Peeking Over The Edge

by

Cathy Marley

• Paperback: 163 pages
• Publisher: Infinity Publishing (April 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0741431696
• ISBN-13: 978-0741431691
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches 

Peeking Over The Edge by Cathy Marley was a wonderful little book to read. I savored it, chapter by chapter, reading one at the time each morning while having my first morning coffee. It was a wonderful way to start each day!
When Cathy turned fifty,she took a look over the edge and saw what was waiting for her on the other side of the hill. She also looked back to meet the woman she was and found something stunningly beautiful--a woman she is yet to become.

Peeking Over the Edge is a collection of Cathy's personal essays on life and all the small things that make it beautiful. Reading her insightful reflections was a warming and joyful experience. Turning fifty is a cornerstone in each woman's life which many expect with a sort of dread, but not Cathy. Just imagine celebrating your fiftieth birthday in Disneyland; that's exactly what she did.  And take a look at the picture of Cathy, with her bright and cheerful smile and you'll have a glimpse of what amount of love, hope and happiness is bound between the covers of this book.

What I absolutely adored about it is that Cathy starts each chapter with song lyrics or an inspiring quote. Listen to the trailer. I love the music. It has a story on its own, too, also imbued with hope and lust for life.





Peeking Over the Edge would make a wonderful gift to women of all age alike. For those who are approaching fifty, it's an inspiration to unfold what they had been hiding or postponing so far; for all of us younger, it's a manifest of hope that life doesn't go downhill with age; rather, with the wisdom and experience that come along, it can be the most beautiful time of one's life!

TSS: Booking through the week...

As some of you may know, last week saw me returning to Osijek for college. I passed my last exam with a great B. Considering the conditions under which I prepared the last ten exams, I cannot but say WOW to myself. But enough bragging. This semester, I will have a class on creative, essayistic and journalistic writing, first in German, next semester in English. I'm eagerly looking forward to these.
In a record time, I managed to find an amazing apartment. It's less than a ten minutes walk to the university. On the way, I pass the beautiful cathedral, the main square, my favorite bookstore and the oldest park in town. My roomie is a great girl. I had no idea who occupied the other bedroom until I came to see the place. We went to high school together, and though we were never close friends, we got along great at the instant that I moved in!
The only thing that bothers me is that there is no internet access in the apartment, and I'm so NOT buying that little mobile internet device. It's way too expensive for my limited budget. I'll have to use the computers in the college library or schedule posts at weekends when I'm home. Neither of these makes me too happy, but hey, it's not like I get to be picky here.

What actually bothers me most is that, again, I'll be away for four days a week from my little sunshine. He is staying with my parents. It's horrible to leave each Monday morning, but it's the best solution for all of us. I get to concentrate on studying, so the weekends are only to be enjoyed with him. The sooner I graduate, the sooner we'll be able to build up a living together. I know that, everything I do know, will pay off well some time soon, and it makes all the sacrifice less painful.

This week I'm hosting my first giveaway. Michelle Moran, author of three bestselling historical novels, who was also my guest blogger, donated a copy of her latest novel, Cleopatra's Daughter. To enter the contest, simply click on the cover image on the sidebar or follow this link.
For more awesome giveaways, check out Froggaritavilles's Bookcase, Ms Bookish who has a weekly updated list and, if you are a member of Book Blogs, there are several groups where you can find the newest giveaways. I have tried to compile a list on my sidebar and found it very time-consuming, so kudos to all of you wonderful bloggers who do it for us!

This week I finished two more books from my Fall into Reading Challenge list. I finished Christopher I King's motorbikes, ducks and crispy sweet apples and Cathy Marley's Peeking over the Edge. Reviews are coming up this week. Seems like I will need to add some additional goals, since I read the first two college assignments faster than I thought. I was thinking about Herta Mueller, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature this year. I'm going to read the German version of her book. Hopefully they have it in our college library.

Writing, you ask? Ehem...beside one single chapter to my current WIP, I did some rewrites for another WIP. I'm not happy with that status. Not at all. I think its was largely due to the fact that I was sick. I caught a bad flu and couldn't get out of bed, let alone to spend hours starring into the screen when I could barely sit straight. To make things worse, I passed it on to Little Hobbit, so none of us slept last night. Being sick is horrible; watching your child being sick when there is only so little you can do to help him is excruciating.

This week, I will have one more great author as guest blogger,  Nadine Laman, whose books I adore. It should be posted  on Wednesday if nothing gets in the way, so stay tuned!

It's been a long week, and I couldn't wait for Sunday to come. I'm going to spend the rest of the day cuddling with my little precious, reading and watching cartoons.

To all my dear fellow Saloners,  I wish you a nice Sunday and great week!

My first reading challenge!

I usually don’t participate in reading challenges, mostly because many books aren’t accessible here. This one was brought to my attention by JoAnn, and having read the rules, I decided that it’s the perfect choice to be my first! 

Katrina is hosting the Fall Into Reading 2009 challenge. This is the perfect low-stress challenge to help get your reading organized for fall. Just like the season, it runs from September 22 - December 20.

Here are the basics (and it doesn’t get simpler than that!)

• Create a list of some books you’d like to read or finish this fall. This is the only real requirement for participating in the challenge.
• Feel free to set some additional reading goals (such as reading to your kids two hours per week, getting through your pile of magazines, etc.). However, this is not required; setting additional goals is completely optional.
• Write a blog post that includes the list of books you want to read (and any additional goals you’ve set), and get ready to post it on your blog on September 22nd.
• Visit Callapidder Days on September 22nd to sign up for the challenge. There will be an official launch post up that morning, complete with an area for you to submit a link to your personal Fall Into Reading post, where it will be added to the master list of participants.
• Read! Work on your goals throughout Fall 2009.
• Report your results. Write another blog post in December to let everyone know how you did.  
• Have fun! Visit other participants to see what they’re reading. Write reviews if you’re so inclined. But most of all, enjoy your fall reading! 

So, here is my list, mostly required reading for my Survey of American Literature class, and they need to be read by December. 

Sermons by John Winthrop, William Bradford, Thomas Shepard,

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography

Herman Melville, Moby Dick--finished partially

stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister's Black Veil

selected poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Henry James, Daisy Miller

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

 

I'm really looking forward to some of them, and next week I'm going shopping (don't we just love Penguin?) Depending on which elective course I take, I will read in addition to these lots of Contemporary American dramas, lots of Irish literature or Shakespeare! I also hope to finally finish Wuthering Heights, somehow I lost the thread and it's difficult to get back on track!

When it comes to reading for fun, which officially starts today, the list includes Irene Watson's The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to know the Difference, Nadine Laman's Storm Surge, Cathy Marley's Peeking over the Edge, motorbikes, ducks and crispy sweet apples by Christopher I King ( the last two yet to arrive) and I hope to get *The Hunger Games by Susan Collins (they were out of stock when I checked the bookstore the other day). 
*I didn't get The Hunger Games in time, so this one is replaced with Revolutionary Road by R. Yates. It's been waiting on my shelf for a chance like this :)


Additional goals: The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by  Liz Jensen


There’s some of everything—something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…sorry, wrong. There’s poetry, prose, drama, contemporary and classic, adult and YA, fiction and non-fiction, some I own, some I don’t. 

I forecast myself a long, nice reading fall. What will you be reading?

 


NOTE: The crossed tittles are those I have finished. Below is the list to reviews of some of them:

The Sitting Swing by Irene Watson
Storm Surge by Nadine Laman
motorbikes, ducks and crispy sweet apples by Christopher I King
Peeking Over the Edge by  Cathy Marley

Where the heck is Ivana?

To borrow a phrase from a dear friend-don't turn off the lights! I'm still here! Here’s a skinny on the past two weeks here. But be warned. I always say I can’t tell a short story. And I won’t mind if you quit reading somewhere around the middle.

Long time no blogging, right? Well, the thing is, as some of you may know-exams! And I mean like real exams, hundred plus pages textbooks each, ten of them throughout September…eight more to go, actually! The first two went perfectly well; I got B’s when I actually expected to fail. But my luck of the Irish didn’t fail me. It’s always like this; you get three questions you have no clue how to answer, three out of seventy you don’t know, and you start to sink into despair. And then you start the topic from the long way around, and finally get to the point, and then, after twenty minutes of excessive talking, just when your mouth dries out to the humidity level of the Sahara Desert the, professor asks for your student’s book. He praises your systematical overview of the era and you wonder once again what the big deal was.

Yeah. You can do that in Literature. Try it on Syntax.

Everyone is back to their usual activities here, back to school and work. G. and I spend most of the days alone at home, at least by mid-afternoon, and I like it this way. I can organize my time better, find some time to write through the day while the lunch is simmering in the pot, read while the washer is running etc. Even G. seems to enjoy these days more; often he watches his Peppa Pig DVD’s for more than an hour. And he learned some English. Mommy is so proud. Especially because he hasn’t fully mastered Croatian yet.

There are some great books that have arrived in the past few weeks that I’ll be blogging about in the next few Sundays. This Sunday, Susan Gabriel will be my first guest blogger and we’ll discuss her wonderful novel Seeking Sara Summers. Then it’s time for Samir Selmanovic’s It’s all about God that hits stores September 22nd. I’m loving it, and I can’t wait to share some things with my readers. Samir offers a whole new perspective on religion, one that doesn’t impoverish any but rather enriches three major religions and atheism. I have just started reading The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference by Irene Watson. She sent me her book without me knowing it was coming, so imagine my delight when I ripped the envelope open. It will be on the review menu as soon as I finish it.
In the meanwhile, Nadine’s Storm Surge should arrive, along with Cathy Marley’s Peeking Over the Edge and a picture book for my Little Hobbit by Kip Cosson.

After a long summer, I have visited my dear library lady in the college library. It’s still humbly small, but there are some great new reads I can’t wait to sink my teeth into. I forecast myself a nice and long reading winter. You’ll get to know all about it.

If there’s anyone still reading, thank you. You deserve a nice cup of tea.

(picture courtesy here)