Saturday, September 27, 2008

Insight Gained

From time to time, Dwight will suggest something that I will go along with, just because it is important to me that he thinks highly of me - and if I am compliant then perhaps it will make up for the years when I complained rather loudly that he was picking on me. I must confess that his recommendation on his Curmudgeonly Professor blog about books to read did catch my eye and I thought, aha, I can't vote Democratic, but I can check out one of his books, so I bought two of them, Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry and The Anatomy of Hope by Jerome Groopman, M.D.

I cannot express strongly enough the profound effect reading Hannah Coulter is having on me, and the insights I have gained into our parents and the life they, and then we with them, lived. The book is fiction, but it is written as though Wendell Berry knew our lives, our parents and Mother's feelings and emotions. Last night was a night of sleeping for a couple of hours and then needing a diversion and so I continued reading. With a cup of hot milk and my book, I settled down for what ended up being a quick two hours of reading. Honestly, I could have read all night and it would have been a good night.

The book is readily available in paperback on Amazon, or perhaps at a local bookstore. The copyright is 2004. I was going to share a quote, but it went on way too long and I think maybe copyright laws would prohibit doing that, so, just take my word, along with Dwight's, and pick up the book. Then we can ride the emotional rollercoaster together as insights are gained.

3 comments:

Judy said...

With Ann's encouragement, I am going to buy and read this book.

Elizabeth said...

Me, too.

Judy said...

I have a friend in our ward who loves to read about the same thing that I do. Today I recommended this book to her...She had already read it and another of his books. It was a collections of essays written about 1968. It looks like good reading as well.