In her plucky new memoir, award-winning journalist Susan Orlins embraces her hang ups and faces life's imperfections with wit and grit. While her friends smoke marijuana or drink to get high, Orlins becomes intoxicated by therapy visits. Eavesdrop on her confessions as she goes through psychiatrists the same way she goes through boyfriends. Orlins takes readers on a rocky but riotous journey from her starter marriage during college to her second marriage in 1979, after which she moves to Beijing. Her years in Beijing and her effort to adopt a baby there provide a fascinating portrait of an era in which "eating bitterness" was a way of life for Chinese people. She worries: Will I locate a child? Will I convince the Communist government to go along with a foreign adoption? In the chapter "'I May Have Ruined the Marriage, But You're Ruining the Divorce," Orlins explores her separation with wry, wrenching self-awareness. She rebounds with a divorce party and then vibrantly portrays a cast of Mr. Wrongs, like one who--whenever he feels blue--swallows a pinch of his father's ashes. During a solo bicycle trip in Paris, Orlins tracks down a boyfriend from 42 years earlier. No one could have anticipated the crisis that occurs an hour into their reunion. With her knack for stumbling into drama, it's no wonder she worries. As Orlins ages, she misses her younger self and pictures paying her a visit. This imaginary encounter changes Orlins forever. Readers of all ages will relate to this deeply personal story, told with comical sensibility by a quirky, startlingly honest mother, daughter, ex-wife, and dog lover, who--à la Nora Ephron--will feel like a dear friend. Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Lovers, Mothers, and Others will stay with you long after you finish reading it.Reviews“A first-rate personal essayist, Susan Orlins delivers the goods time and again. Underneath her self-mocking voice, her abundant humor, her brio, there is the serious candor of a moralist who worries the problems that won’t go away.”—PHILLIP LOPATE, author and editor of The Art of the Personal Essay “Susan Orlins is America’s funniest neurotic since Woody Allen. Just be careful you don’t crack a rib reading Confessions of a Worrywart.”—PATRICIA VOLK, author of Stuffed “Susan Orlins combines the practical with the comical. A multi-tasking mom, she knows how to show and hide her feelings simultaneously. When you have the time (the kids are out of the house and your mom is in a home), read this book! You will identify and laugh.”—SYBIL SAGE, writer for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Growing Pains, Magnum P.I., Northern Exposure "Toxic chemicals. Tomatoes. Getting the bed by the window in her future nursing home. What's NOT to worry about? Just ask Susan Orlins, America's funniest worrywart—not because you want to wring your hands, but because you want to laugh out loud. Her offbeat take on all challenges, great and small, is a delight."— DIANE MACEACHERN, Author of Big Green Purse

Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Mothers, Lovers and Others

Biographies & Memoirs

Orlins, Susan

Community & Culture

Seneca Books

This second edition of "The Tinder Box," published in September 2014 by Seneca Books, provides readers with greater detail concerning events that occurred within the U.S. Forest Service from 1982 through 2008, and has a far more extensive Index. Since 1990 over 113,000,000 acres of America's timber lands have been consumed by wildfire, one of many disasters the U.S. Forest Service must be held accountable for. Over that same period the timber industry, companies engaged in making wood products, owners of properties adjacent forest lands, and the public at large have become incensed by the agency's ineptitude.To learn more read Christopher Burchfield's "The Tinder Box: How Politically Correct Ideology Destroyed the U.S. Forest Service." The book goes back to the very beginning--33 years ago--when the agency set about destroying itself from within. Readers will finally grasp those terrible events inside the agency, all of which took place entirely outside of public purview. Indeed, this is the first inside look at how--step-by-step, political correctness destroyed an American institution.

The Tinder Box: How Politically Correct Ideology Destroyed the U.S. Forest Service

Politics & Social Sciences

Burchfield, Christopher

Social Sciences

The songs in this volume have been collected over a period of 50 years, beginning in 1924.

Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills

Arts & Photography

GAINER, PATRICK W.

Music

The wondrous year: West Virginia through the seasons

Core, Earl Lemley

The Appalachians

History

Brooks, Maurice

Americas

Witches, Ghosts, and Signs: Folklore of the Southern Appalachians

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fantasy

1978 Seneca Books HARDCOVER, 1079pp, 8vo.

Flora of West Virginia

Science & Math

Strausbaugh, P. D.

Biological Sciences

Second edition (1978), Parts I-IV in one volume.

Struggle in the Coal Fields

Mooney, Fred

The 55 West Virginias: A Guide to the State's Countries

NORTH, E. LEE

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Seneca Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Seneca Books