3 out of 4 stars
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Nothing Special - Just a Life by John E. Budzinski is a memoir. This personal history is a collection of stories, thoughts and ponderings on the nature of life and how to summarize one’s life experiences. As a 60-something American man, the goal of this book is to come up with an epitaph for the author’s future gravestone and to work on preparing his eulogy. However, Mr. Budzinski plans to live to 135, so this work is well in advance of its necessity!
Mr. Budzinski had many different jobs throughout his life. I believe his most recent job was as a column writer in a local newspaper. John brings his humorous, thought-provoking and answer-seeking style to this memoir. He includes some of his past articles in this book and refers to others. He writes in a friendly, conversational style.
I enjoyed the tone and honesty of this book. The stories that were included were very interesting and at times entertaining. There were stories of John’s childhood, some that were fairly recent and many others along the way. I liked the thoughtfulness with which each story and each character within it were presented.
I took delight in the many “one-liners” that John came up with as potential epitaphs to write on his or his readers’ gravestones. Some were quite humorous and many were quite apt. They did a really good job of summarizing the ideas and thoughts that John wrote about. They shared the author’s take on how we react to the many things that happen during our lives. Lastly, as a Canadian, I truly appreciated the reference to Bruce Cockburn!
While I enjoyed the description of the premise of the book and the author’s thoughts about writing the book along the way, I would have preferred a bit less of this and more of the life stories. Sometimes the stories can speak for themselves! I felt that the introduction was too long and that the premise of “just a life” was discussed too many times. I like that the theme was referred back to. I would just like it to have been referred to a lot less!
I was also a bit disappointed that some stories were just barely, vaguely mentioned near the end of the memoir. I understand that some things may be too personal to add into the book but a more informative label or description of the stories would have been enough to satisfy my curiosity while still being respectful of the author.
I give Nothing Special - Just a Life by John E. Budzinski 3 out of 4 stars. I appreciated the stories within this memoir, and I wish that there were more of them. I also liked the commentary but would have like less repetition. This book still has minor grammar/typo errors and I feel that it could use a final professional edit to reduce some of the repetition and add a bit more cohesion. This memoir has a slower, thoughtful pace. I recommend it to people who enjoy learning about others and hearing their stories. This is not a book for readers that are looking for action-packed adventure novels.
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Nothing Special - Just A Life
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