Book Presentation - And Always One More Time

Peggy Mandell, newly widowed, cannot conjure a future without her husband of more than forty years. The bed is half empty. Her body betrays her. Laughter is elusive. Filled with longing, chased by memory, Mandell begins to write letters to the man she loved, retracing their history together.

But when a tenderhearted college professor steps quietly into her life, when he listens, attentively, as Mandell reads her accumulating stack of letters out loud, she is forced to recalibrate her vision of life—what is still possible, what is still necessary, how much love one heart can hold.

And Always One More Time is a story of second chances and disarming self-disclosure that takes a wholly universal look at the ways in which we bring our pasts forward to keep becoming our best selves. The themes addressed — grieving and loss, resilience and recovery, trusting love one more time, finding purpose and connection in the final leg of life’s journey, questions about motherhood and fatherhood when children are very young and when they become adults, questions about divorce and widowhood, questions about aging both physical and metaphysical — are topics to which everyone can relate.

On Wednesday January 8 2025 beginning at 11:00 AM, Margaret will read excerpts from her memoir and take questions.

Humor surfaces even in the most serious moments. Her tone, when writing about the other people in her life, is warm and heartfelt, conveying deep empathy for them and for herself. Offering one example after another of appreciating the beauty in life without denying its heartaches, the memoir asks, “Can you keep loving when the man you love is gone?” and answers with a resounding “yes”. — Kirkus Reviews

And Always One More Time is part of MEL’s permanent lending collection.