I had a minor crisis earlier this month. I read all the books on my Kindle.
I had no more new books to read.
It was terrible.
Thankfully after a few days, my library queue caught up with me and I now have way too many books to read again. Here’s a few.
What I’m Reading
Barking to the Choir, by Gregory Doyle. Do I laugh? Do I cry? I do both. A Jesuit priest working with gang members in LA. “We find ourselves on the lookout for moments of spaciousness and calm, when our hearts can be restored again to a place of beauty, innocence, and wholeness. Then we can hear what the Sufis call, “the voice of the Beloved.”
The Art of Work by Jeff Goins, about valuing our creative work as writers
Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic by Nora Gallagher
Riverine by Angela Palm
Home, James, by Emily Steele Jackson, a novel about a young Third Culture Kid
The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers (mentions Djibouti!). I loved this book, a fun, informative read on coffee and a riveting ride through Yemen just as the war broke out.
No Man’s Land by Eula Biss (finally, this showed up in my library but I highlighted so much I should probably just buy it)
A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf. I get bored sometimes, reading other people’s diaries, but I really appreciate how honest she is about the issues of pride and of receiving criticism well, or not.
Voices in the Air, poems by Naomi Shihab Nye. “Reading and writing poetry gives us more yutori – a place to stand back and contemplate what we are living and experiencing. More spaciousness in being, more room in which to listen.” (Yutori is a Japanese word meaning essentially, life-space)
Original Blessing, by Danielle Shoyer. Another book in which I highlighted something on nearly every page. “Original blessing is the stubborn assertion not that we are perfect, but that we are loved. And this love has the power to transform even our shadows into light.”
What are you reading?
I am reading Glass Houses, the next to the last book in Louise Penny’s murder mystery series about police officer of the Surete, Armand Gamache. This series has taken me through a few months of knee, then ankle surgery, rather a long convalescence! I am thankful for the thought-provoking diversion of her lovely prose and the descriptions of the nearly mythical village most of the characters live in. Now I long to visit Quebec! I love the complexity of the personalities, the insight into human nature and the fact that I can never figure out whodunit!
I am also reading Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak which is resonating with my soul in a way few books have.
Books provide us the opportunity to know and fellowship with people we will never meet. What a privilege.
I would love to read that Parker Palmer book, good reminder to add him to my library queue!
I just finished the Monk of Mokha a few weeks ago, and I absolutely loved it! I loved the way the history of coffee was mixed in, and it was so interesting! I also knew next to nothing about Yemen, and I appreciated learning more about its people and culture, as well as a war that is barely acknowledged in the US.