You will never find interior solitude unless you make some conscious effort to deliver yourself from the desires and the cares and the attachments of You will never find interior solitude unless you make some conscious effort to deliver yourself from the desires and the cares and the attachments of an existence in time and in the world.
One of the most popular of the famous Cistercian monk's writings, New Seeds of Contemplation is also dense, difficult, and rambling. Like many, I find passages that speak to my heart, mind and soul, like the one above.
Other chapters and passages reflect Roman Catholic dogma or rules of Cistercian monastic life that are not part of my faith and don't move me. Another difficulty with the book, acknowledged by Merton, is the impossibility of putting the encounter with God into the feeble vessel of words. ...more
We were grinders and scrappers. Showbiz may seem glamorous, but each battle is won in the trenches with heavy doses of perspiration and preparation. WWe were grinders and scrappers. Showbiz may seem glamorous, but each battle is won in the trenches with heavy doses of perspiration and preparation. We spent our nights doing two sets of homework: our assignments for school and our run-throughs of the next day's lines with Dad.
I'm a couple of years older than Ron Howard and grew up watching him on The Andy Griffith Show, in the movie The Music Man, and on Happy Days. It was a pleasure to read this well-written, dual memoir by Ron and his younger brother Clint, which focuses on the lives of their parents, their childhoods, and the beginnings of their adult careers. Their dad, Rance, and mom, Jean, both actors with realistic aspirations for Hollywood success, generously and without missing a beat, shifted gears to support and coach Ron and Clint as child actors, and to keep them grounded. Ron worked hard to transition from acting into directing in his twenties, while Clint struggled with addictions to alcohol and drugs, but overcame them and achieved a successful, lifelong career as a character actor. Highly recommended, especially for anyone who's watched the boys on screen....more
Devout Catholic author O'Connor held that her debut novel, now long recognized as a Southern gothic masterpiece, is about Hazel Motes's inability to eDevout Catholic author O'Connor held that her debut novel, now long recognized as a Southern gothic masterpiece, is about Hazel Motes's inability to escape his belief in Christ, despite his frequent, desperate protestations to the contrary. Many readers, not aware of this nor picking up on it in the text, have experienced it as anti-religious. Most agree that it is very dark, even horrific.
I am among those who found a quirky humor throughout, especially by contrast with the book I most recently finished: William Faulkner's Sanctuary. Here are a few examples.
His throat got dryer and his heart began to grip him like a little ape clutching the bars of its cage.
As he walked along, the umbrella kept slipping from under his arm and getting tangled in his feet, as if it meant to keep him from going anywhere.
Enoch was usually thinking of something else at the moment Fate began drawing back her leg to kick him....more
Just wasn't my cup of tea, in terms of style or message, but it obviously is loved by many.Just wasn't my cup of tea, in terms of style or message, but it obviously is loved by many....more
Lt. Joe Howard Wilson, a decorated black soldier returning home to Revere, Mississippi from the war, had been hauled off his bus by a white mob in OctLt. Joe Howard Wilson, a decorated black soldier returning home to Revere, Mississippi from the war, had been hauled off his bus by a white mob in October 1945 and disappeared until his mangled body was pulled from the Tombigbee River weeks later, but a local grand jury ruled his death accidental. Now a year later, Regina Robichard, a young NAACP attorney, is sent by Thurgood Marshall to investigate, in response to a letter from M.P. Calhoun, a white resident of Revere and author years earlier of a famous children's book.
Don't expect a legal thriller like those of fellow Mississippi author John Grisham. An attorney is the main character and the investigation of a suspected murder provides the plot, but not a moment is spent in a courtroom. Instead, the focus is on the complicated relations of blacks and whites in the postwar South....more
This is a book about how a small group of people have tried to make us believe that our fundamental principles aren't true. They have made war on AmerThis is a book about how a small group of people have tried to make us believe that our fundamental principles aren't true. They have made war on American democracy by using language that served their interests, then led us toward authoritarianism by creating a disaffected population and promising to re-create an imagined past where those people could feel important again. As they took control, they falsely claimed they were following the nation's true and natural laws.
This is the first time I have read anything by the historian, professor, and writer Heather Cox Richardson and I found it to be a well-researched, articulate, and persuasive account of the ongoing struggle between those who believe in and pursue the unique American ideals of equality and democracy and those who believe that democracy is no longer a viable form of government, if it ever was, and support authoritarianism. But then, I would, because I share many of Richardson's values. I don't think that this is a book that will change many minds, but it's bracing reading for those who support equality and democracy. Not long ago, my book club read Eric Hoffer's short classic The True Believer and it provides interesting context to Richardson's narrative of American political history.
This book is also the story of how democracy has persisted throughout our history despite the many attempts to undermine it. It is the story of the American people, especially those whom the powerful have tried to marginalize, who first backed the idea of equality and a government that defended it, and then, throughout history, have fought to expand that definition to create a government that can, once and for all, finally make it real....more
The start of memory's gather: June 27, 1945. I have become six years old, my mother's life has drained out at 31 years. And in the first gray daylightThe start of memory's gather: June 27, 1945. I have become six years old, my mother's life has drained out at 31 years. And in the first gray daylight, dully heading our horses around from that cabin of the past, my father and I rein away toward all that would come next.
Following the tragic early death of his wife Berneta from asthma, Montana sheepherder Charley Doig decides to keep their son Ivan with him and figure out some way to raise him. For a few years, Ivan follows Charley around his work on sheep ranches, evening rounds of small-town taverns, and through a brief, tempestuous second marriage, all grist for the future writer's fiction. But the heart of this beautifully written memoir is the awkward formation of a family when Bessie Ringer, Berneta's mother, joins Charley to help with raising Ivan....more
I loved settling into a corner of the remarkable Janie Crawford's house in Eatonville, Florida, after her return from a long absence, and listening toI loved settling into a corner of the remarkable Janie Crawford's house in Eatonville, Florida, after her return from a long absence, and listening to her tell old friend Pheoby the whole back story of her life. 'Listening' is the right word, because most of this story is rich, earthy, funny dialog in dialect captured by Hurston after a lifetime of observing and absorbing it, then studying it even more closely as a scholar of the relatively new field of anthropology.
I heard again that life in the Jim Crow South is hard when you're black, especially if you're a woman.
So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.
But after surviving a couple of unhappy marriages, Janie meets Tea Cake, a rascal who really loves her. They set off together to work in the muck of the Everglades and, though it's got its ups and downs, she finds joy for a time.
Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.
This is one of my favorite books and I highly recommend it.
A more accurate title for this book would be The Coddling of the Generation of Middle Class Americans Born in 1995 and Later, the Members of Which ArrA more accurate title for this book would be The Coddling of the Generation of Middle Class Americans Born in 1995 and Later, the Members of Which Arrived on Campuses Starting in 2013 Unequipped to Deal With Life Generally and Ideas They Disagreed With Specifically, Due to Their Parents' Embrace of Safetyism and Resultant Overparenting, Causing Some of the Students on Some Campuses to Protest Against Some Speakers' Appearances, With Suggestions for Rectifying This Problem and Thoughts on How This Will Improve Students' Mental Health, Success in Life, and Significantly Reduce Political Polarization and Unnecessary Conflict in the U.S., or something similar. It's understandable that the authors and publisher went with something a little shorter and punchier.
I found the book to be interesting and thought-provoking, with solid reporting of research documenting the perennial, but recently growing liberal bias of faculty and students on American campuses, the recent explosive growth in student demand for mental health services, and recent development of a majority of students not wanting to even be exposed to intolerant or offensive ideas on campus. I was far less convinced that the proposed solutions were practicable or likely to have much impact even on campus problems, the actual focus of the book, much less on polarization and related social ills that were just kind of thrown in with them as things that will be fixed if only everyone lets kid roam and play with less adult supervision, reads this book, goes to the recommended websites, and practices Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy and mindfulness.
Still, I thought it was worth reading and recommend it for its ambition to tackle some wide-ranging and timely issues....more
A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves-and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.
Hoffer was a longshoreman in San Francisco and self-educated philosopher who published a dozen books and received honorary doctorates and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This, his first book, published in 1951, is a fascinating analysis of the psychological and social conditions, types of leaders, and techniques that give rise to mass movements, whether religious, revolutionary, or nationalist, with special focus on the several which had just exploded across the globe, i.e. fascism, nazism, and communism. While there are striking relevancies to recent American politics and the rise in authoritarian movements worldwide, that have brought renewed interest in the book, it doesn't provide support for any particular polarized position. Instead, it clinically describes how the rise and fall of mass movements is the inevitable result of multitudes of people feeling frustrated with their lives under certain conditions. Recommended....more
Between the wars, in the orpanage in Zollverein, a coal mining town near Essen, Werner Pfennig and his younger sister huddle over the radio he's scavaBetween the wars, in the orpanage in Zollverein, a coal mining town near Essen, Werner Pfennig and his younger sister huddle over the radio he's scavanged and repaired and hear a French broadcaster say:
Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.
In Paris, six-year-old Marie-Laure LeBlanc, daughter of the locksmith for the National Museum of Natural History, goes blind.
What I take away from this beautifully written tale, in which the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure cross in Saint-Malo, France, near the end of World War II, are many striking images and emotions, not so much ideas. Good enough for me.
So many windows are dark. It's as if the city has become a library of books in an unknown language, the houses great shelves of illegible volumes, the lamps all extinguished....more
I enjoyed this dual-timeline exploration of a youthful friendship on the verge of more, between Chinese-American Henry Lee and Japanese-American KeikoI enjoyed this dual-timeline exploration of a youthful friendship on the verge of more, between Chinese-American Henry Lee and Japanese-American Keiko Okabe, beginning in 1942, in post-Pearl Harbor Seattle, just as President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 directed the internment of nearly all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, and ending in 1986, after the discovery of displaced families' possessions in the basement of the Panama Hotel of the title pulls Henry into a journey into his past.
In May, I visited the fascinating and exceptionally well-interpreted Heart Mountain National Historic Landmark, near Cody, Wyoming, one of the few internment camp sites with remaining buildings in the country. Earlier, I'd read Gretel Ehrlich's Heart Mountain and Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine, both historical novels depicting the internment experience. Hardly anyone I mentioned these books or the site visit to had ever heard of this sorry episode in American history. I'm glad that books like this are bringing it to more people's attention.
Although I'm in the majority who've reviewed the book positively here, it has sure found a dedicated group of haters, too, some of whom find the characters wooden, the central relationship between Henry and Keiko implausible, the critique of the internment project to be overdone or not radical enough, too much or not enough romance, etc., so be forewarned. Try it and see if you like it, like I did.
Set in London during and just after World War II, this short but powerful novel recounts the entire life history of an affair between writer Maurice BSet in London during and just after World War II, this short but powerful novel recounts the entire life history of an affair between writer Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles, and their relationships with her husband, high-ranking but boring civil servant Henry. Halfway through the book, the plot really thickens, as God joins the menage, and Greene explores the psychology of belief and doubt, as he earlier explored love, hate, and jealousy, in often beautiful prose....more
What I appreciated about this book was the journey, but the destination eluded me, as tragedies often do. A dozen different Indian main characters strWhat I appreciated about this book was the journey, but the destination eluded me, as tragedies often do. A dozen different Indian main characters struggle with their identities, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, rape, violence, and other benefits of their lives in America, in eponymous chapters relating their inexorable progress towards the Big Oakland Powwow. The character I liked most was Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, who is raising the three boys her sister's late daughter left behind.
Ever since they were in her care, Opal had been openly against any of them doing anything Indian. She treated it all like something they could decide for themselves when they were old enough. Like drinking or driving or smoking or voting. Indianing....more
None of Pauli Murray's remarkable life as a lawyer, writer, civil rights activist, co-founder of the National Organization for Women, and first femaleNone of Pauli Murray's remarkable life as a lawyer, writer, civil rights activist, co-founder of the National Organization for Women, and first female, African-Amercan, Episcopal priest is covered in this first of her autobiographical works, but their origins in her childhood are richly described.
Following her mother's death when she was only three, Murray was sent to Durham, N.C. to be raised by her mother's family. This is her memoir of her mother's parent's, Robert Fitzgerald, a free black from Pennsylvania who'd fought for the Union and moved to North Carolina after the Civil War to teach newly freed blacks, and Cornelia Smith, born to a white lawyer from a prominent Chapel Hill family and the slave he raped. The book is particularly insightful about the complexities of mixed-race life and 'passing' in the South from the antebellum era to World War I.
I found Robert's diary entry, commenting on an 1868 election in which he and other black men voted for the first time, to be especially poignant:
I heard a white man say today is the Black man's day. Tomorrow will be the white man's. I thought-Poor man-those days of distinction between colors is about over in this (now) free country.
Genealogical tables and maps would have greatly enhanced the reading experience, which can be slow going in some places, but the story was worth the effort.
The late Marcus J. Borg was a liberal Lutheran New Testament scholar and theologian. N. T. Wright, former Anglican Bishop of Durham, is a more conservThe late Marcus J. Borg was a liberal Lutheran New Testament scholar and theologian. N. T. Wright, former Anglican Bishop of Durham, is a more conservative New Testament scholar and theologian. Friends for many years, in spite of significant differences in theology, they published this book together in 1999, each writing his own chapter on eight topics:
How do we know about Jesus? What did Jesus do and teach? The death of Jesus God raised Jesus from the dead Was Jesus God? The birth of Jesus He will come again in glory Jesus and the Christian life
The two respectfully present their beliefs and the many differences between them in their first seven chapters, most notably, perhaps, Borg's belief that the meaning of Christ doesn't depend on whether much of what the New Testament says about Jesus actually happened, in contrast to Wright's belief that these accounts are mostly historically accurate and are central to Christianity.
It's interesting that, although they arrive from such different paths through their study of Jesus's life in the New Testament, their final chapters on how to live a Christian life turn out to be remarkably similar.
Covering such a broad range of topics from two different perspectives in a relatively brief book resulted in what seemed like fairly frequent assertions of belief with either no supporting argument, or a reference to another publication, but I thought it a minor issue.
Each author provided me with food for thought and I found their mutual respect and shared intellectual curiosity refreshing and inspiring....more
This is a difficult read, telling the story of the 1942 defeat of a combined U.S./Philippine force on Luzon by the Japanese, the ensuing Death March oThis is a difficult read, telling the story of the 1942 defeat of a combined U.S./Philippine force on Luzon by the Japanese, the ensuing Death March on the Bataan Peninsula, and horrific conditions at prison and forced labor camps in the Philippines and Japan, through the end of the war. The narrative focuses primarily on the experiences of Ben Steele, an Army Air Corps private from Billings, Montana, who survives beatings, bayoneting, and disease partly through taking up art, learning to draw by documenting scenes from the march and in the camps. The authors describe the events from the point of view of Japanese troops, as well, and a second focal point is Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, commander of the Japanese invasion forces, who was executed for war crimes in 1946.
After the war, Steele studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and earned an M.A. at the University of Denver, before returning to Billings where he taught art at Eastern Montana College for 23 years. The publication of this book brought widespread recognition to Steele's life and, before his 2016 death at 98, he had enjoyed retrospective exhibitions of his art, an Honor Flight to Washington D.C., and the naming of a new Billings middle school in his honor, among other accolades....more
The hardest job is to stay focused on what is in front of you. Don’t worry about what you can’t fix, like your childhood, your mother hating your postThe hardest job is to stay focused on what is in front of you. Don’t worry about what you can’t fix, like your childhood, your mother hating your posture, or your father criticizing your every move. These memories can’t be changed; they can’t be mended. But they can be ignored so that you can get onto your work.
This is a short memoir recounting how woodworking and hiking in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest made a good life for the author. He shares life lessons he's drawn from his own journey to mastery of his craft and from the writings of a wide range of others, including Wendell Berry, Victor Frankl, Anne LaMott, Robert Pirsig, and Sonny Rollins. In addition to writing this and other books, Rogowski founded and has taught at the Northwest Woodworking Studio in Portland, Oregon, and throughout the U.S. and Europe....more
Feiler proclaims that the linear life is dead, attacking Gail Sheehy's 1976 best-seller Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life as inadequate to exFeiler proclaims that the linear life is dead, attacking Gail Sheehy's 1976 best-seller Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life as inadequate to explain the course of people's lives when it was published, much less today:
Instead of passing through a series of preordained life stages interrupted by periodic crises on birthdays that end in zero, we experience life as a complex swirl of celebrations, setbacks, triumphs, and rebirths across the full span of our years.
Having demolished the straw man of Sheehy's mid-life crisis theory, pretty much by fiat, Feiler establishes a new theory of transitions, nominally synthesized from 225 life story interviews of a non-random group of people he knew or were recommended to him, and presented with the graphics and language of social science research, but not the rigor. To me, there is considerable effort wasted in promoting the idea that the book is, as stated on the cover of my paperback edition, "a pioneering and timely study".
All that aside, this is probably a helpful read for most adults, who are either coping with curveballs life has thrown at them or who will be. Feiler identifies more than 50 kinds of disruptions that the typical adult might face in life and suggests most of us will experience three to five of exponential magnitude, which he calls lifequakes. Drawn from his interviews, he offers a series of tools people have used in transitioning across these events.
Another aspect of the book I found helpful is its overarching theme of storytelling as essential to the well-lived and understood life. Storytelling was part of his initial life story project methodology (he includes the interview questions) and it's the concluding tool he describes....more
My biggest takeaway from this book was a better understanding of the geography of the Pentateuch, which was also Feiler's goal when he undertook the tMy biggest takeaway from this book was a better understanding of the geography of the Pentateuch, which was also Feiler's goal when he undertook the travel that is his subject. Although he touches on his own thoughts as a secular Jew visiting many of the most important sites described in the Bible, this is not really an account of personal spiritual growth. Nor is it a systematic exploration of biblical archeology. I enjoyed it as an interesting travel book, but would have appreciated it if the Kindle book included the map that's in the print edition....more
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