A Lowcountry Heart by Pat Conroy

I have to admit I am not a fan of Pat Conroy's books. I am just not prone to reading about dysfunctional families and abuse and bullying. So the only book of his that I have read is his non-fiction collection of essays, My Reading Life. In it he writes about things dear to my heart: books and bookshops, writers and writing, Paris and the South. 

When I read there was a new collection of Mr. Conroy's non-fiction published after his death in March of this year, I thought I would give it a try. The book contains blog posts, letters, interviews, addresses, and other short pieces gathered together in A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life. Lowcountry refers to the region along South Carolina's coast and is the location of Beaufort where he lived. It is a charming town. I have visited there and can attest to its many attractions.

The first entries in this collection include twenty-five posts from the blog that he kept from 2011-2015. Some are quite intriguing, especially the ones detailing books that he is reading or wants to read and authors that he has met. Others feel a bit self-conscious and contain stories about meeting old friends at book signings or tales of classmates from his days at The Citadel. You can actually read all his posts here.

There are a couple of tributes to Mr. Conroy including an introduction by his widow Cassandra King, his editor Nan Talese, and his oldest friend and fellow author Bernie Schein. The one I am looking forward to reading (and am saving for last) is written by Rick Bragg and was published in Southern Living. The text of the eulogy given at Mr. Conroy's funeral is also here. 

I suppose if you are a fan you will be eager to have all these words of Mr. Conroy's to hold close to your heart. I am pretty neutral about the content and can't help feeling this book was published to fill the coffers of his estate. (Does that sound too mean?)

Even though most of the pieces from this collection can be found online or in other publications, if you already love Mr. Conroy you will probably want this for your bookshelf. If you are not already a fan, this book will most likely not change your mind. 

But do give My Reading Life a try. It is quite readable and I highly recommend it.

How about you? Are you a fan of Pat Conroy's books? It's OK if you are. We can still be friends.

Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro

After reading Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, I felt as if I had become friends with its author Dani Shapiro. It seemed as if we had sat for a long time over coffee and she had shared with me her writing strategies - what works; what doesn't - and also bits of her life away from the page.

I had not read of this book or heard of its author, but there I was browsing in an out-of-town used bookstore that also had some new books on its shelves (this one's copyright date is 2013), and I was quite taken by the cover and the illustration of the author on the inside of the book jacket.

I enjoy reading books about writing by writers and this one didn't let me down. As a matter of fact, I think it will go right away to the top of my Books to Be Re-Read pile.

As with the best teachers, Ms. Shapiro doesn't tell you what to do based on something she has read or been taught. She lets the reader watch her struggle with the pen and the page. She lets the reader see her sitting cross-legged on her chaise lounge first thing in the morning with her laptop resting on a cushion in her lap. She allows the reader to be with her as she grows restless and gets up to get another cup of coffee, returns to her computer, gets up to feed the dog, returns to her computer, gets up to stare into space, returns to her computer. 

 As she claims:
"Sitting down to write isn't easy."

Don't I know it!

In between sharing her successes and failures with writing, Ms. Shapiro gently pulls the reader along with stories of her lonely childhood, her wild and self-destructive teen and college years, her marriage and the birth of her son, and the death of her parents. 

The book is divided into three sections - Beginnings, Middles, Ends - each filled with her short essays on writing and life covering such varied topics as Mondays, Control, Mess, Five Senses, Envy, Tics, and Change.

It doesn't matter whether Ms. Shapiro is writing about writing or weaving tales of her experiences, her prose is at the same time spare and thoughtful and entertaining. 

This is not just a wise book for writers, but for creative people of all sorts. In other words, all of us.

Its message: Show up and persist.