Richard’s Grief Journey from the Island of Grief back to the land of love.
“Watch out, Maggie!” Joe exclaimed as his energetic dog jumped on my leg, threatening to muddy my clothes. Despite the interruption, I couldn’t help but smile at Maggie’s playful antics. I gently petted her head, feeling her soft fur beneath my fingertips, and told Joe that today was laundry day.
Continue reading →
Walking down Alden Street, I noticed Chris smoking a cigarette outside Ambelis Greek Taverna, his restaurant. He saw me and exclaimed, “Richard!” in a loud voice that could have woken up the entire neighborhood. His enthusiasm made me smile. He asked me how I was doing, and his concern seemed genuine. Even though I wasn’t alright, I muttered that I was, but my answer wasn’t convincing. Being a good friend, Chris said something that sounded straight from my vocabulary: “Let me know if I can be of any help.” His kindness warmed my heart. He had to go back inside, but not before giving me a bear hug, which I happily accepted.
Continue reading →
After my wife passed away, my life took a new direction, one focused on health, novelty, community, and purpose. I found solace in walking, reading, working with Bridges and others in my community, and searching for meaning and purpose. Despite my efforts to explain why these activities have become essential to me, some people believe that I am being obsessive-compulsive. However, these are the ways to choose life over grieving. Every step I take, every page I turn, and every hour I contribute to Bridges contributes to my progress toward building a beloved community.
Continue reading →
A widow who has lost a loved one gazes at a landscape without a partner.
On Walkdate 1019 (19 February 2024), I woke up feeling out of sync and disconnected from the world around me. As I opened my eyes, I realized that I was in an empty apartment, a place that had become my home since my wife died. Despite being used to this routine, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease. The inside temperature was at 64 degrees Fahrenheit and falling, reminding me of how my life had become unsynchronized and how I needed to find a way to get back on track.
Continue reading →Subscribe to Sharing Jan's Love Newsletter!
by Jennifer Weiner
Today, I started reading The Breakaway: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner, an inspiring new book about love, family, friendship, secrets, and a life-changing journey. The story revolves around 33-year-old Abby Stern, who is content with her life despite not having a steady career and living in a college-like apartment.
She cherishes her good friends, her bike, and the bicycling club in Philadelphia. Abby is comfortable with her plus-size body most of the time and is engaged to Mark Medoff, her childhood sweetheart, whom she met at a weight-loss camp that her mother dragged her to.
However, Abby can’t shake off the feeling that something is amiss, and she can’t forget the breathtaking night she spent with Sebastian two years ago. When Abby gets an unexpected invitation to lead a cycling trip from NYC to Niagara Falls, she gladly accepts, hoping to get away from Mark and reflect on her life. But things get complicated when she spots Sebastian in the group, and her mother, Eileen, whom Abby blames for her body insecurities, joins the trip at the last minute.
The strangers on the journey soon become friends, hidden truths come to light, and a teenage girl with a secret brings the riders together in ways they never imagined. As they travel over 700 miles, Abby must re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about herself, her mother, and the nature of love.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson is one of NPR’s Books We Love from 2020. The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in this timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City at the dawn of WWII. Amidst the whir of city life, a girl from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear amongst its most dangerous denizens.
The book is written in three sections with different protagonists and voices. Phyllis, or Pea as her friends call her, is a black assassin for a white mob boss narrates the first section of the book. Her saint’s hands are the ability to use knives to commit murder. She can also pass as white as Phyllis, but she is a black woman from Harlem as Pea. The section she narrates is difficult at first to follow as she attempts to deal with the consequences of her actions. Can the past ever be the past?
Dev, Indian and Phyllis’s lover, narrates the second section. He is an undercover cop who protects her and helps her free herself from the mob boss. This section is located in the Hudson Valley and highlights the tensions before the war between whites and non-whites.
The third protagonist, Tamara, narrates this section. The war separates Phyllis and Dev. Phyllis is pregnant, and Dev and Tamara’s love interest are serving in the military. This section brings together the threads and reminds us that the past is never the past.
As Goodreads summarizes the book,
But the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she loves most.
Can one woman ever sacrifice enough to save an entire community?
Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling chronicle of interracial tension, and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.
I recommend this book and encourage all readers to read it to the end.
When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Rabih Alameddine
“The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” is a wonderfully unique and vibrant celebration of love. Written by Rabih Alameddine, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” is a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon. It explores the modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable bond between a son and his mother.
In a small apartment in Beirut, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja enjoys books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Meanwhile, his octogenarian mother, Zalfa, feels that Raja’s desire for privacy is a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of his work and love life, disregarding his boundaries.
When Raja receives an invitation to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, it couldn’t come at a better time. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left him longing for peace, away from his mother and the turmoil of Lebanon. However, what initially seems like a stroke of luck soon forces Raja to confront and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
Told in Raja’s irresistible, wickedly funny voice, the novel traverses six decades, narrating the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and perhaps even forgiveness.
Rabih Alameddine is the author of several acclaimed works, including the novels “The Wrong End of the Telescope“, “Angel of History“, “An Unnecessary Woman“, “The Hakawati“, “I, the Divine“, and “Koolaids“. He also wrote a collection of stories titled “The Perv” and a nonfiction work called “Comforting Myths”.
Alameddine has received numerous awards for his writing, including the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and he was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2019, he was honored with the Dos Passos Prize, received a Lannan Award in 2021, and was awarded the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025.
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!
by Jess Walter
For the week before Father’s Day, I read So Far Gone by Jess Walter, a hilarious, empathetic, and brilliantly provocative adventure through life in modern America about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren. Is this gripping tale of a grandfather’s love and determination the perfect read for the upcoming Father’s Day?
Rhys Kinnick, a character who has truly gone off the grid, provides a humorous twist to the story. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window, and fled for a cabin in the woods with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.
Now, Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?
With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick, a man who is struggling with his past and his present, heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation from a writer who has been called “a genius of the modern American moment.”
Jess Walter is the author of seven previous novels, including the bestsellers The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins, the National Book Award Finalist The Zero, and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His short fiction, collected in The Angel of Rome and We Live in Water, has won the O. Henry Prize and the Pushcart Prize and appeared three times in Best American Short Stories. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington.
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!
by Margaret Atwood
The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a sequel worth reading.
The novel alternates between the perspectives of three women presented as portions of a manuscript written by one (the Ardua Hall Holograph) and testimonies by the other two. Being an amateur historian, I found this a fascinating way for Ms. Atwood to write this book.
Aunt Lydia is the author of the Ardua Hall Holograph, which is a surprise based on her role in The Handmaid’s Tale. It is a surprise that she is a mole who despises Gilead and works for the resistance.
The other characters are young women who, along with Aunt Lydia, are forced to come to terms with who she is and how far she will go for what she believes.
Agnes Jemima was born in Gilead and is being educated not to be literate but to be a wife. She finds out her parents are not who she thought they were when Agnes discovers she is the daughter of a Handmaid.
Daisy was raised in Toronto, lives with her adoptive parents, and is an educated woman. As noted in most reviews, Daisy is also the daughter of a Handmaid. She is Baby Nicole from the original book, and Gilead wants her to return.
by V.E. Schwab
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab is a page-turner, and one of the rare books I have read that I wish had not ended. On the last page, I wanted the story of Addie to continue now that she had modified her deal with the dark side to save Henry Strauss. It was not that I wished Addie and Henry to reunite; it was to see how Addie’s life with Luc would continue. I recommend this book without any reservations!
Both Jan and I have always enjoyed books and movies about time travel. One of the first books I read after Jan died was The Time Travelers Wife, and now I am reading another book about time travel. If I could travel back in time, I would love to spend tens of thousands of days with her again.
But time travel is not possible. Or is it? Her spirit returns to me whenever I am paralyzed, encouraging me to dust myself off and keep going. Maybe one day we will travel together!
The Goodreads summary includes an overview.
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore, and he remembers her name.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
