Richard W. shared a stream on February 1, 2023
Being Your Own Rainbow in a Grey World

Being Your Own Rainbow in a Grey World

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 7 seconds

Today, I attended my grandson Nick’s “Class of 2024 Seventh Grade Class Ring Ceremony.”

I am trying to remember seventh grade, much less 1961!

Fortunately, neither my son nor Nick’s other grandparents could remember seventh grade.

Nick read a poem, “Standing Out From The Crowd,” by an amateur bard named SebastianMelmoth, who started writing poetry after the death of his mother.

As a good grandparent, I enjoyed the poem and was proud of my grandson.

One line resonated with me,

Your journey, your pathway to happiness
Being your own rainbow in a grey world

The sky is grey on many of my walks, and I must push myself to finish my steps.

On my grief journey, I have to remind myself that the way forward is to listen to Sebastian,

Standing out from the crowd
Shining through life’s struggles

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Walking in a Mild, Grey Winter

Walking in a Mild, Grey Winter

"This winter looks good thru the end of the month and into early February," a fellow walker says to me when our paths cross in Nomehagan Park.

I stop petting his dog and remind him that I will walk whatever winter brings..

"Me too," he responds.

He might be correct, as we are over eleven degrees above average for January, and the last eight years have been the warmest in recorded history.

Richard W. Brown January 11, 2023

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Being Your Own Rainbow in a Grey World
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We Were Eight Years in Power

Read: September 2020

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We Were Eight Years in Power

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a collection featuring the landmark essay The Case for Reparations he wrote for The Atlantic. Even though I am a subscriber to The Atlantic and have read many of the pieces, this is a must-read book as it reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency, and its jarring aftermath, including the election of Donald Trump.

We were eight years in power as the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s first white president.

But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective:” the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.

We Were Eight Years in Power features Coatesa’s iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including Fear of a Black President, The Case for Reparations, and The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration, along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coate’s own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era. We Were Eight Years in Power is a vital account of modern America, from one of the definitive voices of this historic moment.

I recommend this book to all readers.

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Bodily Harm

Read: June 2021

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Bodily Harm

by Margaret Atwood

Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood is one of the books I picked up from our bookshelf in the first few months after Jan’s death. Being someone who has always fantasized about being a journalist, I found it very interesting.

A powerfully and brilliantly crafted novel, Bodily Harm is the story of Rennie Wilford, a young journalist whose life has begun to shatter around the edges.  Rennie flies to the Caribbean to recuperate, and on the tiny island of St. Antoine she is confronted by a world where her rules for survival no longer apply.  By turns comic, satiric, relentless, and terrifying, Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm is ultimately an exploration of the lust for power, both sexual and political, and the need for compassion that goes beyond what we ordinarily mean by love.

Bodily Harm may be the bleakest book that Ms. Atwood has written. One of her common themes is “the violence that human beings inflict on one another and their isolation in an uncaring world. It holds out some hope in the form of compassion to be shared by those who are victims of bodily harm in any form. The novel suggests that every person falls into this category. All are victims. There is no exemption, no escape for anyone.”

I recommend this book.

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I Have Some Questions for You:

Read: February 2023

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I Have Some Questions for You

by Rebecca Makkai

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai is a book that, from page one, pulled me into the story and made me believe I was embedded with Bodie Kane as she returned to her boarding school and worked with students to review the murder of her roommate twenty-three years ago. I Have Some Questions for You was more than a page-turner as I was an unnamed participant. I highly recommend this book and, as Ms. Makkai does, buy it at an independent bookstore.

I had not heard of the book until I read a review in The New Yorker by Katty Waldman, who writes, “The new book, a murder mystery set at an élite boarding school, is being marketed as an irresistible whodunnit. But it also joins a growing number of critiques of true crime.” Once I finished the review, I ordered the book and did not put it down until I finished the novel.

Do not “read this book if you”are looking for a whodunnit. It is a critique of true crime and an assessment of the “me too” era. How do we judge the past by the standards of the present?

Every book I have read since Jan died is one I wanted to discuss with her. But I Have Some Questions is one that would have been helpful for both of us to read simultaneously and share our thoughts. Jan’s work with the YWCA of Union County’s Domestic Violence program would have given her a unique perspective. But my lifetime efforts to free me from male blindness would have been a good counterpoint.

Please read this book, share it, and discuss it.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s murder and the conviction of the school’s trainer, Omar Evans, are online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie.

But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. As she falls down the rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t an outsider at Granby as she’d thought, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there?

In I Have Some Questions for You, award-winning author Rebecca Makkai has crafted her most irresistible novel yet: a stirring investigation, timely, hypnotic, and populated with a cast of unforgettable characters, I Have Some Questions for You is at once a compulsive page-turner and a literary triumph.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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The Swimmers: A Novel

Read: October 2022

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The Swimmers: A Novel

by Julie Otsuka

The Swimmers: A Novel by Julie Otsuka is a novel about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool. This searing, intimate story of mothers and daughters—and the sorrows of implacable loss—is the most commanding and unforgettable work yet from a modern master. I highly recommend The Swimmers: A Novel by Julie Otsuka.

The novel was a page-turner from the first to the last page. It had been on my to-read list for months, and I am happy to start reading The Swimmers: A Novel by Julie Otsuka. 

Memory loss is a frightening situation for anyone. Ms. Otuska writes powerfully and eloquently about Alice’s loss of her memory. I felt as if it was one of my loved ones.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief.

One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. The pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia for Alice. Without the fellowship of other swimmers and the routine of her daily laps, she is plunged into dislocation and chaos, swept into memories of her childhood and the Japanese American incarceration camp where she spent the war. Alice’s estranged daughter, reentering her mother’s life too late, witnesses her stark and devastating decline.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Study for Obedience

Read: August 2023

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Study for Obedience

by Sarah Bernstein

Today I began reading “Study for Obedience” by Sarah Bernstein. With a robust and lyrical voice, Bernstein thoughtfully examines themes of complicity, power, displacement, and inheritance. “Study for Obedience” is a finely-tuned and unsettling novel that establishes Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.

A woman moves to her forebears’ remote northern home to be a housekeeper for her brother, whose wife left him. After arriving, strange events occur bovine hysteria, a ewe’s death, a dog’s phantom pregnancy, and potato blight. Suspicion towards newcomers seems directed at her, and she feels threatened. The hostility grows, and she fears what might happen.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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A Line in the Sand- A Novel

Read: June 2023

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A Line in the Sand: A Novel

by Kevin Powers

Today I started reading A Line in the Sand: A Novel by Kevin Powers. Listed as one of the books to read this week by The New York Times, which described it as “a stunning novel. Kevin Powers provides what any discerning reader desires the most — complex and flawed characters, precise use of language, succinct description, and believable dialogue.”

One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still unsafe.

Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her newly minted partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the dead man’s pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman is by the Iraq War, investigating a corporation on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defense contract.

As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race committed to unraveling the truth and keeping Arman alive—even if it costs them everything.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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