Reviews

Reading, Reviews

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

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I recently picked up Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and was stunned by the artistry of it. Robinson can weave together a tale and truth, grace and reality, love and hardship so well! I force myself to read her work slowly, to take in each word and try to truly Lila (Gilead, #3)realize what she means. She is that kind of writer. This year she released a new book, Lila. It is a different perspective of the marriage detailed in Gilead. Lila is the wife of John Ames, the main character of Gilead, and this book named for her is about her back story and how she came to the town of Gilead and proposed to the elderly pastor. Lila faces lots of hardships before coming to Gilead, none told in too much detail but the full weight of them is there between the lines. The theme of homelessness returns in this book, which seems to be a topic that’s on Robinson’s mind a lot. Lila starts reading a Bible when she comes to Gilead. She grapples with the fact of what happens on earth coexisting with the truths about a good and just God. I wouldn’t say she draws very clear conclusions, but she makes progress as the book goes along. The story line is amazing, and the way it weaves perfectly with Gilead is mind blowing, kind of like the 2nd and 3rd Bourne Trilogy movies, when you realize it’s all happening at the same time.

Beyond the plot and all its nuances and important themes, there are passages that stay with me for their beauty. Maybe it’s because I’m a sleep deprived mom of three children age 5 and under, but this one was my favorite:

That sound of settling into the sheets and the covers has to be one of the best things in the world. Sleep is a mercy. You can feel it coming on, like being swept up in something…You had to trust sleep when it came or it would just leave you there, waiting.

Well, isn’t that the truth.

If you haven’t read Robinson before, start with Gilead.  I haven’t read Home, but I plan to very soon!

Nonfiction, Reading, Reviews

What I Read This Fall

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There are four more days left in this Autumn season, and I can guarantee you my Fall Reading List will not be completed in those five days. But that’s okay! A reading list is a starting point that morphs as time goes along. As Juliet says in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive–all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”

Well, maybe there are other reasons to read. But I find the first part to be true when it comes to reading lists. I start at the top, but get totally sidetracked when I find a new favorite author or read a book that refers to another book. That being said, here is what I did manage to read this Fall:

~Fiction~

Gilead – You must read it. Best book I’ve read in a long time!

Rosie – Not a fan of this one, but I plan to try some more recent work of Lamott’s.

The Grapes of Wrath – Very raw and uncouth, and also deep and masterful. Just not my cup of tea.

The Signature of All Things – Abandoned halfway through. Eesh. If you liked it, I think we can still be friends, but let’s not talk about this book.

Listening ValleyListening Valley – This wasn’t on my list, but I needed a comfortable, reassuring read after three book busts, so I turned to my beloved D.E. Stevenson. This is a cozy sort of book to curl up with on a foul weather day. Fans of L.M. Montgomery or Jan Karon will love it.

Lila – I read this book on the heels of Gilead, and it was so totally different from what I expected! It was awesome, though. It will have its own review soon.

~Nonfiction~

Shepherding a Child’s Heart – I really enjoyed the perspective of the first half of the book, but didn’t get much out of the second half that dealt with the method this particular author employs in child rearing.

For The Children’s Sake – I loved this book. It will receive its own review soon.

The Fitting Room – This was a much lighter read than I expected, but still pretty good.  Women of all ages can glean great wisdom from it, but it would be especially perfect to study with a group of teenage girls.

Yes PleaseOrganized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living – I am not funny enough to appreciate this book. If you like SNL or Tina Fey’s Bossypants, you might like this one. However, I would venture to say that Poehler just isn’t a writer. She even admits in the book that she is “better in the room.” I concur.

Bread and Wine – A stunning book. It’s changing my entire view of hospitality. I say “changing” because I read it through and reviewed it, but I keep going back to read parts and review the recipes. I’ve made two and they were both delightful.

Organized Simplicity – I think I’ll need to come back to this book in the future, when I can handle all the very useful checklists and strategies. Right now, I just need to get through the mess that is the Holidays. It’s the best possible kind of mess! But a mess still.

Wow. I read more nonfiction than fiction in the last few months. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a first! I feel so smart and boring. Maybe I can remedy that in my Winter Reading List.

Speaking of, The Winter Reading List is shaping up and will be posted soon! What’s on your list?

Reading, Reviews, Saturday Cooking

Saturday Cooking: Shauna Niequist’s Bread and Wine is Changing My Life

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On a gloomy December morning, I enjoy the rare treat of sitting alone at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, a toasted English muffin slathered in blueberry preserves, and a book. I wouldn’t choose this type of morning every day–I love the chaos and energy, the blue eyes and burnished blonde hair usually flying around the circle from living room, dining room, kitchen, at 8:00 a.m. on any given morning–but as a once in a while thing, this morning alone is heavenly.

Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table, with RecipesWhat book am I reading? Funny you should ask. It’s kind of a cookbook, kind of a memoir. It’s Shauna Niequist’s Bread and Wine, a book I wouldn’t have picked up on my own whim in a million years. But I heard Shauna speak twice in the last year, and then a speaker at MOPS said Bread and Wine was pivotal in helping her become the cook she always wanted to be, so I ordered it from my library and here it sits in front of me. I’m not a cookbook reader. I struggle with even wanting to cook, and much more with the actual cooking. When the whole Julie and Julia book and movie were crazy popular, I just shook my head and said, “Why? Why would I put myself through a year of making complicated, French recipes?” I wouldn’t.

And I still wouldn’t. But when the every day need to feed and nourish my family collides with the stress of planning and prepping and shopping so often that it just drives me crazy, I know this whole cooking thing is something I need to figure out. Add Bread and Wine to the mix, and it suddenly becomes something I really, really want to figure out and just might enjoy. Niequist says, “I believe every person should be able to make the simple foods that nourish them, that feel familiar and comforting, that tell the story of who they are….And the only way to get there is to start where you are.”

I’m teetering dangerously on the edge of declaring 2015 the year I begin to truly learn to cook. It’s quotes like this that make me brave:

“We’ve been told that cooking and baking and entertaining are specialized skills that only some people possess, and that without a culinary degree or a lifestyle brand we can’t be expected to do anything but buy prepared food. Marketing and advertising campaigns urging us to eat out or buy already prepared foods want us to think that plain old cooking is difficult and not worth learning. This trend began in the 1950s after factories that used to make ammunition had to make something else. So they started making shelf-stable food in cans and boxes, similar to what soldiers had been eating but unfamiliar to the average American family. In order to sell canned food and cake mixes, advertisers had to convince American women that cooking is too hard and troublesome for our modern world. But it wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.” (Bread and Wine, p. 41, emphasis mine)

Quotes like that, Niequist’s skillful and passionate writing on the glories of food and love around the table, and my 100% confidence that my husband will totally back me up in this even though I haven’t asked him yet (he will) urge me on into this scary thing of picking up a cast iron skillet, crushing some peppercorns with it, and then attempting to make Stake au Poivre. I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds ah-mazing. I’m kind of worried I’m going to waste a lot of money on food that turns out badly, but then I read this:

“It takes some time to learn, to try and fail and make a mess and try again…But it’s a lovely process, with not a minute wasted. If you put in the time, the learning, the trying, the mess, and the failure, at the end you will have learned to feed yourself and the people you love, and that’s a skill for life–like tennis or piano but yummier and far less expensive.”

Yeah, I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of money on learning golf and I’m still not even close to good at it. I guess it’ll be more worthwhile to try and do something well that I have to do every day anyway.

I guess I’ll take a deep breathe and let myself dive over the edge.

2015, I doubt I’ll be a Foodie when I’m through with you, but I plan to make a mean Steak au Poivre with Cognac Pan Sauce before you’re over.

Whether you consider yourself a Foodie or not, Bread and Wine is a delightful, insightful read that pretty much anyone can enjoy. I highly recommend it. But be forewarned– you may find yourself searching for Sriracha sauce in the grocery store before you’re through. Or maybe you already know what aisle that’s on. If so, call me. I need help. =)

Read more Saturday Cooking posts here!

Reading, Reviews

Gilead

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When friends ask me if I have read any good books lately, I drop everything, look them straight in the eye, and fervently say one word: “Gilead.”

Seriously. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is my new favorite book. It’s taken me forever to discover it, I think because when it first came to my attention the year it was published (2006), I read the plot synopsis and wasn’t immediately drawn to it. Add the quiet plot to the fact that Housekeeping by Robinson had left me feeling blue, even if it was insightful and poignant, and you have a moment when I put Gilead back on the shelf and though, “Maybe another day.”

GileadI could call that moment a mistake, but I think it probably wasn’t. I probably wasn’t ready for this book at age twenty. While I’m still not much older than I was and certainly not much wiser, I adore this book now in a way I don’t think I could have then. It’s written as a letter to the son of the narrator. The narrator is an elderly pastor in the small town of Gilead who has married late in life and has a little boy. The pastor’s health is not good, and he knows he won’t be there when his boy reaches adulthood, so he writes him a letter that contains some background of his family history (fascinating), and some lessons learned (deeply insightful), and even the unraveling of a scandal that happens during the writing of the letter. This plot may not draw you, but I’m begging you, read it anyway. It is masterful.

Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs, when the narrator speaks of a hardship in his life and concludes:

” I don’t know what to say except that the worst misfortune isn’t only misfortune–and even as I write these words, I have that infant Rebecca [his daughter who died in infancy] in my mind, the way she looked while I held her, which I seem to remember, because every single time I have christened a baby I have thought of her again. That feeling of a baby brow against the palm of your hand — how I have loved this life. Boughton had christened her, as I said, but I laid my hand on her just to bless her, and I could feel her pulse, her warmth, the damp of her hair.”

I choke up even now when I think of how exactly true these words are, how that is just what the forehead of a baby feels like against my hand. The whole book is a tribute to how achingly beautiful this earthly life is, and how pain can be redeemed. It is written from the firm viewpoint that Heaven and eternity are absolute and God is good and His goodness is here even on this broken earth. Even so, it is not preachy. (It won a Pulitzer, so you know it’s not preachy!) But it is wonderful, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I’m so thankful that Edie at Life in Grace put it on her reading list for the year, which reminded me that I had always meant to read it. It’s definitely the best book on My Fall Reading List so far.

See other favorite books here!

Reading, Reviews

Fall Reading List – Fiction Update

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So I know all the people on the internet have been holding their breath, waiting to see how the Fall Reading List is turning out. Wait no more! Today I’ll tell you my thoughts on the three novels I’ve read so far.

First, I read Rosie by Ann Lamott. I really wish I had done some more research and asked around about what Lamott book I should start with. My whole purpose was to get a taste of this writer whom so many of my friends admire. I picked one of her earlier novels, and that was a mistake. The characters were so unlikable! Except for Rosie, of course, who was not featured in the book as much as she should have been. Her mother Elizabeth was the main character, and she was a pretty miserable individual. Rosie featured some very dark themes, such as alcoholism, child abuse, sexual immorality, and drug abuse, without offering much hope. On the flip side, I’m looking forward to reading some of Lamott’s books she wrote after converting to  Christianity. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year looks intriguing. I admire Lamott’s writing style.

Next up was The Grapes of Wrath. I chose that American classic because I’m a student of literature and I thought I should finally be acquainted with the infamous Joads. From a literary perspective, it’s clearly a great book. As for whether or not I enjoyed it, I didn’t really. It was raw. I guess that’s what a lot of American Literature is, and that’s why I’m not a big fan. Our country is relatively young and the harsh, hard landscape of American life for the first two centuries makes the literature produced by it pretty rough sometimes. I’m too squeamish for some of it.

Finally, and worst of all, was The Signature of All Things. Elizabeth Gilbert became famous for her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. One of the reasons I read at all is to understand what the people around me relate to and what makes them tick. So many people loved that memoir, I had to pick it up and see what it was about. While I found Gilbert’s search for meaning to be pretty empty, I did like her writing style. The Signature of All Things is Gilbert’s first novel since Eat, Pray, Love. It’s about a botanist named Alma, born in 1800, to a flamboyant scoundrel who becomes rich on botanical medicines, and a Dutch mother. None of these characters are very endearing. What’s worse, the confused, garbled, search for meaning theme from Eat, Pray, Love continues with even less clarity. There is a Creator, there is mysticism, there is evolution, there is harsh Quakerism, and it all makes very little sense to me. What’s worse, the novel drags on for 500 pages (on my Nook) and spends a lot of time on the qualities of moss. I am sure that there is a lot going on under the surface in this novel, but I didn’t find it a worthwhile pursuit.

In conclusion, the novels have been a let down so far. But the nonfiction has been great! So look for some rave reviews on that in the next few days.