Legs Hearts Minds - Chris Jones

 Sub-title: Loss and Its Remedies

I heard about this book from an article previewing its 1st chapter in the Atlantic magazine.  It took a few weeks to get it from the library and I finished reading it in one day.  The author's memoir starts with him finding out his wife is texting with one of his neighbors, her lover, as he watches their exchange on her laptop that he'd borrowed to do some work.  He's a journalist, so he distances from the shock by taking screenshots and confronting her shortly after, declaring their marriage over. He'd recently lost his job and now he loses his wife, his house, half his assets and has to share his children. He's in his mid-forties and no longer can imagine a future. He turns to a life long love, football (actually soccer) and finds a way to go on.

It was a painful, heartfelt, emotional read.  His self-examination unfolds; his grief, loss and reactions are raw and real.  His pain resonated with times in my own life.  A brave deep dive into surviving loss and going on living.

Quotes:

 "When someone falls out of love with you you receive less love.  That's the simplest math of the breakup equation.  But the love you felt before--the amount of love you're ready to give--stays relatively the same.  It's not like it vanishes.  It's part of who you are, a biological measure as quantifiable as your white blood cell count or your bilirubin levels.  I was more than lonely, or the standard kind of lonely.  I had to much love, and I needed somewhere for my love to go."

"I wanted to tell the teenager at the soccer shop that he didn't look brave for not taking cover [during a fierce storm]; he looked uninitiated.  I wanted to tell him that experience sometimes makes you less confident, not more, and sometimes fear isn't a thing you can conquer but a thing you acquire."

"I had taught him, however accidentally, that it's okay to root for strangers, to be lifted or leveled by circumstances beyond your control."

"There is a third option when you choose to love something or someone.  They love you back, deeply and fiercely, but not forever.  One moment they are here beside you and the next they disappear, and not always because they want to go....Monuments are built to love.  That doesn't make love permanent.  That makes love worth remembering."

"We don't remember facts. We remember how facts made us feel."

Published: 2025  Read: July 2026 Genre: Memoir 

The Correspondent - Virginia Evans

 This book sets the New Year off to a great start.  I can't remember where I saw it recommended but I checked it out from the library and finished it off in a few evenings.  A wonderful read!

A 70ish woman has been writing letters to friends, acquaintances, neighbors and authors her whole life. We are taken through her later years as she shares her activities with her brother, her son and daughter, her long time friend and others.  The book is written as a series of letters or correspondence between her, the people in her life, and an unidentified person whose letter she's written for years but has yet to send.

Sybil Van Antwerp is stubborn and exacting in her life and her expectations of others. As the story unfolds, we learn she was adopted and when her children gift her a DNA kit it adds an unwelcome complication to her decisions.  Slowly and subtly, we learn more of her life, her loves and losses and witness her evolving into a wiser person who can till learn new lessons and change relationships.

This is a rich, rewarding story of a complex person and her striving to make the best of her life.  Highly recommended.

Quotes

[On her divorce] "When I play it all back I am ashamed and yet I cannot imagine having done any other thing. Grief shared, I think, can produce two outcomes.  Either you bind yourselves together and hold one for dear life, or you let go and up goes a wall too high to be crossed. For us it was the latter."

Published: 2025  Read: January 2026  Genre: Fiction

Here One Moment - Liane Moriarty

 I say this often: this is the best book I've read in a while.  What makes a book a "best" for me?  One factor is that the writing doesn't distract from the story; another that the characters are believable and interesting.  Both of those find me reading without noticing the passage of time late into the night.  I want to know how the story ends, but I don't rush through because their are bits almost every page to savor.

This is a story of an older woman who predicts the death of passengers on a plane.  What do people do if they know when and how they will die?  Moriarty takes us through their reactions while at the same time revealing the lives they were living and how the prediction changes or does not change them.  Interlaced with their stories, is the story of Cherry, the prognosticator, and how she came to be on the plane.  

It's an engrossing story that made me smile and cry and appreciate how the author weaves the stories of many people into a meaningful whole.  Read this book, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Quotes:

"The belief that the probability of future events changes based on past events (assuming those events are independent) is known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the gambler's fallacy. [26 consecutive landing on black in 1913 in Monte Carlo casino]."

"Math, by the way, is a language, I would argue a beautiful one, and it's the only universal language there is, because it's the same all over the world."

"Those big open landscapes gave me a not unpleasant sensation of vertigo.  I enjoyed the feeling of being small and insignificant.  It's healthy to be reminded of your insignificance."

"I still think that, sometimes, even though I know full well I am exemplifying the just-world fallacy, which is the erroneous belief that the world is fair.  We are socialized to think that.  It makes the world feel more predictable if we believe good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior punished."

After Annie - Anna Quindlen

 

I've read many of Anna Quindlen's books over the years and have liked them.  This one was sad as it told the story of a father and his four children over a year after losing their wife and mother suddenly.  We see each of them go through the stages of grief, a different experience because of their ages (Dad 30's, children 13, 10, 8 and 6).  Much of the story is about the impact of her death on the Mom (Annie)'s best friend, Annamarie.  She spins out of control at losing her friend.  

Like all of Quindlen's books, the relationship between people are authentic. But the story wraps up too neatly and offers a "happy ever after" ending.  

Published: 2024  Read: January 2025  Genre: Fiction

The Life Impossible - Matt Haig

 Another "recommended" book that I did not like.  I'd very much enjoyed his earlier book The Midnight Library.  The premise of this one is that a recently widowed woman who lost her only child when he was 9 years old is given a house in Ibiza, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean sea.  She heads out and discovers a magical alien life force that came here to save the Earth, a glowing light in the sea grass under the ocean.  It just gets weirder from there.  I kept reading hoping it would get better and was sorely disappointed.  After reading the author's acknowledgments it appears to have been written to be able to write off living on the island for a while.  At least I learned something about a place I'd never heard of and will add to my places to visit list, but this book is not recommended by me!

Quote/Comments:

[she's asked] "Are you here on your own? Yes, I said, and the sadness leaked out.  It was there on my face and in my eyes.  Grief was a flood that ran through you and caused others to stand aside.  Or at least wind up the conversation."

Published: 2024  Read: December 2024  Genre: fantasy fiction 

A Quiet Life - Ethan Joella

 

Three people experience personal loss that deal them life-changing blows.  Their grief, sorrow and pain is exquisitely portrayed in this moving reflection on living with loss.  A woman's soon to be ex-husband disappears with their daughter; an older man's wife dies of cancer and a a young woman's father is murdered in a convenience store.  Their stories are intertwined and the power of kindness, caring and loving unfolds as they struggle to live on.  Highly recommended.

Published:  2022   Read: July 2024  Genre: Fiction

Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt

I've missed reading just for enjoyment and this story was very satisfying.  Narrated by a curmudgeonly giant octopus in an aquarium, it is a story of living with grief and loss.  I was taken aback by the description of the main character, Tova, a 70 year old woman, that is portrayed over and over as old, feeble, frail, and needing help. Ugh!  Her story in a small town in Washington state near Puget Sounds intersects with a young man struggling to fit in the world.  A quick read, with a touching, uplifting message.

Quotes:

" All of these things had been stored away for her to pass along someday, relics to be carried up the branches of the family tree.  But the family tree stopped growing long ago, ts canopy thinned and frayed, not a single sap springing from the old rotting trunk.  Some trees aren't meant to spurt tender new branches, but to stand stoically on the forest floor, silently decaying."

Published: 2022  Read: June 2023  Genre: Fiction

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore

I've read other books by this author and enjoy his sharp witted dialogue and quirky characters.  In this novel, the hero, a Beta-Male named Charles Asher, is given the job of Death Merchant, responsible for collecting the souls of the recently departed.  The absurd and zany adventures was a great escape for a few nights of reading.  There's a sub-text of how we deal with the loss of loved ones and our fear of death.  

Quotes:

"[Talking about his Mom dying with his sister] You're doing the same thing, trying to reconcile all the moms that Mom ever was - the one you wanted, the one she was when you needed her and she was there, the one she was when she didn't understand.  Most of us don't live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we're a whole bunch of selves.  When someone dies, they all integrate into the soul - the essence of who we are, beyond the different face we wear throughout our lives."

"I've seen it again and again, said Charlie, more with men than women...a wife or husband dies, and it's like the survivor is roped to him like a mountain climber who's fallen into a crevasse.  If the survivor can't let go--cut them loose, I guess--the dead will drag them right into the grave."

Published: 2006  Read: December 2022  Genre: Fiction 

 

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World - Laura Imai Messina

 I loved this story, though it was sad, it shows the evolution of grief from different perspectives and the ultimate ability of people to go on.  Yui, a young mother, loses her small daughter and mother during a tsunami.  She travels to the site to a phone booth where those who have lost someone talk to their relatives on the "wind phone" - unconnected but voices are carried on the wind.  She meets Takeshi who has lost his wife to illness and his daughter to silence.  They heal themselves and each other sharing their grief.  A touching, yet uplifting read.

Quotes:

p 36 - "Time may pass, but the memory of the people we've loved doesn't grow old."

p 65 - "There must be an expiration date on the soul like there is on the body."

p 75 - "Yui knew that the strongest kind of love is the kind that is taken for granted."

p 106 - "A famous citation from the American psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916-1988) reads: 'We need four hugs a day for survival.  We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. And we need twelve hugs a day for growth."

p 111 - ...the things you end up missing most about somebody when they're gone are their flaws: the most ridiculous annoying things."

p 158 - "Anyone who has experience great grief wonders at some point which is more difficult, learning or unlearning ...now she was sure it was the second."

p 223 - "As Yui opened the door onto the dense silence of her house, she concluded that memories were like objects...sooner or later, they always floated back to the surface."

p 260 [Yui on the radio] "You speak to people, but you don't know who's listening to you.  But you come into their home and make them happy anyway. 'I don't know about happy, but they certainly feel like they have some company.' 'Isn't that the same thing?'"

p 364 - "Ultimately, that was what he wished for everyone who came there--that each person would find a place where they could tend to their pain and heal their wounds.  That place would be different for each one of them."

Published: 2021  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

Anxious People - Fredrik Backman

I'd watched the movie of this author's first book, A Man Called Ove and remember enjoying it, even with sub-titles.  This second novel was recommended by one of my book clubs.  

I was intrigued, laughing out loud, and crying while reading this book.  A cast of quirky characters embroiled in a hostage situation created by a bumbling bank robber are interviewed by the police that rescue them and the story unravels from their shared experience.  And, it is like unraveling, loose, seemingly unrelated threads come together marvelously.  Backman is a master storyteller.  His characters are real genuine people.  This one is my favorite for 2022.  I imagined it as a play, which would be delicious!

Quotes:

"And that's the weirdest thing about being someone's parent...that you are loved in spite of everything that your are...Perhaps there's a biological reason for that, that up to a certain age a child loves you unconditionally and hopelessly for one single reason: you're theirs.  Which is a pretty smart move on biology's part, you have to give it that."

"Do you know how many men like you every single woman on the planet meets every day, who think that every thought that pops into your tiny little male brains is a lovely present you can give us?"

"We weren't allowed to argue just for the sake of winning.  Because sooner or later, that would end  up with one of us winning.  And no marriage can survive that.  Did it work??' Julia asked. 'I don't know," Estelle admitted. 'We never got past the first flush of infatuation."

"[My Dad] He says you end up marrying the one you don't understand.  Then you spend the rest of your life trying."

"...your children aren't your children, they're the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself." [Kahlil Gibran]

Published: 2020  Read: November 2021  Genre: Fiction 

Inheritance - Dani Shapiro

Subtitle: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love

I took a long time to getting around to reading this.  I'd put in on hold at the library back in February but couldn't get it until this week.  I devoured it in 24 hours!  The author finds out through a DNA test that her father is not her biological father and embarks on a journey to discover the truth. She was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and was often told she "didn't look Jewish".  She's a terrific writer, sharing her emotional roller coaster as she discovers her true paternity.  I was also fascinated by the rituals and practices of the Jewish faith.  This one goes to the top of my list for 2020
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Published: 2019  Read: May 2020 Genre: Memoir

A Grief Observed - C. S. Lewis

This memoir of an experience of grief has been on my TBR list for a long time.  I think I'd postponed looking for it because I thought it would be long and heavy reading.  To my surprise, its less than 100 pages.  It 's essentially Lewis' journals written after the death of his wife of less than 5 years from cancer.  They had married when he was well into his forties,  She was divorced, with two boys.  She brought them to England to be near Lewis who she had corresponded with from America and become a close friend and admirer.

C.S. Lewis was a well-known Christian apologetic, someone who defends Christian beliefs with reason and logic.

My edition had an introduction by Madeleine L'Engle, author of "A Wrinkle in Time" and "Two Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage", and a fellow Christian writer of Lewis's. She was critical of the book which put me off initially - if you read it, skip her introduction until after.

The book is a journey through grief and loss and coming to terms with a crisis of faith.  His "observations" are universal.

"This is important.  One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness).  One only meets each hour or moment that comes."

A good part of the book is about him questioning his faith in God and questioning his own doubt.

"Sooner or later I must face the question in plain language.  What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, 'good'?

"From a rational point of view what new factor has H.'s [his wife's] death introduced into the problem of the universe?  What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe?  ...If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards.  The faith which 'took these things into acocunt' was not faith but imagination".

In the end, he recognizes he has been on a journey and his faith has been with him all along.

"My jottings show something of the process[toward getting through grief] but not so much as I 'd hoped.  ..like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight...when you first notice them they have already been going on for some time."

One quirky note, one of his friends actually gave him a copy of the book to read (it had been published under a pseudonym).


Published: 1961  Read: August 2015  Genre: Memoir