(WPF) Small Wonder / Barbara Kingsolver - 3.5***

[Book Concierge]

Small Wonder – Barbara Kingsolver
3.5***

This is a series of essays Kingsolver wrote in the year following the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center. It started when “someone from a newspaper asked me to write a response to the terrorist attacks.” As she wrote – and wrote, and wrote – she found that writing at times “seemed to be all that kept me from falling apart in the face of so much death and anguish.” What we have here are the ways Kingsolver found to refresh her soul, to think about the joys in life, the small wonders, the possible solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and the activities that renewed her sense of peace and purpose and hope.

Kingsolver can come across as preachy, but she also writes elegant passages about the restorative power of connecting with nature. I am reminded of long walks in the woods, or taking my lunch break in the park, ostensibly to read, but more often just staring out at the scenery, absorbing all that green and fresh air.

There’s plenty of horrible in the world still, but reading this book of essays reminds me of those things that can help me relieve the terror, fear, anguish, and find joy and hope again. Recently, I’ve spent quite some time sitting by the guest-room window which has a perfect view into a robin’s nest in my backyard. As I write, her eggs are about 10–12 days old, and any moment they may hatch. It’s a marvel of life and I cannot stop watching it unfold.

I read this as a book, and it’s due back at the library now, but I think this is a collection that would be good to have handy to read a chapter or two every once in a while.



LINK to my review

[Book Concierge]

Update on the robin's nest ... I've spent the last hour sitting in the guest bedroom with the binoculars ... we have two chicks and (at least) one egg still unhatched ... Small Wonder, indeed!

[NancyJ]

I'm so glad you can see your chicks!! It sounds like a wonderful meditative hour. We were delighted last year when we could hear the new chicks in a bird house on the side of our deck. We didn't have a good vantage point to see into the nest (without a ladder) and we didn't want to scare the mother. I would have liked to see the mother feeding the chicks. She kept flying in and out but that's all we could see through the slats.

I really enjoyed this book. I agree she can sound a little preachy, but I think it was partly an effort to clarify herself after she received so much criticism back then. It's funny how an attack from the outside can suddenly make a group (or our country after 9/11) feel more cohesive. Unfortunately that need for cohesion also encourages an expectation for conformity, and an intolerance for other opinions. It's like we swung from one end of the continuum (no tolerance for disagreement) to the other (huge divisions) in less than 20 years.

This book left me with very positive feelings toward the author. I wish I read this book back when she wrote it. I appreciate her strongly held values and her willingness and ability to live by them.

[Book Concierge]

And we have three chicks now! They are hungry little devils!

I had a gathering at my house a week ago and my F2F book club is coming tomorrow. For both gatherings we put up barriers so that people can't walk on the back sidewalk. The honeysuckle in which mama robin build her nest is right next to that sidewalk and we don't want them disturbed, even inadvertently. Our gardener is coming today and there are a couple of things that need attention in that garden (mostly dead-heading), so she'll have to watch for mama to fly off to get more provisions before she starts clipping away near that honeysuckle. (And, in a year without a nest, I would have had the gardener cut that honeysuckle all the way back to the trellis two weeks ago, so I'd get a second full blooming to feed the hummingbirds on their way back south later in the year. We'll have to wait another 2-3 weeks, until the fledglings leave the nest to trim it back.)