Book #30: The Magician's Assistant

This book was a gift from my sister, who had it signed by the author at a bookstore in Pennsylvania.  

The Ann Patchett actually held my copy in her hands!

The basic story is that a woman finds out, just after her husband dies, that he has told her lies about his past, and she travels to his hometown to piece together the truth about who he was.

I'm not inclined, at least in the same way as the woman's husband, to leave my past completely behind and reinvent an entirely new life for myself, but sometimes I do wonder who I would be if all the things that seem to define me, like work and home and family, disappeared. Poof!

Would I still be me?

Book #29: The Speechwriter

A friend of mine drew my attention to this book shortly before it came out on Tuesday, and I knew in my soul, wonk that I am, I had to get my hands on it.

See, I find the intersection between language and politics fascinating. I also find memoirs fascinating because the way people choose to tell their stories can reveal more about them than they may realize. (True of blogs, too. Gulp.)

Barton Swaim was a writer for Mark Sanford when he was the governor of South Carolina, both when his name was floated nationally as a presidential hopeful and when he limped through the balance of his last term in the aftermath of, as Sanford himself began to refer to it, "that which has caused the stir that it has."

The book was thankfully short on juicy gossip, which was not what I was after, and it was satisfyingly long on discussion about rhetoric, which was what I was after.

Swaim covered the gamut, from choosing single words ("After I wrote the phrase 'hiking taxes' it occurred to me that 'hiking' would have to be changed to 'raising.'") to getting inside someone else's head and articulating their scarcely conceivable grand ideas ("I always find myself trying to communicate something larger," said Sanford. "And I don't know what I mean by it exactly. It's just--I feel there's something--larger--you know, just bigger--bigger than what I'm able to communicate in words. That's what I'm after.")

The book was also full of exploration about ego, both the ego of writers and the ego of politicians. Lots and lots of ego to go around. And it was full of exploration about creating illusion and about disillusionment, about connecting with virtual strangers, like constituents, and about disconnecting from loved ones, like wives. Lots and lots of illusion and disillusionment, connection and disconnection to go around.

Through it all everyone carries on, spinning their lives with the stories they tell like so many of us do.

Book #28: Becoming Human

"We are all frightened of the ugly, the dirty. We all want to turn away from anything that reveals the failure, pain, sickness, and death beneath the brightly painted surface of our ordered lives . . . How easy it is to fall into the illusion of a beautiful world when we have lost trust in our capacity to make of our broken world a place that can become more beautiful."

Jean Vanier is the founder of L'Arche, an international network of communities for people with intellectual disabilities.

He is also a provocative spiritual thinker. One of my favorite kinds, actually.

In his writing, he explores what disconnects us from who we are and how we can find true freedom, both personally and in society, through meaningful connection with people we tend to marginalize or are marginalized from.

Yesterday, I met with an inmate at the jail who was particularly uncomfortable with the idea of asking for help. "I've always been able to pull it together on my own," he said apologetically. "But now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. That's why I messaged you."

As we talked, he mentioned that he was hoping he could live with his 90-something-year-old grandmother, that it could be a mutually beneficial arrangement because he could see to her needs and keep her company and he'd have a home that would meet the requirements of his probation.

I silently hoped that if he did end up there, it truly would be mutually beneficial. It's the kind of thing that could go horribly wrong in any number of ways.

Then suddenly it occurred to me to tell him about this book. I happened to have it with me and decided to risk it. When I showed it to him and described what it was about, he was immediately enthused and asked me to write down the name of the author and the title so he could get hold of it after he was released.

"I know I should have more important priorities than reading," he confessed.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure!" I laughed, pleased to discover I was hanging out with another reader. Honestly, Jean Vanier's ideas have the capacity to fundamentally transform the way he engages with life as he moves forward, and he genuinely seemed to sense that as we talked.

The system I work within at the jail can pretty much be summed up with two words: order and expedience. It's a system that can easily disconnect people, both inmates and employees, from our humanity. Talking about a book I happened to be reading at the time isn't exactly in my official job description.

But I am willing to bet the short moment we spent doing that was worth far more than the more part of the time we spent talking about "practical" things. Even if he never reads the book.

Because in that moment we connected as fellow humans, neither at the margins, both at the center.

"Everything that is human needs nourishment: the body, the mind, the memory, the imagination, and, particularly, the heart. They must be nourished by encounters with other hearts that can lead us into other gardens of life, into a new and deeper vulnerability, and into a new understanding of the universe, of God, of history, and of the beauty and depth of each and every human being."

Book #27: Delicious!

Once again Roger, who has a gift for selecting books I'd love, brought me home a treat.

And once again, I dug into the new book instead of the others in my stack. Or, more precisely, stacks.

Mostly what I want to say about well known food writer Ruth Reichl's first novel is that I just wanted to climb inside the pages and live there.

I will also add this.

The mystery she unfolds through the course of the book could have easily been solved early on with a little bit of Googling instead of old-fashioned, heads-together, pavement-pounding sleuthing.

But that would have been like inhaling fast food.

If there is anything Ruth Reichl knows how to do, it is to weave the slow magic of good food--the scents and sights, the textures and tastes--through and around city streets, satisfying work, family and friends, and drinking it all in deeply. Of course she would take the long way around to solve the mystery.

Since I can't climb into a story someone else created, I've got to pay more attention to my own.

Less fast food. Less Internet surfing. Less of everything that is skimmed over and barely remembered by the end of the day.

More real food. More real people. More real conversation. More real life.