“How to Be Good” is a book about morals, about saving the world, about what people are really willing to do for others less fortunate. It’s about being angry, about the homeless, about drugs messing someone’s head but also giving them supernatural powers. About London, about families and religion. It’s about what being good really means, on how hard people find it to know how to be good. About the helping hand they’d need on becoming good. It’s about facing an important question: can you make other people’s lives better, when your nearest and dearest are going from bad to worse?

Or it would seem the book is about all of the above. Nick Hornby actually tells the story of a failing relationship between “the Angriest Man in Holloway” and his wife, Katie Carr. Tired of his anger, sarcasm and general dislike and dismissal of everything around him, Katie has an affair. They talk divorce and just when you think their relationship is over, David’s anger gets miraculously cured by a certain DJ GoodNews, who later comes to live with the couple and their two children. David and GoodNews start to work on their mastermind plan to end homelessness in their neighborhood and then make the world a better place, and they do have some luck with it.

The cured anger, although it gives the couple a second chance, is diminished by the ever present GoodNews, whose powerful powers to ‘heal’ came from substance abuse, and David’s strict views on how they should all live their lives. During all this, Katie is the only one working and supporting the family and GoodNews, handling the problems her son and daughter are having. She’s also constantly concerned about her not being a good person, although she’s a doctor and she helps people, and about how exactly to make it work with David. Should she move away, should she ask a vicar about what to do? I invite you all to find out for yourselves.

And here are two quotes from the book that I find very interesting. I’ve finished the book a couple of weeks ago, and I still think about them quite a lot.

“Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.”

“Love, it turns out, is as undemocratic as money, so it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already.”

As for the very copy I’ve read, well, there’s a story of a traveling book to it

I tried my best to tell you what the writing retreat in Sardinia felt like and what it taught me. It’s now time for the conclusions! Because all lessons are wasted, unless applied. And because I always love sharing my dreams and plans on this blog, although it isn’t one of the most personal blogs out here.

My first decision after Sardinia was that I was indeed a writer. I left for the retreat thinking that no matter what, I couldn’t fail. Failure was not an option. Worst case scenario: I’d discover my fiction writing wasn’t as good as I thought. But complete failure was out of the question, as writing represents an important part of what I do.

Yet I had stopped thinking of myself as a writer a long time ago. When I finished high-school, started Journalism school and stopped writing fiction. Now I know that I am a writer, a pretty good PR specialist, a photographer, a quite proud Romanian, a friend, a child (son and daughter alike) and anything else I want to be. I could very well feel that there is no one, unique part of us that defines us. It’s everything we are.

I decided my vampire story kind of rocks and I’m going to finish writing it, then go through editing, and then publish it. And I’m pretty much going to take the DIY approach to it. My story, although referred to as being a vampire story, is really a love story, a story of acceptance, of learning how to see people as a whole, rather than focusing on bits and pieces of their being. The big, shiny plan is to have it ready for you sometime in September.

I decided I should write everyday. Business writing, blog writing, fiction writing, diary writing, it does not matter, as long as I keep writing. I also discovered exercises are a big part of it, and if you don’t believe me, ask Joanna. I also discovered writing all your ideas down is helpful.

I also figured out being fluent in English and understanding (with some feeble attempts at conversations) another few languages wasn’t enough anymore. So I’ll work hard on reviving forgotten language skills and acquiring some new ones.

To sum up, it will be an extremely busy summer!

Friends and family ask me about Sardinia. How was it, what did I learn? Any fun moments to share? When I hear the question, a big smile lights up my face. And I can’t stop smiling while I tell my stories again and again. It was wonderful, amazing, intense, too short, filled with laughter and sharing and emotions, it was sunny and windy, it was private and it was shared, it was better than anything I’ve even imagined when I first mentioning I’d go there!

But I somehow feel they can’t fully understand it. Such an experience needs to be embraced (Joanna and Emma, did you think of who I think you did when you saw this word? ), seen, heard, taken in with every breath. I’ve enjoyed each moment of it so much, that I actually cried when I found myself alone in the cab, going to the Olbia airport. I haven’t done that after a trip since high-school! Incidentally, it was another trip to Italy.

Joanna Young is everything you imagine her to be when reading her blog, tweets and comments. And much more. Same goes for Emma Bird. These lovely ladies are, in a word, amazing. But a word is never enough to describe someone, is it? Nor are twenty, or a hundred. Ca La Somara is the perfect place for such a retreat. Peaceful, but never really silent. Bright and sunny, but with a cool, constant breeze. Sardinia is alive and the skyline is indeed dramatic. Beaches are hard to find, the more beautiful they are, the harder to find they become. The food is amazing, the massages are just right, the restaurants are welcoming and again, great food. The read wine is exquisite and I should know, I’ve drunk during this week more than I normally do in a year.

We had donkeys, dogs and cats. We had incredible people to share everything with. We had confident, absorbing, surprising, deep words scribbled on paper, be it real or virtual. We had screenplays and novels and poems and songs. We made some wonderful friends along the way. We also ran into the usual sad, angry and judgemental few. But we ignored them! We experienced the famous transportation strikes but talked our way into a refund and went to the competition. We laughed so hard and for so long, one would have said we’re making stacks to last us a year.

In the next few days, I’ll try to show you as best I can what this Sardinian Writing Retreat was about. I’ll share what I’ve learned about myself and the world, I’ll share the dreams and fears I’ve taken there with me, and the new dreams and hopes I’ve come back with. There will be photos, the occasional inside jokes and lots, lots of happiness! Make sure you tune in!

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the kind of book that would make you feel sad or even cry if you’re a little like me It’s a great story of how a 9 year old boy, Oskar, copes with his father’s death in the 9/11 tragedy, with his mother having a new friend, with getting standardized letters from famous people, in a word, with life.

It’s an incredible story of how things can go wrong, on how cruelty, war and terrorism can affect lives long after they take place and about how people help each other get through such horrible times. Oskar, his mother, his grandparents, they’ve all experienced tragedy, be it war, being left by the ones they love, a terrorist attack that shook the entire world. They are all looking for a way to accept what happened, deal with it somehow and go on.

Most of the other less prominent characters that Oskar runs into in his journey to solve a mystery related to his father are some how affected by personal physical or psychical tragedies. A man in a wheel chair, another who filled his bed with over 9000 nails measuring the time since his wife had died, a woman on the verge of a divorce, they all face life’s challenges, much like the little boy and each member of his family.

The feeling I was left with when finishing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is hard to distinguish. It’s not hope, it’s definitely not dispair, it is closer to realizing that no matter what personal or general tragedy we face, there is a way out, a way to move forward. It’s not always the best way, it’s quite often not the worst, but as the world never ends or stops for you unless you die, and as it movers along with or without you, it’s better to get back on your feet and embrace what’s to come next.

I read Jonathan Safran Foer is a quite debated writer, some praise him, the rest criticize him. I for one love his style and would like to know what you think.