Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable.
Review: I became acquainted with Elizabeth Berg with OPEN HOUSE. I loved that book and found myself reading bits of it aloud to my partner. I am slowly working my way through her other books.This book, for me, was a mixed bag. I found a few stories to be annoying and a few stunningly beautiful, with the rest in between (closer to beautiful than annoying, by the way.) One story I did NOT care for was the title story, "Ordinary Life". I see I am in the minority here but I found it gimicky and the resolution wasn't enough for me. I LOVED "Caretaking", "The Matchmaker" (great coming-of-age tale there) and especially "One Time at Christmas..."
Berg is a formidably talented writer, expressive and dramatic, and she makes it look so easy. This collection is recommended - the true gems easily made up for the weaker stories. (By the way, I have not yet read PULL OF THE MOON, so I know that after I do, I'll finally be able to read "Martin's Letter to Nan" - I just couldn't read the story first!)
Rating:
Summary: Another great book
Review: I just purchased Elizebeth Berg's new book and am half way through the stories. I love it. I've been a faithful reader of her books and wasn't disapointed in this one. The stories were funny, thoughtful and gave me a familiar feeling many times. I especially like the story called "Martin's letter to Nan" which was an epilogue to "The Pull of the Moon" which I read twice.
Rating: 
Summary: Five Stars for a Book That Shines!
Review: I wrote a review about this book when I was almost half way through it but I must add a few words. When I finished I wanted to call Ms. Berg or e-mail her or anything just to make sure she's busy writing another book. I can't wait another 2 years to read her. She touches the reader in so many ways and she says things you want to write down and savor. She says things you want to show other people. So once again I say Buy this book to keep after you read it and buy an extra to give to someone you love and who loves to read. Also, if by any chance you should ever read this, Ms. Berg please don't wait so long for the next one we all need it soon and thanks for them all.
Rating:
Summary: Anything but Ordinary
Review: I'm not a short story fan, but in this case I've made an enjoyable exception. Each story is a little gem of insight and understanding. Elizabeth Berg creates wonderful conversations that just sing off the page. As a mother and author of a book for mothers, NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL, I especially appreciated the poignant tale of a litle girl and her mentally fragile mother. Worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Berg's Marvelous, Moving Collection
Review: Memories loom large in Elizabeth Berg's remarkable short stories, some of these are so sad that you may have to stop reading midway, and regroup before continuing. Berg's characters are longing for something that has slipped away and cannot be retrieved -- love, family, youth, health, and wholeness. The clock is ticking as the pages turn. Berg, 53, who now lives in Chicago, has worked as a waitress, chicken washer, singer, information clerk, and registered nurse. Her varied background shows in her writing. In "Sweet Refuge" a visiting nurse, who is a caring woman, attends to a 31-year-old man dying of pancreatic cancer. He is angry, embittered, but Abby, his short-term nurse, is gentle, caring, and forgiving when he is harsh. There is joy in caring for the dying, she says, "There are exquisite acts of tenderness lying latent in all of us, waiting only for our permission to come into being." In the vivid title piece, "Ordinary Life: A Love Story," 79-year-old Mavis locks herself in her bathroom for a week. She needs time, uninterrupted time, to remember her inseparable sister, who resembles her, and who has died. Mavis's interactions with her husband, with whom she has never (previously) spent a night apart, are a priceless part of this classic story of incontrovertible devotion. Now, we mustn't all fall completely into a pit of despair so, thankfully, there is at least one touch of comic relief, and it's found in "Regrets Only." Here, Laurence, who is gay, implores his friend Susan to pretend that they are marrying each other, so his mother can die contentedly. When they kiss, the result is worth waiting for. In "What Stays," a loving little girl remembers her mother, a mental patient, who "reached out and connected deeply to a place somewhere between my heart and my stomach." This same phrase can be applied to this marvelous, moving, elegiac collection by Elizabeth Berg.
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary Life Honored
Review: Not always a fan of short stories, I was entranced by the stories in this collection by Elizabeth Berg's.
I was hooked, right off the bat, by the first story, "Ordinary Life, A Love Story" and by Mavis' wish that she had more records or photos of things that were just ordinary items in her life. I have been looking at the everyday things and happenings a bit differently since reading that. I loved "Martin's Letter to Nan". In "Pull of the Moon", one of my favorite books of Berg's, Nan leaves on a journey of self-discovery without telling her husband Martin in advance. The book consists of Nan's letters to Martin and her journal entries. The letter referred to in the short story title lets us in on Martin's thinking during the time when Nan was gone. Berg says that she wrote the story because when she meets readers, she is always asked "What was Martin's response?" Another story that I thought was wonderfully done was "One Time at Christmas, in My Sister's Bathroom" which was about a woman who must come to terms with a difficult father. Berg manages to authentically detail her painful attempts to understand her father. Worthwhile reading!
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary Life Honored
Review: Not always a fan of short stories, I was entranced by the stories in this collection by Elizabeth Berg's.
I was hooked, right off the bat, by the first story, "Ordinary Life, A Love Story" and by Mavis' wish that she had more records or photos of things that were just ordinary items in her life. I have been looking at the everyday things and happenings a bit differently since reading that. I loved "Martin's Letter to Nan". In "Pull of the Moon", one of my favorite books of Berg's, Nan leaves on a journey of self-discovery without telling her husband Martin in advance. The book consists of Nan's letters to Martin and her journal entries. The letter referred to in the short story title lets us in on Martin's thinking during the time when Nan was gone. Berg says that she wrote the story because when she meets readers, she is always asked "What was Martin's response?" Another story that I thought was wonderfully done was "One Time at Christmas, in My Sister's Bathroom" which was about a woman who must come to terms with a difficult father. Berg manages to authentically detail her painful attempts to understand her father. Worthwhile reading!
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary stories with extraordinary characters
Review: The thing I love about Berg is that she says what women think, understands where women are coming from, and know what women want. And she writes about it! "Ordinary Life" is a book of 13 short stories. Each one taking us on a journey....places we know, emotions we have experienced, thoughts we have thought, situations we are living in. "Ordinary life-A Love Story"... my favorite, by the way, is about Mavis, a 79 year old woman who has locked herself in the bathroom and will not come out... "You might as well go to Big Boy for supper" she tells her husband through the crack of the door. She reflects. The first time she made love with her husband, how many pets have they had, the smell of their babies skin, what the wall paper looked like 20 years ago, her friendship with her sister. How the simple things in life, the ordinary things, were truly more important and joyous than most anything. Oh, to lock myself in the bathroom for one whole week....what luxury!!!! I cryed when I read "Caretaking" A daughter reversing roles with her mother as the caregiver. The daughter remembering her mother comforting her... whispering...
"Don't you know I will always take care of you?" And of course....."Martin's Letters to Nan" Nan acually takes off, leaves everything, travels around the country to find her identity once again.
She is my hero!!! What mom and wife would acually have the nerve to do just that??!! Have we thought of it?
YES. Martin's letters to her are superb, hilarious, moving...
I read this outloud to my husband.... ---Let me be the one to say this first. You say, oh Martin, look at that painting! Look at it! Oh Martin, listen to the violin, Listen to it! It's like your a culture Nazi. I see it, Nan, I hear it, I taste it, I ... smell it, I just do not need to TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK about it! My husband laughed....That's you, he said! Berg's gift is capturing the ordinary and making it extraordinary... The simple things,
hot sun on skin, the smell of soap on fingers, the sound of a mother's voice, even the pattern of wall paper. This is about me! This is how I feel! My husband is that way! These are sentences you may utter as you read "Ordinary Life" Berg is just like us... She is our girlfriend....
Let's do lunch soon, Liz!
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary stories with extraordinary characters
Review: The thing I love about Berg is that she says what women think, understands where women are coming from, and know what women want. And she writes about it! "Ordinary Life" is a book of 13 short stories. Each one taking us on a journey....places we know, emotions we have experienced, thoughts we have thought, situations we are living in. "Ordinary life-A Love Story"... my favorite, by the way, is about Mavis, a 79 year old woman who has locked herself in the bathroom and will not come out... "You might as well go to Big Boy for supper" she tells her husband through the crack of the door. She reflects. The first time she made love with her husband, how many pets have they had, the smell of their babies skin, what the wall paper looked like 20 years ago, her friendship with her sister. How the simple things in life, the ordinary things, were truly more important and joyous than most anything. Oh, to lock myself in the bathroom for one whole week....what luxury!!!! I cryed when I read "Caretaking" A daughter reversing roles with her mother as the caregiver. The daughter remembering her mother comforting her... whispering...
"Don't you know I will always take care of you?" And of course....."Martin's Letters to Nan" Nan acually takes off, leaves everything, travels around the country to find her identity once again.
She is my hero!!! What mom and wife would acually have the nerve to do just that??!! Have we thought of it?
YES. Martin's letters to her are superb, hilarious, moving...
I read this outloud to my husband.... ---Let me be the one to say this first. You say, oh Martin, look at that painting! Look at it! Oh Martin, listen to the violin, Listen to it! It's like your a culture Nazi. I see it, Nan, I hear it, I taste it, I ... smell it, I just do not need to TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK about it! My husband laughed....That's you, he said! Berg's gift is capturing the ordinary and making it extraordinary... The simple things,
hot sun on skin, the smell of soap on fingers, the sound of a mother's voice, even the pattern of wall paper. This is about me! This is how I feel! My husband is that way! These are sentences you may utter as you read "Ordinary Life" Berg is just like us... She is our girlfriend....
Let's do lunch soon, Liz!
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding book!
Review: This is an outstanding book of short stories that is one of the best books I've read in the last 20 years! Ms. Berg is an exceptional writer who truly has a handle on human emotions and the common problems of everyday life. I truly wished that each of her stories could be turned into separate novels....they are that good!
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