Julie and Julia

 

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Little, Brown & Company; Copyright 2005

Trade Paperback, 352 pages

ISBN-13: 9780316044271

http://juliepowellbooks.com/blog.html

Description:

Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul. Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a tiny apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's worn, dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes - in the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her outer-borough kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.

My Thoughts:

Certainly most readers have heard of the book and the movie based on Julie Powell's book Julie and Julia. There was a huge buzz over both movie and book. The basic premise is that Julie Powell decided to take a year to make every recipe found in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blog about her experiences.

While the book wasn't particularly bad, it certainly wasn't as wonderful as I expected. Part of my problem with the book was a problem with Julie Powell. Her misadventures, triumphs, mishaps, and successes in her culinary quest were interesting. Reading her constant whining about her every day experiences, like moving again or her job or her not cleaning, wasn't very interesting or compelling - even while she attempted to make it humorous. I enjoyed the parts in the kitchen when she was actually trying to make all the recipes. The little asides, constant complaints, and extra stories took away from the book for me. Also, based on the movie, I thought there would be more of a parallel story with Julia Child but apparently that material was added from another book in order to make the movie.

In the end I'd recommend the book for sheer entertainment, but pick up a used copy (in the clearance section of the local used book store like I did) or look for it at the library. Someday I'll watch the movie because I think this is one of those strange cases when the movie might actually be better than the book... 

Quotes:

The next morning I lingered at my parents' kitchen table long after they'd both left for work, wrapped up in a well-worn gray flannel robe I'd forgotten I had, sipping coffee. I'd finished the Times crossword and all the sections except for Business and Circuits, but didn't yet have enough caffeine in my system to contemplate getting dressed. (I'd overindulged in margaritas the night before, not at all an unusual occurrence when visiting the folks in Austin.) The pantry door stood ajar, and my aimless gaze rested on the bookshelves inside, the familiar ranks of spines lined up there. When I got up to fill my cup one last time, I made a detour and took one of the books - Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol 1. , my mom's old 1967 edition, a book that had known my family's kitchen longer than I had. I sat back down at the table at which I'd eaten a thousand childhood afternoon snacks and began flipping through, just for the hell of it.

When I was a kid, I used to look at MtAoFC quite a lot. Partly it was just my obsession with anything between two covers, but there was something else, too. Because this book has the power to shock. MtAoFC is still capable of striking deep if obscure zones of discomfort. Find the most pale, pierced and kohl-eyed, proudly pervy hipster you can and ask her to cook Pâté de Canard en Crote, aided only by the helpful illustrations on pages 571 through 575. pg. 13

"If I wanted to learn to cook, I'd just cook my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

It was an odd sort of statement to make drip with sarcasm, but I managed it anyway. Eric just sat there.

"Not that it would do me any good, of course. Can't get a job out of that."

"At least we'd eat good for a while." pg. 20-21

"Okay," I said, taking another sip as Eric sat down beside me. "Tell me again about this blog thing?"

And so, late that evening, a tiny line dropped into the endless sea of cyberspace, the slenderest of lures in the blackest of waters.

The Book
Mastering the Art of French Cooking. First edition, 1961. Louisette Bertholle. Simone Beck. And, of course, Julia Child, the woman who taught America to cook, and to eat....
The Contender
Government drone by day, renegade foodie by night. Too old for theater, too young for children, and too bitter for anything else, Julie Powell was looking for a challenge. And in the Julie/Julia Project she found it. Risking her marriage, her job, and her cats' well-being, she has signed on for a deranged assignment. 365 days. 524 recipes. One girl and a crappy outerborough kitchen.  pg. 22-23

A Song I Knew by Heart

A Song I Knew by Heart by Bret Lott
Random House, Copyright 2004
Trade Paperback, 336 pages

ISBN-13: 9780345437754


Description:

During a cold Massachusetts winter, a tragic car accident leaves a mother childless and her daughter-in-law a widow. Naomi and Ruth are now each other’s only comfort. Naomi lost her own husband eight years ago, and now she has lost her son. Carrying a deep secret in her soul, Naomi decides to return to her childhood home in coastal South Carolina. When she tells Ruth her plan, she receives an unexpected reply: “Where you go, I will go.” So the two women plan the journey together, arriving at a place that is flooded with a love they are nearly too fragile to accept. Surrounded by the warmth of their newfound family, Naomi and Ruth begin to find themselves reawakened–and open to the possibility of redemption.

My Thoughts:

 

“And Ruth said,‘ Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’” Ruth 1:16

 

A Song I Knew by Heart by Bret Lott is a novel based on the Biblical story of Naomi and Ruth. Since her husband Eli passed away, Naomi has been living with her son Mahlon and daughter-in-law Ruth. When Mahlon is killed in a car accident, Naomi and Ruth face his tragic death together. Naomi, looking for some peace and redemption, decides to move back home, to South Carolina. Ruth is determined to join her, saying "Where you go, I will go. Where you live, that's where I'll live too (pg 97)."

 

Since the novel is based on the Biblical book of Ruth, the bones of the story are well known.

It's an interesting idea for a novel and basically a well written story, but it does have a few problems. It ends up feeling overly sentimental and is too slow paced. This is probably because it is not plot driven. Lott depends upon his observations and reflections to give the story interest. He tries to flesh out Naomi's character by giving her an added 50 year old secret sin. Ruth, however, is left a one dimensional character - beautiful and devoted.

 

Ruth's story in the Bible is very compelling so I can see why Lott thought about an adaptation. In comparison I'd give the Biblical Book of Ruth a "very highly recommended" and Lott's A Song I Knew by Heart a recommended rating.

Quotes:

I stood outside my son Mahlon and his wife Ruth’s bedroom door, in my hands two coffee cups, the pain sharp shards in my old fingers looped through the handles. I had on my pale blue bathrobe and slippers, my hair still in a net. I’d had it done just yesterday morning, before the funeral, and though I wore a net every night, funeral or no, there came to me last night as I slipped it on and settled into bed that somehow this was wrong. That worrying over my hair enough to put it in a net might somehow be a sin, this vanity.
But I put the net on, like every night, because it was what I’d done every night. It was my life, the way I lived it. Who I was.
A widow who lived with her son and daughter-in-law. opening

I knew what she was just then being given, knew the pain of that move, of a hand to the flat quilt, to the pillow gone untouched, to cold sheets. It was a move wouldn’t go away, this touching to see if any of what’d happened weren’t a dream.
It was what I’d done every night these last eight years: come awake sometime from inside the forgiveness of sleep, and reach for my Eli.
Ruth’s hand stopped when she found the empty pillow beside her, on her face the puzzlement that showed she knew it wasn’t a dream.
“Bless your heart,” I said, and moved toward the bed. Ruth blinked again, her eyes now on me and still with the startled look. Like I was no one she’d ever known.
Then her mouth finally closed, her chin set to trembling, and I knew her now better than I ever would’ve hoped.
It was grief she’d been given, the black and empty gift God gives you like it was something you were owed. It was grief she’d been given, and grief we shared. pg. 5-6

"It's God gotten me through this long. His tender mercies that's gotten me through these eight years. He'll be there for you, too." I put a hand to her face, felt how soft her cheek was, how young and sweet and beautiful just that touch was. "Hollow words, I know," I whispered. "But two weeks won't begin to touch it. Two weeks will seem like a year and seem like a day. You got to trust God to see you home." pg. 53

Sin.
When we are young, it means, I have made a mistake. When we are old, it means, I have separated myself from love. pg. 77

She whispered, "Where you go, I will go. Where you live, that's where I'll live too." She paused a moment, took in a slow breath, let it out just as slow. Still my hand was at her cheek, her hand holding on to mine. "This is a pact between us. Here. Now." pg. 97

The Real Science Behind the X-Files

The Real Science Behind the X-Files: Microbes, Meteorites, and Mutants  by Anne Simon, Ph.D.

Simon & Schuster, 1999

Hardcover, 318 pages

ISBN-13: 9780684856179 

 

Description:

Could an alien organism really survive a centuries-long trip on a meteor and remain virulent enough to attack a human being? How would a scientist know she was peering at a microbe from another planet? What's the possibility of a genetically mutated monster actually developing?

In a gripping exploration of the facts behind the science fiction that has enthralled millions of X-philes, Anne Simon — the respected virologist who comes up with the science for many intriguing episodes — discusses telomeres, cloning, the Hayflick limit, nanotechnology, endosymbionts, lentiviruses, and other strange phenomena that have challenged the intellect and threatened the lives and sanity of America's favorite FBI agents. With Simon's extraordinary gift for explaining complicated, cutting-edge science in a light, accessible style, and her behind-the-scenes commentary on the development of various plot lines, The Real Science Behind the X-Files will appeal to science buffs and X-Files aficionados alike.

My Thoughts:

Chris Carter, creator of the X-Files, hired Dr. Anne Simon as the show's science advisor. The Real Science Behind the X-Files: Microbes, Meteorites, and Mutants is a result of Anne Simon's work on the show. As she writes, "The goal of this book is to explain to nonscientists the real science behind The X-Files. To use the show as a springboard to examine the many science issues that are blended into plots - hot topics like cloning, aging, genetic engineering, and life on other planets (pg. 22)."

This well written informative book explains the scientific foundation for The X-Files and includes an index. Part of the appeal of this book is that it entertains while explaining the very real scientific explanations behind many of the shows episodes. Although some episodes can't be explained through science, many can. Additionally, as Simon points out, many scientists watched The X-Files and looked for mistakes so part of her job was to keep it as close to real science as possible. 

Certainly fans of The X-Files will appreciate this book and know the various episodes that Simon references or quotes dialogue from. I found this in the bargain books at the local used book store and it was worth every cent spent. It will be stored with our set of the complete X-Files series. Need I say it is very highly recommended for fans of the series. 

Quotes:

Actually, the truth is, more often than not, the ideas which become the X-Files stories are rooted in hard science, and even when they are not generated as such, they're built on a foundation of scientific convention. The point of view of the series is essentially Agent Scully's, the scientific counterpoint to Agent Mulder's belief in the supernatural. pg. 12

Scully provides realistic scientific interpretations behind the decidedly odd events. Scully is the quintessential scientist. She also keeps partner Fox Mulder from rushing to unsupported conclusions. pg. 20

While many bizarre and completely fictional creatures populate X-Files episodes, the scientific investigations of these creatures are based in reality. The proper experiments are conducted; the correct microscopes are used; evidence is gathered and conclusions are based on that evidence. To achieve such accuracy on the show requires an attention to detail and extra effort from the writers that fans can see and appreciate - and many of these fans are scientists. pg. 21

On The X-Files, differentiation between what is alien and what is merely strange falls within the auspices of Scully and the numerous scientific experts with whom she consults. These researchers use the latest techniques to ferret out the truth of the organisms entrusted to them. It's a dangerous business. Scientists who analyze alien life-forms on The X-Files have much in common with red-shirted security men from the original Star Trek series -- they rarely survive the episode. You would think that after six seasons and so many deaths, scientists would run screaming from the room at first sight of either Mulder or Scully. Yet without these brave and dedicated individuals, the truth would remain hidden. pg. 75

Tritium Gambit

Tritium Gambit by Erik Hyrkas
CreateSpace, 2012
trade Paperback, 230 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1469957715

Description:

The best agents examine their briefs before a harrowing mission. Max waits until his briefs need to be washed.
He wakes up this morning hungry for bacon and eggs. Instead, he’s served an aromatic pile of opportunity. The prestigious record he set this year might be the culprit: he's lost the most partners to intergalactic predators. His new partner, Miranda, is considering a career change, which may help her live longer.
Sometimes your greatest enemy isn't the forty foot alien chewing your arm, but you have to start somewhere.

My Thoughts:

Tritium Gambit by Erik Hyrkas is a science fiction tale featuring Intergalactic secret service agents Max and Miranda. The Intergalactic Secret Service is here to protect the unknowing and unaware humans from aliens. Each having lost or incapacitated their previous partners, Max and Miranda are thrown together and ordered up to Minnesota to investigate a ping - a potential problem with aliens. The chapters alternate between each character's point of view. 

Tritium Gambit could be described as: part irreverent sci-fi spoof; part tribute to sci fi novels, TV shows, and movies; part Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Max carries his towel); and part innuendo and bad puns. It really was all non-stop fun and action. Even as I chuckled and groaned over their dialogue and continuous escapes from danger during their adventures, I was compulsively reading to see what happened next. It was sort of like being the insider to a great spoof or perhaps watching a bad movie with a funny friend, you know, the one who can quote dialogue from other movies as the action rolls along. 

This isn't doing the book justice because it really became funnier as it went along, especially if you caught the many hints and references to other pop culture or sci fi materials. I about died laughing from one scene toward the end of the book featuring Max wearing a too-small T-shirt with a pop-culture "team" saying on it.

The best recommendation could be this: I picked up the book last night and am reviewing it the next day. It was pure enjoyable escapism and a light and entertaining read. Hopefully this is the first book in a Max and Miranda series. I can definitely see the series continuing and Hyrkas getting better with each book. Highly recommended

Quotes:

We have been forced to turn on our own children for sustenance. I wish it had not come to this, but I cannot contest the will of my people. Still, I have a son that I have been secretly harboring against their hunger, but my ability to protect him wanes with each day as he grows too large to hide. I have seen the suns rise on my planet two hundred thousand times, and I'm the oldest of my kind. opening

"I'd like to strip you of your credentials and send you off to that piss-water planet you came from, but we have an agent in sudden need of a partner. Unfortunately, I can't find anybody better than you." He smirked, obviously privy to some information he had yet to reveal about my new partner. "Maybe you'll get each other killed and save me the paperwork of transferring the two of you." pg. 7

As I turned and began walking to the door, I heard him mumble too low for most people to hear, but my hearing wasn't human. "Seriously, feel free to get each other killed." pg. 7

"Listen, Agent Maximus. We exist to squash problems before they squash the pitiful little humans going about their ordinary lives unaware of the aliens on their planet. If humans knew how precarious their situation is from day to day, how near doom they are each and every day, they sure as hell wouldn't worry about whether their neighbor had a nicer Audi or whether their next TV should be plasma or LCD...." pg. 11-12

  

"There's been a ping in northern Minnesota near the town of Ely. There is an old iron mine there, and we think the source of the ping might be near the mine or perhaps from inside it." pg. 14

 

"...Each assignment offered a new way to get killed, a way that had never occurred to me even in my nightmares, but I only saw these dangers as a way to display my skills. Nobody's watching, though. After awhile you realize that you're just doing it for yourself, and then you realize that eventually you're going to die doing this nonsense, serving as you call it." pg. 21

 Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the author for review purposes.

Spook

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
W. W. Norton & Company, 2006
Trade Paperback, 320 pages
ISBN-13: 9780393329124
http://www.maryroach.net/

Description:

The best-selling author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers now trains her considerable wit and curiosity on the human soul. What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario, and visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged through cadavers and calves' heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts, and the last surviving sample of "ectoplasm" in a Cambridge University archive.

My Thoughts:

In Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife Mary Roach investigates what happens after we die with the same entertaining style and humor found in her other books. The subject of life after death is explored in both scientific and unscientific ways. Roach writes, "Flawed as it is, science remains the most solid god I've got. And so I decided to turn to it, to see what it had to say on the topic of life after death. (pg 12-13)"

 

Spook includes a bibliography. Subjects explored in the twelve chapters include: reincarnation, searching for the soul with microscopes, how to weigh or see a soul, ectoplasm, mediums, communicating with the dead, electromagnetic fields, searching for ghosts, and near-death experiencers.

Roach approaches the exploration in a random light hearted manner. It's by no means an exhaustive in-depth exploration. Her goal clearly is to entertain the reader while conveying some information on the various topics. "Simply put, this is a book for people who would like very much to believe in a soul and in an afterlife for it to hang around in, but who have trouble accepting these things on faith. (pg. 14)"

Of the three books by Roach I've read, Stiff, Packing for Mars, and Spook, I'd have to say that I enjoyed Packing for Mars and Stiff more than Spook. Based on that comparison to other books by Roach, Spook is recommended. New readers will perhaps want to start with one of her other books first while fans will want to read this anyway.

Quotes:

My mother worked hard to instill faith in me. She sent me to catechism classes. She bought me nun paper dolls, as though the meager fun of swapping a Carmelite wimple for a Benedictine chest bib might inspire a taste for devotion. Most memorably, she read the Bible to me. Every night at bedtime, she'd plow through a chapter or two, handing over the book at appropriate moments to show me the color reproductions of parables and miracles: The crumbling walls of Jericho. Jesus walking atop stormy seas with palms upturned. The raising of Lazarus--depicted in my mother's Bible as a sort of Boris Karloff knock-off, wrapped in mummy's rags and rising stiffly from the waist. I could not believe these things had happened, because another god, the god who wore lab glasses and knew how to use a slide rule, wanted to know how, scientifically speaking, these things could be possible. Faith did not take, because Science kept putting it on the spot. opening

Most of the projects that I will be covering have been - or are being - undertaken by science. By that I mean people doing research using scientific methods, preferably at respected universities or institutions. Technology gets a shot, as does the law. I'm not interested in philosophical debates on the soul (probably because I can't understand them). Nor am I going to be relating anecdotal accounts of personal spiritual experiences. Anecdotes are interesting, occasionally riveting, but never are they proof. On the other hand, this is not a debunking book. Skeptics and debunkers provide a needed service in this area, but their work more or less assumes an outcome. I'm trying hard not to make assumptions, not to have an agenda. pg. 14

The deeper you investigate a topic like this, the harder it becomes to stand on unshifting ground. In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realities of the situation, the less clear-cut things become.
And also, I hold, the more interesting. Will I find the evidence I'm looking for? We'll just see. But I promise you a diverting journey, wherever it is we end up. pg. 18

The Shack

The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity by William P. Young
Windblown Media, copyright 2007
Trade paperback, 256 pages
ISBN-13: 9780964729230
http://theshackbook.com/

Description:

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

My Thoughts:

In The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity by William P. Young, a man, Mack, is summoned by note to go to the cabin where evidence of the murder of his young daughter was found. When Mack arrives at the cabin he meets the Trinity: God the Father, or "Papa", is depicted as a large African woman; the Holy Spirit is depicted as a small, sprightly Asian woman named Sarayu; God the Son is depicted as a middle-eastern carpenter.

It would be very easy to get worked up about any one of a number of things in the novel but in reality this is just a novel that presupposes to teach its readers some basic truths about Christianity. Taken in this light, it was an interesting book and shed light on one man's very personal journey that lead him to some healing theological  revelations.

 

I think it is best to look at The Shack as a parable - an allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson. In this regard, it is very much like C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, only not as well written. Is it worth reading? Yes, if the topic interests you.

Quotes:

Little distractions, like the ice storm, were a welcome although brief respite from the haunting presence of his constant companion: The Great Sadness, as he referred to it. Shortly after the summer that Missy vanished, The Great Sadness had draped itself around Mack's shoulders like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt. The weight of its presence dulled his eyes and stooped his shoulders. Even his efforts to shake it off were exhausting, as if his arms were sewn into its bleak folds of despair and he had somehow become part of it. pg. 24-25

Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself - to serve. pg. 106

"Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don't assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors." pg. 185

"And remember, I am bigger than your lies. I can work beyond them. But that doesn't make them right and doesn't stop the damage they do or the hurt they cause others." pg. 188

"I already told you that forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established." pg. 225

"Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive....
"Forgiveness does not excuse anything." pg. 226

"What he did was terrible. He caused incredible pain to many. It was wrong, and anger is the right response to something that is so wrong." pg. 227

Gilead

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004
Hardcover, 247 pages
ISBN-13: 9780374153892

Description:

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father—an ardent pacifist—and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.
This is also the tale of another remarkable vision—not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

My Thoughts:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is an epistolary novel, a letter written by John Ames, a 76 year old fourth-generation Congregationalist minister to his seven year old son. It is 1956 and Ames is dying. He wants to leave a letter for his son. He discusses family history and stories of his father and grandfather, reflections and meditations on life, his concern for his family, and the basis for his Christian values.

The relationship between fathers and sons is a central theme in Gilead.  The novel is a letter written to his son. He tells of his grandfather, a militant abolitionist who supported John Brown in Kansas and lost an eye in the Civil War. In contrast, his father was a pacifist. And while Ames was called to the ministry, his brother Edward became an unbeliever. He also talks about his good friend, Presbyterian minister Boughton and his family, especially Boughton's prodigal son and Ames's namesake, John Ames Boughton.

In Gilead, Marilynne Robinson has created a quiet, rich, reflective novel. There is atonement and redemption found in the very human stories Ames writes about for his son. Ultimately they define the faith of his Christian walk and the meaning of his life. Robinson gives Ames a wise, gentle, and, at times, melancholy voice as he writes his letter, which digresses and meanders between topics as easily as an elderly relatives conversation might wander from subject to subject. Ames is an honest narrator who has no reason to write anything but the truth. As he nears the end of his life, he knows that life is never to be taken for granted.

This is truly a stunning novel. The writing is exquisite.

Marilynne Robinson won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction and was the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Winner for Gilead.

Very Highly Recommended

Quotes:

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren't very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you've had with me and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don't laugh! because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother's. It's a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsigned after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.
It seems ridiculous to suppose the dead miss anything. If you're a grown man when you read this-it is my intention for this letter that you will read it then-I'll have been gone a long time. I'll know most of what there is to know about being dead, but I'll probably keep it to myself. That seems to be the way of things. opening

That is the main thing I want to tell you, that I regret very deeply the hard times I know you and your mother must have gone through, with no real help from me at all, except my prayers, and I pray all the time. I did while I lived, and I do now, too, if that is how things are in the next life. pg. 4

That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect a find it, either. pg. 6

Your mother told you I'm writing your begats, and you seemed very pleased with the idea. Well, then. What should I record for you? I, John Ames, was born in the Year of Our Lord 1880 in the state of Kansas, the son of John Ames and Martha Turner Ames, grandson of John Ames and Margaret Todd Ames. At this writing I have lived seventy-six years, seventy-four of them here in Gilead, Iowa, excepting study at he college and at seminary. pg. 9

My father always preached from notes, and I wrote my sermons out word for word. There are boxes of them in the attic, a few recent years of them in stacks in the closet. I've never gone back to them to see if they were worth anything, if I actually said anything. Pretty nearly my whole life's work is in those boxes, which is an amazing thing to reflect on. I could look through them, maybe find a few I would want you to have. I'm a little afraid of them. I believe I may have worked over them as I did just to keep myself occupied. pg. 18

Thank God for them all, of course, and for that strange interval, which was most of my life, when I read out of loneliness, and when bad company was much better than no company. You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human, which I devoutly hope you never will have. pg. 39