What I've Been Reading

The short dark days and long dark nights of late December and January were good for reading.

Love Came Down: Anglican Readings for Advent and Christmas

Compiled by Christopher L. Webber

Readings for Advent and the Christmas season chosen by Christopher Webber. They are divided into topics such as Hope, Death, Judgement, Hell, then, what a relief, Heaven, Mary....Some of the readings in Death, Judgement, and Hell were a little too lovingly detailed for my taste - descriptions of what happens to the body after death, and of the torments of hell. Why are humans so quick to pass judgement on each other? Far too many people are already living in hell in their lives on earth. But descriptions of Heaven are often not much better, always seen in human terms. I was struck by how much descriptions of heaven are like that of an ancient king and his court, his warband (King Hrothgar's court in Beowulf, for example), with God's followers being rewarded with feasts and praise, and treasure. A far cry from the life of Jesus. There were some good readings in this book, but on the whole I didn't find it particularly helpful. 

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Caroline Fraser

This was a fascinating and intensive look at the life and times of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fraser covers the history and ecology of the places and times in which Ingalls lived, as well as the details of her life that were deliberately left out of the Little House books. Wilder did not write about some of the worst times, when the Ingalls family was actually homeless, their life in Burr Oak, Iowa, and Maple Grove, Minnesota, when she worked as a waitress and cook in hotels and restaurants, about the baby brother who died, and the actual illness that led to Mary's blindness. She had a vision she wanted to convey to her readers - of hope, family solidarity, cheerfulness, hard work and perseverence, of her parents' infallibility, that was not always present in her actual life.
The largest part of the book deals with with Wilder's adult life, her career as a writer, and her relationship with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Their mother-daughter relationship was certainly a complicated and difficult one, and Rose comes across as a prima donna, emotionally needy and unstable, an extravagant spender, of her own and other people's money, endlessly self-dramatising. I found it hard to sympathize with her, both because of the way she treated her mother, and other people, and because of her politics, which were far to the right of very conservative. I hadn't realized she was one of the founders of the Libertarian Party.
But she edited her mother's books in a way that enhanced them, and Laura trusted her judgement, even when she didn't agree with it. Fraser puts to rest the belief that Rose actually ghost-wrote the Little House books - there are enough manuscripts in Laura's writing to disprove this - but they did have an extraordinarily effective author-editor relationship. That is probably Rose's best legacy. Her own writing has apparently not stood the test of time.
I highly recommend this look into the life and times of a beloved American icon.

Diffusing my Young Living Lavender and Citrus Fresh essential oils in the living room has has been a great mood booster this winter.  And, yes, those are a couple of my To Be Read piles in the background.

A Year at Bottengoms Farm

by Ronald Blythe

Oh, what joy to discover that Ronald Blythe has written a lot more books than I realized! The mini-essays in this book are from Blythe's column "Word from Wormingford" in the "Church Times." I came away with an extensive To-Be-Read list, for which I am very grateful, the joy of meeting old friends and finding new ones, and a new understanding of Paul's Letter to Philemon. Paul is not sending Onesimus back to Philemon as his slave, but heaping coals of fire (as the saying goes) on Philemon's head. Onesimus is now my child, part of me, Paul says, treat him as you would me. In other words, if you don't free him you are no Christian. 

Divine Landscapes

by Ronald Blythe

Photographs by Edwin Smith

Ronald Blythe takes us on a tour of the landscapes that influenced some of Britain's most famous religious and most famous writers, from Saints Cedd and Aidan, Julian of Norwich, William Langland, the martyrs of the Tudor and Stewart reigns, and on through Thomas Hardy and Arnold Bennett. He visits the places where they lived and died and shows the influences of these locales on how they conducted their lives, and on what they thought and said and wrote. The book is full of the beautiful black and white photos of Edwin Smith, but it is Blythe's prose that brings these scenes and people to life. Beautifully and wonderfully written. 

Pippin likes to keep an eye on what's going on outside.

Felicity

by Mary Oliver

I like to read poetry before I fall asleep at night. Felicity contains deceptively simple poems that pack a big wallop. I finished this with great sadness, having just heard that Mary Oliver died.  The blurb on the back cover describes it as a collection of love poems.  If that's true, then they are love poems to the world and nature, as well as to a human lover.  

The Dream Thieves

by Maggie Stiefvater

This is the second of the four books in Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle, about four boys from a ritzy private school in Virginia, and Blue, the local girl who becomes their friend. They are looking for Owen Glendower, the Welsh prince who led the last rebellion against the English occupiers of Wales. Legend has it that he escaped to pre-Colonial Virginia with some of his men and was buried there, and that if you find him and awaken him he will grant you a wish. This book focuses around Ronan, the most troubled of the boys, who has a head and heart full of the dark and tragic events of his recent past. Ronan doesn't sleep much, and when he does his dreams are always nightmares, nightmares that sometimes come back to the waking world with him. And now there are dangerous men in Henrietta, Virginia, looking for Something that belonged to Ronan's mysterious father. The problem is, no one knows quite what that Something is, even the men looking for it, men who don't hesitate to use violence to get what they want. I liked the story and getting to know the characters better, though the events are often dark and violent. Fortunately it is mixed with humor and sunshine, so it is not completely dark, which is a Good Thing, because I'm going to have to read the remaining two books to find out what happens to these people I've gotten so fond of. And because my younger son will insist, since he loves the books and wants to talk about them with me. Who can resist that? 

The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life

by Amy Tan

This is a wonderful collection of essays, and other non-fiction writings, from novelist Amy Tan. She talks about her life, her mother and father, and her family history, and reveals how the things that happened to her and to her family have impacted her novels. She tells us about her writing process and how she came to write her first few novels. "The Joy Luck Club" started life as a collection of short stories, since Tan began her writing career as a short story writer. One essay talks about the process of making that book into a film. (I'm going to have to find and watch that now, though I think I'll re-read the book first. It's been a while.) She reminisces, wonders, questions, unafraid to talk about difficult things. Though she sometimes considers herself "cranky," her wry, sometimes deadpan, humor shines through. Her essay about touring with The Rock-Bottom Remainders, a literary rock band (some of the other members are Dave Barry, Stephen King, and Barbara Kingsolver) is hilarious.  This book was originally published in 2003, and has recently been re-released (Hooray!  I've been wanting to read it for years.), so it doesn't cover her more recent work or life.

Part of my indoor garden: (l-r) pelargonium, basil, rosemary, marjoram, and French lavender.

Today's Quote

"Memories are our treasures and torments, as Wilder once said, and somehow it is only in books that it can all be set right in the end."

Caroline Fraser, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder