MSI Press Blog

When I was twenty-eight years old, I tried to learn how to knit. I’d just finished graduate school and hadn’t found a job yet, so I had plenty of time to visit the yarn store where I’d purchased wool for a sweater. At the store I received instructions from the owner whenever my knitting hit a snag. The yarn shop was like an informal club, and other knitters would sit at the large table in the middle and knit and chat with each other.  I got to know the owner over the course of the summer. She operated the store full time while also running her house and raising three teenagers. She told me that when she needed a break from her demanding life, she checked herself into the Ritz Carlton for a weekend. She explained that several weekends a year at the Ritz in Boston was less expensive than year-round therapy, which she implied was the alternative. She said she chose the Ritz because it was the only hotel in Boston (in 1988) that had twenty-four-hour room service. During h

Joanna Charnas’s  latest book,  100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness,  recently came to my attention. This book is short and filled with tips and ideas.  Library Journal  calls it, “An excellent resource worthy of multiple reads. For those with a determined spirit during discouraging times.” Actually, after reading through the book, I think that most of us are “chronically human” and can benefit from most, if not all, of the suggestions. It would even by a nice Mother’s Day or birthday gift. Joanna has personal experience with chronic illness, have been ill for seventeen years before she learned it was a condition that had no cure. Following the publication of her first book, Joanna spent two years as a  Huffington Post blogger, and she currently writes articles for an international health website. Her first book,  Living Well With Chronic Illness,  was an American Book Fest Finalist in the “Health: General” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. I like the siz