Nan McCarthy

author of Since You Went Away, Chat, Connect, Crash, & Live ’Til I Die

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Because anyone not from NYC or LA is obviously podunk. 🙄 #TheGirls #EmmaCline #stereotypesinfiction

First attempt at a #carrotcakesmoothie, powering me through the workday. 2 frozen bananas, 3/4 c shredded carrots, 5 walnuts, 1 T shredded unsweetened coconut, pinch ground ginger, pinch nutmeg, 1/4 T cinnamon, 1 fig, 2 T chia seeds, 1 T vanilla powder, 1/2 c almond milk, 1/4 c Siggi’s Icelandic plain yogurt, ice. #smoothieseason #lovesummer #lovemysmoothies #reallydoestastelikecarrotcake

My mom bought this book for me when I was pregnant with our first son in 1990. On the note inside (2nd photo) she wrote that she had forgotten how religious the book was, and she didn’t want me to think she was trying to be Sister Mary Holy Water. 😂 Loved my mom’s sense of humor, and through her example she also taught me a lot about the power of positive thinking. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there—those still with us on Planet Earth and those looking down on us from Heaven. (Does that make me sound like Sister Mary Holy Water?) • #ThePowerOfPositiveThinking #NormanVincentPeale #HappyMothersDay

We recently moved into a 100-year old rehab we like to call “the prairie house” (2nd photo). So imagine my delight when I happened upon this little gem in a used bookstore. Published by University of Wisconsin Press, Death In a Prairie House takes a detailed look into the brutal 1914 murders of 7 people in Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark prairie-style house, Taliesin. Largely glossed over in many FLW biographies, the crime and its resultant destruction by fire of Taliesin played a pivotal role in Wright’s subsequent architectural designs, shaping the course of modern architecture. Built as a “love cottage” for Wright and his mistress, the story of the murders that took place at Taliesin appeals to true-crime fans as well as those interested in a more in-depth look at FLW as a young man and the myths surrounding the massacre. • #FrankLloydWright #prairiestyle #americanarchitecture #Taliesin #truecrime #TaliesinMurders #DeathInAPrairieHouse #lovetoread #biography #WilliamRDrennan

I’m no celeb but there’s this #OldHeadshotDay thing going around. And I do have some old headshots. Like, really old. #IStillHaveThatShirt #youngwriterdays

I was about 50 pages away from finishing this book yesterday when it was announced that the Golden State Killer had finally been arrested, more than 40 years after his crime spree began. Currently Joseph James DeAngelo, age 72, faces capital murder charges for killing two people in 1978, but law enforcement says his DNA ties him to more than 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders in California from 1976 to 1986. • Michelle McNamara, a citizen sleuth who people are now saying was instrumental in catching the Golden State Killer, died in 2016 before she could finish I’ll Be Gone In the Dark. Her lead researcher and an investigative journalist teamed up to finish the book using her extensive notes. At the time the book was published in 2017, the identity of the killer was still unknown. • The book has its flaws but I still loved it. The first night I started reading it I was home alone and the story scared the HELL out of me—the hallmark of any crime narrative worth its salt. McNamara was obviously a gifted writer and tenacious investigator. The book is repetitive and choppy in parts, problems I’m sure would have been smoothed out had Michelle had the chance to finish the book. And yet the fact that her colleagues were able to get the book in publishable form is a touching tribute to the author. How pleased McNamara would have been to see her book become a reality, and to know that the killer had been apprehended less than a year after her book was published. • #truecrime #MichelleMcNamara #IllBeGoneInTheDark #GoldenStateKiller #thatsmehidingunderthecovers #lovetoread

Robert Harris hits it out of the ballpark once again with his 2016 thriller Conclave. The Pope is dead and 118 cardinals are sequestered for 72 hours while they choose who amongst themselves will be the next leader of the Catholic Church. Men with ambition, men with secrets, men who connive to take down their rivals, and men who are truly holy, praying to the Holy Spirit to help them make the right decision. Harris’s character development and pacing are stellar, while his painstaking research into the secret rituals of the Catholic Church melds seamlessly into the rip-roaring plot. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “Harris is incapable of writing an unenjoyable book.” I loved his 2003 novel Pompeii and this more recent novel did not disappoint. • #RobertHarris #Conclave #intelligentthriller #suspensefiction #funreads #lovetoread

When life gets hectic, read something FUN. Stephen King says this book is unputdownable, delightful, and chilling—and he’s right. I’m about 150 pages into the story of Anna, an agoraphobic who passes the time by watching her neighbors through the zoom lens of her camera. And then, one night she sees something she shouldn’t. OF COURSE. This isn’t Rear Window, but Anna happens to be a classic movie enthusiast, as am I. The characters are well-drawn and the writing is expert. It’s fun trying to figure out which characters aren’t what they seem. Or is it all of them? I’ll add an update to this post when I’m finished. • #TheWomanInTheWindow #AJFinn #thriller #suspense #psychologicalthriller #funreads #lovetoread

I don’t usually read books twice but when I do it’s for book club. I read Sebastian Junger’s Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging when it first came out in 2016 and zipped through it again last night to refresh my memory. 🤓📚 • Another great book club discussion as per usual. We talked about what it means to be part of a tribe in today’s society, what we can do to help our veterans reintegrate after military service, and why it’s important to destigmatize mental illness. Post Traumatic Stress is a healthy response to trauma. Problems arise when those stress responses become chronic and disrupt day-to-day living. Junger’s book is a good first step toward understanding not just the problems veterans face during reintegration but modern American society as a whole. #SebastianJunger #Tribe #veterans #PostTraumaticStress #reintegration #findyourtribe #bookpeople #lovetoread #vetspouse

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Blog (26)
Books (23)
- biography/memoir (5)
  - Live ’Til I Die (5)
- fiction (14)
  - Chat: book one (3)
  - Connect: book two (3)
  - Crash: book three (3)
  - Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) (3)
  - Since You Went Away (Part Two: Spring) (1)
- how-to (1)
Excerpts (1)
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NOW AVAILABLE

Since You Went Away, Part Two: Spring

Since You Went Away, Part Two: Spring Nan McCarthy (Rainwater Press, 2017) 226 pages F I C T I O N…

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