Smorgasbord Blogger Daily – Tuesday December 10th 2019 -#Review by D.G. Kaye, #Contest Kaye Lynne Booth, #Christmascake Robbie Cheadle

One of my weekend stops when browsing blogs is always D.G. Kaye, Debby Gies for her Sunday Book Review. Sunday Book Review – When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi

My Sunday Book Review is for When Breath Becomes Air – A story of courage about the life of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon in his prime, just finishing his medical residency when he’s faced with the fatal blow of an almost certain death sentence when diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Nonfiction.

Blurb:

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

Head over to read Debby’s in-depth review for the book: Book Review D.G. Kaye – When Breath Becomes Air

D. G. Kaye – Buy: Amazon US – Blog: D.G. Writes – Goodreads: D.G. Kaye on Goodreads

Catch up with Debby’s Travel Column here every month: The Travel Column with D.G. Kaye

Now something for all of you who enjoy entering short story competitions with an announcement from Kaye Lynne Booth

Whispers of the Past Promo

The 2019 WordCrafter Paranormal Short Fiction Contest was a success. We had several entries and most are now featured in “Whispers of the Past”, the first anthology to be published by WordCrafter, along with the winning story, “A Peaceful Life I’ve Never Known” by Jeff Bowles. I anticipate seeing entries from some of these same authors for the 2020 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest and I hope you all will enter as well.

You can buy Whispers of the Past here: https://books2read.com/u/38EGEL

With that in mind, I’m excited to tell you about next year’s contest. The theme for The 2020 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest is paranormal western. That’s right. WordCrafter Press is looking for western ghost stories! This is going to be a fun contest, so get writing. Each entry must contain elements of the western genre and elements of the paranormal genre, but beyond that, your imaginations are the only limits. All submissions must be original works which cannot be found online for free. (Amazon is quite a stickler on this one.) Like last year, there will be a $5 entry fee. In addition to publication the 2020 anthology, the winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

Head over to find out the guidelines for next year’s contest: Announcing the 2020 Wordcrafter Short Fiction Contest

Kaye Lynne Booth

Kaye Lynne Booth, buy all her books: Amazon US – About Kaye Lynne: About Me

If you were going to make a Christmas Cake you might want to have started a bit earlier, however, here is Robbie Cheadle with her recipe for her cakes (seven), and I just wish I lived a bit closer…also a link to a lovely post by John Rieber last week on The Sir Chocolate Series and cookbooks.

My Christmas cake recipe and a lovely post about my Sir Chocolate books

I have been busy since late October preparing my Christmas cakes. I bake them in late October and pour a small amount of brandy onto them each week until I marzipan them in late November. I did that last weekend. I iced two of my seven Christmas cakes this weekend. I have a Christmas fairy theme this year.