Cravings: A Zen-inspired memoir about sensual pleasures, freedom from dark places, and living and eating with abandon

by Wanda Hennig

Overview

Did some link between infidelity, a blue movie, vegetables and Paris, France, sprout the seed of liberation? Or was it that ‘Aha’ moment on the waterbed in Pocatello? In Cravings, long-time journalist and life coach Wanda Hennig writes—wisely, hilariously and sometimes poignantly—about sex and food; living for three-and-a-half years at the San Francisco Zen Center; moving solo from one continent to another; overcoming depression and social phobia. Also meditation, celibacy, creative mindfulness strategies and more. Mouth Orgasm edition.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780996820530
Publisher:	Say Yes Press
Publication date:	08/15/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	152
File size:	346 KB

About the Author

Wanda Hennig worked as an investigative, lifestyle and hard-news reporter on newspapers and as a feature writer, editor and bureau chief for the South African edition of Cosmopolitan before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an award-winning travel and food writer, a certified life coach with a post-graduate degree in psychology, and a long-time meditator. Many of the insights and mindfulness practices she shares in this memoir-cum-self-help were gained while traveling: in South Africa, the San Francisco Bay Area, Poland, Paris (France), Pocatello (Idaho), Salt Lake City and elsewhere. She has a post-graduate degree in psychology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa and trained and certified as a life coach at the Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, California.
Jo Marwick has worked on books and other publications for educational and commercial publishers, both in South Africa and globally, for 20 years. She is a recipient of the English Academy of Southern Africa's Thomas Pringle award for English in education.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Foreplay
Chapter Two: Groping in the Dark
Chapter Three: Honey Don’t
Chapter Four: Turned On and Tuned In
Chapter Five: All Fired Up
Chapter Six: Fatal Distraction
Chapter Seven: Spliced
Chapter Eight: Getting Forked
Chapter Nine: The Devil Made Me Do It
Chapter Ten: Egg-stacy
Chapter Eleven: Dying for It
Chapter Twelve: Interruptus
Chapter Thirteen: The Big O
Chapter Fourteen: Master Stroke
Chapter Fifteen: On Giving Good Ear
Chapter Sixteen: Lady Madonna
Chapter Seventeen: What’s Your Pleasure?
Chapter Eighteen: Afterglow—A Visualization

Editorial Reviews

• Former Cosmo bureau chief Wanda Hennig charts her search for freedom, great sex and herself through food, Zen and orgasmic meditation. —Cosmopolitan
• Zen-inspiration rescues memoirist Wanda Hennig, a one-time contributor to this magazine, who shares her inner turmoil: deep depression, binge eating and severe social anxiety. Pick up the paperback to be instantly transported from Paris and Pocatello to South Africa and San Francisco. —Alameda Magazine
• In this thoughtful and teasing memoir, Durban-born writer Wanda Hennig chronicles her lively desire to explore overseas destinations in geographic, gourmand and even erotic terms. Elegantly witty. —Farmer’s Weekly
• Hennig has a university background in psychology. Add to this the Zen experience and her branching out into life coaching—in America as well as South Africa—and one appreciates the background that made this book possible. —The Mercury
• Hennig leaves behind boyfriends, a dog, and even a daughter on her journey to find herself. Ultimately, she does with a lot of Zen meditation fueling her sensual spin halfway around the world in an everyday existence filled with sexuality that drives her everpresent “Wanda-lust.” —Oakland Magazine
• Wanda Hennig’s sensitive, engaging and honest memoir is a highly personal, readable and unusual book. It is also very funny and captures life and its meaning without once sounding like some kind of lecture. Several years in a Zen Buddhist temple—the teachings and contemplations—assist the author in her discovery of her true self. Hennig shrinks from nothing, not even some of the bizarre sexual therapy on offer in California. —Independent Newspapers
• Cravings has been described as a compelling, gritty, courageously honest, page-turning account of one person’s life facing her demons, punctuated by lessons in Zen practice, devoid of mystery and esoteric philosophy; and as a fun, trippy book about an intimate subject. —Sunday Tribune
• It seems unlikely to use the words “nymphonosher” and Buddhist teacher in the same breath when describing a person. Yet author Wanda Hennig is a complex mix of both. Having had a tumultuous relationship with food in her twenties, Hennig, who has post-graduate degrees in psychology and education, takes a long hard look at food, love and sex and how they can become a toxic mix. “Do not deprive yourself, fall in love with food and eat sensually. Enjoy the challenge, pleasure and adventure of each moment,” she tells readers in Cravings. —Saturday Independent

From the Publisher