Snow Angel Blessing

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits is a beautifully crafted, tender, and insightful story that depicts the journey of starting anew. Tom Layward, the protagonist, chooses not to return home after dropping his daughter off at college. This life-affirming road trip novel explores themes of marriage, middle age, and a man confronting a pivotal moment. It was a finalist for the 2025 Booker Prize.

When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair twelve years ago, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. Now, while driving his college-bound daughter to Pittsburgh, he remembers his promise to himself. He is also on the run from his own health issues and a forced leave from work.

So, rather than returning to his wife in Westchester, Tom keeps driving west, with the vague plan of visiting people from his past—an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son—en route, maybe, to California. He’s moving towards a future he hasn’t even envisioned, while he considers his past and the choices he’s made that have brought him to this moment.

Ben Markovits was born and raised in Texas, and later lived in London and Berlin. He studied at Yale University and the University of Oxford. After graduating, he became a professional basketball player in Landshut, Germany, where he played against a young Dirk Nowitzki.

Markovits has authored eleven novels, including Fathers and Daughters, You Don’t Have to Live Like This, and The Sidekick. In addition to his books, he has published essays, stories, poetry, and reviews in notable publications such as The Guardian, Granta, The Paris Review, and The New York Times.

In 2013, Granta recognized him as one of their Best of Young British Novelists. He received the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2015. Currently, he lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

Today, I started reading “Memorial Days: A Memoir” by Geraldine Brooks, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Horse”. In this poignant and beautifully written memoir, she explores sudden loss and the journey toward healing. Why do I choose to read novels and memoirs about loss and grief? Perhaps it’s because, as Martín Prechtel wrote in his book “The Smell of Rain on Dust”, “Grief is praise because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.”

Many cultural and religious traditions expect grieving people to withdraw from the world. In modern life, we frequently encounter bureaucratic obstacles and lengthy to-do lists. This is precisely what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than thirty years, Tony Horwitz—just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy—collapsed and died on a sidewalk in Washington, D.C.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two sons on Martha’s Vineyard. They lived a fulfilling life filled with meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness. Geraldine and Tony spent their days writing and evenings cooking family dinners or enjoying sunsets with friends at the beach. Their peaceful existence abruptly ended on Memorial Day 2019 when Geraldine received the dreaded phone call we all fear. The demands of life became immediate and overwhelming, leaving little room for grief. The sudden loss created a profound void in their lives.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia to give herself the time to mourn finally. She often spent days alone in a shack on the pristine, rugged coast without seeing another person. It was a space for her to reflect on the various ways cultures grieve and consider which rituals might help her rebuild her life in the wake of Tony’s death.

“Memorial Days,” a spare and profoundly moving memoir, portrays a larger-than-life man and the timeless love between two souls. It exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.

Geraldine Brooks is the author of six novels, including “Horse,” “People of the Book,” “Year of Wonders,” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “March.” She has also written acclaimed nonfiction works, including “Nine Parts of Desire” and “Foreign Correspondence.” Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Born and raised in Australia, Brooks now divides her time between Sydney and Martha’s Vineyard.

My journey through grief has significantly helped me grow as a person by focusing on conscientious resilience. I make it a point to read and walk daily, engage in worship, and actively participate as a volunteer and a good neighbor in my community. Fourteen hundred days ago, I wasn’t sure if I could continue living or how to move forward. However, by concentrating on strengthening my resilience, I now lead a life filled with meaning and purpose. I choose to look back not on what I lost but on what I have gained.

As my friend Danny said nearly a year ago, “You are an incredible person! You are a new person! A better person! Although Jan is not here physically, she has done so much for you!

My Rabbi, Rav Uri, echoed similar sentiments during his remarks when I received the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award. If their beliefs are true, much of my progress directly results from my conscientious resilience!

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean is a poignant and thoughtful story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family—the novel delves into past secrets, present truths, and futures shaped by wild summer storms. Alice Storm has not been welcome at her family’s magnificent private island off the Rhode Island coast for five years—not since she was cast out and built her life apart from the Storm name, its influence, and untold billions.

However, the shocking death of her larger-than-life father changes everything. Alice plans to keep a low profile, pay her final respects (as complicated as they are), and leave as soon as the funeral concludes. Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric and manipulative patriarch left his family a final challenge—an inheritance game designed to disrupt their lives. The rules are straightforward: spend one week on the island, complete their assigned tasks, and receive the inheritance.

Spending an entire week on Storm Island presents challenges for Alice. The old house is chaotic in every corner: her older sister’s secret love affair, her brother displays unwavering arrogance, and her younger sister is constantly analyzing the “vibes.” All of this is under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s intriguing and too-handsome second-in-command. It will take a miracle for Alice to escape unscathed.

Sarah MacLean is the author of sixteen New York Times bestselling novels, translated into more than twenty-five languages. She co-hosts the weekly romance novel podcast Fated Mates and is a prominent voice in the romance genre. A product of Rhode Island summers and New England storms, MacLean now lives with her family in New York City.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

Finding Peace, One Piece at a Time by Rachel Blythe Kodanaz is a book I wish I had long before Jan died. It provides helpful information on maintaining an organized lifestyle and handling a loved one’s possessions.

Having lost almost everything I had except for the clothes on my back after a house fire in 1972, I thought I had adopted a view that possessions were not significant. With Jan’s death, the truth is that she and I had collected essential possessions, and now it was my responsibility to decide what to do with them.

Rachel’s book is a practical guide, offering a comprehensive understanding of the significance of possessions and a step-by-step plan to manage them. Chapter 3, in particular, is a treasure trove of practical advice, focusing on Building Your Game Plan: The Ten Essentials and covering all the crucial topics – triggers, building a team, and creating a timeline, among others.

Magic of the Six Piles is a well-designed plan that will help most of us confront the possessions of our loved ones. The piles are:

1. Keep
2. Share
3. Donate
4. Sell
5. Dispose
6. Ponder

Having absorbed the book’s wisdom, I am ready to transition from contemplation to action. This is how I sort my wife’s possessions into six piles. I am optimistic that it will also help me streamline my possessions, making books my trusted company more accessible for my sons.

Ms. Kodanaz has presented at my bereavement groups and has been an inspiration. She has also encouraged me to write about my love for Jan in a journal.

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Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

Juhea Kim, the acclaimed author of Beasts of a Little Land and City of Night Birds, presents an exquisite collection of stories that explores the delicate balance between humans and the natural world. With the clear-eyed reverence of Richard Powers and the sparkling sincerity of George Saunders, her first story collection, A Love Story from the End of the World, offers a breathtaking view of our fractured world—and our broken hearts. Through its passionate narrative, the collection serves as a poignant reminder that, as humans, we are nothing without nature.

Spanning multiple locales and time periods, and rendered in fine detail and vivid color, this transportive collection illustrates what it means to live as human inhabitants of our singular, miraculous planet.

Lyrical, at times hilarious, and always heartfelt, each of these ten stories reflects individual choices in the face of “man-made” apocalypses. In a near-future Seoul, where air pollution has become so severe that a translucent biodome has covered the city, a civil engineer responsible for its upkeep considers an arranged marriage. A painter, disenchanted with New York City, travels to the South of France and becomes romantically involved with an entrepreneur who claims to have invented a new color. Meanwhile, on an island where the Indian and Pacific Oceans converge, and where foreign countries have dumped their waste, causing a landfill mountain to form, a local boy facing daily hardships gains internet fame for his K-pop-inspired dances.

Juhea Kim is the author of the novel Beasts of a Little Land, which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the winner of the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award, Russia’s most significant annual award in literature. It has been translated into many languages and is for television. She is also the author of City of Night Birds, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick.

A graduate of Princeton University, her writing has been published in Granta, the Times Literary Supplement, the Independent, Zyzzyva, Guernica<, and other outlets. She is an advocate for wildlife conservation, animal rights, and education and aid in Africa. Born in Korea and raised in Portland, Oregon, Kim now lives in London.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom was a book that I knew very little about who I took from our bookshelf. My wife had encouraged me to read it as it focused on the south, and she knew I ofter read both about that place and enjoyed history.

From the opening pages, It became a book that I could not put down.

Two characters narrate the book. One is Lavinia, an Irish girl orphaned and brought to the plantation by the master, a ship’s captain. She is assigned to the kitchen house to work with Belle, who is the illegitimate child of the master of the estate.

As Lavinia grows under the tutelage of Belle, the story highlights the struggles of a plantation. Lavinia finds family and love from the enslaved even though she is only indentured. The distinction that skin color would have on their lives is one that Lavinia only learns at the end.

Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom’s debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.

The Kitchen House is Ms. Grissom’s first novel and impressed me and inspired me even though I have no skills as a writer.

I strongly recommend this book.

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Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.