Britt-Marie Was Here

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

Read April 2024 - Zoom Reading Circle

Britt-Marie Was Here

I absolutely LOVED Fredrik Backman’s book The Man Called Ove and so was excited to read this one.  It was also good (although I have to say Ove is still my favorite of his!).  This time the main character is a woman ‘of a certain age’.  She truly believes there is a ‘right way’ and a ‘wrong way’ to do most anything.  Not that she would ever be one to judge, mind you.   ;) 

When her husband’s affair becomes impossible to ignore, she determines to leave and find a new life, even if it is in the midst of a run-down community with an odd assortment of ne’er do wells (in her estimation).  However, as she settles in to the tasks at hand, she discovers that she has more love to give than perhaps she realized, and that these crazy folks around her bring her great joy and satisfaction - and they ‘need’ her just as much as she ‘needs’ them.

You do find yourself rooting for Britt-Marie.  The neat thing is you find yourself rooting for most of the other characters, too.  They truly do form a beloved little community and you can’t help but cheer them all on.

I rated this book a 4.  Zoom Reading Circle rated it 4.5 stars. 


Quotes from Britt-Marie Was Here...

“One morning you wake up with more life behind you than in front of you, not being able to understand how it’s happened.”

“At a certain age almost all the questions a person asks him or herself are really just about one thing: how should you live your life?”

“If you can be heard then you exist.”

“A few years turned into more years, and more years turned into all years. Years have a habit of behaving like that.”

“You have to understand that when one is just standing there looking, then just for a second one is ready to jump. If one does it, one dares to do it. But if one waits, it’ll never happen.”

“The winter requires whoever is doing the watering to have a bit of faith, in order to believe that what looks empty has every potential.”

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

Read April 2024 - Zoom Reading Circle

The Science of the Good Samaritan: Thinking Bigger About Loving Our Neighbors

The Science of the Good Samaritan: Thinking Bigger About Loving Our Neighbors - Dr. Emily Smith
Read March 2024 - Books With Friends

The Science of the Good Samaritan

This was a fantastic book - and it made for such good discussion as a group.  We all appreciated the author's conversational style and felt we were at our kitchen table with her in our group.  She is smart, curious, informed, funny, and has a world view that very much matches ours... a desire to truly be the hands and feet of God.  In many ways, we find ourselves not in alignment with some of the ‘modern’ christian movements.  We absolutely believe in science AND in God and do not feel there is anything incompatible about that.  In fact, they go together perfectly.  We so appreciated her detailed and nuanced observations about what it truly means to be a neighbor to others... and how Jesus truly did show us the way. The horrible pandemic highlighted how many ways ‘well meaning christians’ can get it all wrong.  :(  And the horrific damage that can be (and was) done.  

Dr. Emily Smith talks movingly about community.  That is something that has always been at my core - so close to my heart.  Post 2020 I have had to take another look at that concept and have had to make some (sometimes painful) changes in order to ensure that the communities I build and am a part of are welcoming and safe for all and not just some.  I identified with her so deeply on so many topics and felt ripples of some of that old pain rise up as I was reading her experiences.  But reading this book, with people in one of my ‘communities’ that came together even stronger in hardship (rather than busting apart) was a powerful reminder that it all worked out for the best.  And that we are more able to be who we are meant to be, for ourselves and for the world.  This book helps give me courage to center myself more fully on neighboring... with compassion and openness - and with the love of Jesus flowing through me. 

I am now a paid subscriber to her Substack (and highly recommend doing that).  

https://emilysmith.substack.com 

On the free portion of her Substack she offers a bonus chapter to the book... linked here.  

https://emilysmith.substack.com/p/a-thank-you-bonus-chapter-of-my-book 

We all appreciated reacquainting ourselves with this beautiful Norman Rockwell image that she references.  

Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World

Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World by Eileen McNamara

Read March 2024 - Zoom Reading Circle

Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World

I wanted to like this book more than I did.  It very likely struggled under the weight of having read it AFTER I read the Eleanor Roosevelt book.  I just didn’t like Eunice Kennedy as much. :( And it really isn’t even her fault... how could you grow up in that environment, in that family dynamic, and not have massive issues?  I totally agree that she accomplished many wonderful and remarkable things.  And that truly, SHE could have (and perhaps should have) been President along with/instead of John F. Kennedy.  Her development of the Special Olympics is a legacy that is remarkable and shows her true heart for others far outside her own ‘circle’.  I also felt that she was spoiled, elitist, not very caring toward her own family, and definitely ‘in a bubble’ in many ways.  The aside about how she never carried cash because she just didn’t think she needed to concern herself with money - which left her aids having to pay her tab at lunch and etc - is a perfect example.  How absurd and arrogant.  The comparison to her worries during the war (how will we get the expensive foods we want and go on vacation in the summer) and her strange lack of compassion, even as she did work diligently on behalf of people, gnawed at me.  There was a quote where she sniped about a letter from a family member of a person held at Auschwitz where she sounded condescending and uncaring.  Yet I know she did do good work.  I should probably revisit this book later - when it isn’t in direct comparison with the Eleanor book.  Both women were truly remarkable and it isn’t really fair to pit them against each other, even if just in my mind.

I rated this book a 3.5 and the book club group rating was 3.6.


Here are some links that go along with this book...

Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World - video with the author found on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum website.

https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/forums/04-03-eunice 

Eunice Kennedy Shriver discusses her life and legacy - video from 2007

Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s Message of Hope - Special Olympics - 1987

Eunice Kennedy Shriver: One Woman’s Vision - video (just 5 minutes long)

The First Lady of World War II

The First Lady of World War II - Eleanor Roosevelt’s Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back - Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Read March 2024 - Zoom Reading Circle

The First Lady of World War II

This was an outstanding book.  I listened to the audio version and that seems to be a good thing for me with non-fiction.  I hate that I am that way, but hey, know yourself and then listen to great books that you might not otherwise read, right?  :)  

I knew that I liked Eleanor Roosevelt just from the snippets of information I have gotten about her life throughout my life - and things I have learned about her along the way in books. But this was the first time I delved into HER, the woman, Eleanor Roosevelt.  I am now completely a fan of this remarkable woman and must learn more about her!  This book also taught me more about an aspect of World War 2 that I admit I just didn’t know as much about.  I feel like most of my ‘schooling’ and even the books that I read are about the war in the European theater.  I haven’t been all that aware of details from the South Pacific part of the conflict.  

In 1943 Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, undertook a secret mission to travel to the Pacific theater to encourage and support US troops and to report back on how they were doing and what they needed in support.  At 59 years old she traveled without an entourage, without even her longtime assistant, in a military transport plane into truly dangerous territory - the front lines.  She wore her Red Cross uniform the entire time, even when attending ‘important’ dinners or functions.  She also chose to spend her time with the troops, asking to eat with them instead of with the military brass, and so on.  She visited injured troops and even carried home messages to their loved ones.  She won over just about everyone she encountered, including Admiral Halsey who at first was completely against the trip.  In the end he became one of her biggest admirers.  Her work on behalf of US servicemen ultimately led to the G.I. Bill, among other things. 

There truly is much more to this book and certainly to Eleanor Roosevelt!  But this book is a great place to start in getting to know her a little better.  I rated this a 4.5 but it continues to grow on me and as I write this I feel I could go up to a 5.  The book club group rating was 4.1.  Several hadn’t yet finished it.  

Here are some links that go along with this book....

I had wished for a photo version of this book while listening… here is a YouTube video with the author and the director of the National Museum of the Pacific War and it provides just that… commentary with photos, maps, etc that takes you through the book.

One bonus about listening to the audio version is that when the book was over, they included a bonus track of an actual audio recording of a speech given by Eleanor Roosevelt to a woman’s group in New Zealand.  I wanted to find that audio so those (in my book club) who read the book could hear it, too.  There are 3 different speeches here but the last one, from August 29, 1943, is the one at the end of the Audible version of the book. It begins at about 29:10.

https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/search-use-collection/search/31399

From CBS Sunday Morning - Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady and Humanitarian 

One aspect I loved learning about in the book was that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote daily dispatches, including throughout her travels.  Here is a link where you can browse through her ‘My Day’ columns that were referenced throughout the book.

https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/my-day 

She also wrote a column in the Ladies Home Journal titled ‘If You Ask Me’. You can browse through them at this link.

https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/if-you-ask-me 

She's Up To No Good

She's Up To No Good by Sara Goodman Confino

Read March 2024

She's Up To No Good

I absolutely loved the first book I read by Sara Goodman Confino, Don’t Forget to Write.  What a fun book that was!  So I was excited to read another by her.  This one is all about a young woman named Jenna who finds out that her husband is leaving her for another woman, so moves home with her parents.  Her grandmother, Evelyn, asks Jenna to take her to the place where she grew up, Hereford, MA.  Jenna agrees in order to get out of her parents house and figures she can enjoy the summer in the small coastal town.  What she doesn’t expect is that she will learn more about her grandmother than she ever thought possible, and, of course, she will find a new lease on life.  

The book takes us back through Evelyn’s youth as a feisty young woman who was determined to do things her own way.  We learn about her first great love and what happened to split them apart.  And through all of Evelyn’s experiences, Jenna learns that she has way more strength (and feistiness) within herself than she had realized.  I LOVED Evelyn - both the Evelyn of the past stories AND the Evelyn of the present day.  What a gal!  

One thing I really like about this author is that she writes in a way that you feel like you get to know the characters really well.  And you also feel the setting of the stories - in this case small town MA, both then and now.  There are truly laugh out loud moments, but then there will be something that comes up and is so poignantly written that you feel tears well up.  I’m impressed by that ability in an author.  I rated this book a 4.5 but it could well be a 5.  

I will certainly read more from Sara Goodman Confino!  

Quotes from She’s Up to No Good...

“You can worry about the small stuff, or you can live your life.  Papa believed in living.”

“She wished that she had found the words to explain to Vivie that it was possible to love two different people in entirely different ways without one being more or less than the other.”

“You can’t let it break you.  Things don’t work out the way you want sometimes, but you have to keep going.”

“I don’t care where we live, and I don’t care what you do.  I care that you’re honest and good and kind, and you do the right thing even when you don’t have to.  I care that you see me.  The real me.”

“I should have thrown my drink in his face.  Let that be a lesson to you.  You get so few opportunities in life to throw a drink.  Take them.”

“Life is complicated and messy for everyone.  It took me a long time to learn that lesson.”

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Read February 2024 - Zoom Reading Circle

This book seems slow moving... until it doesn’t.  It feels meandering, until you realize you are being introduced to an entire community - becoming more than just voyeur somehow - but truly attuned to all the nuances of it.  The weaving together of each story, each history, each intersection of relationship - and how it all creates this community of Chicken Hill... is masterful.  Especially by the end when many of those disparate figure's actions unite to help one poor soul.  I definitely want to read more by James McBride.  This book has been called a ‘great American novel’ and I agree.

I give it 4.5 stars but that could well move to 5 stars as it sits with me (and I sit with it).  Zoom Reading Circle rated it 4 stars. 

Note I sent to a friend recommending the book - 

You might enjoy the book Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.  First I have read by him.  Heart breaking and hopeful… ultimately about the power of forming community.

Discussion questions we looked at as a group...

3. Moshe desegregated the local theater by booking Black entertainers for Black audiences, and McBride writes in detail about the famous acts that played there. How courageous do you think Moshe had to be to do this? Have you ever tried to change the traditions of a place or an organization? 

9. The escape the characters engineered to extract Dodo from Pennhurst was possible thanks to the relationships they had with others in their community. How important do you think community was in these characters’ lives?

Quote from NYT article - 

And through this evocation, McBride offers us a thorough reminder: Against seemingly impossible odds, even in the midst of humanity’s most wicked designs, love, community and action can save us.

I found this marvelous book guide including subjects to consider, a character list, and historical information. 

https://www.marmaladeandmustardseed.com/bookguidesblog/the-heaven-and-earth-grocery-store

I thought this was another good article - 

https://reformedjournal.com/the-heaven-and-earth-grocery-store-a-novel/

An NPR review of the book - 

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/14/1188327549/james-mcbride-heaven-earth-grocery-store-review

James McBride introducing the book on CBS Mornings

Black Cake

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Read February 2024 - Zoom Reading Circle

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

This was an excellent book!  It was in the running for our Zoom Reading Circle summer 2022 but didn’t quite make it to the top.  So I was thrilled when it was chosen for our ‘fill in’ month of Feb.  

The story follows a woman named Eleanor Bennett, who before she dies leaves an audio for her two children sharing about her childhood and into her young adult years.  She tells them secrets she has kept for her whole life and asks both their forgiveness and offers a request for moving forward.  All of this plays out against the ‘then and now’ story-telling of a young girl growing up in the Caribbean and the various hardships she faced (and what made her flee), to Byron and Benny’s stories in more modern times.  The author slowly unfolded a story that held me rapt throughout... rooting for the main characters and marveling at their resiliency.  This was a 5 star read for me, for sure.  Zoom Reading Circle rated this book 4.7 stars. 

This is now a mini-series on Hulu and I do plan to watch.  But wanted to read the book first.  Glad I did! 

Some of my favorite passages from the book...

And what about a person’s life?  How do you make a map of that?  The borders people draw between themselves. The scars left along the ground of one’s heart. 

Sometimes, the stories we don’t tell people about ourselves matter even more than the things we do say. 

...but she saw that who you knew yourself to be on the insdie was not the same as how others saw you.  Who you knew yourself to be wasn’t always enough to help you make it in this world. 

...nothing else she did would ever bas as important as this, this raising up of a decent young person and sending them into the world.  Because the world needed decent, even more than it needed brillian, which her son also happened to be. 

Terrain and climate aside, food was often about who had colonized whom, who had been based where during wartime, who had been forced to feed what to their children when there was nothing else left.  And, of course, it was about geography, too. 

The three of them sit there silently for a moment, thinking nof small but profound inheritances.  Of how untold stories shape people’s lives, both when they are withheld and when they are revealed. 

Note from author - ...black cake, that led obliquely to this book.  It started me thinking about the emotional weight carried by recipes and other familial markers that are handed down from one generation to the next. 

from book club questions - The thing about identity. There’s your family history, there’s how you see yourself, and then there’s what others see in you.”

Discussion Questions our group looked at - among the general discussion (this book spurred a lot of that!) 

Wilkerson writes, “Sometimes, the stories we don’t tell people about ourselves matter even more than the things we do say.” What does this mean in your life?

One of the characters in this book believes her father has stolen her destiny. Is such a thing possible?

At some point in this book, every character is an outsider. What makes each of them feel as if he or she belongs — or is at least standing on firm ground?

Following up on that very interesting thought about what we share and what we don’t... especially regarding our children... this article...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/books/group-text-black-cake-charmaine-wilkerson.html 

I am sometimes wary of movies or TV shows made from books... but this one looks pretty good.  Here are two trailers...

New York Times article about this book...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/books/group-text-black-cake-charmaine-wilkerson.html

The Art of Dying Well

The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life by Katy Butler

Read February 2024 - Well Read Book Club

The Art of Dying Well

I had read this book several years ago, before my own Mama died, and thought it was so important and worth the read.  Going through it again now was a completely new experience.  This book is like that.  It will truly meet you ‘where you are’.  And as we age, we are at a different point each time we read it.  It is not just about ‘dying’, but about how to live out our years with the highest quality of life possible.  It is about taking charge of our health, our finances, and our wishes for our future now, and not just later.  

This time around I read it just after a grueling hospitalization experience with my Daddy.  I felt both appalled and empowered by her words.  We had ended up fighting to leave the hospital because we felt Daddy was being ‘nursing-homed’ (not a word, I know, but an accurate description of what we believe was happening to him).  She talks about the difficulties navigating the healthcare system, especially for the elderly - and things to be watchful for and actions to take if possible.  I was affirmed that our decisions were the correct ones (of course we knew this based on his immediate improvement upon returning home) and yet appalled that this is a common scenario for so many.  :( 

I appreciate that it is informative, practical, and helps you not only think about things you could and should be doing, but provides some structure (and lists) for things to do.  It also invites you to think about topics and wishes well before it is a crisis... which is truly the best time to be thinking about such things.  This is a book that I will likely work my way through again in a few years.