Maria E. Andreu's Blog: Maria E. Andreu on Goodreads, page 53

I love this goat

I have a thing for goats. I could regale you with why, but then you might think I’m weird. Okay, I’ll regale you with why. First, my now-ex-parents-in-law had a goat farm. I used to love to take the one-mile hike to the farm from their house, barely keeping up with the strides of my […]

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The New York Public Library booktalks THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY

Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are of standing in front of the beautiful lions in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library (named Patience and Fortitude, I came to learn decades later when I worked two blocks away from them). Later, in high school, I’d take the bus […]

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Innumerate

Shortly after I moved out at 18 years old, I signed up for one of those old-fashioned book clubs which shipped you out a book a month unless you told them not to. (I had overestimated the likelihood that I would send in the little postcard halting delivery and billing). It was a mistake that […]

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Writer’s Block: 5 things you can do about it today

One of the questions I get asked most often during my book events is, “How do you deal with writer’s block?” My answer usually is, “There’s no such thing.” What I don’t usually add is: that’s not entirely true. It’s true that I don’t believe anything short of paralysis or mental disability can actually stop […]

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The psychology of weird

I am fascinated by aberrant human behavior. Give me a documentary about the childhood of a serial killer or a totalitarian ruler, and I’m hooked. What makes people do things most of us would consider so far outside the norm? I read books and spend lots of time wondering about it. I want to understand. […]

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Imagine a world

Imagine a world in which millionaires wanted to create more wealth for themselves, so they funded legislation that made their product easier to get. Imagine that they made that product seem cool, the tool of cowboys and heroes and muscular guys who always get the girl. Imagine they deliberately twisted the words of an old […]

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The Peace of Wild Things

I thought of the piece I wrote the other day, the one about going to the woods and sitting on a rock to find peace, and then I came across this beautiful poem by Wendell Berry called The Peace of Wild Things. Oh, how I long to be a wild thing (reminds me too of […]

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The best thing to give

I hadn’t even heard of “Giving Tuesday” last week when I decided it was time to find a new volunteering opportunity. (Giving Tuesday is today, FYI). For me, it just felt like time – I’ve volunteered my time on and off since my twenties. But the fact that there is now a day in which […]

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The spark

The day is gray The chill seeping in through the walls Promising itself for months Chasing out the green And the sun-kissed skin Somewhere inside The cavewoman, the farm worker, the heathen with the club Whispers to me of fire, of crowding out the cold, Of turning a shoulder against scavengers and dwindling food stores […]

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Imponderable questions of the week

Why do Iowa and New Hampshire get to have their primaries first? What stops, say, New Jersey, from deciding it’s going to move its primary up, thus making itself more politically relevant? Also, is Trump seriously going to get the Republican nomination? Sweet universe, protect us. I keep trying to remind myself of Steve Forbes […]

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