Dinner with the Smileys: One Military Family, One Year of Heroes, and Lessons for a Lifetime - Hardcover

Smiley, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1401324878 ISBN 13: 9781401324872

Publisher: Hyperion, 2013

Synopsis

The uplifting true story of a wife and mother's yearlong experience inviting one new guest (from senators to school teachers, artists to professional athletes) to dinner for each week that her husband was deployed overseas. 

But DINNER WITH THE SMILEYS isn't really about dinner. And it's not about the military. It's about 250 strangers who came together to help raise three boys (one of the cusp of adolescence) in the absence of their father. It's a love story about marriage, motherhood, and the power of community. 

Inside this personal story are the universal issues of loss, grief, loneliness, regrets, sacrifice, and, ultimately, unexpected joy and finding one's own strength.

See the book trailer on Sarah's Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/Sarah-Smiley/e/B001IR1MT2/

About this title

About the Author:

Sarah Smiley is the author of a syndicated newspaper column that is published in cities across the country, the memoir Going Overboard (Penguin/New American Library, 2005) and a collection of essays titled I'm Just Saying... (Ballinger, 2008). Described as an "Erma Bombeck" by Publishers Weekly, Sarah is best known for her honest and witty accounts of raising three boys. Sarah has been a Navy dependent for more than 36 years, first as the daughter of Rear Admiral Lindell Rutherford (USN, Ret.), and now as the wife of Lt. Cmdr. Dustin Smiley, a Navy pilot. She has a B.S. in Education from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and M.A. in Mass Communication from the University of Maine.

Review:

"Uplifting" - Oprah's O Magazine
"A delicious diversion...Sarah Smiley is all heart...Many people will see her as a hero for being so frank" - USA Today
"A meal-time revolution" - The Today Show
"[DINNER WITH THE SMILEYS] will make you a better person for reading it...By the close, you'll be begging for seconds."- SheKnows.com
"Classic Sarah: forthright and honest, funny and smart." - The New York Times
"A rare, unvarnished glimpse into the life of an American family...a compassionate account of absolutely inspired by-the-seat-of-the-pants parenting." - Cynthia Kaplan, author of Why I'm Like This

"Sarah Smiley writes in such a very intimate and frank style that the reader feels like a fly on the wall...Her humor is quiet and wry, and at times she is painfully honest." - BookReporter.com
"It is both a joy and an inspiration...If you ever doubted the basic goodness of Americans, this book will restore your faith." - Sue Halpern, author of A DOG WALKS INTO A NURSING HOME
"[The] stories range from heartbreaking to hilarious." - Maine Magazine
"Dinner with the Smileys will make you laugh and cry...Sarah Smiley's engaging writing both entertains and educates." - U.S. Senator Susan Collins

- One of Oprah's five "Things to Smile About"

- Number 9 on USA Today's list of Books to Read in May

- GoodHousekeeping New Book Pick

Praise for Smiley: 
"...often funny and always humane, an unexpected voice" - New York Times Magazine
"...an Erma Bombeck...[Smiley's] prose is simple and straightforward, and her humor is clever." - Publishers Weekly
"You can't help but be moved" - Carol Leifer, writer for Seinfeld
"Smiley has the knack of turning the ordinary, and not-so-ordinary travails into an absorbing narrative." - Frank Cerabino, Palm Beach Post 
"Endearing and descriptive writing that brings both laughs and tears." - The Bradenton Herald

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1401324878
• ISBN 13: 9781401324872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368