Poetry by Chris Brockman is the Cure for Feeling Old

I could not be much more thrilled than I am at this moment in time, being able to share with you my latest book review. I have just published my rave review of I Used To Be Old by my author friend, Chris Brockman.

The book is a collection of Chris' poems relating to that getting-old feeling many of us, like myself, have begun falling victim to - yes, I have the aches and pains to show for it too!

Read my review, and a special picture poem on the page, too. Buy Brockman's book for your poetry reading pleasure and it is sure to be a cure for the aging blues!

Read Ruthi's Review of I Used To Be Old

Linking up with Marsha's HOP and SQUIDOO today since this book review is published on the Squidoo writing platform. If you are a blogger and a Squidoo writer, hop along with us!

Baby Boomer Author and Review

Sometimes a book comes along that deserves more than just a review. When that happens I will generally head to my profile on the Squidoo platform to create and publish a lens (web page) for the book in hand.

Growing Up In Boom Times warranted more than a book review from me. That said, you can read all I have to say about this baby boomer gem of an author and book by visiting Growing Up In Boom Times by Author Chris Brockman.

I will, of course, be updating this lens frequently. In the meantime, I would appreciate your thoughts in the comment section here and/or on the lens itself.

Have you read the book

 Growing Up In Boom Times?

This being my newest Squidoo lens, I will be linking this post up with HOP and SQUIDOO over at Marsha's Spot. If you Squidoo, blog hop along with us!

Service With a Smile a Part of Growing Up In Boom Times

This Baby Boomer blast from the past comes to us from page 88 of Chapter Twelve, "What a Gas" of Growing Up In Boom Times:


     "I worked at the Clark station in Keego Harbor. All we sold was premium gas and oil—and service. My training for the job consisted primarily of how to give good service. Good service meant smiling, being polite, always wiping windshield (front and back), and asking if customers wanted their oil checked. It also meant putting air into tires if asked--or better, if a tire looked low, suggesting it. For all this the customer paid 34.9 cents for a gallon of gas, a price which didn't go up at all until the mid-70's.

     Good service at the Clark station did have..."

Previously shared excerpts of Growing Up In Boom Times:

100 Words from Baby Boomer and Author Chris Brockman
Wild Berries and Grampas

WoW Weekly 100 Words is a book blog hop-a-long. Share a 100-word excerpt of a book you are currently reading. Just snag the hop badge and link, add it to your post on your blog, then return here to add your blog post to the linky list provided at the end of this post.

For your Information: I use The Word Count Tool to count my book excerpts.

Wild Berries and Grampas

As I read from the pages of Growing Up In Boom Times, it is difficult to choose which 100 words to share with you. I am enjoying each little morsel, with each tale tasting a bit more about my author friend, Chris Brockman. The problem is that I want you to know Chris, too, so I seem to select excerpts from his book that manage to hint at the character of the man I have come to like, to trust, and to respect within the past two years or so online at Gather.

Today, I share with you (from Chapter Three) a tidbit from Chris and his family's wild berry saga:

     "...a continuation of my own grampa's legacy.
     Last summer, while visiting Adrienne and Kevin in Western Michigan, Rowan begged me to take him blackberry picking, So, Julie, Rowan, his little brother Shay, and I explored the neighborhood bordering Lake Michigan and found a fine patch of dewberries, a close-to-the ground variety of blackberries. Rowan and Shay excitedly announced each time they picked a berry how big this one was, and it was music to my ears. We picked more than enough to renew their supply of gramps jam and the spirits of at least a couple of grampas before me."


I wish to assure you that you do not have to be of the Age of Baby Boomers to enjoy Growing Up In Boom Times. You are welcome to follow along with me each week as I share from this book or you can purchase your own copy and read along with me.

Previous WoW 100 excerpts of Growing Up In Boom Times:

1. 100 Words from Baby Boomer and Author Chris Brockman

100 Words from Baby Boomer and Author Chris Brockman

Calling all Baby Boomers, readers, and book blog hoppers! Hop along with me in the coming weeks as I read and share excerpts from author Chris Brockman's latest publication "Growing Up in Boom Times".

Today's 100 Words are a part of the Introduction of "Growing Up in Boom Times".

"...change is too often pushed on us by the large, powerful forces in our society, I also think that in our free society we individuals have the ultimate power to direct change in the direction we think is best. Younger generations have or will have an increasingly important role in deciding how our society will change. My own adult children aver that things have already changed greatly since they were children, and I can only imagine the changes my grandchildren will see. It's up to them, and it's up to you to change our lives and our world for the better."

~Chris Brockman, May 1, 2011

Are you a Baby Boomer? A Reader? Perhaps you're a book blog hopper. What are you currently reading?

Note: I use The Word Count Tool to count my book excerpts.

Growing Up In Boom Times now Book Blog Hopping

I am kind of glad that I did not get around to doing a mail call to announce receipt of this gem of a book. As fate would have it, announcing its arrival fits perfectly for this week's Book Blogger Hop question.

The Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books.com, connects book bloggers and readers together. It's a great way to meet and greet fellow book bloggers, authors, and reviewers. Each week a new question is offered up for us to answer in our blog post for the hop.

This week’s question:

"Highlight one book you have received this week (for review, from the library, purchased at the store, etc.) that you can’t wait to dig into!"

My Response: I purchased my signed copy of "Growing Up In Boom Times" by author and friend, Chris Brockman. As much as I wanted to read this beauty from cover-to-cover immediately, I have forced myself to keep two other book titles for review in front of it. Of course, it is only natural that I'd sneak a peek between the covers on occasion with it reaching out to me from the top of the pile of books upon my desk waiting to be read.

"Growing Up In Boom Times" is a trip down memory lane for those of us who grew up as Baby Boomers. However, it isn't just a glance at our past; it's a glance at our future -- viewed through the eyes of our present.

Enough about the book for now, lest I spoil it for you. I will share with you the personalized signing from Chris:

To Ruthi, who brings Sunshine

into so many people's lives.

Chris Brockman

06-21-11

How cool is that! While it warms the spirit...

Book Review: Malachi's Cove

Malachi's Cove
by Chris Brockman
Marigold Press, 1978, US
Hardcover, Literary Fiction, 48 pages
Review by Ruth Cox

The tale of Malachi's Cove, as told by author Chris Brockman, is of a Cornish girl, a young woman who possessed the height of stature in strength and fortitude. She was unstoppable in her plight to protect that which she felt she had earned to be hers. And now she felt this was her little cove, this place called Malachi's Cove by the people of the beach. For Malachi Trenglos had built his hut above and he and she had blazed the trail from the cliff to the sea.

Malachai, now called old Glos, had grown old and bent working the water for the gift of the sea and could do it no more. But fate had seen fit to grace him with a gem of a granddaughter who would toil the treacherous cove by day and by night to bring in the weed. Mahala, known to all along the coast simply as Mally, was a force to be reckoned with. The old ones respected her for caring for her grandfather and continuing his seaweed business; the young ones taunted her for her unkempt appearance and unladylike behavior. One lad, Bartholemew, found in her great pleasure. Barty insisted he and Mally would one day be friends.

Would Mally one day be Barty's treasure? Or, would she bring him to his early demise? There would be lessons to be learned by young and by old before the answers to these queries could be heard.

Barty scoffed at Mally's insistence the weed of the cove belonged solely to her. She considered him nothing but an interloper. A storm brewed between them as fierce as that which one day seized the overhead sky and the waves churning below. Both Mally and Barty fought feverishly to gather the seaweed, fiercely jabbing and jeering at one another all the while. Then there was a great Splash! and Barty was engulfed by waves cresting into the endless whirlpool inside the rock-lined hole.

Mally fetched old Glos, then ran to fetch Barty's family, and then she hid near the hut. As Barty's family carried their accusations and his broken body past her, she turned her head away, until a sound beckoned her back.

"Mally!" The lad whom she had been accused of killing called unto her ... proof she was not to be blamed.

Malachi's Cove by Anthony Trollope, was originally published in Good Words, 1864, and again in a collection of Trollope's short stories, Lotta Schmidt and Other Stories, 1867. Author Chris Brockman has edited this classic "to retain the flavor of the period in which it was written" while modernizing it for the reader's pleasure. Brockman adds and subtracts from the original version just enough to portray his own literary style. The beauty of Brockman's publication of Malachi's Cove is complimented by his chosen illustrator, Ken Green, whose graphic artistry enhances the text of the storyteller.


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This review is written and ©Ruth Cox. Reviews written by Ruth Cox are the sole property of said reviewer. This book review is written for and first posted to: Ruthi Reads! No monetary compensation is received in exchange for the writing of this review. A complimentary copy of the book was presented to said reviewer for personal reading and review purposes. This fact has no bearing on the written result of the review.