Richard W. shared a stream on April 4, 2023
House Guest

Resizing for My New Life!

Apartment 3B is Perfect for Me!

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 8 seconds

“Wow, your apartment looks so nice,” said Mike as he walked into my new home.

I had not had visitors to my home except when Nick visited me. It was lovely to have my family visiting for a family birthday celebration.

“It is so light and airy. Everything looks like it fits perfectly,” said Elyssa, my daughter-in-law.

I nodded in agreement.

I know you and Mom had to let go of a lot of furniture when you moved, and it looks like you had to allow even more go this time. But you have made this feel like a home.”

Standing before the ceremonial shovel, Nick and I mentioned that a TaskRabbit person had installed it and the photos.

“Hugo and Ana helped me determine what I could keep and helped me find a new home for items I no longer needed,” I explained as my lips began to shake.

“It looks so lovely you could rent it as an AIRBNB.”

I laughed.

“I need a place to live that meets my needs and keeps your mom’s spirit and love with me.”

As we had dinner, I remembered when Jan and I moved to Cranford in May 2018, we expected to live here for two years and then buy a condo.

Our plans did not work out, but moving from a three-bedroom ranch to a walkable downtown was more critical than we understood then.

If we had stayed where we lived, I am unsure how I would have survived without Jan. Overwhelmed and adrift, I would have been too attached to material things and lost like a kid in a candy store.

Instead, I am centered in overlapping communities where I can walk daily and live interdependently with my neighbors.

I will forever be grateful that Jan and I moved here, as living in supportive communities has been critical in managing my grief.

Jan’s love transformed me the day we met. Her love continues to shower me with her undying support and allows me to live fully, albeit alone, in Apartment 3B!

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Flowers Convert Apartment 3B Into a Home

Flowers Convert 3B Into a Home

Thanks to my friend Deb, I have made a giant step in making Apartment 3B my home! Deb, a master gardener and a member of the Hanson Park Conservancy and the Green Thumb Garden Club, helped me select the plants, and she re-potted them.
Richard W. Brown September 28, 2022

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The Payback: A Novel

Read: July 2025

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The Payback: A Novel

by Kashana Cauley

In “The Payback: A Novel,” Kashana Cauley delivers a witty and incisive examination of race, power, and the everyday struggles we all face. The story follows Jada Williams, who finds herself on the run from the relentless Debt Police. As she grapples with her daunting student loans, she teams up with two quirky coworkers from the mall who offer their unexpected support on a plan to exact revenge by erasing their student loan debt.

With sharp humor and captivating storytelling, Cauley highlights the complex web of financial struggles, making readers laugh while also encouraging thoughtful reflection.

Jada Williams has a talent for judging people by their appearance. From across the mall, she can determine not only someone’s inseam and pant size but also the exact style they need to transform their lives. Unfortunately, she is no longer using this superpower as a wardrobe designer for Hollywood stars; instead, she is earning minimum wage plus commission at the Glendale mall.

When Jada is fired yet again, she must outrun the newly instated Debt Police, who are pursuing her relentlessly. However, Jada, like any great antihero, isn’t going to wait for the authorities to come after her. With the help of two other debt-burdened coworkers at the mall, she devises a plan for revenge. Together, the three women formulate a plan to erase their student loans forever and exact revenge on the system that promised them everything and then tried to take it all back.

The Payback is a razor-sharp and hilarious examination of race, power, and the daily grind, from one of the most original and exciting writers working today.

Kashana Cauley is the author of The Payback and The Survivalists, which was named a best book of 2023 by the BBC, Today, Vogue, and more. Cauley is also a television writer, having worked on The Great North, Pod Save America on HBO, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and other notable publications. Find out more at KashanaCauley.com.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

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Judaism Is About Love

Read: October 2024

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Judaism Is About Love

by Rabbi Shai Held

Today, I embarked on a transformative journey with Rabbi Shai Held’s book, “Judaism Is About Love.” Rav Uri‘s mention of this book during this year’s Yom Kippur service at Temple Sha’arey Shalom sparked a profound connection to the Divine, as echoed in my writings “Love Can Conquer Even Death” and “High Holiday Meditation Cleanses My Soul.” Rabbi Held’s book, which focuses on love, meaning, purpose, and faith, has guided my quest to become the best version of myself.

“Judaism Is About Love” is a beacon of understanding, offering a profound and groundbreaking perspective on Jewish life. It challenges a long-standing misinterpretation that has shaped the Western narrative: Christianity is the religion of love, while Judaism is the religion of law. Rabbi Shai Held, a leading Jewish thinker in America, passionately argues for correcting this misconception. He asserts that love is not just a part of Judaism but a fundamental aspect, thus reclaiming the heart of the Jewish tradition.

With a unique blend of intellectual rigor, respect for tradition, and a vibrant Judaism, Held’s aim is clear: to reclaim Judaism in its authentic form. He illustrates that love is the foundation of the true Jewish faith, influencing our unique perspectives on injustice, protest, grace, family life, responsibilities toward neighbors and enemies, and chosenness.

“Judaism Is About Love” is a work of ambition and revelation. It serves as a beacon, illuminating the true essence of Judaism. More than just a book, it is an act of restoration from within, reclaiming the authentic form of Judaism.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

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When No One is Watching

Read: February 2022

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When No One is Watching

by Alyssa Cole

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole is a novel where the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning.

Sydney Green is Brooklyn-born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. After all, their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become a conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Having lived in Brooklyn and seen the impacts of gentrification, redlining, and other practices, I found this book one that I truly enjoyed. The book will provide a detailed history lesson if you are like Theo and have no thought of these issues.

I enjoyed the visit to Weeksville, as I have been there on several professional occasions. The history of that community needs to be told.

I recommend this book.

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Luky Us

Read: March 2022

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Lucky Us: A Novel

by Amy Bloom

Having surpassed my Goodreads 2022 reading goal, I wanted a lite, historical fiction book and found this one in the e-library. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom is a book that hooked me on the opening line – “My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.” I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it.

The first section in Hollywood was the one I found less appealing. Partly that is because I identified with Eva, and she does not fulfill her leading role until the last two sections. Its depiction of how people survived the way years by sometimes is a reminder of our inner resilience.

Goodreads provides the following summary.

So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called “a literary triumph” (The New York Times). Lucky Us is a brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny novel of love, heartbreak, and luck.

Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star and Eva the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris’s ambitions take the pair across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, and to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.

With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life, conventional and otherwise. From Brooklyn’s beauty parlors to London’s West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.

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The Tokyo Suite

Read: April 2025

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The Tokyo Suite

by Giovana Madalosso

I recently dove into The Tokyo Suite by Giovana Madalosso, expertly translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato. This captivating book represents the English-language debut of one of Brazil’s most thrilling contemporary voices. It intricately unravels the complexities of modern family dynamics, diving deep into the hidden tensions that simmer just beneath the surface of everyday life. Each page draws you in, inviting you to explore the rich tapestry of emotions and experiences that define our relationships.

It’s a seemingly ordinary morning when Maju, a nanny, boards a bus with Cora, the young girl she’s been caring for and disappears. The abduction, an act as impulsive as it is extreme, sets off a series of events that will force each character to confront their deepest fears and desires.

Cora’s mother, Fernanda, is a successful executive who is so engulfed in her crisis that she initially fails to notice her daughter’s disappearance. Her marriage is strained, and she finds solace in an affair, distancing herself further from her family. Meanwhile, her husband, overwhelmed by the complexities of their domestic life, remains emotionally detached. As Maju navigates the streets of São Paulo with Cora, the “white army” of nannies, a term coined by Fernanda, seems to watch her every move, heightening her sense of paranoia and urgency.

Madalosso’s narrative delves deep into the human psyche, examining themes of maternal guilt, societal expectations, and the search for personal identity. Rich and multi-layered, The Tokyo Suite is a poignant and gripping tale that captures the essence of modern urban life and the lengths people will go to reclaim a sense of control and meaning.

Giovana Madalosso is a Brazilian writer and screenwriter born in Curitiba in 1975. She has been a finalist for the Biblioteca Nacional Award and the São Paulo Prize of Literature. The Tokyo Suite is her English-language debut.

Bruna Dantas Lobato is a fiction writer and translator. Her translation of Stênio Gardel‘s The Words That Remain won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker,  Guernica, A Public Space, and The Common. Raised in Natal, Brazil, she is an incoming Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Grinnell College.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

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Thrust: A Novel

Read: August 2022

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Thrust: A Novel

by Lidia Yuknavitch

Thrust: A Novel by Lidia Yuknavitch is a book I recommend without reservations. The protagonist of Thrust is Laisve, a motherless girl from the late 21st century who is learning her power as a carrier, a person who can harness the power of meaningful objects to carry her through time. The book begins with the construction of the Statue of Liberty, and Laisve, with the gifts of a carrier, travels through water and time to rescue vulnerable figures from the margins of history.

The novel also focuses on rising waters and an encroaching police state endangering Laisve’s life and family. As a reader who likes historical fiction and time travel, Thrust: A Novel by Lidia Yuknavitch proved to be a page-turner.

The full GoodReads summary provides an overview of this book published on June 28, 2022,

Lidia Yuknavitch has an unmatched gift for capturing stories of people on the margins–vulnerable humans leading lives of challenge and transcendence. Now, Yuknavitch offers an imaginative masterpiece: the story of Laisve, a motherless girl from the late 21st century who is learning her power as a carrier, a person who can harness the power of meaningful objects to carry her through time.

Sifting through the detritus of a fallen city known as the Brook, she discovers a talisman that will mysteriously connect her with a series of characters from the past two centuries: a French sculptor, a woman of the American underworld, a dictator’s daughter, an accused murderer; and a squad of laborers at work on a national monument. Through intricately braided storylines, Laisve must dodge enforcement raids, find her way to the present day, and finally, to the early days of her poor country, to forge a connection that might save their lives–and their shared dream of freedom.

Thrust will leave no reader unchanged, a dazzling novel of body, spirit, and survival.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month are matched dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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