false 3 2 2 true 6394278 read 0 true 152230 currently-reading 0 true 152229 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1309-whimsy-yes-vision-maybe Lynn made a comment on No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories:

So much whimsey in this book, but what is the overall vision except that life can be surprising and a little dizzying at times. July does present a sense of human community that is affirming; likewise, she shows humanity's desire to make sense of life and to find patterns and create meaning in ritual. I think that she is promising writer who will ripen as she continues to write. She is brave and willing to take chances in her fiction, but she is not a five yet. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2904605 Emer's review of The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion

Four is appropriate since the book does not really add that much to the themes the book addresses. I appreciate Didion's every truthful rendering of her subject matter and found this book far more helpful than C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed. Obviously, Didion observes much more than Lewis does, and her experiences will resonate in the lives of those readers who have experienced similar losses of loved ones. But Didion offers little advice or philosophy that is uplifting, save the view that all of us experience suffering, that it is real, and that it is protean in its multiple guises.

Still, where is the magical thinking in this book? I don't knw. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2185920 Alden's review of Notes from Underground (Everyman's Library, #271)
by Fyodor Dostoevsky

This book has been very foundational for me as a thinker.

Hope you like it too.

Lynn ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2091050 Alden's review of One Hundred Years of Solitude (Everyman's Library Classics)
by Gabriel García Márquez

Good book choice. Excellent read.

Lynn ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1078494 Alden's review of Everyman
by Philip Roth

Three stars is fair. The close of this everyman's life affirms very little about life's purposes. This life may be "everyman," but why focus on the banal? There is no moral vision--only a series of meditations on one man's failure to succeed in his love relationships--except for Nancy, his daughter. Yes, without a moral vision, with the mere presentation of the life of a man whose life did not succeed, whose values were non-descript, what does the reader learn? Where do we go from here? Is this a negative example? Fortunately, this book was short. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1088078 to: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit (Paperback) by Henri J.M. Nouwen
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1088050 to: Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church (Paperback) by Joseph Martos
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