I thought I would try "Ten on Tuesday" after I saw this on a few other blogs I follow. It's hosted by Chelsea at Roots and Rings.
1. When someone asks you for a book recommendation, what is your go-to book?
Lately, it's The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister or Two Kisses for Maddy by Matt Logelin.
2. Do you buy your books, or are you a library patron?
Both. I love putting things on hold and picking them up at the library, but sometimes I go crazy at Barnes and Noble and buy five books at once! I tend to alternate...check some out, buy some.
3. E-readers, yay or nay?
Nay for now. I don't have one and I can't really imagine giving up physical books, which I love, love, love. But I do not go anywhere without my Blackberry, my iPod, and my digital camera, so I'm a total gadget person and it's weird that I'm NOT into them yet!
4. What was your favorite book as a child?
As a child, I loved a book called The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. I still have the copy that my parents bought me when we lived in England in the late 70s and I read it to my daughter now!
The first long book I read was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I was in the fourth grade and I finished it in five days, which seemed epic at the time because it was so thick. It's still a favorite, just a lovely book.
5. If you could be any character in a book, who would you be?
Probably Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice...I'll take Colin Firth or Matthew MacFayden as Mr. Darcy any day. Or Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books. :)
6. What book would you love to see turned into a movie?
It's often hard to find a movie that lives up to a book I really love, Pride and Prejudice notwithstanding.
7. What is your all-time favorite book?
Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sun Also Rises, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Little Women, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 84 Charing Cross Road. If you haven't gathered from this list that I was an English major and have an affinity for epistolary novels, I don't know what to say. :)
8. How many books do you read at once?
I'm lucky to get through one at a time. I cannot focus on more than one any way due to lack of time and Mommy brain-I just start getting confused and forgetting what is going on in the book.
9. What is your favorite book genre?
I actually really love mysteries (obsessed with Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series) and chick lit!
10. Which Harry Potter book is the best? Or haven’t you read them at all?
I love the Harry Potter books. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite book of the series and happens to be my favorite of the movies too. Love the time travel elements and Hermione's leadership role. I can't wait until S is old enough for us to read these together!
Showing posts with label Two Kisses for Maddy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Two Kisses for Maddy. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
"Two Kisses for Maddy"
In July 2008, I came across Matt Logelin's blog late one night while I was up surfing the web and trying to fight off pregnancy-related heartburn. His daughter Madeline had been born a few months earlier on March 24th. She was seven weeks premature, delivered by c-section, and taken directly to the NICU. His wife Liz died 27 hours later on March 25th of a pulmonary embolism as she was preparing to get to go visit Maddy in the NICU for the very first time. She only got to see her daughter once, fleetingly, and never got to hold her.
Reading back through old blog entries and catching up on Matt's journey since Liz's death, I was incredibly moved by the way he wrote about his wife and the amazing love and heart-wrenching grief that emanated from every word he wrote. I was also touched by his love for Maddy and how hard he was focusing on being the best father for her and some of the unexpected challenges he faced as a widowed dad, especially when confronted by strangers asking where Maddy's mom was or questioning why a seemingly single man was out with a baby.
As a pregnant woman about 40-50 days out from my due date, the circumstances of Liz's death scared the crap out of me and compelled me to have a conversation with my husband about what I would want if I died in or after childbirth--what I'd want him to give my daughter for me, what I'd want him to tell her about me, how I hoped he would raise her, and how I hoped he would keep my parents an important part of her life. As you can imagine, this kind of freaked J out, so I had to explain about Matt's blog and Liz's story.
I have faithfully read Matt's blog ever since, always touched by his remembrances and stories about Liz, who sounds like someone I'd have liked to know-just a very cool, fun chick. As a new mom to S, I learned from some of Matt's fatherhood experiences--mistakes he made (forgetting a bottle during a trip to a baseball game), triumphs he had (how to deal with too-large baby pants--snap the onesie over them!). I was excited when Matt got a book deal and moved to India to work on the book and show Madeline all the places he visited with her mom when she was alive, including the Taj Mahal and the spot he proposed to her.
Matt's book, Two Kisses for Maddy, came out on Thursday, April 14th. I picked up my copy yesterday and read it straight through in three hours. As I expected from reading Matt's blog, the book is an amazing love letter to Liz and to Madeline. And though I knew how it was going to go, when Liz goes into distress in the book, I started crying so hard, wishing she would pull through. Although Matt always seemed to lay his soul bare on his blog, in the book he goes deeper into the aftermath of her death and his grief than ever before. He also shares more about his life with Liz before Maddy's birth.
It's a beautiful, compelling love story. I know Matt wishes he never had reason to write the book, and I wish he didn't either, but I can't help but think what an amazing gift the book is to Madeline. Through the book, she'll get to know her mother. She'll also get to know how much her father loved her mother, and loved her, right from the moment she was born. In pictures, Maddy looks so much like her mom and in the last chapter of the book, which is a letter to Maddy, Matt lists the ways she acts just like her mother too.
As I've watched Maddy grow up in pictures on Matt's blog and watched my own little blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter grow up a few months behind her, I've just felt so much for Liz and for Maddy and for Matt. It's so unfair Liz didn't get to stay here with them. It's unfair Maddy has to grow up without her. It's unfair Matt lost the love of his life. But life isn't fair, and Matt has navigated through his grief admirably, thinking of others as well as himself--Liz's family and friends, and other widowers in need--he helped create the Liz Logelin Foundation to help others in his situation, which alone would've been a major testament to his love for his wife. He's also created and experienced moments of happiness for himself and Maddy from the earliest days of her life. And he continues to do so today. I'm sure, somewhere, Liz is amazed and proud.
I highly recommend Two Kisses for Maddy. Just make sure you happen to have some tissues at the ready.
Reading back through old blog entries and catching up on Matt's journey since Liz's death, I was incredibly moved by the way he wrote about his wife and the amazing love and heart-wrenching grief that emanated from every word he wrote. I was also touched by his love for Maddy and how hard he was focusing on being the best father for her and some of the unexpected challenges he faced as a widowed dad, especially when confronted by strangers asking where Maddy's mom was or questioning why a seemingly single man was out with a baby.
As a pregnant woman about 40-50 days out from my due date, the circumstances of Liz's death scared the crap out of me and compelled me to have a conversation with my husband about what I would want if I died in or after childbirth--what I'd want him to give my daughter for me, what I'd want him to tell her about me, how I hoped he would raise her, and how I hoped he would keep my parents an important part of her life. As you can imagine, this kind of freaked J out, so I had to explain about Matt's blog and Liz's story.
I have faithfully read Matt's blog ever since, always touched by his remembrances and stories about Liz, who sounds like someone I'd have liked to know-just a very cool, fun chick. As a new mom to S, I learned from some of Matt's fatherhood experiences--mistakes he made (forgetting a bottle during a trip to a baseball game), triumphs he had (how to deal with too-large baby pants--snap the onesie over them!). I was excited when Matt got a book deal and moved to India to work on the book and show Madeline all the places he visited with her mom when she was alive, including the Taj Mahal and the spot he proposed to her.
Matt's book, Two Kisses for Maddy, came out on Thursday, April 14th. I picked up my copy yesterday and read it straight through in three hours. As I expected from reading Matt's blog, the book is an amazing love letter to Liz and to Madeline. And though I knew how it was going to go, when Liz goes into distress in the book, I started crying so hard, wishing she would pull through. Although Matt always seemed to lay his soul bare on his blog, in the book he goes deeper into the aftermath of her death and his grief than ever before. He also shares more about his life with Liz before Maddy's birth.
It's a beautiful, compelling love story. I know Matt wishes he never had reason to write the book, and I wish he didn't either, but I can't help but think what an amazing gift the book is to Madeline. Through the book, she'll get to know her mother. She'll also get to know how much her father loved her mother, and loved her, right from the moment she was born. In pictures, Maddy looks so much like her mom and in the last chapter of the book, which is a letter to Maddy, Matt lists the ways she acts just like her mother too.
As I've watched Maddy grow up in pictures on Matt's blog and watched my own little blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter grow up a few months behind her, I've just felt so much for Liz and for Maddy and for Matt. It's so unfair Liz didn't get to stay here with them. It's unfair Maddy has to grow up without her. It's unfair Matt lost the love of his life. But life isn't fair, and Matt has navigated through his grief admirably, thinking of others as well as himself--Liz's family and friends, and other widowers in need--he helped create the Liz Logelin Foundation to help others in his situation, which alone would've been a major testament to his love for his wife. He's also created and experienced moments of happiness for himself and Maddy from the earliest days of her life. And he continues to do so today. I'm sure, somewhere, Liz is amazed and proud.
I highly recommend Two Kisses for Maddy. Just make sure you happen to have some tissues at the ready.
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