| A Cottage by the Sea |
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 Her first novel. I read her other two, loved them both, loved this one, too. All three are favorites. Each story is set in rural Canada. Each about families, their love, anger, fear and joy all mingled together. Each about a strong girl, growing to womanhood, planning an independent path for herself, and then returning home in a satisfying and rewarding way.
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 This compelling story of Kya, who grows up and lives her entire life in the swamps along the North Carolina coast, will undoubtedly be # 1 on my 2019 Top 12 Reads. Kya attends school for only one day, but then a friend teaches her to read and helps her publish her research and drawings of the flora and fauna that she knows so intimately. What I’ve just described is the background to the life story of this independent girl, known as Swamp Girl. As the saying goes, once you start reading, you won’t want to put the book down.  Stephen Mitchell tells the story of Joseph and his brothers. I would call it a contemporary Midrash (an ancient commentary on part of the Hebrew scriptures, attached to the biblical text), with theological reflections and wisdom on compassion, acceptance, humility, as well as forgiveness. It also goes on a new reading category I am creating: Beach Reading for Clergy.  I loved this book; I disliked this book. I wanted to quit reading it; I wanted to keep reading it. I recommend it; I don’t recommend it. I never disliked city girl Vivian (who is telling her life story beginning as an eighteen year old in New York City at the start of WW II until her aging years in 2010) as she made horrendous life choices as a young person. But as she grew older and experienced unexpected changes, I came to both admire and feel compassion for her. Revision: I loved this book; I recommend it.  This story was compelling enough to keep me happily reading it on my long flight home from Rome to Boston. It is about everyday people who struggle with what life had dealt them, and who make the best decisions they can to more forward. They are compassionate, but by no means perfect, which is definitely something I can identify with. 
A memoir of the life of Paul Alster’s father as seen through Paul’s eyes as he goes through his father’s house after his death. Everyone has a solitude self, as well as a public one. Paul discovers that the solitary father he knew, had social side to others. A profound read, for sure.  In this newly publish memoir Sister Helen tells of her childhood, of taking vows and joining the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, and of her life fighting for the abolition of the death penalty. The book stops at1982 when she met Patrick Sollier, whom she had previously written about in Dead Man Walking. You may have read (or seen the film) of this riveting account of their friendship while he was on death row and when she accompanied him to his execution in 1988.  This was just the right book for me as I rush around handling my busy life before two weeks as a solitary travel in Rome and Florence. I will be easier to become invisible amongst the tourists at St. Peter’s Square or on the Ponte Vecchio than if I were to wander off on the Tuscan countryside. I can’t wait to be conscious of disappearing.  What is it like to grow up in what you thought was a white middle class family with your natural parents and two younger brother only to discover at age twenty-seven that your dad is not your biological father and that your birth father was black? Sarah Valentine, who grew up Sarah Dunn, offers a compassionate and honest memoir of what that was like for her, writing about her personal discoveries as a biracial woman as she searched for her biological father.  The story of five diverse people and their history with trees throughout their lives, from a personal tree in their back yard to their responses to saving trees in the world. Full of compassion but also a darkness creeps into their stories. As that happened I found myself not picking up the book and then deciding not to read the last 250 pages of this 500 page deep and important story. |
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