on March 5, 2010.

Bonus Entries:

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Winners are chosen at random, if you want all your chances counted, make sure you leave individual comments, not all of them in one!

Winner has 48 hours to contact me or another name will be chosen.

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company.  Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site's Terms of Use  for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.


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