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Leap Days: Chronicles of a Midlife Move
by Katherine Lanpher
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Springboard Press (2006-10-10)
ISBN: 0821258303
EAN: 9780821258309
Dewy Decimal #: 791.45028092
Hardcover: 240 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 07040207
Condition: Like New As issued n
Comments: Trade Paperback. Advance Reading Copy in like new condition. No marks or creases and appears unread. Beautiful book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Katherine Lanpher, whose essays have appeared in the New York Times and More magazine, officially moved to Manhattan on a leap day, transferring from a rooted life in the Midwest to a new job, a new city, and a new sense of who she was. Reinvention is a tricky business, and starting over in the middle of life isn't for the faint of heart.
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Customer Reviews
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Leap of Kate
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-02-10
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
If I lived in Manhattan, I would want Katherine Lanpher to be my next-door neighbor. She radiates self confidence and conviction worthy of a motivational speaker. Yet, she is fallible, human and privately insecure. As you read her casual autobiography, Leap Days, you feel like you are spending a memorable morning with a long lost friend. In one short book, she invites you to visit nearly every facet of her soul. I read her book in one three-hour plane ride. I didn't want the flight to end!
Leap Days was written as a therapeutic vehicle. In 2004, Katherine accepted a gig, on a lark, as the side-kick to comedian Al Franken on the Air America radio network. To begin this new chapter in her life, she quickly moved to New York City after spending most of her life in Middle America. Finding herself newly alone in a big city, she sat down and wrote her heart out to us. You'll wish she had sooner. This lady certainly knows how to write.
Throughout the beautifully crafted passages of her book, Kate's stories paint realistic portraits of all the important times in her life. I often felt as if I had been by her side. Most memorable were her recollections of her tumultuous marriage to an irresponsible Frenchman and her indoctrination into the world of journalism in Minnesota. Being someone who also began their professional career in a newsroom in the 1970s, I felt great empathy for her. As for the Frenchman, Kate, we all make mistakes!
I especially enjoyed her description of her premiere broadcast on radio. Maybe you've had this nightmare: Someone leads you into an announcer's booth, points at you and says 'You're on!' I love the way she can tell a story. You'll have to read the book to see how it turned out!
Katherine is a dyed-in-the-wool journalist who has never given up on herself. In Leap Days, she shares her childhood, her family, her career and her loves. It is comforting to know we are not alone in the trials of life. I wonder how she found the courage to reveal everything in her heart. I am glad she did. Her book is cleansing for both writer and reader. Take her hand and enjoy her journey. You'll delight in every page.
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Pilgrim's Progress
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-11-16
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
If Katherine Lanpher's touching, funny, brave and darling book doesn't quicken your heart and make you want to add her to that imaginary list of dinner guests - seated right between Einstein and Cary Grant (or is it Wallace Shawn and Paul Lynde?), then I suspect you're not old enough to vote and you've probably never risked anything bigger than a bagel.
Katherine's move to New York from the Midwest at Midlife has a pioneer spirit that could stand up to anyone's idea of a covered wagon on a trip to the Promised Land. I am a born and bred New Yorker and my family has barely moved more than 200 blocks in nearly 400 years, but that journey loomed large in our family story and I believe I recognize a Pilgrim when I see one; where the limb you climb out on may, indeed, be your only reward, but also, the only reward you really want.
Let me take a moment to cheer,"Buy this book!" --- for everyone you know who's frightened of the road ahead; or brave and daring and not looking down; or settled snug, perhaps forgetting that their journeys may not have flown over miles but over roadblocks that appeared on the maps of their own imaginations. And buy it for yourself. You won't regret a page you spend with her.
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A typical lovestory of New York City
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-02-25
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I didn't know Katherine Lanpher, I simply read the book because I love New York. I had no idea she was connected to Liberalism or any of the other -isms that disgust men in general. Her experiences were typical of first-time New Yorkers and the culture shock they endure. Her style is simple yet poignant, and it really picks up halfway with her chapter on feminism ("That Girl") and how she struggled finding her way in the world of journalism.
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I'm always looking for a book like this.
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-11-25
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I was drawn to this book by its premise--a mid-life move to New York--expecting witty fish-out-of-water anecdotes, and, yes, Ms. Lanpher delivered. But what I also got was a beautifully written, thoughtful, compelling memoir, insightful, funny (yet poignant), foody, and self-deprecating. I really loved this book and have been recommending it to all my friends.
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Heartwarming, Interesting, Enjoyable...
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-11-21
2 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Easy to identify with many feelings expressed by this author. Interesting adventures. I recommend this book as a quick read that leaves you thoughtful. Thoroughly enjoyable throughout.
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