The Power of Positive Thinking popularity today. Norman Vincent Peale, born in 1898 in southwestern Ohio, graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University and later received his bachelor's and master's degrees in sacred theology from Boston University's School of Theology. Peale then attended Syracuse University where he received a doctor of divinity degree. After serving 10 years as a Methodist clergyman in New York, Peale became the pastor of New York City's Marble Collegiate Church where he stayed for 52 years, until his retirement in 1984. Throughout his career as a pastor, Peale wrote over 40 books, became a sought-after motivational speaker, started weekly radio and television
The Year of Magical Thinking made his remaining time more meaningful. Fleeting memories of events and persistent snippets of past conversations with John take on a new significance. Her daughter's continuing health problems and hospitalizations further compound and interrupt the natural course of grief. Didion wrote "The Year of Magical Thinking" between October 4, 2004, and December 31 the same year, completing it a year and a day after Dunne died. Notes she made during Quintana's hospitalizations became part of the book. Quintana Roo Dunne Michael died of pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, before the publication of the book, but Didion told the press that