Including a couple of poetry books, January was a twenty-five book month – with many good reads. Still, I am running behind on my book report – as I hope to give one weekly or thereabouts – so this is a two week edition.

I have several good books that I am really excited to share though.

As I’ve written often here, I love all things Pat Conroy so I was delighted to get around to listening to his last work, A Lowcountry Heart, a collection of blog posts, essays, speeches, and interviews that he gave in his last years. It is truly a joy to experience if you are a Conroy admirer. He and I have been together since I was too young to drive and had to get “special teacher approval” – thank you, Mrs. Levi for always letting me read freely ❤ – to write those graded book reports about his works in middle school – so this one ending had me a bit weepy.

I miss you, Pat.

My second recommendation is kind of a two-for-one situation.

The actual book is a fantastic read called Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther. Just as the title suggests, it is a fascinating look at these women’s lives – especially when they intersected in a writing class at Boston University – as well as their struggles as female writers during this era. It is also contains an important discussion about their mental health struggles during this time and the legacy of their work.

After I finished reading this book, I was prompted to reread The Bell Jar for the first time in many years – and thoroughly enjoyed it and so would suggest grouping them together if you can.

My third suggestion is one I read as part of my book research called When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon with a wife and infant daughter, who wrote it as he was living with end-stage lung cancer.

Y’all, this book is so moving. It is written beautifully as well. He says throughout it that he always thought – after he practiced medicine and retired – he would have one day been a writer (in the future he had hoped for).

He already was a writer, with so many important things to say – and the way he said them was just lovely.

His precious wife, Lucy, wrote the afterward for the book and it too is moving.

A short – only audio – recommendation I want to add here is called Voices of Poetry – Volume 1. It is only about twenty minutes – but this audiobook includes readings by J.R.R. Tolkien, ee cummings, and Ted Hughes, among others. I find it so powerful to hear their poetry in their voices.

I plan to listen to more volumes as well. They are special.

My last suggestion for this post – I know it’s been a longer one than usual since it’s a two week post – was another sincere and graceful voice I read as research for my book, a young mother – only 41 – facing a terminal glioblastoma diagnosis. Tallu Quinn’s book, What We Wish Were True: Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death contains essays on her life before her diagnosis – college and seminary, then as the founder of the Nashville Food Project, as well as being a wife and mother – and, after everything changed, how she and her dear ones faced cancer and cancer treatment.

She is clear and strong – but also honest about her pain and sorrow.

This book spoke to my heart.

I hope I’ve offered up some good suggestions through the end of my January reading and I’m already looking forward to next week’s book report. ❤

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.