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On My Bookshelf this month:
Wild | Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of her thousand mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. Some people read this book and think, ‘I’m on my way to REI to buy my hiking boots right now’, but this really just didn’t do it for me. | “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”
Euphoria | I have been known to chose a book based on it’s cover. And this one is especially nice, based on a close up photo of a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree. But this book is more than just a pretty cover. It was inspired by the 1933 expedition of American Anthropologist Margaret Meade, her second husband Reo Fortune, and her third husband Gregory Bateson on the Sepik River in New Guinea, and kept me captivated until the very end. | “You don’t realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don’t have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can’t understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren’t always the most reliable thing.”
The Painter | This books starts out with a bang, “I never imagined I would shoot a man. Or be a father. Or live so far from the sea.” From there, it is the story of an artist and fly fisherman from New Mexico, whose 14 year old daughter was murdered, and trying to escape the suffering of the losses he has endured. | “You rest now. Rest for longer than you are used to resting. Make a stillness around you, a field of peace. Your best work, the best time of your life will grow out of this peace.”
The War that Saved my Life | For a book written for middle schoolers, The War that Saved my Life has amazing characters, complex relationships, fascinating historical details, and a great story line. Don’t dismiss it thinking it is for kids. I especially love that it is a WWII book, but it’s not. | “It had been awful, but I hadn’t quit. I had persisted. In battle I had won.”
