A Cottage by the Sea
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​When I Was White, by Sarah Valentine

8/30/2019

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      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. 

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​The Overstory, by Richard Powers

8/27/2019

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     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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​The Other Einstein, by Marie Benedict

8/11/2019

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     A story of compassion for women minimized because they are women,  in this case Albert Einstein’s first wife, Meliva, a brilliant scientist in her own right. According to this fictional tale, she may have been the Einstein who actually conceived the theory of relativity. Was she was born at the wrong time in history, or married to the wrong man, or both?

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​The Other Side of the Bridge, by Mary Lawson

8/4/2019

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     A story of two brothers, Arthur and Jake, sons of a farmer in the 1930s, during World War II, and into the 1950s in rural Ontario, Canada. The jealousy, rivalry, passion, and compassion of the two brothers is seen through the eyes of Ian, the teenage son of the town’s doctor, who later in the story takes his father’s place.
    Very compelling story that kept me reading. A new favorite author for me. 

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    Author

        Compassionate Reading may sound strange, but that’s my purpose in joining the Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge. A book a week seems like a reasonable goal. Maybe I’ll read 52, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll read 32, but probably not 520.
         Number goals appeal to me, especially ones connected with the calendar. As a teacher, I loved the definitive school year. There is nothing like a Monday morning every seven days to give me another jump start. The first of every month I take delight in turning the page of my wall calendar. I like numbers.
         However, this reading goal isn’t about adding books to a list. My goal is understand lives different from mine. Up until now I have read through the lens of my own life, one of ease, privilege, freedom and advantage; they never promised a rose garden, but I was given one. Now I want to wear the lens of the authors and their characters. I want to step into their feelings and experiences without comparing them to mine. I want to observe without judging. I want to appreciate the nuances rather than put everything into categories. I want to I want to read with my heart more than my head.
         My plan is to post how each book opened my heart to compassion.

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