W...W...W...Wednesdays - January 8th

This meme was created by MizB at Should Be Reading. To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…


• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

• What are you currently reading?

What do you get when you mix a crawling toddler, a screaming baby, and a sudden craving for pickles and ice cream all over again? A full-time job. Some people call this “parenting.” It’s an intense roller coaster of constant chaotic sounds; pitter-patter of adorable, yet never-ceasing, little feet; things getting broken; emotional ups and downs…all in addition to the regular duties, chores, and responsibilities of a normal American household. Sometimes laughter is needed to survive the more intense days… The Mommy Diaries: How I’m Surviving Parenting without Killing Anyone is a snapshot into the crazy, daily parenting life of Dallas Louis, author of Girlfriends, Giggles, & God. Dallas is the mother of three kids who all arrived within twenty-six months of each other. Combining that with later home renovation projects and surviving multiple ER visits, all the while still maintaining a relationship with her husband (remember that guy?), she has lived through enough moments of her own to share with her readers her tears and fears through laughter, and often times, the act of surviving the early years by sheer, dumb luck! The Mommy Diaries will have you rolling off your couch, and thanking your lucky stars that all these babies fell to someone else!

This is a funny book, but I have to admit it's sometimes hard to feel bad for a woman who has a mother-in-law who comes to live with her for a while, a teenage babysitter to help on a trip to Disney, and a nanny. Some of us actually have to master taking care of the kids all on our own.

• What did you recently finish reading?

The value of any new venture or sound new idea needs to be developed out of the nothingness of silence, ignorance and darkness. It ignites and illuminates the world only when the great storytelling entrepreneur lights the flame. “STORYTELLING: The Indispensable Art of the Entrepreneur” shows, with startling clarity and practical know-how, the process by which wealth and other things of exceptional value can emerge into the world literally out of nothing—nothing, that is, but the Art of Storytelling.

STORYTELLING takes you on a journey which reveals how the development, progressive modification and adaptation of your story is the golden thread and foundational core management practice which ties together all the others: building, focusing and motivating your management team, navigating through troubled times or excessive growth, maintaining positive momentum with investors and Boards of Directors and positioning the venture for a potential exit.
Award-winning author and entrepreneur, Rudy Mazzocchi, exposes his greatest secret of success and provides an enormous amount of “experienced-based” illustrations and nuts-and-bolts practical advice. He reveals how to create and evolve the story of your new venture in a way that energizes and breathes life into what may have started out as just an idea.

Everyone can benefit greatly from reading this book—whether or not you envision yourself as an entrepreneur. STORYTELLING: The Indispensable Art of the Entrepreneur applies universally to ventures of all types and is an essential element in the fulfillment of any dream—dreams which depend upon capturing the interest and sustaining the highly-motivated commitment of others.

Absolutely loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of going into business for herself or looking for the inspiration to follow your dreams.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Since publishing his first novel in 1964, Jerome Charyn has established himself as one of the most inventive and prolific literary chroniclers of the American landscape. Here in I Am Abraham, Charyn returns with an unforgettable portrait of Lincoln and the Civil War. Narrated boldly in the first person, I Am Abraham effortlessly mixes humor with Shakespearean-like tragedy, in the process creating an achingly human portrait of our sixteenth President.

Tracing the historic arc of Lincoln's life from his picaresque days as a gangly young lawyer in Sangamon County, Illinois, through his improbable marriage to Kentucky belle Mary Todd, to his 1865 visit to war-shattered Richmond only days before his assassination, I Am Abraham hews closely to the familiar Lincoln saga. Charyn seamlessly braids historical figures such as Mrs. Keckley—the former slave, who became the First Lady's dressmaker and confidante—and the swaggering and almost treasonous General McClellan with a parade of fictional extras: wise-cracking knaves, conniving hangers-on, speculators, scheming Senators, and even patriotic whores.

We encounter the renegade Rebel soldiers who flanked the District in tattered uniforms and cardboard shoes, living in a no-man's-land between North and South; as well as the Northern deserters, young men all, with sunken, hollowed faces, sitting in the punishing sun, waiting for their rendezvous with the firing squad; and the black recruits, whom Lincoln’s own generals wanted to discard, but who play a pivotal role in winning the Civil War. At the center of this grand pageant is always Lincoln himself, clad in a green shawl, pacing the White House halls in the darkest hours of America’s bloodiest war.

Using biblically cadenced prose, cornpone nineteenth-century humor, and Lincoln’s own letters and speeches, Charyn concocts a profoundly moral but troubled commander in chief, whose relationship with his Ophelia-like wife and sons—Robert, Willie, and Tad—is explored with penetrating psychological insight and the utmost compassion. Seized by melancholy and imbued with an unfaltering sense of human worth, Charyn’s President Lincoln comes to vibrant, three-dimensional life in a haunting portrait we have rarely seen in historical fiction.

I've been enamored with Charyn's work ever since I began reading his books. Since I am also a fan of books about Lincoln, this promises to be a phenomenal read.