The Time of My LIfe by Patrick Swayze & Lisa Niemi (Book Review)

Title: The Time of My Life - audiobook
Author: Patrick Swayze & Lisa Niemi
Read by: Patrick Swayze & Lisa Niemi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster audio

(I checked this one out from the library.)

Listening to this, it was hard for me to believe that he was actually gone. I loved the movies Red Dawn, Dirty Dancing and Ghost - and can actually remember where I saw them and who I was with. Red Dawn was the summer after I graduated high school and I saw it with my best friend Pam in Des Moines. Dirty Dancing was the fall after I got married the first time and we were living in San Diego. My husband and I were young and stupid and actually walked downtown to see the midnight showing of this one. We were so lucky that nothing happened to us! Ghost I also saw in San Diego, but it was while my husband was deployed during the Gulf War and I saw it with another Navy wife, Polly, who was living with me while our husbands were gone. So was I, am I, a fan of Patrick Swayze? Absolutely.

This narrative starts right after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then takes us back to the beginning, when he was a football player in high school. His football career ended when he took a hit from two opposing players and tore all the ligaments in his knee. When that dream ended, he pursued gymnastics and was set to go to the junior Olympics. That also fell through when he landed wrong during warm ups on the low rings and blew his knee out again.

Since he had danced from a young age at his mom's studio, he started to concentrate on ballet. He was able to get a scholarship to go to New York to study ballet for Harkness. He had met Lisa when she was 15 and she came in to his mom's studio for dance lessons. She was one of the few girls who wasn't affected by Patrick's looks and charms. Somehow the two of them became friends, and one thing led to another. They married in the mid 1970's after Lisa had also moved to New York on a scholarship to Harkness also. Even though ballet continued to make his knee swell, he refused to give up on this career. After a near mishap on a motorcycle, he realized that his previous dreams had ended when something had happened physically to him making him unable to pursue them. He felt he was setting himself up for the same failure in ballet and that maybe he should expand his horizons. He turned down an offer to dance with Mikhail Baryshnikov and they moved to L.A.

Patrick suffered from low self-esteem throughout his entire life and career. He never felt he was good enough, which pushed him to work harder and longer to get roles that he wanted. He had to convince the directors of both Dirty Dancing and Ghost to cast him, as neither one saw him in the role. Can any of you picture someone different as Johnny Castle or Sam Wheat? I know I can't.

He goes on to tell about his different roles in his movies, some of which I had forgotten (City of Joy), some of which I had not heard of (Letters from a Killer, Green Dragon) and some that I did not know he was in (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar)- but hope to see them now. He tells a hilarious story about his transformation into a woman for To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. He learns too late not to let his costars, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo dress him in tight pantsuits for his role as Vida Boheme.

I probably listened to this audio book quicker than any other, and remembered it better when it was done. I am not sure if it would have impacted me as much had I read the book. It made a difference to me to actually hear about his life in his own voice, and in Lisa's. I highly recommend the audio version of this book.

Teaser Tuesday: 11-2-2009

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!


He was a classic barroom-brawler type, a huge man with a fleshy nose that lay flat against his face, supposedly because he'd had the cartilage removed so he could take more punches. The beating Tex had taken in his fight with Holmes had been so severe, Howard Cosell had retired from calling boxing matches in protest that the fight wasn't stopped sooner. (p95, The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi)

Teaser Tuesday is hosted at Should be Reading. Come on over and share your teaser, too!

Library Loot 10-28-2009

Can you believe that I haven't had a Library Loot post since June? It isn't because I haven't been going to the library, just lacking the time to post! So, even though it is evening - I figured I could still get this up.

Library Loot is hosted by Eva at A Striped Armchair.









Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

When Miranda first hears the warnings that a meteor is headed on a collision path with the moon, they just sound like an excuse for extra homework assignments. But her disbelief turns to fear in a split second as the entire world witnesses a lunar impact that knocks the moon closer in orbit, catastrophically altering the earth's climate.

Everything else in Miranda's life fades away as supermarkets run out of food, gas goes up to more than ten dollars a gallon, and school is closed indefinitely.

But what Miranda and her family don't realize is that the worst is yet to come.

Told in Miranda's diary entries, this is a heart-pounding account of her struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all - hope - in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar time. (book jacket)







The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi

In a career spanning more than thirty years, Patrick Swayze has made a name for himself on the stage, the screen and television. Known for his versatility, passion, and fearlessness, he's become one of our most beloved actors.

But in February 2008, Patrick announced he had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Always a fighter, he refused to let the disease bring him to his knees, and his bravery has inspired both his legion of fans and cancer patients everywhere. Yet this memoir, written with wisdom and heart, recounts much more than his bout with cancer. In vivid detail, Patrick describes his Texas upbringing, his personal struggles, his rise to fame with North and South, his commercial breakthroughs in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and the soul mate who's stood by his side through it all: his wife, writer and director Lisa Niemi.

A behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood life and a remarkable love, this memoir is both entertainment and inspiration. Patrick and Lisa's marriage is a journey of two lives intertwined and lived as on-throughout their years in Hollywood and at home on their working ranch outside Los Angeles, and culminating in the hope and wisdom they've imparted to all who know them. This book will open the door for families, individuals, and husbands and wives to grow, bond, and discover entirely new levels of love and sharing, proving that life shouldn't be lived as a series of endings, but rather as the beginning of greater strength and love, (book jacket)





The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the sweet, sexy, funny journey of Calla Lily's life set in Wells' expanding fictional Louisiana landscape. In the small river town of La Luna, Calla bursts into being, a force of nature as luminous as the flower she is named for. Under the loving light of the Moon Lady, the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life, Calla enjoys a blissful childhood-until it is cut short. Her mother, M'Dear, a woman of rapture and love, teaches Calla compassion, and passes on to her the art of healing through the humble womanly art of "fixing hair." At her mother's side, Calla further learns that this same touch of hands on the human body can quiet her own soul. It is also on the banks of the La Luna River that Calla encounters sweet, succulent first love, with a boy named Tuck.

But when Tuck leaves Calla with a broken heart, she transforms hurt into inspiration and heads for the wild and colorful city of New Orleans to study at L'Academie de Beaute de Crescent. In that extravagant big river city, she finds her destiny - and comes to understand fully the power of her "healing hands" to change lives and soothe pain, including her own. When Tuck reappears years later, he presents her with an offer that is colored by the memories of lost love. But who knows how Calla Lilly, a "daughter of the Moon Lady," will respond?

A tale of family and friendship, tragedy and triumph, loss and love, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder features the warmth, humor, soul, and wonder that have made Wells one of today's most cherished writers, and gives us an unforgettable new heroine to treasure. (book jacket)




Fireflies in December by Jennifer Erin Valent

"The summer I turned thirteen, I thought I killed a man."

So begins the story of Jessilyn Lassiter, a young girl whose world is torn apart the summer of 1932. When Jessilyn's best friend, Gemma, loses her parents in a tragic fire, Jessilyn's father vows to care for her as his own, despite the fact that Gemma is black and prejudice is prevalent in their southern Virginia town.

It doesn't take long for the Lassiters to attract the attention of a local band of Ku Klux Klan members, who make increasingly violent threats on Jessilyn and her family.

As she struggles to navigate a complex world of first crushes, loyalties, and betrayals, Jessilyn ultimately discovers what it takes to be a bright light in a dark world. (back cover)






The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

Sally Thorning is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she never thought she'd hear again: Mark Bretherick.

It's a name she shouldn't recognize. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was canceled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from juggling her job and a young family, Sally didn't tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she treated herself to a secret vacation in a remote hotel. While she was there, Sally met a man -- Mark Bretherick.

All the details are the same: where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. Except that the photograph on the news is of a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead. . . (back cover)







Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan with Danae Yankoski


God is love. Have you ever wondered if we're missing it?

It's crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe - the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor - loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.

Whether you've verbalized it yet or not. . .we all know something's wrong.

Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn't working harder at a list of do's and don'ts - its falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same.

Because when you're wildly in love with someone, it changes everything. (back cover)

Waiting on Wednesday: The Time of My Life

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi

Publisher/Publication Date: Atria, Sept 29, 2009

In a career spanning more than thirty years, Patrick Swayze has made a name for himself on the stage, the screen, and television. Known for his versatility, passion and fearlessness, he's become one of our most beloved actors.

But in February 2008, Patrick announced he had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Always a fighter, he refused to let the disease bring him to his knees, and his bravery has inspired both his legion of fans and cancer patients everywhere. Yet this memoir, written with wisdom and heart, recounts much more than his bout with cancer. In vivid detail, Patrick describes his Texas upbringing, his personal struggles, his rise to fame with North and South, his commercial breakthroughs in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and the soul mate who's stood by his side through it all: his wife, writer and director Lisa Niemi.

A behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood life and a remarkable love, this memoir is both entertainment and inspiration. Patrick and Lisa's marriage is a journey of two lives intertwined and lived as one--throughout their years in Hollywood and at home on their working ranch outside Los Angeles, and culminating in the hope and wisdom they've imparted to all who know them. This book will open the door for families, individuals, and husbands and wives to grow, bond and discover entirely new levels of love and sharing, proving that life shouldn't be lived as a series of endings, but rather as the beginning of greater strength and love.(Amazon)

Who didn't love Patrick Swayze?


What are you waiting for? Waiting on Wednesdays is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.