Doris Grumbach has worked wonders with this book!, 24 Aug 1998
The book "Chamber Music" was very touching. It takes one back into the life of Caroline Maclaren as she tells her story of the most important people to her, throughout her whole entire life.

She tells of the the life behind marrying a composer who puts everything into music, and cares nothing of his surroundings. Later in her years, she has learned to love someone unexpectedlyl. The later years in her life, were the happiest yet, because she has learned to love someone, and that someone wasn't her husband, the composer, but a companion and friend she has made through caring for her husband before he died.

Doris Grumbach has worked wonders with this book. Her writing is very strong and caring. She wrote with feelings as if her, herself, was in the body of Caroline Maclaren. This book is worth it! It will shock you and touch your heart at the same time!

Doris Grumbach has worked wonders with this book!, 24 Aug 1998
The book "Chamber Music" was very touching. It takes one back into the life of Caroline Maclaren as she tells her story of the most important people to her, throughout her whole entire life.

She tells of the the life behind marrying a composer who puts everything into music, and cares nothing of his surroundings. Later in her years, she has learned to love someone unexpectedlyl. The later years in her life, were the happiest yet, because she has learned to love someone, and that someone wasn't her husband, the composer, but a companion and friend she has made through caring for her husband before he died.

Doris Grumbach has worked wonders with this book. Her writing is very strong and caring. She wrote with feelings as if her, herself, was in the body of Caroline Maclaren. This book is worth it! It will shock you and touch your heart at the same time!

A Most Wonderful Coming of Age (80) Memoir, 24 May 2004
Doris Grumbach provides a warm reflection on what it means to live life beautifully. "This is the summer of my unexpected content. In a very real way, I find that I am living with my dead friends." At first she is saddened by how many good friends have passed on, yet soon she realizes that the friendships remain alive in her, her memories, and in books and articles that they wrote or enjoyed together.

This awareness grows as she plans her own 80th birthday, an event that she would normally have not looked forward to. Instead, she makes a lot of new beginnings. She trades in her old car for a year-old Toyota. She takes on a kitten as a pet. She shops for new clothes for the party. She has the yard redone for the party. She returns to a long abandoned manuscript for a novel. And she frets a lot about getting ready for the party.

While all this is going on, she rereads her favorite books, examines what others have said about turning 80, and reminisces. That's when she begins to enjoy herself with her wonderful friends of the past.

Few of us have reached 80, yet most of us have met someone who has. Like all milestones, it offers a chance to reflect. These wonderful thoughts, so beautifully expressed, are a gift to us all that we can begin to enjoy -- even though we may be younger or older than 80.

I remember giving my Father a bottle of port that was very old for his 80th birthday, and asking him questions about what happens to port with age. He kept answering that it gets better, and that insight helped him to many new beginnings in his 80s.

I often encourage people to adopt a ageless perspective on their lives. Enjoy the optimism of youth, tempered by the experience of maturity, extended by the connections of age, and expanded by the time to explore regardless of your current chronological age. This book is written in a way that is very consistent with that stallbusting mindset.

Regardless of your age, you can learn valuable life lessons from The Pleasure of Their Company.

Enjoy!

Doris Grumbach has worked wonders with this book!, 24 Aug 1998
The book "Chamber Music" was very touching. It takes one back into the life of Caroline Maclaren as she tells her story of the most important people to her, throughout her whole entire life.

She tells of the the life behind marrying a composer who puts everything into music, and cares nothing of his surroundings. Later in her years, she has learned to love someone unexpectedlyl. The later years in her life, were the happiest yet, because she has learned to love someone, and that someone wasn't her husband, the composer, but a companion and friend she has made through caring for her husband before he died.

Doris Grumbach has worked wonders with this book. Her writing is very strong and caring. She wrote with feelings as if her, herself, was in the body of Caroline Maclaren. This book is worth it! It will shock you and touch your heart at the same time!

A Most Wonderful Coming of Age (80) Memoir, 24 May 2004
Doris Grumbach provides a warm reflection on what it means to live life beautifully. "This is the summer of my unexpected content. In a very real way, I find that I am living with my dead friends." At first she is saddened by how many good friends have passed on, yet soon she realizes that the friendships remain alive in her, her memories, and in books and articles that they wrote or enjoyed together.

This awareness grows as she plans her own 80th birthday, an event that she would normally have not looked forward to. Instead, she makes a lot of new beginnings. She trades in her old car for a year-old Toyota. She takes on a kitten as a pet. She shops for new clothes for the party. She has the yard redone for the party. She returns to a long abandoned manuscript for a novel. And she frets a lot about getting ready for the party.

While all this is going on, she rereads her favorite books, examines what others have said about turning 80, and reminisces. That's when she begins to enjoy herself with her wonderful friends of the past.

Few of us have reached 80, yet most of us have met someone who has. Like all milestones, it offers a chance to reflect. These wonderful thoughts, so beautifully expressed, are a gift to us all that we can begin to enjoy -- even though we may be younger or older than 80.

I remember giving my Father a bottle of port that was very old for his 80th birthday, and asking him questions about what happens to port with age. He kept answering that it gets better, and that insight helped him to many new beginnings in his 80s.

I often encourage people to adopt a ageless perspective on their lives. Enjoy the optimism of youth, tempered by the experience of maturity, extended by the connections of age, and expanded by the time to explore regardless of your current chronological age. This book is written in a way that is very consistent with that stallbusting mindset.

Regardless of your age, you can learn valuable life lessons from The Pleasure of Their Company.

Enjoy!

Grumbach at her best, 27 May 1999
This is the second, longest, and most far-reaching of Grumbach's memoirs (I've read them all; this one is a favorite). It delves into Grumbach's past more than the others, detailing various memories of childhood and youth, thereby giving a vivid sense of the rich and unusual life she has led. Reflections on the aftermath of her first memoir (Coming Into the End Zone) are particularly interesting, as are her reflections on the similarities between fiction and autobiography. It's a helpful link for Grumbach fans between the long and often grumpy memoir that came before it and the slim, much more peaceful memoirs that followed it. This may be testimony to the unforeseen benefits that a life change can bring -- at the end of the last memoir Grumbach unexpectedly relocated from D.C. to rural Maine. Very inspiring.