Blog Tour/Review: Laughing Through Life

Huge apology to Connie and Teddy for being a day and a half late posting this due to a migraine, but you can’t keep a good woman down so here we go:

Today BookZone welcomes Connie (Corcoran) Wilson who is touring with Virtual Author Book Tours promoting her latest contribution to the literary world, Laughing Through Life. Since I love to laugh, I was happy to receive a book with laugh in the title for review and I was not disappointed–laugh I did. So make yourself comfortable and get ready to read more about Laughing Through Life and my thoughts about it below:

Title: Laughing Through Life
Author: Connie (Corcoran) Wilson
Publisher: Quad City Press
Release Date: July 13, 2011
Available Formats: Paperback (180 pages), Kindle, Nook
Category: Humor, Essays
Reviewed by: D.S. White

About the Book:

(From the Backcover)

“Laughing through Life” is the book of funny essays and obsrvations that critics have called “Erma-Bombeck-meets-David-Sedaris,” with hilarious results. You’ll find yourself nodding your head in recognition of many of the situations that a young mother, teacher and business-owner encountered while raising 2 children born 19 years apart (PTA membership from 1973 to 2010!).

Connie’s adventures while covering the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns with press passes also will amuse—especially if you thought “W” was a bonehead. (If you are not a progressive, you might not laugh quite as heartily. Be warned.)

Smile. Enjoy! Laugh through life with Ava & Elise Wilson, the author’s 2-year-old twin granddaughters, who provide a never-ending supply of funny anecdotes, (just when she thought it was safe to go back in the water.)

My Thoughts:

Connie is hilarious! Her down to earth style creates an ageless effect. It was amazing that some of the stories were written years ago because you are left thinking, that happened to me just the other day! (cooking incident). My all time favorites were the ear piercing incident, (I would have loved to see the faces on the two adults waiting their turn before they disappeared.) the Verizon cell phone conversation (I’ve been through 3 phones this year, Sprint loves me!), the perfumed feet incident (one of us would have had to relocate…lol) and The End (while such convos are really not most people’s cup of tea, I loved the spin she put on this story and felt in good company for writing this).

What I liked:

As I read through the book, cracking up at Connie’s irreverent humor, the message I got from Connie is that family, education and politics are important to her. She doesn’t take herself too seriously, however, she has strong convictions and stands behind them. She is patient with our youth and her outlook is ageless.

…..

Thanks for taking the time to write this book Connie! At certain parts of it, I felt like I was a part of your world.

It reinforced the thought: No matter what life throws your way, it’s your approach that makes the difference! Try laughter for a change.

I gave Laughing Through Life 3.5 out of 5 stars.

About the Author:

Connie (Corcoran) Wilson (MS + 30) graduated from  the University of Iowa and Western Illinois University, with additional study at Northern Illinois, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago. She taught writing at six Iowa/Illinois colleges and has written for five newspapers and seven blogs, including Associated Content (now owned by Yahoo) which named her its 2008 Content Producer of the Year  . She is an active, voting member of HWA (Horror Writers Association).

Her stories and interviews with writers like David Morrell, Joe Hill,  Kurt Vonnegut, Frederik Pohl and Anne Perry have appeared online and in numerous journals.  Her work has won prizes from “Whim’s Place Flash Fiction,” “Writer’s Digest” (Screenplay) and she will have 12 books out by the end of the year.  Connie reviewed film and books for the Quad City Times (Davenport, Iowa) for 12 years and wrote humor columns and conducted interviews for the (Moline, Illinois) Daily Dispatch and now blogs for 7 blogs, including television reviews and political reporting for Yahoo.

Connie lives in East Moline, Illinois with husband Craig and cat Lucy, and in Chicago, Illinois, where her son, Scott and daughter-in-law Jessica and their two-year-old twins Elise and Ava reside. Her daughter, Stacey, recently graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, as a Music Business graduate.