Truth & Beauty

 

Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett

Nonfiction - Memoir

2004

Finished on November 4, 2025

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In Grealy’s critically acclaimed memoir Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth and Beauty, the story isn’t Lucy’s life or Ann’s life but the parts of their lives they shared. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long winters of the Midwest to surgical wards to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined--and what happens when one is left behind.

I wanted to love this book, but I got weary of Lucy's constant neediness and craving for reassurance, begging to be loved by Ann, whining about never finding a man who would love her, lying to Ann and other friends about her drug use. Truth & Beauty started off great, and I love Patchett's prose, but the story of her friendship with Grealy was bleak and drawn out far too long.

But in the evenings when we sat in front of the fireplace talking, it always came back to the same things: she was lonely, she was depressed, she wanted a boyfriend, she couldn't understand why no one loved her. She told me that she often had a couple of drinks and a couple of Percocets before getting in her car after midnight in Vermont and driving a hundred miles an hour over the icy back roads to New York. She said that she wanted to tempt fate.

I love this metaphor:

Oh, people like to say when they hear this part of the story, this is why you and Lucy are so close. You went through the same thing. [Referring to Ann's plastic surgery after an accident.] But nothing could be farther from the truth. I read one slim volume of the available information. Lucy read the library.

In reference to writing:

We shared our ideas like sweaters, with easy exchange and lack of ownership.

Truth & Beauty is an honest and brutal (if not exhausting) account of deep friendship. There is a lot to think about when reading this memoir. What constitutes a healthy friendship? Who has a right to share such intimate details of an individual while their family members are grieving? (See Lucy's sister's article here.) Despite my frustration with Lucy, I still intend to read her memoir, Autobiography of a Face. 

We All Want Impossible Things

 

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

Fiction

2022 Harper

Finished on April 1, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

Publisher's Blurb:

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty-two years. They've shared the mundane and the momentous together: trick-or-treating and binge-drinking; Gilligan's Island reruns and R.E.M. concerts; hickeys and heartbreak; surprise Scottish wakes; marriages, infertility, and children. As Ash says, "Edi's memory is like the backup hard drive for mine."

But now the unthinkable has happened. Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish)-husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or two), and a rotating cast of beautifully, fleeting human hospice characters.

As the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack blasts all day long from the room next door, Edi and Ash reminisce, hold on, and try to let go. Meanwhile, Ash struggles with being an imperfect friend, wife, and parent--with life, in other words, distilled to its painful, joyful, and comedic essence.

For anyone who's ever lost a friend or had one, get ready to laugh through your tears. 

I adored this book! I first noticed it on Instagram (thank you, Bookstagrammers!) and added it to my list, but wasn't planning to get it right away because hyped books tend to fail me. And yet, when I saw it on the library's new release shelf, I couldn't resist. I'm very happy to report that it's worthy of all the praise.

Death, particularly death from cancer, isn't exactly a cheerful topic, but Catherine Newman's humor provides levity to an obviously heartbreaking story. 

"Hey," I say. "I'm an optimist."

"Ash," she says. "You drive with your hazards on for no reason. You are not an optimist."

I initially thought this would be a story about two friends--one who is dying and one who will soon be grieving--but it's so much more than that. It's about friends and family and the kindness of strangers. It's also about the loving care of hospice workers. I recently read Ann Patchett's essay about the loss of her friend, Sooki, and now reading this novel, I am once again touched by the tenderness and beauty of watching over a loved one during their final moments. The circle of life...

Even more than Ash and Edi's friendship, I enjoyed the interactions and gentle love between Ash and her daughters, Belle and Jules. Belle's lines are the highlight of the novel and I have my fingers crossed that Newman writes another novel filled with characters like Belle.

While I've given the book a five-star rating, I do have a couple of quibbles. The usage of "anyways" (which grates on my nerves) is repeatedly spoken by one character and thus, not an editorial mistake, but a deliberate use of slang. I eventually got used to it, but it was a distraction. The second frustration was the confusion about the relationship between characters; there were too many names beginning with the same letter (Jules, Jude, Jonathan). Which was the spouse? Which daughter? A sibling? A simple change of names would have made for a smoother read.

We All Want Impossible Things is a short novel, clocking in at 209 pages, which makes it very tempting to re-read right away. Catherine Newman has written a middle-grade novel and a couple of children's life-skill books. She has also written two memoirs about parenthood, which I am long past needing, but I enjoy her writing so well, I'm tempted to read them just for the laughs. In her author blurb on the back cover of We All Want Impossible Things, she states,

This is her first adult novel. Not, like, adult adult in the porn way. Just, you know, for grown-ups.

I'm not the only reader who appreciates her sense of humor:

"A novel set in a hospice has no right to be as hilarious, charming, and hopeful as We All Want Impossible Things. With Nora Ephron-style lightness, Catherine Newman has constructed a truly singular tale of love and friendship. I loved it." (Joanna Rakoff, bestselling author of My Salinger Year)

"Catherine Newman sees the heartbreak and comedy of life with wisdom and unflinching compassion. The way she finds the extraordinary in the everyday is nothing short of poetry. She's a writer's writer--and a human's human." (Katherine Center, author of Things You Save in a Fire) 

This is a lovely, heartwarming book. I didn't want it to end, but I couldn't put it down. While I wait for more adult fiction from Catherine Newman, I plan to immerse myself in her numerous online articles (here and here).

Note to audiobook readers: I listened to a sample of the audiobook and didn't care for the reader. This is one to read in the print format.

Love & Saffron

 

Love & Saffron : A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay

Fiction

2022 G. P. Putnam's Sons

Finished on January 23, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

Publisher's Blurb:

The #1 Indie Next Pick, in the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road and Meet Me at the Museum, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter--as well as a gift of saffron--to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she's never tasted fresh garlic--exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.

Food and a good life--they can't be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen's decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen's friendship--a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.

A brief respite from our chaotic world, Love & Saffron is a gem of a novel, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache, and that human connection will always be worth creating.

Wow. Three 5-star reads in the first month of the year! I'm on a roll, thanks to all the great recommendations from fellow book lovers. There are so many wonderful things about living on the Oregon coast, but we are in dire need of a good bookstore, so unless we're on a road trip in the RV, I never get the opportunity to wander around and admire the new releases, or pick up a book based solely on its attractive cover art. I've grown to depend on bloggers, Instagrammers, Goodread's friends, and Ann Patchett's laydown diaries (on Parnassus Books' Instagram feed). I'm pretty sure that I heard about Love & Saffron from more than one of these platforms. 

Easily read in a single sitting, I forced myself to slowly savor the book, reading it over the course of two evenings. Going into the story cold, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's comprised entirely of letters between the two main characters. (No, I didn't even read the book blurb, which would have revealed this fact.) I'm a huge fan of epistolary novels, and as I read, I envisioned scenes from 84, Charing Cross Road (starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins). Like those two characters from Helene Hanff's marvelous book, Joan and Imogen not only exchange letters, but gifts of unique food items and recipes. Spanning the years between 1962 and 1966, the historical details are an added bonus (although I momentarily felt that Fay was working from a mental checklist--almost to the point of distraction--including the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy's assassination, the Beatles, a new TV show called The French Chef, starring Julia Child, etc.), as are the women's comments about their current reading material. In addition to 84, Charing Cross Road, Love & Saffron brings to mind the correspondences and friendship between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. (Coincidentally, Imogen's husband discovers the joy of cooking and purchased a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.)

There is so much to enjoy about this book (which I had to remind myself is fiction and not a culinary memoir). My love of the Pacific Northwest, and familiarity with Seattle and the surrounding area, is just one aspect of the story I relished. The sweet friendship between the two women reminded me of the importance of the special friends in my own life, and how one comes to cherish those kindred spirits.

Love & Saffron will enchant fans of Laurie Colwin, Ann Hood, Helene Hanff, and Erica Bauermeister. Highly recommend!

Rules of Civility

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Fiction
2012 Penguin Books (first published in 2011)
Finished on July 3, 2018
Rating:  4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel her on a yearlong journey toward the upper echelons of New York society--where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

Bravo! I have a new favorite author. A Gentleman in Moscow (which I wrote about here) was my #1 read in 2017, and as soon as I finished reading it for the second time (in preparation of my book club's discussion), I knew I had to read Towles' earlier novel, Rules of Civility. I loved both stories! Towles' prose is smart and luxurious and I found myself reading slowly, savoring each sentence. I enjoyed the wit and charm of A Gentleman in Moscow and I am in awe of this author's debut novel. What talent!

A favorite passage:

Powdered with snow, Washington Square looked as lovely as it could. The snow had dusted every tree and gate. The once tony brownstones that on summer days now lowered their gaze in misery were lost for the moment in sentimental memories. At No. 25, a curtain on the second floor was drawn back and the ghost of Edith Wharton looked out with shy envy. Sweet, insightful, unsexed, she watched the three of us pass wondering when the love that she had so artfully imagined would work up the courage to rap on her door. When would it present itself at an inconvenient hour, insist upon being admitted, brush past the butler and rush up the Puritan staircase urgently calling her name?

I am eager to read another book by Amor Towles and am happy to know that he's busy working on his third novel, which sound wonderful!

I am still in the process of outlining my next book, but I suspect it will follow three eighteen-year-old boys on their way from the Midwest to New York City in the early 1950s… (Amor Towles)

Rules of Civility in a very easy way captures the casual motions of your early twenties that become both foundations and causalities--the small actions or inactions that become decisions before you realized you were deciding anything at all.... This book is filled with little moments that seem very right.... It's all the more surprising that this fictional young woman is so well caught by this man so new to the game, Amor Towles. ~The Atlantic

The Bridge Ladies

The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner
Memoir
2016 HarperAudio
Read by Orlagh Cassidy
Finished on October 4, 2016
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A fifty-year-old Bridge club provides an unexpected connection across a generational divide between mother and daughter. Betsy Lerner tells a funny, intimate, and deeply affecting story where we learn a little about Bridge and a lot about life.

After a lifetime of defining herself against her mother's Don't Ask, Don't Tell generation, Lerner, an enthusiastic member of the Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll generation, found herself back home in her suburban Connecticut town. It represented everything she had wanted to flee: namely the traditional life her mother stood for. Yet when Roz needed help after surgery, Betsy stepped in. She expected a week of tense civility; what she got were the Bridge Ladies. Impressed by their faithful visits and home-cooked meals, she saw something her own generation lacked: Facebook was great, but it wouldn't deliver a pot roast.

Tentatively at first, Betsy became a regular fixture at her mother's Monday Bridge club. Before long, she braved the intimidating world of Bridge--a game, she writes, "that well acquaints you with your deficits"--and fell under its spell. Unexpectedly, the Bridge Ladies became a Greek chorus, a catalyst for change between Betsy and Roz as they reconciled years of painful misunderstandings and harrowing silences. The Bridge table became the common ground they never had.

Darkly funny and deeply moving, The Bridge Ladies weaves the histories of the ladies with those of Betsy and her mother across a lifetime of missed opportunities. The result is an unforgettable story of a hard-won--but never-too-late--bond between mother and daughter.

I almost gave up on this audio, growing more and more tired of the author's complaints about her relationship with her mother. But about halfway into the book, I started to care about the Bridge Ladies and their relationships with each other and their families. While at times a bit depressing, or maybe it's just that I couldn't relate to Betsy and her mother, it wound up being rather touching and thought-provoking as the conclusion drew near. Bridge, though? No thank you! Mahjong is much easier!!

Let's Take the Long Way Home

Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell
Memoir
2010 Random House
Finished on 3/15/13
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)




Publisher’s Blurb:

It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.

So begins this gorgeous memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell, a testament to the power of friendship, a story of how an extraordinary bond between two women can illuminate the loneliest, funniest, hardest moments in life, including the final and ultimate challenge.

They met over their dogs. Both writers, Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp (the author of Drinking: A Love Story) became best friends, talking about everything from their shared history of a struggle with alcohol, to their relationships with men and colleagues, to their love of books. They walked the woods of New England and rowed on the Charles River, and the miles they logged on land and water became a measure of the interior ground they covered. From disparate backgrounds but with striking emotional similarities, these two private, fiercely self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen.

Rich with the joys of raising dogs and the rivalries of competitive sports, their friendship helped them define the ordinary moments of life as the ones worth cherishing. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion and grief in this moving memoir about treasuring and losing a best friend, and about coming of age, in the middle of life. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of life and of the transformations that come from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.


I love a good memoir—especially one to which I can relate—whether it be about marriage, raising children, cooking or, in this case, women’s friendships, dogs, and grief. After reading Wendy’s glowing review for Let’s Take the Long Way Home, my interest was piqued and I was happy when I stumbled upon a copy in a used bookstore. Taking a break from my self-imposed March Mystery Madness challenge, I went to my shelves in search of something that might be quick to fall into. Caldwell’s memoir fit the bill, as it was both quick to start and held my interest from cover to cover.

I should forewarn you, dear reader, that this post is quite heavy on quotes. Feel free to scroll to the bottom for my final thoughts, if you prefer not to read the passages I was compelled to record.

This passage brings to mind my dear friend, Bellezza. While we’ve never met in person, we share a passion for biking, as well as for being out on the water in kayaks or canoes. If we lived near one another, I know we’d spend a lot of time together on the trails and lakes.

One of the things we loved about rowing was its near mystical beauty—the strokes cresting across the water, the shimmering quiet of the row itself. Days after her death, I dreamed that the two of us were standing together in a dark boathouse, its only light source a line of incandescent blue sculls that hung above us like a wash of constellations. In the dream I knew she was dead, and I reached out for her and said, “But you’re coming back, right?” She smiled but shook her head; her face was a well of sadness.

On being fortysomething, a lover of both books and dogs.

I had just navigated my own crossroads. I was in my early forties, at an age when the view from the hill can be clear and poignant both. The imagined vistas have become realized paths, and I think you may live in the present during those years more than any time since childhood. I’d spent my thirties in a big-city newsroom where adrenaline and testosterone were as pervasive as deadlines, and I’d recently given up a stint as book review editor to go back to my ordinary job as book critic for The Boston Globe. This transition, as well as the recent shifts in technology, allowed me to work from home and hang around with the dog, who quickly learned that reading was my equivalent of chewing on a bone. I had long thought that the gods had handed me work tailor-made for my idiosyncrasies: I was too opinionated to be a straight news reporter, too gadabout to be an academic. I was dreamy, stubborn, and selectively fanatical; my idea of a productive day, as both a child and an adult, was reading for hours and staring out the window. It was my good fortune that I had found an occupation requiring just these talents; now, with Clementine, I could spend whole days in near silence, reading or writing or speaking in the simpler, heart-sure vernacular of human-to-dog.

On grief:

The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course. Until Caroline died I had belonged to that other world, the place of innocence and linear expectations, where I thought grief was a simple, wrenching realm of sadness and longing that gradually receded. What that definition left out was the body blow that loss inflicts, as well as the temporary madness, and a range of less straightforward emotions shocking in their intensity. I would move as though I were underwater for weeks, maybe months, but those first few days between the death and the memorial service were a dazed cascade of tears and surprises. A part of me went through the appropriate motions with frightening alacrity: finding the poem to read at the chapel on Friday morning, practicing it aloud. But another part of me had the simple conviction that I wouldn’t be able to get from point A to point B—that giving her over, in spirit and in public, was as perplexing and unfathomable as string theory. My old friend Pete, out of town when she died, called from Ohio to see how I was. I told him what I had been afraid to say. “I don’t think I can do it,” I said about getting through the service the next day. “I don’t know how to do it.”

He was quiet for a minute, and then he said something of such consolation that I will hear him saying it forever. “You know, Gail,” he said, “we’ve been doing this as a species for a long time. And it’s almost as if—it’s like the body just knows what to do.”

and

The ravages of early grief are such a shock: wild, erratic, disconsolate. If only I could get to sorrow, I thought, I could do sorrow. I wasn’t ready for the sheer physicality of it, the lead-lined overcoat of dull pain it would take months to shake. Whatever I thought I knew about loss—what I had anticipated about the After Caroline state, when the fear would be over, the worrying ceased—I had no inkling that it would mean deliverance into a new, immutable world. I lived in the reality of Caroline’s absence all the time, it seems, and yet sometimes the fact of it would nearly knock the wind out of me. One night a couple of weeks after the service I tried to make dinner for two friends, and I managed to get about half a meal together before I realized I didn’t know what I was doing. They sat there kindly before their Spartan plates of chicken and rice—I had forgotten to make anything else—and I excused myself and went into the kitchen and held on to the counter. She’s dead, I thought. The word itself was brutal. I had always disliked the euphemisms the culture embraced for dying: “gone,” “passed on,” “passed away.” They seemed avoidant and sentimental, a way to bleach the concept of death of its declarative force. Now I knew why we’d diluted the vocabulary. She’s dead.

and

Hope in the beginning feels like such a violation of the loss, and yet without it we couldn’t survive. I had a friend who years before had lost her firstborn when he was an infant, and she told me one of the piercing consolations she received in her early grief was from a man who recognized the fierce loyalty one feels to the dead. “The real hell of this,” he told her, “is that you’re going to get through it.” Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.

On old dogs:

Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

Final Thoughts: I never felt quite as invested in Gail’s story about her friendship with Caroline as I had hoped, but I found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read the passages about her grief. I must admit I remained dry-eyed as I read the details about Knapp’s final days, but almost sobbed as I read about an attack on Caldwell and her dog. A beautiful and evocative memoir by a talented journalist who reminded me of the importance of friendship, both past and present. I’m anxious to give A Strong West Wind a read.

“Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a book which will stick with me. For those readers who are not afraid to open their hearts and immerse themselves in another person’s pain, but also their joy, this book is a must read.” (Wendy, from Caribousmom) Go here to read Wendy’s review in its entirety.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I awoke

this morning

with devout

thanksgiving for

my friends, the

old and the new.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am so thankful for all of you. Whether you're a longtime visitor (coming up on seven years!) or new to this little blog of mine, I am very grateful for your friendship, love and support. I wish you a lovely day with your family and friends.

Come, ye thankful people, come,

Raise the song of harvest-home;

All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin.

Henry Alford

"Come, Ye Thankful People, Come," 1844

6 Years!

Good friends
and
good books --
things
we want to
hang on to
forever.

Last Wednesday marked the 6th anniversary of Lesley’s Book Nook (now known as Prairie Horizons).

Really? Six years?!

When I first started blogging about books, I never imagined I'd stick with it for all these years. I have two other blogs that I no longer post to and my poor, pathetic cooking blog that is rarely ever added to. (And which is in desperate need of a makeover with all new photos!) Over the years I grew weary of the pressure to write reviews and got bored with my template, often considering ditching the whole thing for more time to read, but I could never bring myself to say goodbye to all the great friends I’ve made over the years. Andi, Heather, Nat and Nancy, you guys are probably the bloggers I’ve known the longest. We met on a couple of Yahoo sites prior to blogging and I think it was Andi who convinced me to give it a try. Since then, I’ve seen other online friends join in on the book chatter (Nan & Kay) and while some have left for good (if you’re reading this, please know that I miss your posts*), others have quit and returned (much to the joy of this reader). Many of you are like sisters to me (Bellezza, Wendy, Joy and SuziQ) and I hope we get a chance to meet some day. Some of you share my enthusiasm for travel (Stephanie & Iliana), cooking & photography (Pam), and many others are simply faithful readers, virtual friends with whom it's a pleasure to stay in touch, discussing whatever arises (Staci, JoAnn, Kelly and Kathy). And then there are bloggers whom I’ve recently met (Linda & Trish) who feel like kindred spirits. You all enrich my life every single day. What a great community of which to be a part! Why in the world would I want to leave? Especially now that I’ve found my blogging mojo with this new template and discovered how easy it is to change up my header and sidebar. Life in the blogosphere is very good.

Getting nostalgic as I started to compose this post, I glanced back on my previous blogiversary posts (somehow, I missed the 5th!) and thought it might be fun to repost a little bit from each.


Year One:

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown since I first posted my review for Barbara Kingsolver's Small Wonder.

It's been quite a year of emotional healing. I owe a lot to all my new friends who share my joy of reading (and kitties, inclement weather, cooking, gardening and random musings). I love reading all your comments and visiting your blogs.

I'm thankful for the warmth of friendship I've discovered within the blogging community and treasure each and every one of you. I look forward to many more years of writing and fellowship.


Year Two:

It’s important to have a sense of place. To feel that you belong somewhere, to feel committed. For some people, place begins with another person and everything – from friends to the Japanese maple in the yard – grows from that. But sometimes, it works the other way. You find a place where you belong. And the people find you. Gathering mussels, picking beans, eating blackberry pie. (author unknown)

During the past two years, I have found a place where I belong. I love sharing my thoughts about the books I've read, the places I've visited, the beauty in nature, and the new music I've discovered. And, I've discovered so many new authors and books thanks to all of you fabulous bloggers. My life is richer since I began blogging and I've met so many intelligent, funny, and kind new friends. I simply can't imagine ever giving this up! So here's to many, many more years of friendship and books.


Year Three:

Blogging has been such a rewarding experience and, although there have been times when I've felt too busy to post, I can't imagine my life without my blog and blogmates. Thank you all for helping to enrich my life. I've enjoyed each and every enthusiastic comment, felt each tender virtual hug in times of need, and am grateful for every one of you.


Year Four:

I've been busy catching up on my book reviews and just realized that my blogiversary came and went (yesterday). Have I really been blogging for four years?? I had to double-check to be sure. The time has certainly flown by! I want to thank each and every one of you who take the time to stop by and read my reviews, leave comments, and hang in there when I get quiet.


Keeping with the tradition of blogiversary give-aways and as a thank you for your loyal readership and comments, I would like to offer a gift of appreciation. Leave a comment between now and February 29th, indicating you’d like to be included (you must include your email address), and I’ll draw a winning name to receive a box of a dozen gently used books (including one audiobook) from my shelves. Due to the size and weight of the box, I will have to restrict this give-away to the U.S.

Human beings are meant to connect.
Laughter and good wishes
are an appropriate response to new adventures,
and gratitude for what has been
often walks hand in hand
with joy in new possibilities.
Whether it’s a traditional house-warming
or a modern blog-warming,
the point is the same:
life is better in community.
~ Linda, at The Task at Hand

* the other Lesley, Marcia, Robin

Joy for Beginners

Joy For Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
Fiction
2011 G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Finished on 2/27/11
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)
FTC Disclosure: Received ARC via publicity agent
Available on June 9, 2011



Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
~ Christopher Robin to Pooh”

Publisher’s Blurb:

At an intimate, festive dinner party in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate’s recovery from cancer. Wineglass in hand, Kate strikes a bargain with them: to celebrate her new lease on life, she’ll do the one thing that’s always terrified her: white-water rafting. But if she goes, all of them will also do something they always swore they’d never do—and Kate is going to choose their adventures.

Shimmering with warmth, wit, and insight, Joy for Beginners is a celebration of life; unexpected, lyrical, and deeply satisfying.

The other night, as we were driving home from a lovely evening spent with new friends, my husband and I began chatting about our community and our circle of friends. We’ve lived in Lincoln since 1992 (with a brief stint in Texas in the late ‘90s) and have lived on an acreage just outside of the city limits, as well as in town in a lovely old neighborhood where front porches, hundred-year-old trees and a corner market (where one can still sign for groceries and receive a monthly bill!) are commonplace. We have friends that we met that very first year, thanks to our daughter’s outgoing nature on and off the soccer field, folks we’ve met through both of our jobs, and friends we were introduced to by mutual friends. When we moved back to Lincoln in 2000, we were amazed to meet well over a dozen people in our beautiful new neighborhood even as the movers unloaded our possessions into our new home. Some of those neighbors have since moved away, but all the new folks have been just as friendly and neighborly as their predecessors.

And so our circle of friends continues to widen. We gather for coffee and scones at a neighborhood café on Saturday mornings. We host progressive dinner parties and cookouts or meet up at our favorite restaurants. We discuss books, play board games, float in pools, play tennis, ride bikes, or shoot guns (!) with these friends. We support their children’s fundraising ventures, rub their dogs’ bellies, watch out for their homes when they go out of town, and admire their gardens.

We rejoice over births, graduations, marriages, job promotions, and new puppies.

And, we comfort each other through divorces, illnesses and deaths.

We are very blessed to know the friends we’ve met (both in person and via the Internet) over the years. They have brought us joy, filled us with laughter, held us when we needed to cry, and taught us how to be better friends ourselves.

Joy For Beginners is a book about the loyalty and love of friends, about taking risks and believing in oneself, and about being present in one’s life.

Stephanie Kallos (Sing Them Home) writes, “This book is a joy to read. Bauermeister gives us characters who revel in the best of what life has to offer—loving relationships, fine food, good books, and travel—and she writes with keen observance and a wry wit.”

My copy of Joy for Beginners is littered with dozens of Post-It flags, but I’ve decided to let you discover those passages on your own. Well, maybe I'll share just one...

It was almost midnight. The tables were cluttered with napkins and used silverware, tablecloths rumpled like bed-sheets. The diners reclined in their chairs, hands drifting leisurely back and forth between espresso cups and the last sips of port. Tips of fingers caressed the surface of white plates, snaring the last flakes of chocolate left from cinnamon-dusted truffles. Smells lingered in the air, sliding across bare shoulders, nestling into the curls of hair—risotto and chanterelle mushrooms, sweet and rich and buttery, the bite of Parmesan, the rosemary and white wine and garlic of a slow-cooked pork roast. And bread, of course, the long loaves having been passed hand to hand, chunks pulled off, dipped in small white dishes of green olive oil with dark, molten drops of balsamic vinegar floating in its midst. Wine bottles had long ago lost their ownership, traveling up and down the tables like porters on a train. Artists had met book dealers had met plumbers had met research scientists, people getting up between courses and changing places. Over in the corner, a couple was forming, their heads bending slowly toward each other like candles melting.

I read this novel almost three months ago and I have been so eager to share it with all of you. I was tempted to read it in one sitting, but enjoyed it so much, and not wanting to see it end, set it aside for an entire week before returning to read the final chapter. I loved Erica’s first novel, The School of Essential Ingredients, and Joy for Beginners is just as beautifully written, peopled with characters you’ll wish you had in your own circle of friends.

Final thoughts: I can think of a few challenges for some of my friends, but I wonder what challenge my friends would give me? Tattoo? Sky-diving?

Friendship

I awoke
this morning
with devout
thanksgiving for
my friends, the
old and the new.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson