When Lemons Give You Life by Anna Johnston

A LibraryReads selection for August, WHEN LEMONS GIVE YOU LIFE by Anna Johnston (The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife) is the story of an older man, named Griff, who was a Michelin star chef but now lives (according to the author) in “the most negligent nursing home imaginable.” That low quality of care was a big obstacle for me when I started reading about Griff, his estranged sister, Lisa, and his partner, Beau. The author jumps around in time and shares stories from the childhood of Griff and Lisa, (thirteen years apart in age with different fathers) as well as from their adult lives. WHEN LEMONS GIVE YOU LIFE is very cleverly written (“odd that we fear ageing, forgetting how lucky we are to even get the chance”). Booklist says, “Johnston thoughtfully explores grief, loneliness, aging, and sibling relationships while leavening with warmth and humor.” Indeed, Johnston comments movingly on “the invisibility cloak of age and dementia,” while also promoting laughter with some madcap adventures. I found myself coming to care for the characters more and more and particularly enjoyed the last third of the book as conflicts were resolved and reconciliations occurred. One more quote: “What matters – what lasts – is how you love people. How you treat them when no one’s watching. That’s the only legacy worth leaving.”

Everything Changes Everything by Lauren Kessler

EVERYTHING CHANGES EVERYTHING by Lauren Kessler is a memoir which covers “Love, Loss, and a Really Long Walk.” Kessler, an award-winning author and teacher, shares the emotional story of the assisted suicide death of her husband and the overdose of her daughter a few months later. These heavy topics are treated reverently and insights conveyed poignantly through beautiful writing:

“I can, ever so hesitantly, every once in a while, sit across from a friend and let them in on a sliver of my life. But I can't turn my head on the pillow at night and talk to the person who knows me as much as I have ever let anyone know me.”

“WIDOW. WINDOW. I am not trying to be clever. I'm saying that widowhood is a window. Looking through it, you can view, assess, learn from, cry over, laugh about, regret, celebrate - everything - a marriage that was, the relationship that helped define you for decades. Falling in love is easy. A long marriage is hard.”

Referring to her husband and their children: “I have a past that does not include him. They do not.”

“…so much a part of who I am, and who I will ever be. I am walking through the world with them and without them. There is no denouement. The story continues.”

Kessler intersperses flashbacks about her family and feelings with the story of her walk along the Camino Francés, an ancient 500-mile pilgrimage route between Spain and France. At times a physically challenging route, this endeavor (requiring about a month to complete) allowed her to spend time alone, to observe nature, visit picturesque villages, and meet new people – essentially an opportunity to reflect on her life before and in the future. Kessler writes about “a lesson of the Camino that translates directly to life: that occasionally and gloriously, there are true aha moments, but mostly there is the long slog toward making sense of who you are.”  Along the way, she quotes Mary Oliver (“When Death Comes…”) and comedian George Carlin (“I want to live my life backwards…”).

I would also highly recommend The Salt Path by Raynor Winn and Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks; these, too, deal with time spent in nature and self-reflection while facing the loss of a spouse.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY is the latest novel by award-winning author Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge, My Name is Lucy Barton, and more). Once again, Strout offers readers insight into the thoughts and feelings of a “regular” person: in this case, fifty-seven-year-old Artie Dam who is married to Evie with one son, Rob and teaches high school history classes where he impacts the lives of students like Danny Marino and Rhonda Lazarre. Strout writes, “all of us live with a huge blind spot before our eyes, meaning that no matter what we think we know we can never fully understand how we appear to others.” This is a bittersweet story which explores themes of loneliness, sadness, compassion, perspective, inter-connectedness, and, overall, the secrets we keep. There are several upheavals in Artie’s life and one in particular leaves him feeling “as though he had lived these many years looking at things from one angle, and now it was as though someone had turned him partly in a different direction and everything - everything - looked different.” Both melancholy and hopeful (“it was a private thing to be alive”), THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY received a starred review from Booklist.

Eat Your Ice Cream by Ezekiel J. Emanuel

EAT YOUR ICE CREAM by Ezekiel J. Emanuel offers “Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life.” Emanuel, a bioethicist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, focuses on avoiding self-destructive risks; developing and valuing relationships; staying sharp mentally; eating in a healthy manner; exercising (including grip strength and yoga); and sleeping well. Those categories are probably not a surprise to anyone who picks up this text, although specific findings of the many studies he cites might be. What is refreshing is Emanuel’s encouragement to do one’s best which is not always the best, as he freely admits by including several self-deprecating anecdotes. He further states, “Our goal should not be to “outlive” as many people as possible. Instead, the goal should be to live a healthy and fulfilling life” and hence his emphasis on the “more important” social and psychological components as well as physical ones. Emanual touches on topics like the importance of willpower, lifestyles in the Blue Zones, and “intentionally trying new things that use different mental functions.” These could include trying new recipes or writing an autobiography for your grandchildren. He writes, “My suggestion is to be like Ben Franklin. Ask yourself: what can I do that will be useful, engaging, mind expanding, and helpful to the lives of others?” Hopefully, the overlapping nature of these wellness aspects is becoming clearer, too. Interested? The Wall Street Journal recently published a short excerpt from EAT YOUR ICE CREAM. The text itself could benefit from some brief chapter summaries, but the research is significant; approximately twenty-five percent of the book is devoted to bibliographic notes and references.

Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

FALLING APART AND OTHER GIFTS FROM THE UNIVERSE by New York Times best-selling author Catherine Ryan Hyde offers a story of found family. It centers on Addie, a former soldier and law enforcement official who has been sober for close to eight years but still struggles with finding a purpose in her life. That changes when (while working as a night security guard) she meets Jonathan, a young homeless man who is squatting at an abandoned warehouse. This is a powerful book with both Addie and Jonathan dealing with trauma and eventually finding solace in the grandmother-grandson type relationship they form. As their journeys progress, Hyde forces her readers to consider their own prejudices, especially regarding addicts, mental health, and the unhoused. A couple of key insights: “Resistance is always a red flag. When you resist going somewhere, you know it's a place you need to go.” And “You can waste your whole damn life sitting in your room waiting to feel like you can do better. But the actions change the feelings, not the other way around.”

My Beloved by Jan Karon

MY BELOVED by best-selling author Jan Karon is book fifteen in the Mitford series featuring Father Tim Kavanaugh and his many parishioners in a small town in North Carolina. It was refreshing to return to Father Tim’s simple truths (I understand. Thank you. I'm sorry. Love you.) and the endearing cast of characters who make up his friends and extended family. They always seem ready for a challenge – whether it is running a bookstore or rehabbing a derelict building. I especially enjoyed the scenes with (former mayor) Esther and Ray Cunningham as they get ready to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. And then there is the mystery of the disappearing love letter – will it be found/returned in time for Christmas? In between, Karon sprinkles observations (“They say you fall because you're old. You do no such thing. You fall because you're not payin’ attention.”) and mini-homilies (“That's one of the things friends are for - to listen to our repeat stories.”). Jan Karon puts her heart into these books and of MY BELOVED, written after her daughter’s death, she says, “The characters are essentially the same, but the author is different. In MY BELOVED, I opened up like I hadn't done since Candace's diagnosis. Opening up can be scary but I didn't run - I surrendered. … I was laughing, hard. And crying, hard. And I knew I was home.”

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

MEMORIAL DAYS by Geraldine Brooks (Horse) was both difficult and comforting to read. Brooks wrote it after the totally unexpected death of her husband, Tony Horwitz in 2019. She deftly combines the shock of those first days and weeks with a period three years later when she ventured to Australia to reflect on her grief and their long life together. Having just experienced loss, I was astounded by the astuteness of many of her observations:

On being alone: “What big plans we had. How many more adventures there would be for us…” AND “Now I wrestle the wheelie bag over the rough ground by myself. I let sadness come and accept it. This is how it is now. Lonely.”

On family and marriage: “This wobbly trio. It was how we would have to go on. We would have to learn to balance ourselves in an unfamiliar asymmetry. And we would all have to learn to stop setting the table for four.” AND “In 35 years Tony and I had settled into an amicable division of labor within the marriage, taking responsibility for the tasks for which each of us had aptitude.” She wisely recommends, “Jot down all the tasks you don't bother to mention that keep the household afloat, the set of torches that only you have learned to juggle. All the little things your partner didn't expect to need to know, until the day they never expected to happen.”

On how hard it is to find space and time to grieve: “… a cascade of consequences. My credit cards froze, because Tony was the primary card holder. In my gray mist of sadness, I did not want to think about credit cards, but I had to, since our bills were paid that way, and if I didn't immediately get to work on making other arrangements, we mightn’t have lights or phones the following month. I knew I was lucky to have the wherewithal to pay those bills. For so many the death of a spouse is also the death of the breadwinner.” AND “I was used to seeing my desk covered with notes for my fiction, not legal documents, financial spreadsheets, and baskets of condolence notes.” AND “I haven't cried like that for Tony. … I was afraid to give way to it. I knew that if I started, I mightn't be able to stop. So I shut it down. And for the past two years, I haven’t been able to cry at all.” 

On advice from friends: “Do your work. It might not be your best work, but it will be good work, and it will be what saves you.” AND, from a widower friend: “The first time he had ventured out after losing his beloved wife, Gretchen, no one had mentioned her, and he had been hurt and angered. He realized that he needed to speak of her first, to allow others to do so.” 

In conclusion: “I do know this: my job is to carry his light. To keep him vibrantly illuminated for my sons, and for their children -- his grandchildren -- when they get here.”

MEMORIAL DAYS received starred reviews from both Booklist and Publishers Weekly. Related titles to pursue include Year of Magical Thinking by Didion and Crying in H Mart by Zauner. Brooks also mentions The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alxander and A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates.  

Personally, I want to highly recommend the “Daily Meditations For Working Through Grief” contained in Healing Through Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman, providing much needed solace to millions since it as originally published in 1994. Some recent non-fiction texts which I have been slowly exploring and hope to review shortly include Can Anyone Tell Me? by Meghan Riordan Jarvis; My Last Gift by Kim Boyer; Renegade Grief by Carla Fernandez; and What Your Body Knows About Happiness by Janice Kaplan.

Brooks alludes to the comfort from music. Here is Coldplay and Dick Van Dyke with All My Love:

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay

KATE & FRIDA by Kim Fay is a novel told in letters between a Seattle area bookseller and a wannabe war correspondent living in Paris, France. Set in the 1990s, the musings reflect the time period (war in Yugoslavia) as well as the life stage of the writers (twenty-something women with plenty of insecurities). These two connected accidentally and have never met, but they share impressions of family (including a beloved grandfather, Bumpa), career goals, and significant others; throughout, readers are able to share in their growing maturity (“We owe people who are suffering to savor everything good and beautiful we have in our lives. Not that we should deny bad things or turn our backs on them. But if suffering is contagious, then why isn't joy?”). This is a very quick and largely comforting read – like having a couple of close friends sharing happenings and memories, plus questions and even favorite foods, that are important to them. The illusions to many books and authors (just a sampling: Laurie Colwin (Happy All the Time), Mary Oliver, Judy Blume, Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, Madeline L’Engle (A Circle of Quiet), Wallace Stegner) is an added pleasure. Booklist describes KATE & FRIDA as an “immensely wise and enjoyable novel,” I concur and here is a brief example: bookseller Kate says, “I think being able to recommend the right book at the right time is one of the most important things I can do with my life.” Or “Every book is a conversation we can have around the world. Every book is a conversation we can have with ourselves.” 

Please also look for Fay’s Love & Saffron which is also told through letters, although set in the 1960s.

Why Are We Here? by Jennifer Moss

WHY ARE WE HERE? by Jennifer Moss (The Burnout Epidemic) is subtitled “Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants” and I recently viewed an hour presentation on this new book supplied by Harvard Business Review Press. Clearly Moss’s work has wide appeal as attendees hailed from around the world.  Moss writes about the increasing disengagement, detachment, and disillusionment amongst members of the workforce, often citing both private (e.g., Gallup’s reports like one on State of the Global Workplace) and government (e.g., the CDC on health risks associated with lack of social connections) sources. Moss advocates for improving culture by devoting twenty minutes per week, noting that people want hope from their leaders and they need to see a future. Specifically, she suggests numerous activities such as celebrating milestones more frequently or telling more stories. Other ideas include “make the mundane meaningful,” save space for exploration, and initiate “stay” interviews. All of that seems to reflect offering respect for and listening to one’s workforce, which she approaches in the last two chapters on Belonging and Recognition. Notes and index represent about ten percent of this well-researched text. Moss admits “this was the hardest book I’ve written yet.” I think it may be hard for readers, especially leaders, to accept and internalize her many suggestions without guidance and some kind of checkpoints. I look forward to her future work and additional case studies. Listed in the Next Big Idea Club's January 2025 Must-Read Books.

The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina

THE HEARTBEAT LIBRARY by Laura Imai Messina (The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World) is a quiet, reflective novel set in Japan. Much of the story centers around the title library “where the heartbeats of visitors from all around the world are collected” on the Teshima island.  Key characters include Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, and a young elementary school student named Kenta, both of whom are mourning Shuichi’s mother. They gradually build a trust and affection for each other and widen their circle to include Sayaka, a love interest for Shuichi. In its starred review Booklist describes THE HEARTBEAT LIBRARY as “a beautiful meditation on grief and healing.”  The story moves slowly, but there is much to contemplate:

“Life is a succession of shipwrecks. … Because upon arrival on the beach, whatever the existence that preceded it was like, it is now memory. No matter how much pain we have accumulated, life begins again.”

“He smiled. He realized this was how you know you care about someone: when you see them where they aren't.”

“…love is never alone fear is always right beside it.”

As an aside, this book called to mind another favorite book with heartbeat in the title: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats; look for it and others by Jan-Philipp Sendker.

Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin

CROW TALK by Eileen Garvin (The Music of Bees) is a beautiful story as much about nature and birds as it is about people. The setting is a remote collection of summer homes near a lake by Hood River, Oregon. Garvin says she only imagined June Lake, but finds it a welcome “place of refuge” and hopes her readers will, too. That peacefulness is what Mary Francis (call me Frankie) O’Neill is seeking when she heads to her family’s caretaker cottage near the end of the season. She is still grieving her father’s death; plus, her plans to be the first in her family to obtain a master’s degree in the ornithology field have been thwarted by a vindictive advisor. Life feels overwhelming and uncertain. The loneliness, grief, and unhappiness are echoed by Annie Ryan, Irish musician and daughter-in-law to one of the long-established summer families. Annie and husband Tim have brought their five-year-old, Aiden. Once a cheerful, outgoing little boy, he no longer speaks, but manages to establish a rapport with Frankie and with Charlie Crow, a young, injured bird that she nurses back to health. Gavin intersperses many facts (and even idioms) about birds; for example, that there are roughly two thousand distinct species, that a group of hummingbirds is called a glittering, and that birds may have capacity for facial recognition (see 2014 TedTalk by Dr. John Marzluff). Told from multiple viewpoints, CROW TALK received a starred review from Booklist (“A stunning affirmation of nature’s power to soothe and rejuvenate.”). Despite the sadness, readers will revel in a positive ending, all while feeling as though they are forest bathing due to Garvin’s vivid descriptions.

You Are Here by David Nicholls

YOU ARE HERE by David Nicholls (One Day) is a novel about making sure that someone sees us. Set post-pandemic in the North of England near the beautiful Lake District, the story features Michael Bradshaw, 42 and a geography teacher, and Marnie Walsh, 38 and a freelance copy editor. She is recently divorced, and he is soon-to-be. A mutual friend, feeling each has had too much alone time, has invited them on an outdoors walk along with a handsome pharmacist who like Marnie, lives in London and Tessa, an outdoors-y type whose interests match Michael’s. Little, especially weather, goes according to plan and pretty quickly just Marnie and Michael are left on the walk, heading across England from one coast to the other. Their adventures with nature and a different hotel or pub each night are quite comical. Plus, the walks promote some soul-bearing and a simmering romance as the two start to bond. More details in reviews from The New York Times (“each is such good company for the other and for the reader.”) and The Wall Street Journal (“falls halfway between the serious novel and the breezy fantasy of the beach read”). As I read the thoroughly enjoyable YOU ARE HERE about finding oneself and finding one’s way in the English countryside, I repeatedly thought of Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path and The Wild Silence – also well worth reading. 

Loneliness & Company by Charlee Dyroff

LONELINESS & COMPANY by Charlee Dyroff is a debut novel recommended by Booklist for fans of Dave Eggers’ The Circle. Yes, this well-written title deserves attention from mature readers which, frankly, would exclude most high school students. The main character is Lee, a young woman who thought she had her life on track but is instead assigned to a new secret project that deals with an old concept: loneliness. Her dystopian society has refused to name or acknowledge this situation, but recent data is causing the Government to fund research into AI and possible ways of combatting what they fear could become a pandemic of sorts. After some initial disappointment, Lee embraces the project: “Days fly by in a content haze. I love the experience of discovering something new, as if the world is full of Easter eggs if you look close enough.” But she ultimately goes overboard with trying to have experiences and take risks, endangering both the project and herself. LONELINESS & COMPANY is a thought-provoking exploration where Dyroff offers a look at Vicky, AI meant to be capable of friendship, and asks “and then what? A world where people connect with technology instead of each other? We already have that. I'd rather have a world of lonely people than a world of numb ones.” And later: “How could we teach Vicki things we don't understand ourselves?”