Image – Book Journey

I LOVE LOVE LOVED Rob Lowe’s book Things I Only Tell My Friends when I listened to it on audio in 2011. His narration is superb and if you are an audio person and seriously even if you are not….) you are in for a super treat by listening to either of his books.

In Love Life, Rob (oh may I call him Rob? 😉 ) not only covers his loves through his life of family, relationships, and his sons; but also his love of acting. Just listening to him share some of his moments from Behind The Candelabra, Killing Kennedy, The Stand, and Untouchable, just to name a few, caused me to go out and rent some of these movies. Just a couple of days ago I watched Behind The Candelabra, and tonight I hope to see Untouchable; two of the movies Rob discusses as taking great liberties with his character and finding it to pay off.

“Adventure is important in life. Making memories matters. It doesn’t have to be a secret seaplane and a historic sports moment, but to have a great life you need great memories. Grab any intriguing offer. Say yes to a challenge and to the unknown. Be creative in adding drama and scope to your lfe. Work at it like a job. Money from effort comes and goes, but effort from imagination and following adventure creates stories that you keep forever. And anyone can do it.”
― Rob Lowe, Love Life

What is enjoyable about this audio for someone like me who grew up on his movies is not only the memories; but also to listen to his humor as he describes totally blowing lines during a live show where he actually gave away part of the plot that should not have been released yet; but in a panic recovered nicely.

It’s also refreshing to listen to someone who truly loves his wife and his family; and instead of the so often “its all about me you can hear in memoirs”, you can tell that Rob truly loves his wife as much as he did when he married her and adores his two sons who he has made a n effort as they have grown, to be a part of their every day lives, separating the husband and dad from the actor.

Finely written and utterly engaging, if you have any interest at all in the man, his career in front of the screen and behind the scenes), or the movies he partakes in the ones he wanted to be, and the ones he should have been in…. absolutely do not hesitate to read on listen to this book.

I eagerly await what he will write about next.

Over the past 6 months you may have heard off and on this blog about Wine and Words. This was a small idea as a fundraiser for our Friends Of The Brainerd Public Library that went from a “maybe” to a full-blown event, largely part of my absence from the blogesphere.

We held the event on Friday August 23rd with 5 wonderful authors gracing us with witty conversation and peaks into their mind about their latest book, writing, and life as an author.

William Kent Krueger and his wife joined us and wow…. what a down to earth fun guy. I have never spent time with him before and found him to be humble and delightful. He wowed the crowd. He spoke about his newest books, Ordinary Grace and Tamarack County (which just released a week ago today).

Lorna Landvik emceed our evening and we could not have picked a better person to wrap our event with humor and great intros of our authors. She was a gift as once she started the program – I was free to do whatever was needed as she totally had this.

Sarah Pekkanen (SSSQQQUUUEEEEE!) and Wendy Webb were awesome! Sarah’s newest book, The Best Of Us came out in April and Wendy Webb’s The Fate Of Mercy Alban (centered around the Glensheen mansion in Duluth MN) was an author you wanted to hear more about.

Sandra Brannan always sweet always so down to earth you cant help but love her was a fun addition to the group. She talked books and bloggers (YAY!) and she had the Bookies stand up (they adore her!)

Our goal for this evening out at the Beautiful Arrowwood Lodge was 100 people. That night we had 177 excited women and men join us for our debut event. The room was filled with book lovers.

We had so much fun! We had dinner, listened to the authors, a silent auction, and we sold ducks for $5 for people to see who was the “lucky duck” and won a Kindle Fire. Free wine was offered during the social hour.

One of my favorite moments of the evening was when we were done with the event and Gail (my right hand in this venture) and I made our way to the bar area to check on our authors and we found them all together in a booth chatting away like old friends. I nudged Gail and said “Oh look! They are bonding!!!”