literary inklings
From 2012 to 2016 I ran a website where I shared in-depth essays on the books that were shaping my perspective. Below is a selection of my favorites.
n our frantic, overwhelming, too busy world, what does a heart-centered life look like? For each of us it’s different, of course, because it’s dependent upon what’s in our hearts, whomever and whatever truly reside there. But it’s very likely – perhaps a guaranteed certainty – that the things we give importance to in our lives are not the same things living in the softest part of our heart. This is the journey inward that Shauna Niequist chronicles in her book, Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living. A collection of thought-provoking essays, Present Over Perfect explores the discoveries we make when we slow down, simplify, and choose to live with more grace and intention.
Tyler Knott Gregson is beloved for his typewriter series of poems scattered meaningfully upon found scraps of paper, makeshift canvases for simple, profound pieces of introspection. He writes of courage and love and wanderlust, and the picture he paints with his words becomes a representation of a life lived wholly, fearless of the dark places and brilliant in the light. Wildly into the Dark is his third outing in the publishing world – Gregson regularly shares his work on social media – and within the latest collection he goes on a journey into territory deeper still, sharing poetry and poetic wonderings as well as what the book’s subtitle charmingly calls, “rattlings of a curious mind.”
When writer Belinda Pollard acquired her spunky Australian Terrier in May of 1998, she had no idea in what ways the furry little hurricane would change her life - and herself. In Dogged Optimism: Lessons in Joy from a Disaster Prone Dog, Pollard compiles the story of her adventure with bright-eyed, ever-inquisitive Killarney, and in her quietly humorous, heartfelt way she fills the pages of the memoir with the meaningful essence of dog ownership. Through sixteen "lessons" Killarney teaches Belinda how to live fiercely and freely, while she, a natural-born worrier, warily follows Killarney's lead into the sometimes frightening joys of life.
Billy Collins is a New York-born, California-educated poet, and his work combines the best of both coasts. Distinctly American in their narrative style, Collins’s poems evoke wit, wonder, and whimsy from the simplistic. In his way of lyrically illuminating the magical of the everyday, Collins teaches his reader how to reach back and grasp the open-hearted experience of youth, and how to search for it in small moments of our disillusioned grown-up lives. His fourth collection, Questions About Angels, was first published in 1991, and in the twenty-plus years since it first became available, the collection has lost neither its power of observation, its relevancy, nor its ability to charm a new generation.
Before becoming an international sensation and household name at the age of fifty-four with the publication of her first novel, Sue Monk Kidd was a writer of personal spiritual nonfiction. And earlier yet, writing was not her primary career at all. A longtime nurse, Kidd began her writing career by surprise when a piece she submitted to a contest was published by Guideposts, an interfaith publication founded in the 1940s. She went on to write for the magazine for twelve more years; thus began a superstar bestseller’s unexpected journey. From there, Kidd went on to write and publish an array of personal nonfiction, from pieces in magazines and eventually three memoirs on spirituality before she would ultimately publish The Secret Life of Bees. Her 2006 book Firstlight gathers together these early writings from her Guideposts years and other publications as well.
"Deep down in the human spirit there is a reservoir of courage. It’s always available, always waiting to be discovered."
So writes Pema Chodron in the epilogue of her book, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, a collection of wisdom gained from her Buddhist teachers. It is, as Pema is known for producing, an attempt at honoring her beloved instructors, passing along their teachings as a means of healing a beautiful, broken world. Yet it becomes, as her work often does, a uniquely important rendering of timeless peace-based practices into a language the modern-day Westerner will be able to quickly understand.
Born of Lewis's inspiration, the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society has for decades been an important institution in the continued study of Lewis and his ideas, as well as a tribute to the lives and works of those who shared his intellectual circle. By sustaining the ideas of the Inklings, the society stands as a guide for generations of thinkers whose visions would blossom under such influence.
This year the society released C.S. Lewis and His Circle, a new book which adds to the extensive library of publications exploring Lewis's ideas and insights. C.S. Lewis and His Circle contains many previously unpublished talks from influential speakers, giving Lewis enthusiasts a new chance to witness what the study of Lewis is like in the writer’s own home, so to speak.
With her Facebook community Gilbert shares stories of what inspires her, whether moments and conversations from her past that she holds onto or new discoveries and ideas that enchant her imagination. She worries less about hashtags and buzzwords - and, my favorite, she gives not a whit whether her stories are long or short. She writes lovingly, and that seems to be her highest priority. But beyond her stories, which often garner hundreds of responses and thousands of interactions, she encourages members of the community to make themselves at home and to share their own stories, to connect with each other and engage their curiosity. It was in many ways from this platform that her new book was born.
Few poets capture the world with such ethereal grace and strict joy as Mary Oliver. In her 2014 collection, Blue Horses, she returns to some of her most poignant and witty moods to remark on nature, life, death, and just about everything else. In her beloved way, Oliver avoids her work becoming overly stylized by not really styling (or, at least, not visibly, earnestly styling) it at all.
Her poems become conversations with the reader, the result of the way Oliver sees life with dauntless curiosity and an open heart. Her rhetoric takes on the vivacity of a delighted child, with a child’s wisdom - a wisdom gained by being open to the world as a rule. In her commonplace subject matter she uncovers opportunity for laughter, while in her consideration of the natural world she delivers the trademark significance her readers have come to love with as much otherworldly lyricism as ever before.
On January 8, 1839, during the eighth US president's time in office, William A. Clark was born in a Pennsylvania log cabin. One hundred and seventy-two years and thirty-six presidents later, his daughter Huguette would be living in reclusion in the middle of Manhattan, the century-old heiress of an unfathomable fortune rendered from copper in the time of the Civil War. It’s an extraordinary story of rags-to-riches with several lifetimes’ worth of scandal, loss, and generosity in between – a story of a remarkable family and one of American history’s greatest fortunes, both fallen into the shadows, hidden in plain sight. The breadcrumbs of this forgotten piece of social and cultural history were stumbled upon in 2009 by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman who, when fanciful curiosity led him slightly out of his price range, came across an abandoned mansion while he was house-hunting in Connecticut. He soon discovered that the house, in a shambles but still handled by a manager, was owned by a woman who had never lived in it – a woman with the unfamiliar name of Huguette Clark. Further curiosity led Dedman to find out that Huguette had yet another mansion to her name on the opposite coast, as well as three expansive apartments in Manhattan. All empty. Dedman went on to investigate these abandoned residences and their elusive owner, the relatively unknown Huguette Clark, who at one hundred and two years old was living in perfect health in a Manhattan hospital – and had been for twenty years.
Tyler Knott Gregson wrote the first poem in his popular typewriter series without ever knowing there would be a typewriter series. After stumbling across an old Remington typewriter in a used bookshop, he took a page from the $2 book he was purchasing and, without ceremony (without even taking a seat), he typed out a poem. What followed was a love affair between a poet and an unchangeable medium. Gregson, a born romantic and self-proclaimed “chaser of the light”, fell in love with the honesty of writing poetry on a typewriter, the solidity of the aesthetic and its inability to be edited. He first shared his poems online to viral acclaim, and now a selection of them are available in his book, Chasers of the Light.
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is the brainchild of the Pulitzer-winning husband-and-wife journalistic team, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. She has roots as a business executive and he's a longtime op-ed columnist for the New York Times; together, they continue to provoke change and raise awareness for global issues. When it was published in 2009, Half the Sky incited a movement to take action against the crises women of poverty are facing in the developing world. The movement of the book went on to spark a two-part miniseries on PBS, a social media game that raises funds for change, and, most invaluably, an enduring discussion of the problems as well as the potential solutions. The crises at the fore of this women’s rights initiative are horrifying in both context and scope, but WuDunn and Kristof present them with tact and respectfulness, balancing the harrowing truths with other, more optimistic realities about how these injustices are being fought against. As a reader, I felt I had an undeniable opportunity – and, perhaps, a moral obligation – to understand the experiences women across the country are facing; and even though I read many paragraphs through the blur of tears, I know Half the Sky was one of the most vitally important books I’ll ever read.
Across the landscape of his career, author Chris Bohjalian has written novels about a murderer's plight against a privileged family in World War II Italy, about a young social worker driven into Jazz Age Long Island by a homeless man's photographs, of an American woman's love for an Armenian man in early-twentieth century Syria, and more. In his contemporary classic, Midwives, he tells the unforgettable story of midwife Sibyl Danforth and a home birth gone tragically wrong. Narrated by Sibyl’s fourteen year-old daughter Connie, Midwives is a chilling and evocative account of what one woman will endure for the sake of protecting her name and standing by her choices.
Thirst is Mary Oliver's 2006 collection, containing forty-three works from the poet that frame her experiences in the time after her partner of four decades passed away. While her poems always have a way of exposing the rawness of nature and freedom and love, here she sets her sights on slightly different territory: namely the nakedness of grief and the honesty of passing through it, back to the place of comfort that looks slightly different after knowing loss. Sweetly, peacefully, she faces that place with hope and courage.
Life of Pi, Yann Martel's Booker-winning literary achievement, tells the story of sixteen year-old Piscine "Pi" Patel, the son of a zookeeper who, at sixteen, leaves his native India with his family and a menagerie of their zoo animals on a Japanse cargo ship. The Patels are bound for a new life in Canada, but when the ship sinks Pi finds himself the sole human survivor on a lifeboat also carrying a dazed orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg, an ornery hyena, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. As the circle of life progresses even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Pi and the tiger are soon all that remain. What follows is a literary patchwork of magical realism, seafaring survival, and the infinite reaches of faith.
Creating a provocative sensation upon its publication in 1993 with a film adaptation that became a cult classic just six years later, The Virgin Suicides remains a persistent contemporary classic; a novel at once remarkably elusive, open to perpetual interpretation, and yet with an intensely personal resonance for many readers. It was the debut novel of author Jeffrey Eugenides (winning awards even before its publication), and in many ways it lays the groundwork for the mastery and peculiarity of a seminal artist. The story, of course, is that of the Lisbon sisters – Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia, who range in ages from 17 to 13, respectively – and the year in which they ended their young lives. In a uniquely stylized first-person-plural narrative the unidentified boys across the street, telling the story twenty years later, explore every waking moment of their obsession with the otherworldly Lisbon sisters: beginning with young Cecilia’s first suicide attempt and subsequent completion, and carrying on fixatedly through until the sisters’ tragic dénouement. In between lies an electric, compelling portrait of a doomed search for liberation in the clutch of youthful desperation; of parental extremes warring with teenage angst; and of the grimy secrets hiding in the shadows of 1970s suburbia.
First published in 1998, Difficult Daughters went on to win the 1999 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in the Europe and South Asia region. Reading it, one is quick to forget that the novel was, in fact, Kapur’s debut: her style of writing is risky but beautiful, her confidence steady, and her characters richly developed. Her inclusion of small, consistent details that color the daily life of her Indian women works to bring the authenticity of her India to larger life, even for a foreign reader who may not be familiar with the native terms Kapur is quick to utilize. This is one of the many charms of Difficult Daughters, the way it confidently offers its roots and the road to its present. In her examination of the search for female identity, Kapur puts forth an illuminating novel full of power, honesty, and grace.
Considered one of the definitive novels of Japanese literary history, Haruki Murkami's Norwegian Wood catapulted him to celebrity status in his home country and drove him to leave Japan in an attempt to evade the glare of widespread fame. Interestingly, though Murakami is revered as a writer of magical realism, Norwegian Wood presents a slightly more basic story to the naked eye. The novel follows Toru, a young man entering his first year of college in 1960s Tokyo, and his relationship with the beautiful Naoko, whose spirit has been broken by the death of their mutual best friend, her boyfriend Kizuki. As Toru finds himself drawn closer to Naoko, Naoko withdraws further into herself, and soon Toru connects with another student - the independent, freethinking Midori - whose liberated attitude introduces him to a new kind of feeling.
For Major Ernest Pettigrew, life in the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary is a daily testament to the splendidly traditional English nature. In his long-time home, Rose Lodge, the Major spends his years of retirement partaking in the intricate social functions of his circle: rounds of golf, shooting parties, and proper afternoon teas. A widower, he has learned to find a sense of familiarity in being alone, and the superficial airs of his society friends feel quite natural. For the Major, though, life changes in an instant after the death of his brother, when he develops a surprising friendship with Jasmina Ali, the village's widowed shopkeeper. As the Major and Mrs. Ali begin to fall in love, their newfound connection will face all manner of threats: whether from the Major's friends, who see Mrs. Ali's Pakastani heritage as an affront to convention, or from Mrs. Ali's family, who see her widowhood as a sentence to withdraw from living, or even from the Major's family, who will quickly put their greed over the Major’s wishes. Throughout love and struggle, the eccentricities and unrealistic standards of two very different worlds are slyly turned on their heads as Helen Simonson weaves her witty, delightful debut novel.
First published in 1994, Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird is considered one of the quintessential books for writers. As the subtitle Some Instructions on Writing and Life suggests, Lamott’s narrative breaks down the writing life, guiding students of the craft on the journey to understand what drives our passion by sifting the intricacies of writing through the varying emotions and circumstances we’re apt to come across in our day-to-day lives. In chapters like School Lunches and Index Cards Lamott draws on her habits and experiences to better explain her own unique process, while in the chapter titled Writing a Present she explores the various ways in which her inspiration has taken root somewhere outside of herself. Her characteristic wit is at work throughout her narrative, often turning a darkly comic glance on the harrows we come across in writing and life that can sometimes help to fuel our journey.
When one reads a classic there are a million extra ways to be surprised, because for so long preconceived notions have been quietly stewing in our minds about what sort of story the book is going to tell. Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera is just such a classic, first published in English in 1988 and an irrevocably iconic work ever since, second only to his Nobel Prize-winning 100 Years of Solitude. Yet in twenty-six years its story – the tale of Florentino Ariza’s devastating love and half-century of waiting for the beautiful Fermina Daza – will not be as instantly recognizable to readers, or as culturally ingrained, as the love stories between Rhett and Scarlett or Cathy and Heathcliff, for example. It’s a young novel yet, but there seems to be an enduring singularity to it that will allow it to slip through the grasp of convention for a long time; and it’s also an impressively subjective novel, with every page giving rise to new reactions in its reader, opening the door for uncountable opinions. These two factors alone make the prospect of writing about it rather staggering, to say the least, but it’s a novel that surely evokes a prolonged, unshakable reaction.
leander Girl is an expansive novel that weaves together many different emotions with vibrancy; there is at once a touch of romance and suspense, of family drama and the divide of social classes. While we are in America with Korobi, meeting the devious Mitra and his sweet wife, as well as the charismatic Vic and his uncle, we are simultaneously back in Kolkata where Korobi’s fiancé Rajat struggles against the machinations of an old flame, and where his family’s business – and maybe even their lives – face threats from within. Asif Ali, the Bose family’s Muslim chauffeur, maintains his own quiet life devoted to the family he serves, delighting in the antics of young Pia Bose who so reminds him of his sister; but when his devotion to the Bose family threatens both their well-being and his pride, he’ll do whatever is necessary to set things straight.
Mary Oliver’s poetry dependably lingers on the topics that quicken her heart, which is to say the blessings of the natural world: flowers and field mice, the magic of a bird flying over breaking waves, morning light (and sunsets as well). But the subject she seems to come most alive writing about is certainly dogs. In Dog Songs she compiles thirty-six writings of various styles – poems of differing natures, and one essay – which extol the many beloved virtues of the dogs she’s known and loved. Her writings cross between poignant and joyful, paying homage in full to the history of dogs and to the unique way they have of changing our lives. Alongside her poems are illustrations by John Burgoyne depicting the subjects of her Songs; a collection of pictures rendered in a style that elegantly echoes Oliver's writing in its surface simplicity and deeper vastness. From the first poem to the last, Dog Songs rings of Oliver’s very singular magic with poetry and capturing the nature of dogs.
Lincoln O'Neill's job at Omaha's Courier newspaper is in security, but he doesn't play the standard role of blocking viruses and thwarting hackers. Lincoln reads emails. More specifically, he monitors a program that flags every uncensored email an employee sends. Everyone at The Courier knows someone is monitoring their email, but no one has seen him, and Lincoln's long night hours make him nearly invisible at the office. Jennifer and Beth are two employees who break the censorship rule -- often. In rebellious defiance of company policy the two women send endless emails to each other during their work hours, hilarious and honest emails discussing their personal lives as they help each other through different struggles. Jennifer isn't ready to start a family, but her husband couldn't be more excited at the prospect of having a baby. Beth's relationship with her college boyfriend, metal guitarist Chris, is on a perpetually rocky road, and with her younger sister getting married ahead of her Beth is more than willing to exercise her sharp tongue in her daily emails to Jennifer. Lincoln knows he shouldn't be reading their emails, knows he should send them a warning and move on; but the prospect of no longer getting Beth and Jennifer's funny and charming emails every day is something he doesn't want to face. Soon not getting involved will get him in over his head - especially when he starts falling for Beth.
There are a lot of interesting points in Gardner’s book, particularly following along with him as he crafts a story idea and explores the right and (potentially) wrong moves, how the story would change with different intents, and the myriad ways it could be done well. He also provides exercises at the back of the book – both group exercises intended for classes and writings groups, and individual exercises for the endeavoring writer to tackle alone. (I’ll possibly write about those in the future since I haven’t pursued them yet.) On the whole, for writers looking to better their craft through strongly academic, objective study, The Art of Fiction offers a very thorough perspective.
In her new novel, I Always Loved You, Robin Oliveira takes the reader to Paris in the Belle Époque and tells the story of the tumultuous relationships between the radical impressionists, centering on Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas. She’s a sensible American with an untapped talent; he’s the master she’s always admired, whose work is more than paint. When Degas, uncharacteristically bewitched, begs an introduction, their lives are catapulted into a swell of emotional upheaval, of joy and loss and the bewildering elusiveness of love. With his genius Degas will guide her to her own profound talent, helping her to see beyond the meager veil of commercialism to redefine her experience of art; but with his maddening unpredictability, his impossible conceit, and his infuriating severity, Mary may find herself at the brink of breaking, whether by spirit or heart. Central in the lives of Mary and Degas are the host of independently-minded artists who brought the impressionist movement to life: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, and Camille Pissaro. Also among their set are Berthe Morisot and Édouard Manet, whose incorrigible love, barely muted by Berthe’s marriage to Édouard’s brother, mirrors the overwhelming and ultimately tragic trajectory of Mary and Degas’s relationship. Oliveira’s rendering of Paris in the late 1800s is a gorgeous, bittersweet love letter to an iconic and wildly romantic time in history, but nothing of I Always Loved You rings of a fairy tale. Instead, the author pursues the sadness and tumult of her characters’ relationships, unearthing the ugliness of love and the miserable beauty of what can be lost. For all this heaviness, though, Oliveira has brought to readers a surprisingly life-affirming novel, one that will test our allegiance to our way of thinking and open our minds, as her Degas would, to a different perspective.
Although her name is universally synonymous with her groundbreaking roles as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Vivien Leigh's legacy as an actress radiates across a career that spanned three decades and singularly impacted the worlds of both stage and screen. From her industry-changing portrayal of one of the most iconic film characters of all time to her twenty-year relationship with Laurence Olivier, Vivien has always been a woman somehow trapped beneath stigmas, rumors, and ever-changing accounts. She battled manic depression in a time when the disorder was far from understood; she carried the weight of the world’s opinions over her love affair with the world’s greatest actor; and through it all, she remained deeply personal, selective in her career, and enigmatic in her public image. In Kendra Bean’s new biography, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait, the details of Vivien’s life combine with rare and previously unpublished photos to present in full the true nature of Vivien Leigh, celebrating the legend while simultaneously liberating the woman from the shadows of her own success.
As a spiritual entrepreneur and life coach, Gabrielle Bernstein has been called a new-age thought leader and a guru for a new generation. Her third book, May Cause Miracles, is a guidebook that adapts the principles of A Course in Miracles, serving as a tool for faith-seekers on their journey to peace and enlightenment. One of the things I loved right off the bat is that May Cause Miracles manages to liberate spirituality from the politics of religion. It operates on the basis that there’s no right or wrong way to have faith. Let’s say it’s very BYOF –Bring Your Own Faith. Regardless of your spiritual practice – or even if you don’t have one – the tools in May Cause Miracles offer an effective way to look at our real-life problems and find ways of changing our perspective that feel genuinely natural.
Florence in 1943 is radiating calm before a storm, entirely at the disposal of its German allies whose soldiers spill across the Tuscan hillside with abandon, commandeering art and artifacts as they go. Gradually receiving the brunt of the Nazis' focus are the Rosatis, a family of Italian nobility, and their idyllic estate, Villa Chimera. Here lives eighteen year-old Cristina Rosati, who exists in an otherwise blissful ignorance away from the tragedies of the war until she embarks on a love affair with a young Nazi officer that will ultimately lead her family on a treacherous downward spiral. Branded as traitors for hosting the Nazis, the Rosati family is left to witness their own fall from grace - if they manage to survive the war. Ten years later, police detective Serafina Bettini is investigating the gruesome serial murders of the remaining members of the Rosati family. She’s desperate to solve the mystery before the killer reaches the youngest of the Rosatis: Cristina. As Serafina's investigation leads her further into the scandal of Villa Chimera and its wartime downfall, she realizes that she herself may have ties to the victims, and maybe even to the killer.
Despite a lasting reputation for both the dark and delusional, Edgar Allan Poe could - on occasion - handle love with a gentle touch. This is evidenced in a letter he wrote to his once-fiance, poet Sarah Helen Whitman. She was a Transcendentalist, he was a Romantic. They met first through their love of words, when she composed a Valentine for him on the occasion of a holiday party (which he didn't attend). Upon hearing her poem, he replied with a poem of his own; thus began a correspondence that sparked a courtship.