Over the past two winters, our resident farmers have erected hoop houses on our property. In the spring my teen daughter and I took to reading, working, and meditating there whenever time and weather permitted (i.e. when it wasn’t too hot).
One day I retreated to a hoop house with my phone for a short, guided reflection. Upon discovering that the billowing of the plastic cover in the April wind was so loud as to drown out the recording, I almost headed back inside my quiet, sturdy home. Fortunately, good sense prevailed—I stayed and put aside my phone.
June 20 was designated World Refugee Day (WRD) in 2001, in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of a United Nations convention on refugees organized in 1951. The intent of the original conference was to define who qualifies as a refugee and to delineate the rights of asylum seekers. WRD is an opportunity to raise awareness of the needs of displaced person both worldwide and in our communities.
Few people leave their homes, extended families, and the place that represents their cultural and linguistic heritage unless compelled by poverty or persecution. As citizens of an essentially prosperous country, we have the opportunity to touch the world by assisting its representatives who live among us. A number of well-established organizations in the U.S. coordinate services to refugees and opportunities for volunteers. Here in Eugene, Oregon, the Refugee Resettlement Coalition of Lane County partners with Catholic Community Services to support refugees and immigrants. (Click here for more information.)
As a Protestant young person, my knowledge of saints amounted to a vague awareness that, depending on context, the term could apply variously to the writers of the gospels, Christians generally, certain historical individuals revered by Catholics, and some distant antecedent to Santa Claus. In recent years, through the influence of personal study and Catholic and Orthodox friends, I have come to appreciate the historical saints, the traditions associated with them, and their examples of love and devotion.
In the introduction to Stories of the Saints, Carey Wallace offers compelling reasons for reading the saints:
Surprised by Oxford took me—well, by surprise. An artful memoir or biography is a rare find; seldom have I completed one with that regretful pleasure one feels upon concluding a captivating novel. Weber, perhaps not astonishingly for a professor of literature, employs all the novelist’s devices. But Surprised by Oxford goes beyond engaging narrative, elegant story arc, deliberate pacing, romantic suspense, and real-world complications. It exhales that same whiff of ethereal eternality imparted most often (for me) by the masters of literary fantasy.
This book satisfied me on many levels, although member reviews from our mother-daughter book club were mixed. Several felt the story lines in parts I and II were excessively disconnected from each other. And while my seventeen-year-old enjoyed the plot and secondary characters, she found the main protagonist unrelatable.
I concluded Yagisawa most likely wrote with two potential audiences in mind. One is a young generation of non-readers like protagonist Takako, whom he hopes to draw in with romantic tension and retain with efficient storytelling, ultimately infecting them with the love of books Takako discovers. The other potential readership is established book lovers attracted by the setting—Tokyo’s book town, Jimbocho—and will resonate with the many virtues and pleasures of reading inscribed in the story.
As an adolescent I skipped over the fascination-with-death phase. Horror movies repelled me, gore disgusted me. I forged on well into my twenties, thousands of miles from elderly relations and still in possession of most of my grandparents, in blithe denial of mortality.
It caught up with me, of course, at times slow and furtive and at others with breath-taking abruptness. To say I have come to terms with death would be overstating. But in the course of close encounters spread over several decades, I have laid hold of hope—one that persists in the face of fear, grief, loss, and all the other realities inseparable from death.
If a sojourn in Iran were not already near the top of my wish list, O’Donnell’s 1980 memoir would have put it there. But his expressed desire to preserve “certain features of the traditional life” speaks to the fact that a twenty-first century visit would reveal a far different outlook than the one inscribed here. Though the era in question is pre-revolutionary, O’Donnell believed the onward march of technology (“the transistor radio and the motorbike”), more than the Islamic revolution, would change the cultural landscape. No doubt he is right. What did he know then of the internet and cell phones?
O’Donnell’s account is formed from the journal he kept while farming for nearly a decade in 1960s southwest Iran. That such a life was at one time possible for an American (a fellow Oregonian, no less) is almost incomprehensible now. O’Donnell writes beguilingly of the workings of his farm and orchard, his travels through the countryside, his interactions (often patronizing) with his man-of-all-work Mohammad Ali, and the various institutions and individuals that populated the region–doctors, princes, landowners, jesters.
I purchased these as an audiobook bundle from Chirp, which has become my new favorite source for audiobooks. I don’t usually promote platforms here, and I would typically unsubscribe from an app that sent me daily e-mails. But Chirp offers books for $2-$4 that would normally cost as much at ten times that. The wide variety of genres includes classics as well as contemporary fiction and nonfiction, both traditionally and self-published. I can scan the offerings in less than thirty seconds and delete the promo if there’s nothing I want.
But enough free advertising–back to Gareth and Gwen. In the beginning, I almost gave up on these books on account of the author’s extensive knowledge of medieval Wales and its neighbors. This corner of history is entirely new to me, which doesn’t make it an ideal subject for audio absorption–I frequently found myself wishing for a print copy. Nevertheless, Sarah Woodbury somehow manages to forefront the well-crafted mystery in such a way that, while the historical background is integral to the plot, I don’t have to have a perfect handle on it to engage with the characters or grasp the solution. It’s ingenious plotting, and I’m not entirely sure how she pulled it off. I started out feeling awash in details but gradually got my bearings and found I was able to navigate the sea of royals and alliances without too much confusion.
The authors, illustrators, and translators of the books below represent four continents and at least four languages. Such diversity seems particularly appropriate to these stories, where imagination and perspective bridge divides.
The joy of story is perhaps the most valuable gift any book can offer. But reading also—often subconsciously—opens a window onto our selves. Stories and imaginative play are means by which children process real life. In Out of theBlue and Goodnight,Commander, the protagonists forge imaginary friendships that would constitute uncommon bonds in real life—one with an enemy soldier and one with a wild creature. But such stories have the potential to cultivate real-life receptiveness to individuals different from or at odds with us.
Our Mother-Daughter Book Club picked this title in part because one of our members is South African. It turned out to be our first selection in quite some time that every member read to completion. It charmed us all, as well as offering plenty of fodder for discussion.
Eleven-year-old Mercy lives with the rather senior sisters Flora and Mary. They aren’t actually aunts, but they function that way. The reasons for Mercy’s residency with them are a bit murky at first, but they emerge as the story progresses.
