Reading suggestions
Whether you are sitting in the
shade of a tree or basking in the sun on a lounger, summertime invites reading. Presently I have several books on the
go, and finishing them is my top reading priority.
The Joy of Living by Buddhist meditation master Yongey Mingyur
Rinpoche is another book on my “to complete” list. In The Joy of Living,
Buddhist meditation master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche discusses how our thought
patterns influence our sense of well-being, and guides the reader through the
basics of awareness meditation. Written with humor and wisdom, The Joy of Living is a must read for
anyone interested in calming their “monkey mind”.
I am also part way through The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and Its Citrus Fruit by Helena Attlee. Attlee combines horticulture, cuisine, history and art as
she explores the fascinating history of citrus fruits in Italy.
Some of the books that I enjoyed
reading this year include the following.
The Time in Between by Maria Duenas is the story of Sira Quiroga.
The reader first meets Sira when she is twelve years old sweeping the floor of
a prestigious dress making shop in Madrid. We follow her to Morocco, where her unscrupulous lover
steals her inheritance and abandons her. Left to pay his debts, Sira becomes a couturiere
for the wives of Nazi officers, and eventually enters the world of espionage as
a spy for the Allies. The Time in Between was an international
bestseller. It was also a hit Spanish mini-series. I streamed the
first episode on DramaFever and I
could become as hooked on this series as I was on Downton Abbey.
Quebec author Jocelyne Saucier’s
novel And The Birds Rained Down deals
with themes of isolation and self-determination, particularly in relation to
dying. This makes the novel relevant to the national discussion on
physician-assisted death. A trio
of old men, Tom, Charlie and the recently deceased Ted live in the wild, each
in their separate camp. Death and
dying surround the men as they hunt and trap and as the life giving days of
summer give way to the cold, dark of winter. Each keeps a box of poison on a
shelf and the men have a pact to help each other die.
Readers who are beginning to
question their memory may find some consolation in The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Psychologist Daniel Schacter explores the “sins of
omission”, defined as the inability to call up a fact, event or idea, and the
“sins of commission” where a memory is present but is incorrect or
unwanted. Schacter uses a variety
of methods, including story telling, trial evidence and academic studies, to
illustrate and explain how the mind can play havoc with memory at any age.
Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser is a sympathetic
look at the unfortunate French queen.
At age fourteen, the Austrian archduchess was married to the French
dauphin and thrust into a political role that she was ill prepared to
assume. The French were highly
suspicious of Austria and Antoinette was an easy target for anti-Austrian
sentiment. Fraser argues that
French xenophobia attributed Antoinette with saying, “Let them eat cake”, an
expression that the French had applied to every foreign queen since the mid-17th
century. Nor was she the
promiscuous woman portrayed in the salacious cartoons of the day. Married to an
ineffectual king whom she refused to abandon to secure her own safety, Fraser
shows Antoinette for the tragic figure that she was.
When I wrote this, a storm was
brewing over the lake. It was a very good time for reading.
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