Reading list
Yesterday, my sister Tracy asked to borrow some books. This request delighted me, I must say, as she was never really much of a reader as a child (she’s 19 now). I’ve always considered myself as the big reader in the family, so I gladly went to my cabinet of books and selected a few for her, which I thought would be a good mix of reads to pass her days:
Stardust
This re-introduced Neil Gaiman to me as a novelist; I had known him previously as the Sandman series creator. Though I, admittedly, was not heavily into fantasy-type novels, I find Stardust to have grown on me-an easy escape into a pleasant fairy tale. Amazon.com claims it to be in tradition of The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story, with its elements of magic, romance and fanciful characters.
Stories of Eva Luna
Isabel Allende’s heady and vivid images of magical realism captured my imagination when I encountered The House of the Spirits. I would have lent that book as it is one of my favorites, but I had lost it to someone I lent it to years ago. Still the same raw mysticism permeates in The Stories of Eva Luna, where 23 tales marked by earthy, memorable characters unravel. Allende shines as the “story hunter” that she is, and the vignettes allow for short glimpses, that may be witnessed one at a time.
The Diary of Bridget Jones
One of the precursor authors in the genre now known as chick lit, Helen Fielding provides us with Bridget Jones: a calorie-counting, alcohol-consuming, cigarette-puffing, relationship-challenged 30-something singleton, whom a lot of us sympathized with. This witty satire of a single girl’s daily trials and concerns is worth a good laugh-with her and at ourselves.
Falling Leaves
This sad yet amazingly true story of hatred and abuse can’t help but touch souls. Adeline Yen Mah recounts the pain of her childhood. Redefining the term “dysfunctional family,” the memoir is set after the 1949 Chinese Revolution in mainland China and Hong Kong. Traditional Chinese subservience plays a major part in this real-life drama, but it is in Adeline’s eventual triumph that we find our hope.
By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Love, faith, personal destiny and the cosmos are dealt with once again by Paolo Coelho. He is, characteristically, subtle, poetic and quietly beautiful. The touches on religion may be quite disturbing to some-but only, I believe, because we don’t normally want to deal with it outside of tradition and doctrine and Bible stories. It is though, enlightening if not inspirational, laying out several truths to ponder on.
* * * * *
I had actually underlined several things in By The River Piedra.... I’m not always in the habit of doing this in my books (I like them unmarked), but there is a certain joy in doing so with the books that have been companions at various times of my life. I do find that each time I reread the book and the underlined passages I have new thoughts on them. While I prepared the books for my sister, I idly went through the book, looked for my marked lines and quietly went through them. I relay them here to hold on to while the book is on loan. These lines, unexplained and unadorned, are powerful enough in themselves for me. Naked and out of context, they take a life of their own.
We are in the midst of the extraordinary.
To love is to be in communion with the other and to discover in that other the spark of God.
What have you done with the miracles the God planted in your days?
But love is like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the current.
To love is to lose control.
But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without even knowing what you’re fighting for.
The universe always conspires to help the dreamer.
The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no mater how fooling they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.
We could be silent for a while because we’d know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation.
Live never comes a little at a time.
The truth resides where there is faith.
We are our own greatest surprise.
Only a man who is happy can create happiness in others.
If we acknowledge that God created us for happiness, then we have to assume that everything leads to sadness and defeat is our own doing.
* * * * *
I don’t always and automatically agree with things that I read. I often treat what I consider good reads as a means of dialogue. Thus, I ask my questions. And I had one here too-I had placed a big question mark beside this text, and somehow, I like the idea of leaving my question unanswered. What does it mean? What is its truth? Is it the same for everyone?
At this point, for me anyway, I just want to keep on asking.
I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If only one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
Stardust
This re-introduced Neil Gaiman to me as a novelist; I had known him previously as the Sandman series creator. Though I, admittedly, was not heavily into fantasy-type novels, I find Stardust to have grown on me-an easy escape into a pleasant fairy tale. Amazon.com claims it to be in tradition of The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story, with its elements of magic, romance and fanciful characters.
Stories of Eva Luna
Isabel Allende’s heady and vivid images of magical realism captured my imagination when I encountered The House of the Spirits. I would have lent that book as it is one of my favorites, but I had lost it to someone I lent it to years ago. Still the same raw mysticism permeates in The Stories of Eva Luna, where 23 tales marked by earthy, memorable characters unravel. Allende shines as the “story hunter” that she is, and the vignettes allow for short glimpses, that may be witnessed one at a time.
The Diary of Bridget Jones
One of the precursor authors in the genre now known as chick lit, Helen Fielding provides us with Bridget Jones: a calorie-counting, alcohol-consuming, cigarette-puffing, relationship-challenged 30-something singleton, whom a lot of us sympathized with. This witty satire of a single girl’s daily trials and concerns is worth a good laugh-with her and at ourselves.
Falling Leaves
This sad yet amazingly true story of hatred and abuse can’t help but touch souls. Adeline Yen Mah recounts the pain of her childhood. Redefining the term “dysfunctional family,” the memoir is set after the 1949 Chinese Revolution in mainland China and Hong Kong. Traditional Chinese subservience plays a major part in this real-life drama, but it is in Adeline’s eventual triumph that we find our hope.
By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Love, faith, personal destiny and the cosmos are dealt with once again by Paolo Coelho. He is, characteristically, subtle, poetic and quietly beautiful. The touches on religion may be quite disturbing to some-but only, I believe, because we don’t normally want to deal with it outside of tradition and doctrine and Bible stories. It is though, enlightening if not inspirational, laying out several truths to ponder on.
* * * * *
I had actually underlined several things in By The River Piedra.... I’m not always in the habit of doing this in my books (I like them unmarked), but there is a certain joy in doing so with the books that have been companions at various times of my life. I do find that each time I reread the book and the underlined passages I have new thoughts on them. While I prepared the books for my sister, I idly went through the book, looked for my marked lines and quietly went through them. I relay them here to hold on to while the book is on loan. These lines, unexplained and unadorned, are powerful enough in themselves for me. Naked and out of context, they take a life of their own.
We are in the midst of the extraordinary.
To love is to be in communion with the other and to discover in that other the spark of God.
What have you done with the miracles the God planted in your days?
But love is like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the current.
To love is to lose control.
But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without even knowing what you’re fighting for.
The universe always conspires to help the dreamer.
The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no mater how fooling they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.
We could be silent for a while because we’d know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation.
Live never comes a little at a time.
The truth resides where there is faith.
We are our own greatest surprise.
Only a man who is happy can create happiness in others.
If we acknowledge that God created us for happiness, then we have to assume that everything leads to sadness and defeat is our own doing.
* * * * *
I don’t always and automatically agree with things that I read. I often treat what I consider good reads as a means of dialogue. Thus, I ask my questions. And I had one here too-I had placed a big question mark beside this text, and somehow, I like the idea of leaving my question unanswered. What does it mean? What is its truth? Is it the same for everyone?
At this point, for me anyway, I just want to keep on asking.
I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If only one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.