“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” — James A. Baldwin In Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown comes full circle to one of the first findings I ever heard from her: “the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging.” An important finding, but how do you get there? How do you feel worthy? […]
Keep Going
Hillary Clinton’s memoir covering the historic 2016 US presidential elections is, of course, as uniquely polarizing as her person is. The book, as it has been said by many others, will change no one’s mind. And, while it’s impossible to know any intentions beyond those stated, changing minds seemed to no longer be on the agenda. Instead, the memoir serves the intended purpose(s) of a memoir: an account of her personal experiences and what she took away from them. The beginning dragged for me. There […]
Underwater
Simon’s house is caving in and falling down all at the same time. He’s lost his job, and there’s no money for repairs. His carny sister and her copiously tattooed carny boyfriend show up for a visit. He is dating the one girl he’s not supposed to date. Oh, and his mom committed suicide when Simon was a child, and his dad is gone, too. Luckily a really weird book shows up just in time to distract him from the everything going wrong in his […]
The Monumental Effort of Tidying Up
Having too many possessions is an odd problem to have. Though, going by the abundance of storage facilities, it’s not particularly uncommon. Anyone who has been homeless, faced poverty, or even just moved a lot can be wary of having too much. I fit all those categories, so, here I am, a home-owner approaching 40, worrying about having accumulated far too much stuff. So I hoped this book would impart me with a magical spell to undo it and get me back to the self who could fit […]
WHAT! IS! THIS! BOOK! IT! MADE! ME! CRY!
Spoiler alert: Lily is going to break your heart. This is something the book lets you know in the first few pages, so I don’t feel too bad revealing it. But she is going to keep breaking your heart for all the hundreds of pages with her deeply dachshund (aka doxie) ways of being. The deep bond with her person, the intelligence and stubbornness, the territorial barking, and the exuberance are all deeply endearing. Rowley captured that unique, persistent doxie bark so that hearing Lily’s “voice” was […]
Or Whatever
I normally paint myself as someone who will trade a decent plot for beautiful prose, but perhaps I have found my limit for that as being somewhere around 300 pages. I don’t think I’m treading new ground to say I thought The Goldfinch would never end. There is such a thing as too much perfection. Tartt has a magic about her writing – without any obvious brush strokes, you are in a scene – you can see and smell and feel everything. She is a […]