by Sarah Statz Cords
Normally when you visit the Reader’s Advisor Online Blog, you are visiting a blog that is edited by the fabulous Cindy Orr–her latest article in the Readers’ Advisor News newsletter also includes information on her (humbling, to us mere mortals) professional experience and accomplishments. But for the next couple of weeks Cindy will be taking some well-deserved time off to recuperate from a hip replacement surgery she’s been waiting and wanting to have for a long time. On the off chance that Barbara Ehrenreich is wrong, we’d like to ask all of our readers to send good healing and positive thoughts her way.* If you’d like to send Cindy a message or get-well wishes, please let us know in the comments or at raoblog@lu.com, and we will pass them along to her. Have no fear: Cindy will return–you can’t keep a good reader’s advisor down.
However, because your intrepid guest columnist (yours truly) is astounded by and not quite sure, really, how Cindy pulls together the stunning weekly book lists and book news links that she does, we’ll be posting some slightly different articles for the next couple of weeks. Consider yourselves warned: I don’t know if it’s just because it’s the end of the year, or because I am tired of hearing what seems to be relentlessly bad news for the book world, but I’m a little cranky lately. And I’m going to be asking some questions about whether you’re cranky, and about what’s going on in our libraries and bookstores and culture. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find I have to work through the crank before I can get back to work. Please do join us, fellow reading Jedi, as we explore the Dark Side of RA.
*In Ehrenreich’s latest nonfiction book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, she suggests that positive thinking really has very little to do with healing, and that she got very, very tired of being told to be positive while she herself battled breast cancer. As much as I enjoy Ehrenreich, I’m going to err on the side of the power of positive thinking where Cindy is concerned.
