Jennifer Leonard
Goodreads Author
Member Since
January 2009
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/jml1
More books by Jennifer Leonard…
Jennifer’s Recent Updates
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Jennifer
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| I was looking for a book that I used in a children's reading program in the early 1980s. As it turns out, this was written in the late 1980s, and wasn't the book I remember, but another brave cat named Minou. A good find! Beautiful illustrations; lov ...more | |
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In the category of old books from the Boston Athanaeum -- I was looking for a particular poetry book but didn't find it -- and so I chose a few other books, somewhat at random, choosing anything that had any Boston references. "The Wanderer" by Marga ...more |
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This is one of the books that inspired me to keep coming back to the same corner of the basement of the Athanaeum in Boston. (And now to start this Goodreads bookshelf.) I will have to re-look at this book and my notes to do a good review. |
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| Short, poetically-written, very spiritual journal, from 1920s. I don't have any background about the author of the journal or the friend who edited and published it. ...more | |
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Jennifer
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Jennifer
rated a book it was amazing
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Jennifer
rated a book it was amazing
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| This book inspired me to start a shelf on Goodreads tagged "athanaeum-old-books." I have been reading books from a religion and spirituality section in the basement of the Athanaeum, finding lots of insight from authors from the late nineteenth and e ...more | |
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| A fictional story -- I saw it classified as "didactic fiction" -- about a Church of England pastor who explores the idea of a social gospel. He pastors first at a church in a working-class neighborhood; then in a mixed, largely upper-class church; an ...more | |
“It is interesting to me to note that those who most frequently call for fair play are those who are advantaged by the play as it currently is, and that only when that position of privilege is endangered are they likely to benefit from the change required to "play by the rules." What if the "rules" are inherently unfair or simply wrong, or a greater good is to be accomplished by changing them? When the gospel says, "The last will be first, and the first will be last," despite the fact it is counterintuitive to our cultural presuppositions, it is invariably good news to those who are last, and at least problematic news to those who see themselves as first.”
― The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
― The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
“The question should not be "What would Jesus do?" but rather, more dangerously, "What would Jesus have me do?" The onus is not on Jesus but on us, for Jesus did not come to ask semidivine human beings to do impossible things. He came to ask human beings to live up to their full humanity; he wants us to live in the full implication of our human gifts, and that is far more demanding.”
― The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
― The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
“Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of the universe - these are what build a marriage. And it is never to be taken for granted.”
― Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
― Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
“We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don't want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.”
― Walking on Water
― Walking on Water
“...The pages and pages of complex, impenetrable calculations might have contained the secrets of the universe, copied out of God's notebook.
In my imagination, I saw the creator of the universe sitting in some distant corner of the sky, weaving a pattern of delicate lace so fine that that even the faintest light would shine through it. The lace stretches out infinitely in every direction, billowing gently in the cosmic breeze. You want desperately to touch it, hold it up to the light, rub it against your cheek. And all we ask is to be able to re-create the pattern, weave it again with numbers, somehow, in our own language; to make the tiniest fragment our own, to bring it back to eart.”
― The Housekeeper and the Professor
In my imagination, I saw the creator of the universe sitting in some distant corner of the sky, weaving a pattern of delicate lace so fine that that even the faintest light would shine through it. The lace stretches out infinitely in every direction, billowing gently in the cosmic breeze. You want desperately to touch it, hold it up to the light, rub it against your cheek. And all we ask is to be able to re-create the pattern, weave it again with numbers, somehow, in our own language; to make the tiniest fragment our own, to bring it back to eart.”
― The Housekeeper and the Professor
Science Book Club for the Curious
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— last activity Feb 15, 2026 01:18AM
Feeling inquisitive? Looking for good conversation? Love science and books? The Science Book Club for the Curious is just the thing for you. This virt ...more
Boston Athenaeum Readers
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A virtual space for Boston Athenæum members to review, recommend and discuss their favorite titles.




















