May reading and review

May was quite a varied month! Our school obligations wrapped up, including Girl Scouts and teaching religious school.  My daughter kicked tushie in Kindergarten and I can’t believe she’s going to be a first grader in the fall.  Mr. B and I traveled to Italy and Croatia. We hugely lucked out with no water damage in the flood that occurred here in Houston.  And I turned 40.  Lots of joy!

Sunset in Dubrovnik, Croatia

The Power of Choice: 20 Visionaries Share Their Personal Power of Choice Moments by Jodi Chapman, Dan Teck, Members of the Soul Shakers Community

I believe what we experience in life is all about our perspective.  It’s mainly how we choose to think about situations that determines the outcome.  I am honored to be part of this essay collection, all about living from a place of soulful intention each day.  100% of the profits from sales of this book are being donated to the PAWS animal charity.

Judaism’s Ten Best Ideas: A Brief Guide for Seekers by Dr. Arthur Green

In this quick read, Dr. Green describes what he thinks of as the core of Jewish teaching, the ideas that represent the Jewish people’s greatest ongoing contribution to human civilization.  Reading this book, we learn that Judaism is a religion of doing more than one of believing, though of course it is that too.  There’s much discussion about the importance of actions.  This is a good book for Jew and non-Jew alike and could be a perfect introduction to Judaism’s key ideas.

The Dovekeepers: A Novel by Alice Hoffman

This book gave me the absolutely wonderful yet still awful case of “can’t-put-it-down-totally-absorbed-reading-into-the-night-tired-the-next-day”itis. It is so good! The Dovekeepers is a novel set during and after the fall of Jerusalem (70 C.E.). The book covers a period of four years as the Romans waged war against the Jewish stronghold of Masada, claimed by a group of nine hundred rebels and their families.  I have been to Masada and I know what happened there, yet as I was reading, I still held out hope that the ending would be different.  Part of what’s compelling about this novel, for me, was the writing.  It danced along in four different viewpoints until the final moments.

From this mountain there was no longer an escape into the wilderness. The six Roman camps with their high towers blocked any passage through the ravines, or down the serpent’s path, or along the treacherous southern route of the cliffs on the back of the mountain. This stronghold was the only place where we might abide. Like the lion on his chain, we had no way to run from the force of our enemy. It had been written that we would make a stand here and that we would be the last to do so. The outcome would remain unknown until it was upon us, and all we could hope to do was follow God’s path.

In her afterward, Hoffman writes, “I was initially inspired by my first visit to Masada, a spiritual experience so intense and moving, I felt as though the lives that had been led there two thousand years earlier were utterly fresh and relevant. The tragic events of the past and the extraordinary sacrifices that were made in this fortress seemed to be present all around me. It was as if those who had lived there, and died there, had passed by only hours before.”

Orphan Train: A Novel by Christina Baker Kline

“I feel myself retreating to someplace deep inside. It is a pitiful kind of childhood, to know that no one loves you or is taking care of you, to always be on the outside looking in. I feel a decade older than my years. I know too much; I have seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary. So I am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.”

OMG how great is that writing??? This novel is really popular right now, so I figured I’d see what all the fuss is about.  It is a gripping story about friendship and second chances that grabbed me right away.  You could swallow this book in one sitting, it’s that good.  Highly recommend.

Amazing Birds – A Treasury Of Facts And Trivia About The Avian World by Dr. Roger Lederer

This is a beautiful book that you could open to any page to learn interesting facts about our world’s birds.  It was one of the best books of 2014 on Amazon.  Here are a few fun trivia I learned:

• Approximately 1,000 bird-related books are published every year.
• Mammals have X and Y chromosomes, XX indicating female and XY indicating male.  Birds have W and Z chromosomes, the female having WZ and the male ZZ.
• A blue jay’s feathers appear blue, but if you hold it up to the light and look through it, it will appear brown.
• Woodpeckers have a shock-absorbing mechanism in the skull, which allows the bones of the jaw to disconnect from the bones surrounding the brain at the moment of pecking.

God of Me: Imagining God throughout Your Lifetime by Rabbi David Lyon

Rabbi Lyon is my rabbi here in Houston and I’ve been meaning to read this for a few years now.  This book brings the concept of God, which can be quite impersonal and external, to a more personal, meaningful presence.  At various points in our lives, from childhood, through adolescence, into adulthood and old age, we have the potential to allow God to be a loving presence for us, dependent upon what we ourselves bring to the relationship.  This book is a meaningful and insightful guide toward developing a life-long relationship with God.

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

New York in the ’90s, working at a venerable literary agency.  Sounds sort of like the life I wanted then! This is a book I’ve wanted to read since it came out last summer, and it was an easy and entertaining read.  It was bright, charming, and an excellent insight into what it’s like to be young with all your choices ahead of you.  Definitely recommend.

“To be Max was not just to broker big deals but to be utterly engaged with contemporary literature, as entangled with the ins and outs of narrative style as I’d been as a grad student, albeit in a far less rarefied way; to be in daily conversation with great writers and editors who cared deeply about words, language, story, which was another way of simply being engaged with the world, of trying to make sense of the world, rather than retreating from it, trying to place an artificial order on the messy stuff of life, preferring dead writers to living ones.”

“Slowly, as in a dream, the gibberish resolved into language. “It’s Jerry,” the caller was shouting. Oh my God, I thought. It’s him. I began, slightly, to quiver with fear, not because I was talking to—or being shouted at by—the actual J. D. Salinger, but because I so feared doing something wrong and incurring my boss’s wrath. My mind began to sift through all the Salinger-related instructions that had been imparted to me, but they had more to do with keeping others away from him, less to do with the man himself.”

Identifying and Feeding Birds (Peterson Field Guides/Bird Watcher’s Digest Backyard Bird Guides) by William H. Thompson III

This book is enjoyable and very reader-friendly.  Thompson gives a personable guide to starting a bird-watching hobby.  He shares his lessons learned and his joy in the hobby.  I found it to be exactly what I wanted.  Includes photos of males and females of the most common backyard birds, lists of plants and flowers that attract various species, and food/feeder recommendations.  And look how nice (this is what happens when you order from small independent shops)…

Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte

From Amazon: “When award-winning journalist Brigid Schulte, a harried mother of two, realized she was living a life of all work and no play, she decided to find out why she felt so overwhelmed. This book is the story of what she discovered-and of how her search for answers became a journey toward a life of less stress and more leisure.”

I loved it so much that I’ve planned a 5-post discussion about it this month here on the blog.  Please read the introduction here.

What have you been reading lately? And are you on Goodreads? I’d love to connect there.

Currently Reading

More monthly book reports

Everything I’ve Ever Read (I think)