Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Madwoman and the Roomba My Year of Domestic Mayhem by The Madwoman and the Roomba Summary and Reviews. Ah, 55. Gateway to the golden years! Professional summiting. Emotional maturity. Easy surfing toward the glassy blue waters of retirement…Or maybe not? Middle age, for Sandra Tsing Loh, feels more like living a disorganized 25-year-old's life in an 85-year-old's malfunctioning body. With raucous wit and carefree candor, Loh recounts the struggles of leaning in, staying lean, and keeping her family well-fed and financially afloat-- all those burdens of running a household that still, all-too-often, fall to women. The Madwoman and the Roomba chronicles a roller coaster year for Loh, her partner, and her two teenage daughters in their ramshackle quasi- Craftsman, with a front lawn that's more like a rectangle of compacted dirt and mice that greet her as she makes her morning coffee. Her daughters are spending more time online than off; her partner has become a Hindu, bringing in a household of monks; and she and her girlfriends are wondering over Groupon "well" drinks how they got here. Whether prematurely freaking out about her daughters' college applications, worrying over her eccentric aging father, or overcoming the pitfalls of long-term partnership and the temptations of paired-with-cheese online goddess webinars, Loh somehow navigates the realities of what it means to be a middle-aged woman in the twenty-first century. By day's end, we just might need a box of chardonnay and a Roomba to clean up the mess. Reviews "Beyond the Book" articles Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions and much more! Just $12 for 3 months or $39 for a year. Reviews. Media Reviews. "Loh's voice is laugh-out-loud hilarious, and her fun house perspective on the foibles of middle age are intelligent and effervescent. Fans of her previous memoir and her NPR program 'The Loh Down on Science' will delight in this outing." - Publishers Weekly. "How lucky we are. Sandra Tsing Loh's hilarious, snarky, insightful, and compassionate inner monologue could have stayed inside her head. But she wrote it all down, and that makes us the fortunate ones. I laughed from the beginning to the end. You will too. If you don't there's something seriously wrong with you." - Julia Sweeney, comedian. "This wildly funny book proves that the more of life's indignities that are heaped on Sandra Tsing Loh, the more we will thrill to her brilliant wit and rock-solid resilience. I laughed about seventy times, welled up twice, and cried at the end. Spectacular." - Henry Alford, author of Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? "If humor will save us from these times―and if not, nothing will―Sandra Tsing Loh should be president. Or, better, queen. I devoured this perceptive, of-the-moment book about midlife love, work, motherhood, peer pressure, and more, with tears of hilarity running down my face. Sandra Tsing Loh could write an oven manual, and I'd laugh. I think she might be the funniest writer writing today." - Cathi Hanauer, editor of The Bitch in the House. " The Madwoman and the Roomba is so funny it woke up my husband. He couldn't fall back to sleep with all the cackling, so he told me to read it aloud, and then we were both laughing. It's a year in the life of a very particular family: Mom wants to write The Angry Divorced Mother's Cookbook ; her live-in boyfriend is more interested in ' barbecue recipes than in finding a full-time job; her brother strips to his underwear to give their father's eulogy…In other words, they're just like the rest of us: trying to get by without killing each other. Do you like laughing? Do you like reading? Buy this book!" - Caitlin Flanagan, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Girl Land. This information about The Madwoman and the Roomba shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added. Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published. Reader Reviews. Dan W. (Fort Myers, FL) Susan W., Michigan. Moms Need a Good Laugh, too! If ever I needed to read a book that would make me laugh, now was the time. Admittedly, it might not have been fair to begin reading in this mindset. In fact, I wasn't completely sold in the first 100 pages. I felt like I was reading the author's stand-up material, and maybe I was. The problem was that I wanted more; each chapter felt too short to me. But then I fell into the rhythm of the writing. I laughed at the situation or stopped to remember a similar time in my life. It was somewhat confusing to sort out the many relationships. There's a lot of material covered here, and it led me to compare Loh's writing to '. I think she easily has enough material here for a second book, if some of the early chapters were expanded. Simplicity goes a long way. My other thing to think about is the title; I'm not sure it does the material justice. Anyway, long before the last page, Loh turned me into a fan of her humor. As a mother, 60 survivor of the last century, recently anointed Grandmother, and an American born Chinese retiree, I enjoyed this book on many levels. Donna W. (Wauwatosa, WI) The Madwoman and the Roomba This book was funny and quite a good read. I'm of an age that much of what the author said was totally relatable. However, I think mothers of any age will be taken by this book. She is very clever, and has a humorous way of looking at situations we can all relate to. While the book on the whole is a fun read, it is also touching and a bit sad in places. It presents the perfect combination of feelings that leads to a thoroughly enjoyable book. I recommend it highly. Lorraine D. (Lacey, WA) Catheryne Z. (Plano, TX) Susan S. (Springdale, AR) Reviews "Beyond the Book" articles Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions and much more! Just $12 for 3 months or $39 for a year. More Information. Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer and performer. Her work has been heard on NPR's Morning Edition and . She is a contributing editor to the Atlantic and hosts the syndicated daily radio minute The Loh Down on Science . Her book, The Madwoman and the Volvo , was a New York Times Notable Book of 2014. Loh lives in Pasadena, California. Sandra Tsing Loh returns with new ‘Madwoman’ tale. The multitalented performer and writer navigates launching a new book and podcast while creating community in a time of social distancing. Share this: From a shabbily elegant Craftsman on a tree-lined street in Pasadena, the Madwoman is managing her quirky empire. Many know her as Sandra Tsing Loh, the “imaginatively twisted and fearless” (as one local newspaper called her) author, performer, and regular commentator on radio shows such as “Morning Edition,” “This American Life” and “Marketplace.” Variety once named Loh one of America’s 50 most influential comedians, and her solo stage shows, including “Aliens in America,” “Bad Sex with Bud Kemp” and the holiday favorite “Sugar Plum Fairy” – not to mention “The Madwoman in the Volvo,” inspired by her bestselling book of the same title – have sold out from the Kennedy Center and off-Broadway venues to South Coast Repertory and Geffen Playhouse. On screen she’s appeared in “The Office,” “” and “Chicken Little.” Did I mention she’s also a contributor to The Atlantic? And that somehow she also managed to be a professor of visual art and science communication at UC Irvine for a time, too? I know her as one of my closest, call-at-4-a.m. girlfriends since we were in our 20s, married to musicians (whom we later divorced). I did OK, but she got fairly famous, for which I still have not forgiven her. And worse, she’s thinner than I am, too – although she’s making noises about gaining the “quarantine 15,” as you’ll see in the following excerpt of her new book out Tuesday, June 2, “The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem.” Readers of “The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones” will appreciate the return to antics with partner “Charlie” and her two now-young-adult children, shot through with her characteristic on-point social commentary. Pre-pandemic, a “fabulous multi-city book tour was originally planned,” Loh writes in our frequent email exchanges that hit my inbox at all hours. “Now, city by city, in collapse…” The operative word became “pivot.” Suddenly the podcast she had launched in January, “Sleep in Los Angles,” took on new resonance. Chatty and funny like her long-running “The Loh Life” segments on public radio, “Sleepless” had been envisioned as a monthly, hour-long “radio magazine” expansion of “The Loh Life” – with charming guests like Henry Alford of The New Yorker and local literary icon Janet Fitch. Post-virus, it became not merely entertainment and commentary, but a platform for fellow writers and artists to connect and inspire. Now authors like Caitlin Flanagan were commiserating about their toilet paper problem and sharing life hacks with Loh. And as of mid-May, the podcast focus shifted again. Maybe. It’s hard to know when your friend is a professional comic. Her email read: “Loh Life Apocalypse Diary, starting next week. That’s going to be my new direction, no apologies. Topics will include my quarantine weight gain, divorcing in place, and nature’s revenge.” Keeping busy in quarantine, she has also teamed up with us here at the Southern California News Group to host “Lit Up: Summer Reading Series.” It will be a weekly conversation every Friday at 5 p.m. on books and literary life with guest authors and cultural commentators. The kickoff is Friday, June 12, with Garrison Keillor and TC Boyle. Register here to attend. In short: Instead of online gatherings being a poor substitute, Loh thinks we might be opening to new possibilities to interact with artists. “I actually think this is the wave of the future, and possibly could even be an improvement on what we’ve had,” she types in one missive about the online experience. “I can’t remember when I last drove across town to a POETRY READING (particularly on the Westside)! But if it’s Saturday 8-9 p.m. and I’m stress-baking in my pajamas? I perhaps might. This is the sort of ‘Saturday at home’ cultural evening I myself am interested in fostering.” Meanwhile, she’s also still producing “The Loh Down on Science” (now in its 16th year) – 90 seconds of informative and accessible current science tidbits broadcast daily on KPCC 89.3 FM and syndicated internationally on 150 stations. The special “Pandemic Edition” of the program has been featuring not only research on the coronavirus but burning questions about soap, can a virus be produced in a lab (not a very good one), why house cats are going crazy and many other concerns relevant to life in this moment. All of it is reported, researched and read by students from “The Loh Down on Science” fellowship program at UCI, which supports young scientists with a passion for science communication. “I’m proud of them; they’re the future,” she writes. “All edited on Zoom/Google Drive/Slack and recorded in their closets.” But back to the thwarted book tour, a fact facing all authors whose books are being released in the pandemic. The weeks in lockdown have taught her there’s a brave new world of ways to meet the ancient human need to connect. And it involves those stretchy “goddess pants.” Here’s the new book tour plan, typed in a text: “Go to my website at sandratsingloh.com and send me a note. I’m thinking buy three books for $50 (a $75 value) and get free goddess pants, throw a Zoom book party for your friends and get free goddess pants or tell me a true sob story about financial hardship, and while supplies last, I’ll create a mystery Madwoman gift pack for you.” So that’s the plan now. But stay tuned. Who knows what the Madwoman will conjure next. “The Madwoman and the Roomba” by Sandra Tsing Loh is published June 2 and is the follow up to “The Madwoman in the Volvo.” EXCERPT from ‘MADWOMAN AND THE ROOMBA: “Goddess Pants” Sandra Tsing Loh considers the joys (or necessity) of ‘one size fits all’ Maybe it’s because every time “Miracle Cure for Belly Fat!” appears on my computer screen, I click on it. Maybe it’s the suite of Pandora stations I’ve created – “jazz flute,” “soothing solo piano,” and, no apologies, “James Taylor.” Fact is, the algorithms have found me — a middle-aged lady with a VISA card! So through every device now I’m being pelted with ads for “Christian singles over 50,” colorful plus-sized “Zulily” clothing, Zoloft, Cedars-Sinai arthroscopic knee surgery (the male announcer is so soothing I’m tempted to just have the surgery), and even . . . promotional emails from life coaches eager to help me become both a bold warrioress and a joyful goddess. Recent example: Hello Beautiful Sandra Loh, I want to help you break through the things that are holding you back to create more of the life you want, now! We’ll work together to: Clarify what you want to change. Foster self care. Honor your inner “no” Bloom into your True Self. Find joy, joy, joy! Beautiful Sandra Loh, welcome to Goddesshood! I get a catalog from a company called Softer Seasons and I like it. It features serene women of a certain age smiling secretively to themselves as they move glamorously alone through gauzy abodes. There is: A single wine glass holder for personal tub soaking. (Note: Nothing is for two.) A kind of bathrobe/kimono that looks like you can take it on or off in one simple tie. A pashmina blanket — wait, no, specialized Snuggie for people who apparently find regular Snuggies too complicated. I love all of it. From now on, I want everything around me to be soft. A discounted Target pillow that says, SWEATPANTS ZONE. Also, socks just for the house, fuzzy socks. I see walk-in tubs advertised in AARP Magazine and think, What a great idea! I drive to my local New Age bookstore. I’m visually drawn to a “Know Your Elves” calendar. But there are too many kinds of elves — wood ones and air ones and water ones. It requires too much gardening of little herb pots and buying special stones like lapis lazuli to place into the pots. Instead of “self-care,” it is “elf care.” But here’s “The Pocket Pema Chödrön” that fits into a felted saddle bag with a peace sign, 40 percent off! A tarot deck totally made of cats! An essential oil (chamomile, frankincense) car air freshener! I come to the Himalayan tie-dye section. Colorful drapey hangers fling musliny arms out to me. And I see them: billowing purple harem pants, elastic waistband, in a festive style I might call “Pema Bollywood.” Four magical words: “One Size Fits All.” My household is not impressed with my pants. My partner Charlie: “Did a clown die?” My teen daughter Hannah (miming handing me a phone): “The ’80s called. They want their pants back.” No matter. I’m wearing my Goddess Pants to my Goddess Brunch (previously birthday brunch, but I prefer the term “goddess” to “pudgy middle- aged lady”). I’ve asked my girlfriends to bring “the three C’s” – champagne, chocolate, or cheese. What I like to call “Goddess Food.” “This is unhealthy,” my friend Julia says, “I thought you were starting a sugar cleanse!” “And all that yo-yo dieting,” I say, slathering peach-flavored brie on my Costco baguette so vigorously I feel sure it will count as cardio. My girlfriends attack me with their concerns: “These are not the Eileen Fisher years!” “You have to grow, not age!” “You have to keep trying new things!” “Trying new things?” I say. “Last winter, I was invited to join on a fun ‘family ski day’ in Mammoth. Did I know how to ski? Technically, yes, I last skied when I was eight, which felt recent, although in fact – and that is the continual amazement of midlife – that was actually like a hundred years ago. “This became clear when I was handed a pair of modern ski boots. A typical ski boot used to have laces. This thing was like a pressurized canister that used gravity to swallow my foot whole, causing hydraulic bolts to snap shut around my chubby calf, making it feel like it was being Skilsawed in two. Handed skis and poles and a helmet, I realized I couldn’t walk. Forty minutes into my ski adventure, like a beached whale, I literally couldn’t get out of the building. “So I put on what I call my ‘ski face.’ All around me were pod people behaving as though skiing was a perfectly normal – even fun – activity. I alone knew it was not. The most sensible course of action was to lie down next to the hot chocolate machine, crying, so a team of Army engineers could chopper in and unspring me from my cruel leg traps. And yet, maybe the skiers would turn on me if they smelled fear. I would pretend calm and enjoyment, even though I had no idea in what direction the slopes were or what on earth I would do when I found them. “But me on skis is not great either. Instead of a skill level of four, I’m like a minus ten, meaning I need a team of sherpas not just to carry me up the hill but to push me out of the way of actual skiers. “Even getting to the bottom of the bunny slope seemed impossible. How do you walk uphill in skis? I kept sliding backward and careening into other people, including some five-year-olds. Fortunately, all five-year-olds are excellent skiers – a Lilliputian team of them helpfully pushed me toward the rope tow. I grabbed it, but it jerked forward with surprising strength and I was literally now being dragged spread eagle forward over the snow. It’s amazing how many things can go wrong so quickly. “IN SHORT: WHY SHOULD I DO ANY OF THIS? I AM A GODDESS!” “Honey,” Julia says. “It’s just that for you, ‘goddesshood’ seems to be just about eating cheese and not exercising and . . . and . . . FAT PANTS!” The Madwoman and the Roomba : My Year of Domestic Mayhem by Sandra Tsing Loh (2020, Hardcover) С самой низкой ценой, совершенно новый, неиспользованный, неоткрытый, неповрежденный товар в оригинальной упаковке (если товар поставляется в упаковке). Упаковка должна быть такой же, как упаковка этого товара в розничных магазинах, за исключением тех случаев, когда товар является изделием ручной работы или был упакован производителем в упаковку не для розничной продажи, например в коробку без маркировки или в пластиковый пакет. См. подробные сведения с дополнительным описанием товара. The Madwoman and the Roomba. A comic exploration of a year in the life of an “imaginatively twisted and fearless” ( Times) best-selling author. Ah, 55. Gateway to the golden years! Professional summiting. Emotional maturity. Easy surfing toward the glassy blue waters of retirement. . . . Or maybe not? Middle age, for Sandra Tsing Loh, feels more like living a disorganized 25-year-old’s life in an 85-year-old’s malfunctioning body. With raucous wit and carefree candor, Loh recounts the struggles of leaning in, staying lean, and keeping her family well-fed and financially afloat —all those burdens of running a household that still, all-too-often, fall to women. Whether battling with a mouse in her kitchen, prematurely freaking out about her daughters’ college applications, or overcoming the pitfalls of long- term partnership and the temptations of online goddess webinars, Loh somehow navigates the realities of what it means to be a middle-aged woman in the twenty-first century. By day’s end, we just might need a box of chardonnay and a Roomba to clean up the mess. About the Author: Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer, performer, and radio commentator. Her work has been heard on NPR's Morning Edition and This American Life. She is a contributing editor to the Atlantic and teaches at the University of California, Irvine. She lives in Pasadena, California. A comic exploration of a year in the life of an “imaginatively twisted and fearless” (Los Angeles Times) best-selling author. Ah, 55. Gateway to the golden years! Professional summiting. Emotional. Description. A comic exploration of a year in the life of an “imaginatively twisted and fearless” (Los Angeles Times) best-selling author. Ah, 55. Gateway to the golden years! Professional summiting. Emotional maturity. Easy surfing toward the glassy blue waters of retirement. . . . Or maybe not? Middle age, for Sandra Tsing Loh, feels more like living a disorganized 25-year-old’s life in an 85-year-old’s malfunctioning body. With raucous wit and carefree candor, Loh recounts the struggles of leaning in, staying lean, and keeping her family well-fed and financially afloat —all those burdens of running a household that still, all-too-often, fall to women. Whether battling with a mouse in her kitchen, prematurely freaking out about her daughters’ college applications, or overcoming the pitfalls of long- term partnership and the temptations of online goddess webinars, Loh somehow navigates the realities of what it means to be a middle-aged woman in the twenty-first century. By day’s end, we just might need a box of chardonnay and a Roomba to clean up the mess. About the Author: Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer, performer, and radio commentator. Her work has been heard on NPR's Morning Edition and This American Life. She is a contributing editor to the Atlantic and teaches at the University of California, Irvine. She lives in Pasadena, California. Literary Lunchbreak: Sandra Tsing Loh in Conversation With Michele Weldon: The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem. Join us for the next installment of our Literary Lunchbreak virtual event series to hear writer and radio commentator Sandra Tsing Loh discuss her new memoir The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem with writer and journalist Michele Weldon. The Madwoman and the Roomba , the follow up to Loh's New York Times bestselling book The Madwoman in the Volvo , is a chronicle of the indignities, hilarities, and unexpected joys of life in the so-called golden years. Having been promised crystal clear seas and sandy beaches on the shores of retirement by glossy advertisements and in-flight magazines, best-selling author Sandra Tsing Loh finds the reality of being fifty-five- years-old looks more like a dilapidated craftsman house with a dead lawn and a mouse problem. With deadpan wit and fearless honesty, Loh navigates the realities of what it means to be a middle-aged, “downwardly-mobile,” woman in America, living what feels like a “disorganized twenty-five-year-old’s life in a malfunctioning eighty-five-year-old’s body.” Among the chaos of life with teenage daughters, sporadic employment, an underemployed bohemian partner, and near-constant low-level anxiety, Loh revels in the restorative joy of laughter. And the blessed redemption of a Costco membership: personal massage chair! Roombas on sale! Delicious $4 wines! Massive tins of mixed nuts! While balancing the various demands of midlife work, motherhood, friendship, and romance (while also embracing her inner goddess) Loh finds herself repeatedly marveling at the often ludicrous realities of modern American life and its #SecondWorldProblems. The Madwoman and the Roomba is a welcome respite from the tumultuous, almost apocalyptic-feeling of contemporary life; Loh manages to capture the side-splitting humor and unexpected joys of a life that might be falling-short of youthful, starry-eyed expectations but is still rich in love, gratitude, and serendipity. Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer, performer, and radio commentator. Her work has been heard on NPR’s Morning Edition and This American Life. She is a contributing editor to the Atlantic and host of the syndicated daily radio “minute,” The Loh Down on Science . She lives in Pasadena, California. Michele Weldon is an award-winning author, journalist and emerita faculty in journalism at Northwestern University, where she taught on the undergraduate and graduate levels for 18 years. She is the author of six nonfiction books, and has contributed chapters in seven other books. She recently won a 2020 Peter Lisagor Award from the Headline Club for Best Essay for essays that appear in her latest book, Act Like You're Having A Good Time . Her essays have appeared in New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, TIME, and more. She is the award- winning editorial director of Take The Lead, a global women's leadership initiative, and received a 2020 Chicago Journalists Award for Best Independent Blog for her work there in 2019. She serves on the advisory boards of Global Girl Media Chicago, Sarah’s Inn, Beat The Streets Chicago, Between Friends and Children’s Foundation. She is the mother of three sons.