I don't often head to the well-being section of a bookstore, preferring the aisles of fiction, biographies and sale bins. I've often wondered why that is, and my reaction to finding this title on one of my favoured lists gave me some insight. I take advice seriously, both the giving and getting. For advice to be meaningful, I have to hold in awe, or at least respect, the person who is telling me what I should do or how I should be living my life. Good friends - both old and new - my husband, my siblings, my children and rarely someone in public life. After all, what do we know about each other and the multiple layers that define a life?
Mandela's Way. I found it in a web interview published by a book site I subscribe to. Amazingly, the 30 minute interview flew by and in the end, this made it onto my Must Read list. Richard Stengel is the editor of Time Magazine and shadowed, interviewed and became a confidante with Mandela over many years, both of them agreeing that the shape of this publication would be the subtitle "15 Lessons on Life, Love and Courage". Realizing I could learn something about Nelson, (not to mention what I could learn from him!), my latest trip to the bookstore was specifically for this title.
It did not disappoint. Giving bits of his life through anecdotes that teach, the man who can truly be defined as a hero of our age, tells us about what he learned through 27 years imprisoned on Robben's Island, the ending of Apartheid, the uniting of black and white, the development of democracy, distilled into 15 themes. The overarching characteristic that shines through this (advice) memoir is one of grace. And if Mandela can find grace at almost every point throughout his life, I definitely have something to learn from him!
It's an easy read, with obvious life lessons on leadership, friendship, the longevity of one's life no matter how short, the measurement of your reactions and your time, the myriad definitions of courage, and finding one's own garden. Who knew that his proudest personal achievement in those 27 years of isolation was providing the guards with organic vegetables?
This book has stayed with me in the minutiae of my daily living - reactions being measured against his thoughts and philosophy of living. After all, if Mandela can reach the twilight of his life, find love again at 80 and forgive who needs forgiving, my much smaller life can have similar qualities, on a much smaller scale.
There is something to be learned from this man, as he has shown the world time and time again.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Gone to Soldiers & The Book of Joe
It’s a rare reader’s experience, finding 2 books within a few weeks that are compelling, well-written and thoroughly enjoyable. For me, the sign of a good book is the excitement felt at the end of a busy day, when all that’s left is heading upstairs to comfort and wrapping myself first in the warmth of my bath, then into my quilts and my story. It’s like the characters beckon me to continue finding out their tale, I settle in, open the pages, greet them with a hearty “Good evening! I missed you!”
Such is how I’ve spent the last 2 weeks reading 2 stellar books. Neither are recent releases, neither are part of my incessant lists, one was recommended and leant by a dear friend after discussing our favourites over a Montreal dinner, the other discovered on the shelves of my local library. All the sweeter to have come upon them so haphazardly.
Gone to Soldiers, by Marg Piercy, (a new author for me), is the 800-page tale of 12 or so characters set in WW2 France, Germany and the US. I never read war stories, or stories that have violence and gore in them, literary descriptions of pain and evil distasteful to me, and reminding me too much of the waste that is our current TV rosters. I opened it with trepidation, and following my usual ritual, read the back cover, study the front cover, read the Library of Congress info, the dedications, the thanks, the reviews. This approach to my reading gives me context and flavour for the world I am about to embark into. I then come upon an index of character descriptions, my roadmap to who will unfold and find that the book is structured chapter-by-chapter according to character. So I am faced with a decision – following the author’s progression or reading each character’s story by skipping all of the in-between chapters about the others. Hmmmm.
Ms. Piercy is a prolific author, well-awarded, well cited. By Chapter 2, and the second character, I am hooked. Gone to Soldiers tells the tale of the French Resistance, the Nazis, the camps, the spiriting of Jewish children through the Pyrenees to safety, the times of love, of hate, of war, of the human spirit. The massive government subterfuges, “cryptanalysists”, choices between life, liberty or death, the impossible situations entire nations, described through its people, faced each and every day for what seems like generations. It is a story told with heart, with detail, and is one that won’t leave me for a while.
When I finish a great book, I often spend a couple of nights reading newspapers or magazines, unwilling to let go of the world I have just experienced. Almost like I need time to say good-bye. Silly, I know. Thus it is, knowing the end was nigh, that I visit my local library to find a selection of readings to follow Gone to Soldiers.
And it is here that I discover Jonathan Tropper. A New York author with wicked wit, The Book of Joe is an irreverent look back at adolescence and the experiences and choices made. Twice in this book, I laugh out loud, not snicker, not chortle, but a loud OMGHAHAHA escapes from me. Parts of me are on these pages! The premise being that we all are less than stellar at times in our lives, we are all balding in one way or another, that you can ‘be an asshole and still be a nice guy’, how you reach that point in your life where you can make changes, redeem yourself, close the open wounds, make amends. This book tickled me! And as Marc often comments, one of the rare times I read (and enjoy) a male author.
After my 800 page journey through WW2, this slim 300 pager was the perfect antidote, a romp, as spring comes upon us. I read this one in 2 nights! And now I really have to get some gardening done.
Such is how I’ve spent the last 2 weeks reading 2 stellar books. Neither are recent releases, neither are part of my incessant lists, one was recommended and leant by a dear friend after discussing our favourites over a Montreal dinner, the other discovered on the shelves of my local library. All the sweeter to have come upon them so haphazardly.
Gone to Soldiers, by Marg Piercy, (a new author for me), is the 800-page tale of 12 or so characters set in WW2 France, Germany and the US. I never read war stories, or stories that have violence and gore in them, literary descriptions of pain and evil distasteful to me, and reminding me too much of the waste that is our current TV rosters. I opened it with trepidation, and following my usual ritual, read the back cover, study the front cover, read the Library of Congress info, the dedications, the thanks, the reviews. This approach to my reading gives me context and flavour for the world I am about to embark into. I then come upon an index of character descriptions, my roadmap to who will unfold and find that the book is structured chapter-by-chapter according to character. So I am faced with a decision – following the author’s progression or reading each character’s story by skipping all of the in-between chapters about the others. Hmmmm.
Ms. Piercy is a prolific author, well-awarded, well cited. By Chapter 2, and the second character, I am hooked. Gone to Soldiers tells the tale of the French Resistance, the Nazis, the camps, the spiriting of Jewish children through the Pyrenees to safety, the times of love, of hate, of war, of the human spirit. The massive government subterfuges, “cryptanalysists”, choices between life, liberty or death, the impossible situations entire nations, described through its people, faced each and every day for what seems like generations. It is a story told with heart, with detail, and is one that won’t leave me for a while.
When I finish a great book, I often spend a couple of nights reading newspapers or magazines, unwilling to let go of the world I have just experienced. Almost like I need time to say good-bye. Silly, I know. Thus it is, knowing the end was nigh, that I visit my local library to find a selection of readings to follow Gone to Soldiers.
And it is here that I discover Jonathan Tropper. A New York author with wicked wit, The Book of Joe is an irreverent look back at adolescence and the experiences and choices made. Twice in this book, I laugh out loud, not snicker, not chortle, but a loud OMGHAHAHA escapes from me. Parts of me are on these pages! The premise being that we all are less than stellar at times in our lives, we are all balding in one way or another, that you can ‘be an asshole and still be a nice guy’, how you reach that point in your life where you can make changes, redeem yourself, close the open wounds, make amends. This book tickled me! And as Marc often comments, one of the rare times I read (and enjoy) a male author.
After my 800 page journey through WW2, this slim 300 pager was the perfect antidote, a romp, as spring comes upon us. I read this one in 2 nights! And now I really have to get some gardening done.
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