Betsy Robinson
Goodreads Author
Born
in New York City, The United States
Website
Twitter
Genre
Influences
Member Since
March 2011
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/betsy_robinson
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Popular Answered Questions
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The Trouble with the Truth
by
4 editions
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published
2015
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The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg
4 editions
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published
2014
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Cost of Care
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published
2021
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Plan Z by Leslie Kove
3 editions
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published
2001
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Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother
4 editions
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published
2011
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Jakey, Get Out of the Buggy
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Girl Stories & Game Plays: an anthology of stories and plays
4 editions
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published
2005
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LEARNING TO THRIVE: Begin by Recognizing Your Trauma
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The Practice: Dee and Bea's Quick & Easy Guide to Enlightenment
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published
2017
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Betsy’s Recent Updates
"Hello, Transcriber begins with such promise. In a depressed and broken city somewhere near Milwaukee, a lonely, introverted protagonist starts a new job as a night shift transcriber of police reports. Hazel Greenlee, a young aspiring novelist, types "
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"Erdrich is a master of prose. Her characters are both complex and real. Her stories layered with rich native culture.
Tookie is a quirky if not whacky but endearing character. After serving her sentence for a crime she didn’t think was a crime, but ju" Read more of this review » |
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"This is beautiful, . . . and complicated. I enjoyed sinking into the story and just letting it wash over me and take me where it will without thinking too hard about it. The novel as a whole expands and contracts like an accordion.
One way to think of" Read more of this review » |
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"A concise and moving novel about 3 generations of black women in a Memphis family and the grief, abuse, and love that they experience together. I do wish this had jumped around a bit less, and that we had more time with each character, but overall it"
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Diane wrote: "I missed this review, but agree totally. It was a startling ending. I have friends I thought would love it, but I think it hit too close
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Paul wrote: "Reading the description of this book, I was reminded of Rafi Zabor's
The Bear Comes Home, which was published about 20 years after Engel ...more " |
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Betsy Robinson
is currently reading
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Elyse wrote: "Beautiful!!"
Thanks. ...more " |
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Betsy Robinson
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Chip McGrath used to be the NY Times book editor. I didn't know that when I was a young, ignorant writer sharing NY's Central Park Ramble with birdwat
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“Dear Mom,
I'm as tight as a girdle. How do I accept love?
--B
Dear Potato Face,
Just say 'thank you,' then shut up.
--M”
― Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother
I'm as tight as a girdle. How do I accept love?
--B
Dear Potato Face,
Just say 'thank you,' then shut up.
--M”
― Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother
Topics Mentioning This Author
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“When I see heavy dramas with no comic relief, I don't think they're honest. I don't think people go through life miserable all the time; in fact, if you're very miserable, you giggle a lot at the oddest things."
--Carl Reiner in "The Trib”
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--Carl Reiner in "The Trib”
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“I mean, if you have any idea of any kind of complexity or immensity or destiny, of general order, you're put in a position of nothingness. And I think this is true. I don't think I'm anything; I never have thought that. Whatever it is that activates it is a certain kind of energy that goes on. But the effect is ridiculous; it's absurd."
--Lincoln Kirstein in "The New Yorker”
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--Lincoln Kirstein in "The New Yorker”
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“The longer I am a writer--so long now that my writing finger is periodically numb--the better I understand what writing is; what its function is; what it is supposed to do. I learn that the writer's pen is a microphone held up to the mouths of ancestors and even stones of long ago. That once given permission by the writer--a fool, and so why should one fear?--horses, dogs, rivers, and, yes, chickens can step forward and expound on their lives. The magic of this is not so much in the power of the microphone as in the ability of the nonhuman object or animal to BE and the human animal to PERCEIVE ITS BEING.”
― Living by the Word
― Living by the Word
“The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free.”
― Speak, Memory
― Speak, Memory
“You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history. Remember that while you're trying to decide what to do.”
― Stoner
― Stoner

A place where all Goodreads members can work together to improve the Goodreads book catalog. Non-librarians are welcome to join the group as well, to ...more
Comments (showing 41-90)
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Thanks for the lovely note. So happy to be friends and looking forward to sharing book together!
Sara

Well, this is embarrassing. Yeah, I deleted the comment because you don't know me but I have a sense of knowing you based on following your reviews.
Anyway, now that we're GR friends I..."
No problem, Anne. I'm grateful for all Goodreads friends--old, new, and as yet unknown.

Well, this is embarrassing. Yeah, I deleted the comment because you don't know me but I have a sense of knowing you based on following your reviews.
Anyway, now that we're GR friends I look forward to chatting books and won't delete anymore comments. :))

Caught your cameo in Secaucus 7 today. Very cool. I hope you had a good time doing it.
I was surprised that the film held my interest after all these years. Some of the dialogue was awkw..."
Hi Paul, glad you enjoyed it. I had a great time doing it. A bunch of those people were my college time friends.

Caught your cameo in Secaucus 7 today. Very cool. I hope you had a good time doing it.
I was surprised that the film held my interest after all these years. Some of the dialogue was awkward but, overall, it came across as more than just a product of its time.
I was also surprised to see an interview with John Sayles on the DVD in which he said that he didn't think that The Big Chill ripped off Secaucus. I always felt that Kasdan took the premise of Secaucus, slicked up the characters, gave them higher financial status, and ran with it.

Thanks for the friend request. Good to know that we share a love for A Confederacy of Dunces and Percival Everett's books. Our opinions on Stoner differ, but that's ok. A number of my ot..."
Paul wrote: "Hi Betsy,
Thanks for the friend request. Good to know that we share a love for A Confederacy of Dunces and Percival Everett's books. Our opinions on Stoner differ, but that's ok. A number of my ot..."
Thanks for accepting the friend request, Paul. I grew up in Briarcliff Manor, NY, and I have friends around where you are. One of the actors in Secaucus (we share my one scene in that movie--a bar scene; I'm the girl who's not so bright) lives in New Paltz, and he has a new poetry collection out which is pretty good. I'm not a poetry reader, but I liked this little book. It has a sense of humorA Swindler's Grace. I look forward to sharing more Percival Everett with you. --Betsy

Thanks for the friend request. Good to know that we share a love for A Confederacy of Dunces and Percival Everett's books. Our opinions on Stoner differ, but that's ok. A number of my other Goodreads friends love it, and that's part of why we're here - to share opinions.
Interesting that you grew up in the Hudson Valley. I've lived in the Hudson Valley for most of my life.
Also, I saw Return of the Secaucus 7 years ago in a theatre in New Paltz and liked it very much. I'll have to watch it again and see what my present day reaction is.
Happy reading (and writing).
Regards, Paul

We can name the dog "Loki"! Nice to make your acquaintance, Big Brother.


Same to you, Mike.
















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I slept comfortably on two child’s single beds pushed together, covered by one blue and purple and yellow and orange butterfly quilt. I had lost most of my clothes in Mrs. Mendelson’s fire, so I stored my meager wardrobe in a small maple armoire.









“Yes,” said Don Pedro, looking at me from his doorway.
“How do you do?” said I. And when he didn’t answer, “I have a weight problem.”
“You are very fat,” he said, gesturing for me to come into his house.
The doorway opened into a sunny, plant-filled parlor decorated with earth-toned art that I assumed he had brought from Ecuador. This was not what I had expected.






A: Dearest Idiot, To answer, I will defer to a fellow thespian, auteur, and original thinker, Mr. John Waters:
"Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. And don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! And for goodness sake, read Zelda McFigg."
Now guess which part of that is fiction.






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Life changed, jobs changed, sickness came, and on March 26, 1990, my mother succumbed to leukemia and emphysema. She never got to publish this novel, or the one she was working on when she died. She left all her manuscripts to me…












































Aug 15, 2014 03:23PM · flag
Nov 10, 2015 04:07AM · flag