Bethanne Patrick

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Now Read This!: A Good Divorce Book Is Hard to Find

Posted on 05/16/2013 by Bethanne Patrick | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentLast month I revisited my alma mater, Smith College in Northampton, Mass., to moderate a panel called “Empowering Young People Through Stories.” I know, I know: Where’s the AARP angle? Well, afterward I was approached by a friendly blonde who introduced herself as “Cindy, Class of 1982.” That made her 52, by my reckoning. We started talking books, naturally enough, and it turns out that Cynthia Copeland, as she is known professionally, has written 40 of the things, including Really Important Stuff My …

Now Read This!: Maya & Lady & Maya

Posted on 05/9/2013 by Bethanne Patrick | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentMidrash, or the rabbinical interpretation of Old Testament writings, repeats certain phrases and scenes as a way to help the devout learn sacred texts. The technique may help explain why Maya Angelou seems to be repeating herself throughout her new memoir, Mom & Me & Mom. Before you unleash your outraged cries, I mean to say only that we’ve met these Moms before: One is Angelou’s fascinating and complicated mother, Vivian “Lady” Baxter, a figure well known to readers of her searing …

Now Read This! The Neverending Mother’s Day Story

Posted on 05/2/2013 by Bethanne Patrick | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentAs Mother’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking about the most powerful gift my mother ever gave me: my love of reading. Not just any reading, mind you. When it became clear that 8-year-old finicky reader Bethanne Kelly was bored to death by age-appropriate bedtime tales, 35-year-old Julia Kelly quickly “thought outside the book”: She dug out her old college literature texts and started reading me the poetry, short stories and essays they contained. That sounds sweet, doesn’t it? Sure — until you hear some …

Now Read This!: Carol Burnett & Debbie Reynolds Look Homeward

Posted on 04/25/2013 by Bethanne Patrick | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentWhen I heard that Carol Burnett and Debbie Reynolds have new memoirs out this month, I imagined writing about their mutual love of fashion designer Bob Mackie. Why’s that? Because if every sequin and bugle bead from the Mackie gowns they own were laid end to end, they’d stretch from Burnett’s hometown of San Antonio to Reynold’s of El Paso. Turns out there’s more grit than glitter in Burnett’s Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story. Part of the tale …

Now Read This: Life, Loss, and What We Read

Posted on 04/17/2013 by Bethanne Patrick | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentIn 1995 Ilene Beckerman wrote and illustrated a charming memoir called Love, Loss, and What I Wore. It captured her life according to outfits worn at key moments, from the Brownie Scout uniform Beckerman was sporting when she went off to camp at age 7 to the dress-up clothes her granddaughter favored decades later. In 2008 Nora and Delia Ephron turned this “time capsule of a woman’s life through clothes” into a successful play of the same name. I thought …

Now Read This: ‘Guy’s Guy’ Mike Greenberg Writes Chick Lit

Posted on 04/10/2013 by Bethanne Patrick | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentMike Greenberg is a “guy’s guy” — he co-hosts the ESPN show “Mike & Mike in the Morning”— so when he decided to write a novel from the perspective of three women, he knew he’d have to rope in some “gal’s gals.” To “get things right” in his recently released All You Could Ask For, Greenberg told me, he formed the world’s most homegrown focus group: his wife, his agent’s wife, and their female yoga instructor. But there’s one vignette …