When the Heart Waits – by S. Monk Kidd

I read The Secret Life of Bees a while ago, so I was familiar with Sue Monk Kidd’s writing.  But when I got this book as a gift I was surprised – I didn’t know she wrote books on spirituality and faith.  I started reading and definitely enjoyed her writing and the points that she made.

A quick summary:  In this book, the author talks about waiting in the spiritual sense.  She talks about how when we face those dark moments of questioning and wondering what the whole point of everything is, we should simply wait.  She compares this to the time a caterpillar spends waiting in a cocoon, which leads to the transformation into a butterfly. 

I liked this book (although sometimes it felt a bit slow).  Waiting is very hard.  But the point she makes is that when we wait, it’s not like nothing is happening – that waiting period can be a time of growth and transformation.  At one point, she compared it to the yeast in bread: as you wait for the yeast to make the bread rise, it doesn’t look like anything is happening, but in reality, something is happening. 

She also talked about the process of becoming our true selves and letting go of our false selves.  Waiting, or “cocooning,” is an important part of this process. 

I liked this book.  Like I said, I thought she made some great points.  She had good insights that would be helpful to anyone in the process of waiting.  I liked that she referenced books by authors I want to read, which has now made me more excited about reading those books (for example, books by Thomas Merton).

Excellent Women - by B. Pym

Funny story about this book.  I had downloaded it on my Kindle a few weeks ago, intending to read it on the plane.  As I read, I kept thinking that this did not at all sound like Barbara Pym.  I had only read one of her books (Some Tame Gazelle), and I wasn’t sure if I could make that judgment based on one previous book, so I read a little bit more.  But it was not her voice.  Specifically, it lacked the humor that was in Some Tame Gazelle.  So I double checked, and sure enough, I had downloaded a different Excellent Women (sigh…).  I immediately stopped reading (it was pretty boring) and started reading Walden instead. 

Anyway, I finally got the real Excellent Women from the library and just finished reading it.  Barbara Pym’s humor was certainly there.

A quick summary: Mildred is in her thirties and unmarried.  A couple moves into the apartment beneath hers.  The book talks about the time period from about the moment they move in to the moment they move out (which I think is about a year), the different things that happen, and the different people in Mildred’s life.

Like Some Tame Gazelle, Excellent Women is more of a quiet book, talking about some day-to-day things that happen to Mildred and the other characters.  But it was entertaining to read.  I certainly wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters and their relationships.  And like I said, there is some quiet humor that pops in every now and then. 

Definitely a good read, and I look forward to more Barbara Pym in the future!

Walden, by H. D. Thoreau

This was an interesting book, very unlike anything I’ve read before (and I don’t mean this in a bad way).

A quick summary: Thoreau moves to Walden Pond, and lives there for two years in a cabin that he built himself.  In the book, he talks about building the cabin and how he spent his two years there. 

The book talked about what I consider an interesting topic:  living simply.  Thoreau moved to Walden and lived in the cabin, where he cooked his own meals and had only the things that he actually needed.  I found it impressive that he was able to live that way for two years.  Besides talking about his experience living there, he shares his ideas about different topics.  I thought these parts of the book were the most interesting to read, and there were definitely many great quotes (I thought).

What I didn’t like about the book was that at times it seemed a bit too slow for me.  For example, he spent a lot of time talking about the natural habitat around him, and while I did enjoy reading about it, it sometimes went on for (what I considered) too long.  I think I would have enjoyed a shorter version of the book a lot better.

But, like I said, there were parts I enjoyed very much.  Here are some of the quotes I liked:

“The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling.  Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”

“What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”

“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.  Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.”

“We should be blessed if we live in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it, and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Classics Challenge January Prompt

As part of the Classics Challenge, I have started reading Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.  I just now discovered he was actually born David Henry Thoreau.

 

He was born July 12, 1817, and for a while lived on Walden Pond (below), where he built himself a little cabin.

Other books he wrote include:   

    Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience (1849)

    Slavery in Massachusetts (1854)

    The Maine Woods (1864)

    A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers (1866)

Interesting/random fact about Thoreau:  His father was a pencil maker, and for some years, Thoreau worked at his family’s pencil factory.

*Note:  Pictures and facts from Wikipedia.