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50th out of 141 books
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Heart in the Right Place
by
Carolyn Jourdan (Goodreads Author)
Carolyn Jourdan left her beloved Tennessee hometown for a career in Washington, D.C. For twenty years she worked with the country's most powerful people. A successful attorney, she was smart and ambitious, and she believed her work made a difference.
So when her father asked her to come home and be the receptionist at his tiny rural doctor's office while her mother recover...more
So when her father asked her to come home and be the receptionist at his tiny rural doctor's office while her mother recover...more
Hardcover, 297 pages
Published
May 24th 2007
by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
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When Senate Counsel Carolyn Jourdan returns to the mountains of eastern Tennessee from Washington, DC after the sudden illness of her mother, she has no idea how long she’ll be needed to fill in her role as receptionist for her father, the kindly country doctor. She figures at first it will just be two days. But readers can be glad that it wasn’t as in Heart in the Right Place, Jourdan takes the reader on a true journey of the heart to the people of eastern Tennessee and through all the trials a...more
another reviewer said the big question is whether Carolyn would return to her big paying law job, and i believe not. i met her this last summer ,when she stayed at my B&B, and visited our pulpwood queen bookclub. she currently works as a guide and writer at the largest national park (Iforgot the name) in the Appalachians. she loves it, and she is still writing/. she is a quirky ,funny gal, and i just loved her. she is the real deal. she is just a very nice ,sweet person, and dresses very dow...more
Bill Dockery
rated it
Recommends it for:
All East Tennesseans, anyone who appreciates Southern hill-country culture & humor
Shelves:
07-reads
I hate to use the term "heartwarming," but Heart in the Right Place is just that. I don't want to label it a "dame tome" (a la "chick flick"), but it is that, too. Labels like those just cover up how good Carolyn Jourdan's memoir is. Carolyn, an educated, savvy lawyer on a Congressional staff in D.C., is forced to return to rurban East Tennessee to take over as receptionist in her father's one-man practice while the regular receptionist -- her mother -- recuperates ...more
RJ McGill
rated it
Recommends it for:
book lovers everywhere that enjoy a great book!
Shelves:
reviewed
Family Circle Magazine’s first ever, Book of the Month and the winner of Elle Magazine’s Readers Prize, Heart In The Right Place reaches out and touches the core of the reader. An emotional journey that inspires you to evaluate what is truly important in life and your place in it.
The story opens as Carolyn, the accomplished, independently successful attorney receives a phone call from her father…her mother is being treated for an apparent heart attack in the local emergency room. She...more
The story opens as Carolyn, the accomplished, independently successful attorney receives a phone call from her father…her mother is being treated for an apparent heart attack in the local emergency room. She...more
It's taken me way too long to review this wonderfully moving memoir. I finished it during a weekend in the mountains, and it was the perfect book in that (and any other) setting! Carolyn Jourdan was compelled to return home to her native Tennessee from her high-powered Washington, D.C. career when her mother fell ill. Her father, the sort of rural doctor "they" don't make anymore, needed her help running his practice. Thinking she'd only be there a few weeks, Jourdan soon began to d...more
Favorite quotes:
"If there was one thing I'd learned growing up in a doctor's office, it was that people's mood was rarely dependent on thier external circumstances. Its origin was almost always internal." p. 29
"You know how in Bible stories whenever an angel shows up, first thing he always says is, 'Fear not!' Well, it took me most of my life, but I finally figured out that he's not trying to comfort us when he says that. He's giving us an order. It's a command g...more
"If there was one thing I'd learned growing up in a doctor's office, it was that people's mood was rarely dependent on thier external circumstances. Its origin was almost always internal." p. 29
"You know how in Bible stories whenever an angel shows up, first thing he always says is, 'Fear not!' Well, it took me most of my life, but I finally figured out that he's not trying to comfort us when he says that. He's giving us an order. It's a command g...more
Story Description:
Carolyn Jourdan, an attorney on Capitol Hill, thought she had it made. But when her mother has a heart attack, she returns home to the Tennessee mountains, where her father is a country doctor and her mother works as his receptionist. Jourdan offers to fill in for her mother until she gets better. But days turn into weeks as she trades her suits for scrubs and finds herself following hazmat regulations for cleaning up bodily fluids; maintaining composure when confront...more
Carolyn Jourdan, an attorney on Capitol Hill, thought she had it made. But when her mother has a heart attack, she returns home to the Tennessee mountains, where her father is a country doctor and her mother works as his receptionist. Jourdan offers to fill in for her mother until she gets better. But days turn into weeks as she trades her suits for scrubs and finds herself following hazmat regulations for cleaning up bodily fluids; maintaining composure when confront...more
view all 3 comments
I liked this book. I liked how Ms. Jourdan came to terms with the complete upheaval of her life; how her heart changed and how she chose to follow her heart.
Life is rarely easy, and it is never in the easiness that we grow. I liked hearing the stories of the people who passed through her doctor Father's offices, the courage they exhibited and the quirky personalities that they displayed.
A couple of my favorite passages:
"I thought about how sometimes t...more
Life is rarely easy, and it is never in the easiness that we grow. I liked hearing the stories of the people who passed through her doctor Father's offices, the courage they exhibited and the quirky personalities that they displayed.
A couple of my favorite passages:
"I thought about how sometimes t...more
Carolyn Jourdan believed that she had it all. She was a counsel for the U.S. Senate, made a salary in the six figures, and rubbed elbows both professionally and socially with the power set in Washington, D.C. Then her mother had a heart attack and she rushed home to rural eastern Tennessee to help her father in his medical practice. Her father was the only doctor in their small town and Carolyn is amazed, and horrified, by the "cases" that walk through the door. One minute they are...more
3.5 stars
This was a fun read. The stories of this small town Family practice were very memorable and humorous. I enjoyed the authors insights about what constitutes as well lived, meaningful life. It is a quick read and for me all the more fun when the book is a memoir.
One thing that bothered me was at the end of my book there was an interview with the author. In the interview she mentions a friend tells her if she wrote a book to the end and published it, that it w...more
This was a fun read. The stories of this small town Family practice were very memorable and humorous. I enjoyed the authors insights about what constitutes as well lived, meaningful life. It is a quick read and for me all the more fun when the book is a memoir.
One thing that bothered me was at the end of my book there was an interview with the author. In the interview she mentions a friend tells her if she wrote a book to the end and published it, that it w...more
The only thing that kept this book from being a five star book (which means a perfect book in my mind) is a couple slower spots about her time in Washington D.C. I really loved this memoir. This person is no one special and in her eyes, was forced to return home to do something far from special yet as she reflects, we are reminded that the special things we accomplish in this life are the little things. Listening, caring, being there. I highly recommend this book!
Humorous look at how life sometimes just ends up. How success can be measured in different standards and how sometimes home is just where you need to be. It is set in Strawberry Plains, TN. The author is a graduate of UT-Knoxville and a former U.S. Senate Counsel to the Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Committee on Governmental Affairs (now Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs). For all of you from Tennessee, she even mentions fainting goats!!
4 1/2 stars for this charming memoir. In terms of style, it reminded me a lot of James Heriot's memoirs with heartwarming and comical stories co-mingled throughout. Carolyn Jourdan worked as US Senate Counsel on Capitol Hill until her mother had a heart attack and she flew home to the mountains of Tennessee to temporarily help run her parent's rural medical practice. As she compares the two very different experiences she comes to learn more about herself and people in general.
Here...more
Here...more
I enjoyed this book a lot, especially the insights about life that Ms. Jourdan gains from various friends and from circumstances that she has to confront, often rather unwillingly, when she returns home to help out her parents with her father's rural medical practice.
Although I assume she was just trying to stretch out the "suspense" of whether or not she would be able to give up her high-powered D.C. life and fit in to everyday life in her native small town, I found her co...more
Although I assume she was just trying to stretch out the "suspense" of whether or not she would be able to give up her high-powered D.C. life and fit in to everyday life in her native small town, I found her co...more
I really enjoyed this book. It is a memior, but read like fiction. It was an excellent story about how circumstances change your live, but you adapt to your new life and actually finding yourself liking it. A sauvy senate lawyer finds herself back in the hills of Tennessee and after a few finds starts 'finding' herself.
A year and a half later I still think abt this book and want to reread it someday.
A year and a half later I still think abt this book and want to reread it someday.
At roughly the halfway point, I was prepared to dimiss the book as a cynical attempt by a well-paid civil servant to cash in on her experience; having finished the story, I highly recommend it. Ms. Jourdan's certainly not the same person by the conclusion, and really seems to care about her community.
Narrator does a terrific job with the accents, so it's an esp great audio experience.
Narrator does a terrific job with the accents, so it's an esp great audio experience.
This memoir is beautifully and humorously well written. Being an East Tennessee native, I enjoyed the characters and especially the warmth of the author's father: the family doctor who treats an unusual array of patients, often without charge, but always with compassion and dignity. Thanks to my sister for buying and sharing this book with me. I hope Carolyn Jourdan writes more books!
This book really exceeded my expectations. It was the last in a pile of books I got from my mom as she cleaned out her bookshelves before a cross-country move, and our interests don't always overlap so some of them have been not quite my cup of tea. From the cover and back-of-the-book copy, I thought this might be kind of sentimental and horrible, but this memoir of a Washington DC lawyer's return to her Appalachian hometown to work as the receptionist in her father's rural medical practice wa...more
A book of virtues- the author came to the aid of her parents and found a true calling. By leaving a higher prestige job in government and returning to help in her father's rural medical practice she was able to "make a difference" in a setting she would never have chosen but could recognize as the right place. Funny medical anecdotes told by a non-medical person!
Small town girl becomes an attorney, moves to Washington D C with great high power job that she thinks she loves until her Mom has a heart attack and she has to come back for *a few days* to take over her Mom's job as receptionist and bookeeper to her Dad the only doctor in a very small town in Tennessee.After it becomes clear that her Mom won't be able to resume her job, Carolyn is torn over the decision to go back to Washington or stay and help her Dad--who without her helping in the office wo...more
This book captivated me, from being treated to an eye-witness account of open-heart surgery to the poignant observations on the behaviors that really serve mankind, rather than the ones that profess to do so.
There was loss and heartache, but I also laughed out loud on several occasions. I love a book that teaches you something new, makes you think about your personal credo, and entertains you at the same time.
"Our whole lives were set up to give us every possible opportun...more
There was loss and heartache, but I also laughed out loud on several occasions. I love a book that teaches you something new, makes you think about your personal credo, and entertains you at the same time.
"Our whole lives were set up to give us every possible opportun...more
Well written, and I am enjoying what she gets to learn from this experience. She thinks she is taking over for a couple of days while her mom is in the hospital, but the story gets quite involved while she stays and helps her doctor/father run his small practice.
Very good book - woman gives up her fast paced life, successful by most standards, to return to rural Tennessee to help her father in his medical practice after her mother suffers a heart attack.
Loved this picture of East Tennessee and the people who live there. A great story about a woman who leaves home only to find that it hasn't left her. Heartwarming and full of laughter.
This was a truly heartwarming and touching memoir about a high-powered DC lawyer being called home to East Tennessee to help man her dad's family doctor office after her mom suffers a heart attack. I loved how Jourdan weaved the tales of the different patients into this book. She's does an incredible job of painting the picture of what it is like to struggle in a rural community in the back hills of Tennessee. The overall tone of this book made it seem like it was fiction, but you wouldn't be...more
This was one of those "memoirs" that I'm unclear as to how much of it is fact or fiction. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The stories of this high-class attorney working at a receptionist at her father's doctor's office are hysterical and touching all at the same time. As I read it I came to quote I found profound, and seemed familiar. I realized that I had read it in Erin's review, and the page was very slightly dog-eared. Either I managed to get Erin's same copy from the libr...more
A little bit of a disconnect for me - the main character did not express any real emotional attachment to the people around her. Predictable ending.
One of my favorites for the year. A true story both sweet and hilarious. A book that I have actually given as a gift.
I usually don't read "memoirs", but I picked this up at the library because it looked interesting. I ended up LOVING this book and there were a few times I was laughing and crying while reading it. There were many great "lessons" and I think that it would be a great book club/discussion book.
"The pitiful truth," Fletcher said, "is that sometimes the best thing, the only thing, we can do for another person is just show up. We might not know how to...more
"The pitiful truth," Fletcher said, "is that sometimes the best thing, the only thing, we can do for another person is just show up. We might not know how to...more
Funny, poignant. Carolyn is a natural comedian and a wonderful storyteller.
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“Inside a barn is a whole universe, with its own time zone and climate and ecosystem, a shadowy world of swirling dust illuminated in tiger stripes by light shining through the cracks between the boards. Old leather tack, lengths of chain, rope, and baling twine dangled from nails and rafters and draped over stall railings. Generations of pocketknives lay lost in the layers of detritus on the floor.”
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