Nikki

Nikki is the author of the award-winning Sam Tate Mystery series, as well as a stand-alone thriller and two non-fiction books. Check out the rest of the site, and please subscribe. It's easy and free. New projects in the works include an ebook of short stories, a YA novel, and a new Sam Tate mystery.

In Praise of Book Clubs

Oct 022018
 

Dear friends: I love meeting readers. One of the best ways to do that is through book clubs. I’ve appeared before several since the release of The Former Assassin. I’ve interacted with members in person or via Skype. The experience keeps me on my toes; it’s also great fun.

I want to celebrate book clubs this month in several ways. I’ve interviewed a good friend who is a dedicated clubber. Her curiosity and enthusiasm for reading are contagious. She loves to read. In other words, she is an author’s dream!

I’m also running a month-long book club special that include deep discounts on ten or more print orders along with a free Skype or (if possible) in person appearance (“meet the author”) as well as an Amazon Kindle giveaway beginning October 14th.

Meanwhile, enjoy the interview with book clubber extraordinaire Sue Phillips.

Sue Phillips1. How did you become a book clubber?
I’ve always loved reading. My mom, a voracious reader, always said that one could never be truly lonely if there was a book to read (she also always said if you could read, you could cook, but that one hasn’t always worked for me!) I’ve moved around a lot (New York, Denver, San Francisco Bay Area, Missouri, now back on the East Coast), and book clubs have always helped me meet people and get involved in a new area.

When we first moved to Princeton, NJ, we didn’t know anyone. Learning that there was not a book club I could join in our community, I decided to start one. I put it in our Community newsletter, selected The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and 12 people showed up! We’ve been meeting for almost three years and not only has the group filled my need for book discussions, it’s given me friendships and a sense of belonging.

2. Tell us about your first club.
It began with a group of friends who started reading the same books and thought, why not get together to discuss them? It was part social, part discussion and always fun! Over the years, members left, new members joined, but being a part of that group always remained a constant.

3. What books did you read in that first club?
I remember The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman (1998 Baker Publishing Group), where the discussion was much more of a personal nature to The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (2001, Scribner), where we wore tiaras and drank champagne—how courtly.

4. What do you get out of book clubs?
I love getting exposed to different authors and different genres of books. It takes me out of my comfort zone. It has also made me more aware of how many good books there are out there and please give me enough time to read them!

5. What’s the most interesting observation you’ve made about belonging to book clubs?
I’m always amazed when someone has a totally different perspective on a book. Usually it will be varying degrees of like/love or dislike; but sometimes someone comes up with a totally different way of looking at a character or a theme, and there’s an epiphany! Wow! I may never think or look at “that” the same way again! That to me is fascinating.

6. Do you ever get to meet the author?
Besides the wonderful Nikki Stern, who enthralled our book club, there were 2 writers who visited a book club I was in several years ago. One gave us the historical background of the area we were living in, the other the beginning steps on how to get published. Very different but also interesting.

7. Does your book club have a designated discussion leader?
Not really. I am the one that usually does all the correspondence: reminder of meetings, the book selections we have made, getting the meeting started, etc. but I like to defer to whoever recommended the book to start the discussion.

8. Do you (or does your leader) predetermine discussion themes or are your discussions more free-wheeling?
Our discussions are much more free-wheeling but it depends on the book. When this book club first started, we relied more on Book Club discussion questions and reviews, but now we are comfortable just discussing the book. We also try to balance heavy themed books with lighter ones. While gives us a nice balance, it also means that some meetings can get very intense while others are lighter and a bit more social.

9. Who would you recommend join a book club?
I would recommend a book club to anyone who wants to broaden their interests and is open to new things. Reading is wonderful, but being able to share your thoughts with others, enriches the experience. Discussing ideas and characters, listening to different perspectives, looking at topics and situations from someone else’s viewpoint, these all make me feel more connected.

Look Up

Aug 302018
 

The man at the airport was just like everyone else. He kept his eyes down and on his iPhone. Or maybe he had a Samsung. He read, he texted, he interacted with the phone. All around him were people likewise fixated on their various devices. Some nodded in time to silent music or held murmured conversations with invisible colleagues. Occasionally, they glanced up, only to transfer their attention to an electronic device at some remove—an arrival notice, a gate number, or one of the ubiquitous wide-screens delivering an endless stream of infotainment.

Okay, it’s the airport. Not much to see. On the other hand, nothing alarms me as much as everyone on phonebeing in a crowd of indiscriminately inattentive people. What aren’t they seeing? What might they miss? What if something happens? I feel even worse about people who walk, run, bike, take out the dog, ride or, god forbid, drive with their heads down.

I get the appeal of a smart device. Timely information and instant connection in the palm of your hand. Directions and photos and messages and news. Yes, but also a false sense of control and an opportunity to disengage from the here and now.

We may avoid the ugly and stressful. We may also miss the unusual or the beautiful.

On board my flight, I found myself next to the same man. He offered a polite smile; then bent urgently over his phone, as if to squeeze in every last bit of data possible before the jet doors closed. As soon as we reached cruising altitude, my seat companion signed onto the Internet.

I’m not going to lie; I read from my tablet during the flight. But I didn’t bother to connect. What was going to happen while I was in the air and what was I going to do about it anyway? Occasionally I glanced out the window. It was a beautiful day for flying.

When the wheels hit the ground, I quickly turned on my cell phone, as did everyone else on the plane, scanning for important updates. Force of habit, I told myself, although in truth the habit is less than two decades old and I’ve been flying a lot longer than that. I wasn’t meeting anyone. I just wanted to be “reachable.”

I drove my rental car to the hotel on Key Largo, checked in, and went for a walk along the beach. I took my phone but kept it in my pocket.

At dinner that night, I sat alone with my food, a glass of wine and…my phone. It’s a terrific dinner companion for a single person; you never feel alone or disconnected and you look engaged, maybe even important. On the other hand, vacation is about getting away from the routine and into something new. Look up, I reminded myself.

The dining area was somewhat open-air, with floor to ceiling windows affording an ocean view. The smell of salt and jasmine mixed with the menu offerings. The balmy air felt like velvet.

At the next table, I noticed a group of middle-aged people saying grace. Quaint, I thought, but kind of sweet. No, wait; they each had phones and they were wrapped up in various efforts to reach out to someone or something that wasn’t at the table. Occasionally one of them tossed out a comment and there was a burst of conversation. Even then, no one made eye contact. It occurred to me that a group of strangers could sit down at their table and they might not even notice.

The next morning, I awoke before dawn and logged onto my tablet. After an hour, I pulled myself out of a digitally-induced torpor. Get out, I ordered myself. I took my phone but kept it in my pocket. Who needed to reach me? Who did I need to contact? What was the meaning of the word “relax” in our wired/wireless world anyway? And how was I going to get rid of the crick in my neck unless I lifted my head?

The tiny beach glistened in the early morning sun. I looked across the gulf and saw only water—no towers, cranes, cruise ships or high-rise buildings. A few people wandered about, including, to my surprise, my seat buddy from the flight down. He’d obviously reunited with his family—two small children, a boy and a girl and an attractive woman I took to be his wife.

diving pelicansYet he remained tethered to his phone, perched on the edge of his chair, squinting at the small screen. A flock of pelicans swooped low to the water, delighting the little girl. “Daddy, daddy,” she cried to her multi-tasking father, “Look at the birds!” He waved, but never took his eyes off the phone.

I didn’t need to be told twice, however. I looked up. Watching the birds, warmed by the sun, I stretched my neck and eased into my surroundings.

(Brain) Food for Thought

Jun 192018
 

I am back in physical therapy for the stubborn left shoulder that won’t fully heal following surgery. My therapist has given me a series of targeted exercises. Some are repeats of those I did after surgery last year; some are new. All will go into a folder marked “shoulder,” which sits within a larger folder called “PT.” In there are also maneuvers for hip, ankle, and lower back. These are presented in drawings, photographs, and instructions for at least thirty distinct exercises.

cluttered brainI don’t take this folder to the gym, of course. Instead, I’ve tried to memorize every one of these, with limited success. After all, I also need to remember to do them every day–and to sit up, stand up, lift my head up, roll my shoulders back, pick up my feet—in short, apply my brain to the conscious maintenance of a body challenged by the passing of time.

My brain has other things to do as well: rewrite the first half of my new novel by the end of the month, walk and feed my dog, take out the garbage, plug in and check on the basement dehumidifier, pick up a prescription, arrange for a ride to the airport, prepare to present in front of a book club, take my vitamins. This while I’m trying to remember where I put my iPad or what I went upstairs to fetch.

I have an online calendar for the important appointments that the Cloud shares with my devices. I also make lists. If I start more than one, something I almost always do, I must remember to blend the two and compare them with whatever I’ve written online. I suppose I could have Alexa or Siri or Gaga (my name for Google Assistant) remind me but I don’t yet trust technology to make distinctions between “buy fence for back garden” and “buy plastic border for front garden.”

It’s a lot to ask of an aging intelligence—or is it?

Research about the older brain has been a roller coaster ride of good and bad news for at brain cellsleast forty years, according to an article in Newsweek that summarized more recent findings. In September of 2016, Harvard Health Publishing wrote that although we naturally lose brain cells as we age, we can grow new ones. Then, in March of this year, research published in the journal Nature indicated scientists could find no new neurons in adult brains. The next month, Cell Stem Cell published a study showing that we can potentially continue to make neurons in the hippo-campus until we’re almost eighty. The factors include the aforementioned exercise, a healthy lifestyle, enriched environment, and social interactions.

As to the last, the National Institute on Aging says “Social relationships are consistently associated with bio-markers of health.” They are also the hardest to maintain, owing to the natural isolation seniors encounter. Absent meaningful work and/or close family, struggling with mobility issues and grappling with feelings of purposelessness and irrelevance, older people find it challenging to build or keep relationships.

I’ve got the exercise and healthy lifestyle down, thanks to a dog and a bike. I consider books and engagement with arts and politics to enrich my environment, not to mention the lovely home I’m fortunate enough to own. Social interactions are trickier. I’m a widow engaged primarily in solo endeavors like writing, which means I’m constantly out of practice. While I am expressive and articulate on paper and, I hope, online, I’m far more introverted than most people realize.

Without a doubt, though, socialization is probably the single most effective antidote to friend in kicklinepain and depression I’ve ever encountered. I recently spent two days in the company of a group of wonderful women I first met online. I walked miles and forgot about my aching shoulder, back, hip, etc. We ate and drank and laughed and hugged. I’m still riding the afterglow.

What this suggests is I have even more to add to my to-do list. Somewhere between  “schedule doctor” and “buy paper towels” and “finish chapter three,” I need to remind myself to text or email or message or call a friend and make a plan. It’s not just about maintaining friendships. It’s about strengthening your brain.

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