The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

A synopsis of the plot that I found on Shmoop.com crystalizes my initial impression of this tender, teenage novel:

“Dying girl meets hot boy. Hot boy and dying girl fall in teenage love and go on adventures to Amsterdam together. Dying girl is disappointed by her meeting with a certain author whom she idolizes. Dying girl and hot boy admit their love to each other and have physical relations. In a horrible twist of fate, dying girl lives while hot boy dies. The end.”

Yes, it’s a novel for teens. No, I don’t know why it was a selection for our all-adult-male book club.

Actually, I do. Although the plot, diction, and characters are appropriately aimed at teenagers, the central theme – finding meaning in an apparently meaningless universe – is always worth an earnest discussion. And we had one. (After we japed at those that enjoyed it.).

The latest issue of AWAI’s Barefoot Writer

In this issue:

* Superhero Writing Job Lets You Rescue Paying Clients in Their Darkest Hour of Need

* Master Mental Time-and-Space Travel for Innovative Writing

* The Thriving Writer’s Multitiered Safety Net

* How a Scrap of Bulleted Paper Can Make You Richer, Healthier, and Happier

* World Upside Down? Get Writing Again

Click here to read it.

Looking for some comfort books to read? The New York Times asked some well-known writers  for suggestions. Here are some of them…

* From Celeste Ng: The Princess Bride by William Goldman – “This has always been a comfort read for me: a fairy tale that acknowledges that life isn’t fair… yet still manages to make you feel that the good guys might win, that justice will be served, that there’s a point to it all.”

* From Elizabeth Gilbert: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson – “Absent of sentimentality, full of love and humor and wisdom, this is a tale about how much fun two people can have in the middle of nowhere, when they are practicing social isolation in earnest.”

* From Kiley Reid: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott – “It’s funny and honest and comforting, and it’s a wonderful reminder of the glory in terrible first efforts, and the beauty that comes in taking it day by day.”

* From Ruth Ware: Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford – “[For] sheer comfort reading it has to be Nancy Mitford – who laughed and wept her way through love, loss, crippling bereavement and two world wars.”

* From Ann Patchett: Writers & Lovers by Lily King – “Even as the narrator grieves the loss of her mother and struggles to make art and keep a roof over her head, the novel is suffused with hopefulness and kindness.”

“Seven ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes that are eerily timely during the coronavirus pandemic” 

Click here to read this thought-provoking article from The Washington Post.

did you know?

“Why Italy?” Click here to read an explanation that I’ve never heard before.

Before there were vaccines, doctors “borrowed” antibodies from recovered patients to save lives. A recent article on History.com explains how the discovery was made and how it’s been used to fight many infectious diseases… including the Spanish flu, measles, MERS, SARS, and Ebola. To read the article, click here.

The latest issue of Independent Healing

“Your Guide to the Coronavirus Pandemic: How to help yourself and your loved ones during the COVID-19 outbreak”

Including:

* The single best anti-viral supplement

* The secret of people who never seem to catch contagious diseases

* The fruit extract that helps 93% of people with respiratory viruses get better in just 2 days

* The germ-spreading hotspot most of us forget to sanitize

* The blood type that could protect you from COVID-19

Click here to read this special issue.

 “Thinking Critically About Coronavirus News and Information” – Good advice from the FTC on protecting yourself against coronavirus scams. Click here to read the article.

“Looking Into the Near Future” – an excerpt from Bill Bonner’s Diary, March 20, 2020 

The world of getting and spending is shutting down. Without revenue, neither businesses, or households, or the government will be able to pay their bills.

Stocks will rise (“a dead cat bounce,” the old timers call it) on all the “bailout” news, and then give up another 50% of their value.

Business will default on its $16-trillion-debt pile. Millions of people will lose their jobs. The Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, says that upwards of 20% of the workforce could be unemployed.

The feds will print money by the trillions to rescue the situation. Spending will rise. But lower output… and more currency in circulation… will raise prices.

If you are in the information marketing business, you may be interested in my thoughts about how the  Corona Crisis presents an opportunity for growth and strength in the future. This is an excerpt from a memo I wrote to one of our publishers of economic and investment information in Europe.

 I believe the economic and social crisis we are experiencing will change the way our readers think forever more.

During the last 10 years, the world benefited from an artificial but huge bull market in the USA. That is over now. We are in a recession. Millions of people will lose jobs. Tens of thousands of businesses will close.

Things may start improving in six months or a year. But the trauma our customers have experienced from seeing their stock portfolios crash from being quarantined for weeks or longer will change the way they think and feel about investing forever.

During this just-ended bull market, practically everything we sold was profitable. Some of the ideas we sold were based on fear – the fear of a market collapse that we are seeing today. Most of the ideas we sold were bullish and were gobbled up by the madness of crowds hoping for ever-higher ROIs.

We grew so quickly during those years that we couldn’t help but hire a few analysts and writers that had a limited understanding of economics and finance. Their theories were sometimes thin. And their ability to express themselves was sometimes clumsy.

This was only a small portion of our creative people, but it was the source of a serious problem. Because the country was so mesmerized by the stock market’s growth, they seemed to sell as well as our best thinkers and writers.

As I said, I have a hunch those days are past. And if that’s true, our future will depend on eliminating the 20% of our thinkers, writers, and products that are not first-rate and replacing them with people and products that are.

Here’s how I see it: There is IQ, which indicates a person’s ability to solve all sorts of intellectual problems. There is Emotional IQ, which indicates a person’s ability to thrive in social situations. And there is Literary IQ, which indicates a writer’s ability to articulate smart ideas elegantly.

* Big for us = macro, universal, and game-changing

* Smart for us = big, fresh, contrarian, and exciting

* Elegant for us (and for all writing) = concise, subtle, and respectful of the reader’s intelligence

We are a business that sells ideas – analysis, insight, precautions, and advice. Our products are not newsletters or alert services or webinars or the rest. Those are formats of communication. Our products are our elegantly articulated smart ideas.

To improve our products ,we must improve our ideas. And we can do that only by hiring and supporting high IQ writers.

That said, I don’t believe that bullish ideas are going to stop selling. I believe, as I said, that we are going through a fertile time to create big audiences by promoting great articulators of big, smart ideas. But the higher Literary IQ writers and thinkers we have now will be able to contribute to the conversation our customers want to have. We’ve already seen evidence of that lately in the USA.

We may be going into an economic depression, but there are opportunities for profit in depressions. We have to support our high Literary IQ bulls as well.

I know that sounded pompous. Forgive me. Whenever I grab onto a new idea, I feel pompous. And despite my many worries, I’m shifting towards a pompous mood.