Oh winter of our hibernation. Like fields, we go fallow, into deep rest and restoration. I’ve gone deep into books and it’s been a good reading season.
Here are a few of my latest favorites, along with lines and passages that struck a chord.
FICTION
Someone by Alice McDermott
A slim, subtle novel of substantial beauty. The novel, says the author, grew out of the belief that on some level, we more or less all struggle with the same things.
“We turned onto the last landing. Going out with this guy, I thought, would involve a lot of silly laughter, some wit — the buzz of his whispered wisecracks in my ear. But there would be as well his willingness to reveal, or more his inability to conceal, that he had been silently rehearsing my name as he climbed the stairs behind me. There would be his willingness to bestow upon me the power to reassure him. He would trust me with his happiness.”
The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade
A tender and redemptive novel spanning one year in a family of five generations.
“What no one appreciates is that it takes courage — and considerable dramatic flair — to show up and insist you belong, to invoke genetic claims and demand food and love and housing.”
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
An easy mystery with a quick page-turning pace.
“This is the thing about good and evil. They aren't so far apart, and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.”
NONFICTION
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle
A practical memoir of radical love from a priest who spent 20 years working with Los Angeles gangs.
“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it.”
Your Turn: Are you in hibernation, too? What books are feeding your mind & soul?
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The world turns on words, please read & write.