Richard W. Brown February 15, 2022
Introducing my Friends to Jan

Introducing my Friends to Jan

Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 41 seconds

Celebrate JanLast Saturday, five new friends who have also lost the love of their lives met me in Hanson Park.

I showed them the park and our plans and dreams for Jan’s living memorial.

They liked:

What moved my soul was that I could express my excitement and not worry that they would not understand.

I was not only docent guiding them; I introduced them to Jan, the love of my life.

Love never dies; it only grows stronger.

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Introducing my Friends to Jan
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Mercy Street: A Novel

Read: February 2023

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Mercy Street: A Novel

by Jennifer Haigh

Mercy Street: A Novel by Jennifer Haigh is a tense, riveting story about the disparate lives intersecting at a Boston women’s clinic. The novel was named Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and the Boston Globe. Mercy Street is a novel for right now, a story of the polarized American present. Ms. Haigh is a gifted storyteller who has written a very readable book. I highly recommend it. 

I truly enjoyed Mercy Street. I read her short story Zenith Man and enjoyed her storytelling skills. I wanted to read her most recent novel. Until the last few pages, I was unsure how Ms. Haigh‘s intricate storylines could conclude the story. Usually, I can predict how a story will unfold well before I finish reading it. Mercy Street was a rare exception to that rule.

I have never had to run the gauntlet in front of a women’s clinic, but Ms. Haigh has made that experience so real that I could taste it. The day-to-day work of the staff and the clients was detailed and believable. The male characters, Timmy, the affable pot dealer; Anthony, a lost soul; and Excelsior11, the screenname of Victor Prine, were drafted credibly.

As stated earlier, I highly recommend this book.

Jennifer Haigh is the author of seven best-selling, critically acclaimed works of fiction. Her first, Mrs. Kimble, won the PEN Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Her latest, Mercy Street, was named a Best Book of 2022 by the New Yorker and won the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A Guggenheim fellow and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, she lives in Boston.

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Parable of the Talents

Read: January 2024

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Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

This morning, I completed reading Octavia E. Butler‘s acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel Parable of the Sower and immediately started reading its sequel, Parable of the Talents, initially published in 1998. This second book is even more relevant today than it was back then. The novel’s timely message of hope and resistance in the face of fanaticism is shockingly prescient.

In 2032, Lauren Olamina survived the destruction of her home and family. She envisioned a peaceful community in Northern California, which she established based on her newly founded faith, Earthseed. This new settlement provides a haven for outcasts who face persecution following the election of an ultra-conservative president. The new president pledges to “make America great again,” but the country becomes increasingly divided and dangerous. Lauren’s subversive colony, a minority religious faction led by a young black woman, becomes a target for President Jarret’s oppressive regime characterized by terror and discrimination.

In the future, Asha Vere discovers the journals of her mother, Lauren Olamina, whom she never met. As she delves into her mother’s writings, she grapples with the conflict between Lauren’s responsibilities to her chosen family and her mission to guide humanity toward a brighter tomorrow.

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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Evergreen

Read: October 2022

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Evergreen by Kirsten Robinson

by Kirsten Robinson

Evergreen by Kirsten Robinson is a tribute to the enduring resilience of human nature as we cycle through times of light and darkness, much like nature itself. In her debut book, Kirsten Robinson (@NakedWriting) lays her heart bare in a raw, relatable, and inspirational way to describe the journey of growth born out of finding beauty in breakage and love after loss.

Albeit a cliche, the book jumped off the shelf and into my hands when I saw it in Hickory & Hill General Store in Cranford.

This artfully honest collection embodies and expands upon the poetry and prose Robinson began writing under the famous social media pseudonym Naked Writing.

I highly recommend this book and intend to keep it at my bedside for a pick-me-up.

Although I have only started reading the poems, I want to share two that resonated with me.

The first one is on giving thanks.

Give thanks for all
that is good and beautiful;
the gifts you carry
people who lift you up
your big, big love
faith and trust that your life
is unfolding as it should

Give thanks for all
that has been difficult and hard;
trials tribulations tears
tests of self strength fears
all of the unknowns and days
that broke you

Without the darkness
you would not have
learned to appreciate the light

A second one on bravery.

Bravery
is not about standing tall
after you’ve climbed up
the top of a mountain

Bravery
is looking
fear
heartache
rejection
terror
loss
death
in the eye
and saying, “no,
not today”

Bravery
is standing back up
after you’ve been brought down
to your knees

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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The Ferryman: A Novel

Read: May 2023

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The Ferryman: A Novel

by Justin Cronin

The novel, “The Ferryman,” by Justin Cronin, is set in the beautiful archipelago of Prospera. People lead long and fulfilling lives in this society until their forearm monitors drop below 10%. Then, they retire to the Nursery. Their memories are wiped clean, and they start a new life as sixteen-year-olds.

Although the book was recently published, I hesitated to read it due to the unsettling notion of having my memories wiped clean. However, my curiosity got the best of me, and I’m glad it did. Proctor Bennett, the protagonist, works as a ferryman, assisting people through retirement. But things worsen when Proctor starts dreaming, which is impossible in Prospera, and his monitor percentage rapidly decreases. Are these dreams fragments of a past that they cannot recall?

Amidst all this, rumors about the Arrivalists, who oppose the societal structure, and even the Support Staff, who keep Prospera functioning, are questioning their roles. Proctor finds himself caught up in a more significant cause than expected and sets out to uncover the truth.

Without giving away too much, things are not always what they seem in Prospera.

As a widow, I found this line particularly poignant: “That loss was love’s accounting, its unit of measure, as a foot was made of inches, a yard was made of feet.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; it kept me engaged and excited, and my Kindle was my go-to device for reading it. I highly recommend this novel.

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 Worst Hard Time

Read: September 2019

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The Worst Hard Time

by Timothy Egan

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan was initially a book I selected from the e-library because nothing else I wanted to read was available. Once I started reading the book, I could not put it down.

Now that we have had the warmest summer since 1936 during the dust bowl, the book has even more meaning.

According to The New York Times,

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect.”

With the likelihood of more ecological catastrophes in the immediate future, this is a book I highly recommend.

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Reluctantly Home

Read: June 2022

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Reluctantly Home

by Imogen Clark

Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark is about dealing with the past—and finally facing the future-a topic that was appealing to me. Thirteen months into my grief journey, I live between a perfect past and an unknowable future. Will Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark help me manage these two worlds?

Surprisingly it did. Unlike the two protagonists, I am mourning losing Jan, the love of my life. However, the neuromapping in my brain made it impossible to understand how to continue to love Jan and separate that from the time and space connections that made me believe she would return at any moment.

Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark helped me understand that grief should and cannot define us forever. I recommend this book to all readers, not only those on a grief journey like mine.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

Pip Appleby seems to have it all, with her prestigious job as a human rights lawyer and her enviable London home. But then a tragic accident stops her life in its tracks, and everything changes instantly. Retreating to her family’s rural farm and the humble origins she has been trying to hide, Pip is haunted by what she has done.

When she discovers the diary of actress Evelyn Mountcastle in a box of old books, Pip revels in the opportunity to lose herself in someone else’s life rather than focus on the disaster that is her own. But soon, she sees parallels—Evelyn’s life was also beset by tragedy, and, like Pip, she returned to Southwold under a dark cloud.

When Pip and Evelyn’s paths cross in real life, they slowly begin to reveal the hidden stories holding them back. Can they help each other forgive what happened in the past and, perhaps, find happiness in the future?

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