Feet
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Subscribe to Sharing Jan's Love Newsletter!
by Patricia Engel
The Faraway World: Stories by Patricia Engel was released six days ago. The Faraway World is an exquisite collection of ten haunting, award-winning short stories set across the Americas and linked by themes of migration, sacrifice, and moral compromise. I highly recommend this collection of short stories. All ten are ones I would read again. As Leigh Newman wrote in her review in the NYTimes, The Faraway World is “a collection about the Latin American diaspora.”
In addition, Leigh Newman described The Faraway World proves that Engel, like one of her characters, is capable of noticing “that between two people, a look reveals more than a fingerprint.” The first story in the collection, “Aida,” is about two twins, one of whom goes missing. Once I read this story, I could not stop until I had read all ten.
The stories are based in Cuba, Colombia, and the US. I know a few NJ settings that gave more meaning to these stories. I felt like I was in Cuba and Colombia, which I had never visited.
NPR interviewed Patricia Engel. She described how she wrote the stories.
They came to me at different points when I was thinking about other things. But of course, they are connected by this – the motivating force for change, desire, and the ever-changing conditions of identity and movements and changing geography and landscape and diaspora. Those are things that I explore in all my writing, and it’s something that I explore in my life. So, of course, it permeates my stories.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
Two Colombian ex-pats meet as strangers on the rainy streets of New York City, both burdened with traumatic pasts. In Cuba, a woman discovers her deceased brother’s bones have been stolen, and the love of her life returns from Ecuador for a one-night visit. A cash-strapped couple hustles in Miami to life-altering ends.
The Faraway World is a collection of arresting stories from The New York Times bestselling author of Infinite Country, Patricia Engel, “a gifted storyteller whose writing shines even in the darkest corners” (The Washington Post). Intimate and panoramic, these stories bring to life the liminality of regret, the vibrancy of the community, and the epic deeds and quiet moments 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 Hila Blum
I started reading a novel called “How to Love Your Daughter,” written by Hila Blum and translated by Daniella Zamir today. The book explores a complicated relationship between a mother and her grown daughter. It raises the question of how much harm we can do to our loved ones when love blinds us.
The story takes place thousands of miles away from home, where a woman finds herself peeking through well-lit windows at her two granddaughters. She has never met them before, as they are the daughters of her estranged daughter, whom she hasn’t seen in years.
The book’s central theme revolves around the woman’s attempt to understand how a once-loving relationship between her and her daughter ended up in such a distant and unfathomable state. The story shifts past and present as the woman unravels her memories and long-buried emotions. She tries to make sense of the seemingly insignificant moments of parental care that, combined, may have undermined what she valued most.
The author, Blum, skillfully delves into the complexities of family life, where a parent can easily cross the line between protectiveness and possession without even realizing it. The story leaves us wondering whether it’s possible ever to find our way back from such a point.
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 M.L. Stedman
When we experience something irreversible or unfixable, how do we continue living? How do we find our guiding star in the absence of clear answers? These questions lie at the heart of M. L. Stedman‘s unforgettable new novel, A Far-flung Life. From the acclaimed author of the beloved bestseller The Light Between Oceans, this sweeping epic explores a family, a tragedy, and the repercussions that echo for decades.
Set in remote Western Australia in 1958, the MacBride family has lived for generations on a vast sheep station called Meredith Downs, which spans a million acres of arid landscape. On an ordinary day, as patriarch Phil MacBride drives down a lonely road under the endless blue sky, he swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In that instant, it shatters the lives of the entire MacBride family. Tragedy strikes again when the consequences of this moment claim the life of one sibling and lead another to sacrifice everything for the well-being of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, embarks on a moral and emotional journey for which there is neither a map nor a guide. The secrets at the core of this heartbreaking and beautiful story compel him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.
A Far-flung Life is a tale of family and belonging, fate and time. It depicts individuals striving to do their best while each, for their own reasons, seeks shelter from life’s storms.
Can a fleeting moment unravel a life, marking it permanently and irrevocably? Can compassion, resilience, and forgiveness help us come to terms with our human imperfections? These are the profound questions Stedman explores in A Far-flung Life, her moving, uplifting, and luminous novel about the endurance of the heart for love’s sake.
M.L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans was her first novel. A Far-flung Life is her second novel.
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 I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Supporting these selections not only helps me continue to provide you with personalized recommendations but also ensures you have access to meaningful stories that enrich your life. Your support truly makes a difference in helping me share more books and insights with you!
by Mark Haddon
Today, I started reading Dogs and Monsters: Stories by Mark Haddon. The collection features eight captivating and imaginative stories that blend Greek myths with contemporary dystopian narratives. The stories explore themes of mortality, moral choices, and various forms of love, including romantic, familial, and self-love. Haddon’s clear-eyed vision is infused with deep empathy.
In addition, Haddon’s fluid prose showcases his remarkable powers of observation, both of the physical world and the inner workings of the human psyche. Greek myths have fascinated people for millennia with their timeless appeal and enduring lessons about fate, hubris, and life’s uncertainties. In Dogs and Monsters: Stories, Mark Haddon delves into the heart of these ancient fables and presents them in a fresh light. For instance, in one story, the dawn goddess Eos requests that Zeus grant her lover Tithonus eternal life but forgets to ask for eternal youth. In “The Quiet Limit of the World,” Haddon imagines Tithonus’s life as he ages over thousands of years, transforming this cautionary tale about tempting the gods into a spellbinding meditation on observing death from the outside. This tale ultimately explores how carnal love evolves into something more profound and poignant over time.
In “The Mother‘s Story,” Haddon reinterprets the myth of the Minotaur, born of the monstrous lust of King Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë. He turns it into a heartbreaking parable of a mother’s love for a damaged child and the more tangible monstrosities of patriarchy. In “D.O.G.Z.,” the story of Actaeon, who was transformed into a stag after glimpsing the naked goddess Diana and was subsequently torn apart by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor for the continuum of human and animal behavior.
Other stories in Dogs and Monsters: Stories play with contemporary mythic tropes—such as genetic engineering, attempts to escape the future, and the cruelty of adolescent ostracism. These stories showcase how modern humans are subject to the same capriciousness that concerned the Greeks but in a fresh and intriguing light. Haddon‘s tales cover a wide range of themes, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, and explore love alongside stories of cruelty. They take readers from battlefields to bed and breakfasts and from dogs in space to doors between worlds, all bound together by profound sympathy and an insight into how human beings think, feel, and act when pushed to their limits.
by Fredrik Backman
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, a poignant comedy about a crime that never occurred. A would-be bank robber disappears into thin air, and eight highly anxious strangers find they have more in common than they ever imagined. Anxious People is a novel that Jan and I would have both enjoyed reading. It jumped off the e-book shelf while looking for a new book to read.
Although Anxious People is a humorous comedy, it is really about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness and hope, which are the key to our survival as individuals, couples and communities. It is the core of what made the love that Jan and I shared special and unique, but it is also what I gain from my participation in my various grief groups as well as Friday night Shabbat services.
I highly recommend this book.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview.
Viewing an apartment usually doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation. Still, this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly open up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.
First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she’s obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live—perhaps, setting an old wrong to the right. Then there’s Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don’t know how to fix their failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can’t agree on anything. And there’s Estelle, an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn’t come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband isn’t outside parking the car.
As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts, and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the terrifying prospect: going out to face the police or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.
Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People’s whimsical plot serves up unforgettable insights into the human condition and a gentle reminder to be compassionate to all the anxious people we encounter every day.
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 Ian McEwan
Today, I started reading “Atonement: A Novel” by Ian McEwan, an acclaimed Booker Prize-winning author. This symphonic novel explores complex themes, including love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness. It has been recognized as one of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, making it a must-read for those interested in these profound themes.
The story begins on a scorching summer day in 1935, when thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment of flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. Briony’s incomplete understanding of adult motives and her literary gifts lead to a crime that significantly impacts their lives, taking them on an emotional journey of love, guilt, and forgiveness.
The narrative tracks the repercussions of this crime through the chaos and carnage of World War II, a vivid historical backdrop that immerses the reader into the twentieth century’s close. “Atonement” has been acclaimed for engaging readers on multiple levels, marking it a genuine masterpiece from the Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Ian McEwan.
Ian McEwan is a critically acclaimed author known for his nineteen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories titled “First Love, Last Rites,” won the Somerset Maugham Award.
His notable novels include “The Child in Time,” which won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 1987; “The Cement Garden“; “Enduring Love;” “Amsterdam;” which won the Booker Prize in 1998; “Atonement;” “Saturday;” “On Chesil Beach;” “Solar;” “Sweet Tooth;” “The Children Act;” “Nutshell;” and “Machines Like Me,” which became a number-one bestseller.
Several of his works, including “Atonement,” “Enduring Love,” “The Children Act;,” and “On Chesil Beach,” have been adapted into films.
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!
