Taking Flight

An engaging novel by Adrian Magnuson. Jeremy is a 14 year old who lives in Seattle with his dad, a surgeon heading to Africa for charitable work. Jeremy is being sent to New York City to stay with his mom, who has bipolar disorder. He doesn't want to go. Harry Herndon is an older man in the thralls of Alzheimer's. He is running away from home. These two have a common interest in birdwatching. The novel follows their adventures as they join forces in taking flight and form an unlikely, yet unshakable bond.

The Quotidian Mysteries

Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work". This little gem by Kathleen Norris is the publication of the 1998 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality given at Notre Dame. I reread this for my morning devotions and it struck me so that I read it again with a highlighter. Norris emphasizes how important daily work is and how we can make our daily work godly worship.

Too often I look at the endless daily chores of my household and just am paralyzed in defeat. They are overwhelming and... never done. Yet Norris points out this was God's plan. It is precisely in these mind - half - there projects that we meet our Lord as well as serve others as He wishes. I need to reset my thinking about these chores; perhaps then they will get done willingly rather than grudgingly if at all. Sloth is my chief enemy. According to St. Benedict, sloth is disobedience. Straight out. Pure and simple. Of course, all sin is disobedience to God. But having the one sin I struggle with (my "pet" sin?) characterized as such was eye-opening. Lent is coming!

The First Time She Drowned

This is the harrowing debut novel by Kerry Kletter. Cassie O'Malley has spent the last two years in a mental institution; dumped there by her mother. Now at the age of her majority, she signs herself out and enters college. Nothing in her tumultuous life prepared her for college life, though, and as she explores herself, her past, and her relationship with her mother she is challenged as never before.

This is billed as a young adult novel; but it is heartbreaking. If a youth were on the brink he/she could go either way while reading this book. Granted, there's hope, and a strong message of (finally) loving oneself... I won't be suggesting it to my young people, though. The book is full of suicide, abuse, mental illness, and jokes about these serious subjects. Mind your triggers. 

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

A delightful novel by Robin Sloan, this book combines many elements. It's a magical blend of cutting - edge technology and medieval mystery. Clay Jannon was a web designer until the recession swept his job away. He is now working the night shift as a clerk at a vertical bookstore with few paying customers. Instead, the patrons borrow obscure volumes from odd corners of the store. Odd, but not random. Clay enlists friends to help him solve the mystery of the bookstore and brings his analysis to Mr. Penumbra. That's when he finds the mystery encompasses much more than one curious bookstore; it is the very search for immortality.

"There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight." My favorite quote from the book. It is a highly enjoyable book about friendship and living a fulfilling life. Recommended.

Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores

This is a compendium of blurbs about seventy-five of the world's most renowned bookstores by Bob Eckstein. Each report also contains a newsy little bit from that particular bookstore by someone in the know. And each entry has a magical illustration in color of the bookstore. There are two things I dislike about this: Eckstein has included bookstores that are now defunct, and the design of the book itself is unwieldy. The cover opens up, while the book itself opens in the usual manner. And to keep the cover from coming off completely, the reader must hold it up while trying to turn pages.  It is not a relaxing, read-in-bed book simply because of its design. Sad. It does have a foreword by Garrison Keillor going for it.... I checked this out of the New Book Room at the library; the back cover is already coming unglued because of the stress. Sad.

I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about books and bookstores because that's what my husband and I want to do; open our own used bookstore. We are already selling some online until we can afford a brick and mortar store. We hope the children will work with us. This is our dream.

Dark Matter

This is a novel by Blake Crouch, billed as un-put-down-able. Some people rave about this book. I am not one of those people. It is not because the physics and quantum mechanics are over my head; those are explained in an accessible, almost charming manner. I think I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept happenings toward the end of the book.

Jason Dessen is a physics professor, happily married with a teenage son. Then one night he is abducted, asked if he's happy with his life, and wakes on a gurney surrounded by people in hazmat suits. They show him true deference,  for in this world he is a scientific genius who has accomplished the impossible. Which world is real? And how can he get back to his family if that is the life he desires?  A science - fiction thriller that I thought was okay, but that many others like.

The Love Letter

By Cathleen Schine, this novel is a delight to the senses! Helen MacFarquhar owns a little bookstore in a small seaside town with everything just as she likes it; she is a divorcee, mother to an eleven -year -old daughter away at camp, and very much in control of herself and her life. Then an anonymous love letter arrives in her mail, and becomes an obsession. Who is it for? Who is it from? When does passion become love? As she uncharacteristically begins an affair with one of her employees, she gets a chance to answer this last question. Shine's writing is rich and descriptive. The book perhaps depends a little too much on sex and "f*** you", but the writing is strong despite that.

It left me wondering what to do with the love letters my husband and I wrote to each other during our courtship. Some are chaste and sweet, some are graphic and yearning; but all are permanent. How embarrassed will be the people who find these letters when we are gone? Is that my business? Should the letters be kept for posterity, or should they be destroyed and remembered fondly? What if I lose my memory, or my husband? So much to consider.