A Book and a Chat with Roxanne Bok

Back from the 400th show, today’s broadcast is an example of just why I love doing these shows so much. We have gone through the full range of genres over the last few weeks, now here we are today talking about horses and living like being part of Green Acers.

Roxanne Bok and her family were successful urbanites in New Jersey, used to clean, controlled and orderly lives They decided to purchase a “weekend getaway” in Connecticut and took on and old geriatric horse farm which meant restoring a nearly collapsed empty barn and multiple sagging outbuildings, sixty tired acres littered with decayed fencing, and pastures deep in standing water.

At first, Roxanne and her husband merely wanted to preserve the land across the road from their weekend home from encroaching development. But when maintaining the faded glory of the adjoining El-Arabia horse farm was more than their elderly neighbor could handle, Scott’s success in business made it possible to rescue the place. What could an investment banker and a writer know about the rigors of caring for large animals?

In Roxanne’s pastoral memoir “HORSEKEEPING” we discover the joys, heartbreaks and self-discovery that transformed their lives.

Anyone who has lived through home restoration will appreciate what it takes to restore an entire farm, from the mall-sized stable down to the riding rings, outbuildings and caretaker’s cottage. Bok is delightfully direct as she describes watching the farm come back to life as uninvited wildlife, accumulated mess and years of neglect are forcibly evicted.

The introduction of horses – and all that goes with them – to the newly named Weatogue Stables sheds a light on what makes some people go “horse crazy.” Starting with a charming pony and a lovable horse named for a giant rodent, Bok and her children begin the fundamentals of “horsekeeping.” But along with the pleasures of caring for and raising horses, dogs, cats and rabbits comes the possibility of loss, and Bok must confront her own fears left by the death of her young mother, even as she helps her own son and daughter understand the joys and sorrows of living with nature.

As the family grows as equestrians and learns the ropes of showmanship and competition, they learn what it really means to be a part of the land; the community and a world too few of us get to enter.

As one reviewer put it…

“HORSEKEEPING is a wonderful telling of the history of a Salisbury farm and land including delightful descriptions of the characters that have made up that history. Roxanne makes you feel as if you are a part of the story and allows you to experience the equestrian way of life. She thoughtfully explores stewardship of the land, the lure of country life and the value of raising children understanding the responsibility involved in caring for animals.”

So listen now and share an interesting and entertaining show as I chat with my special guest today Chat with Roxanne Bok

Barry

Direct link to the show
A Book and a Chat with Roxanne Bok

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"Roxanne Bok"

You can find out more about my guest and their books at:
"Roxanne Bok - Horsekeeping"

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

A Book and a Chat with Susan Petersen Avitzour

Susan Petersen Avitzour comes from a bookworm family, starting to read at the tender age of four, and she hasn’t stop since. Even before then her mother would read her stories just about every day.

Susan was today’s guest on “A Book and a Chat” sharing with us about her book and the meaning behind it, as well as some very moving poetry, all the way from Israel, where she had this very day had become a grandmother for the third time.

She has loved writing from as early as she can remember, though she is the only member of her family who writes seriously. The first story she can remember writing was in her second grade; it was called “Susan the Clown,” and was inspired by her experience of being the odd child out among my peers. She’s been doing creative writing ever since.

In 2001 her then eighteen year old daughter Timora lost the battle she had been fighting for years with leukemia. For many years Susan had been sharing on almost daily reports the ups and downs of the emotional roller coaster that her daughter Timora and her family had gone through.

Unable to touch these reports for years after the sad death of Timora, Susan eventually decided to produce the shared blogs, as well as her feelings, and some of Timor’a and her family’s poetry. These blogs eventually became her novel “And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones” a line taking from a moving poem written by her husband in Timora’s memory.

The book rather than one of bereavement, far from it there is so much more in this book, from laughter to tears and every emotion in between. As one reviewer put it…
“It is a heartfelt, honest, illuminating and ultimately uplifting book, as one follows a family’s steadfast refusal to give up, even in light of crushing odds.

Rather than write a synopsis of “And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones” I will use what Susan wrote about her book.

And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones

In my memoir, I grapple with many of the profound personal, philosophical, and spiritual questions with which bereaved parents struggle for years – if not for the rest of their lives.

Through narrative, poetry, and a personal and philosophical journal, I aim to draw my readers into my family’s world during the long, wrong years of my daughter’s illness, and into my own emotional, intellectual, and spiritual journey in their aftermath.

I address topics that range from food to fun to forgiveness, from pain to purpose to prayer – and ultimately to the challenge of affirming faith and love
in an unpredictable, and often cruel, universe.

I hope very much that this book will provide assistance and support not only to bereaved families, but to anyone facing life’s inevitable challenges and trials.Susan finished the show with the last poem Timora wrote, something that I felt no show end music or final farewell could beat. So please listen now and share the words of this wonderful book during an interesting and hugely entertaining show as I spend thirty minutes sharing "A Book and a Chat with Susan Petersen Avitzour".

Barry

Direct link to the show
"A Book and a Chat with Susan Petersen Avitzour"

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"Susan Petersen Avitzour"

You can find out more about my guest and their books at:
"Susan Petersen Avitzour - And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones"

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

A Book and a Chat with "M.M Anderson" (Even a Werewolf joined in the show)

M.M. Anderson has always had an active imagination and a mischievously macabre sense of humor. As a child she enjoyed scaring her parents, brother, cousins, and friends with creepy stories and Halloweenish pranks. All the while secretly suspecting that as an infant she’d been separated from her real relatives: the Addams Family. Ms Anderson is however, as we found out on tonight's show a whole lot more than that.

She has published nonfiction works, including "zoo books' and prize winning short stories, created commercial ads, written music, and penned the lyrics in Turnaround for Signal 7.

As we found out during tonight's show the author wrote the first of what looks like being a series of these books in dedication to her late father.

There are many werewolf themed books out there, but this one give new life to the Genre. With action, romance, comedy and just a little bit of the unknown. M.M Anderson takes the reader into the world she creates. She not only gave life to unique characters, but she created a whole new world in which they live in.

Written, with "tongue in cheek" humor "Werewolf Dreams" has already been enjoyed by people of all ages, the much awaited sequel to Werewolf Dreams... Werewolf Love: Until Death Do Us Part, which will probably be released in 2011, and the third in the series will follow down the line.


So sit back and share a fun thirty minutes entertainment, where we even have a call in from a Werewolf, as I chat with author M.M.Anderson.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Across-the-Pond/2009/11/11/A-Book-and-a-Chat-MM-Anderson

or on my radio show blog spot at


http://abookandachat.blogspot.com


Find out more about the author at: http://www.mmanderson.net


Barry



BARRY EVA (Storyheart)

Author of Young Adult Romance/Fiction book
"Across the Pond"