Richard W. shared a post on April 30, 2024
Accepting the Full Measure of Love

Accepting the Full Measure of Love

Choosing Love Over a PhD

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 28 seconds

As I set foot on the University of Texas in Austin campus for the first time this week, the atmosphere felt familiar yet new. The towering buildings, sprawling grounds, and bustling students all created a sense of excitement and anticipation within me. It was as if I had arrived at a place that, before I met Jan, was filled with great promise and potential for my future. When I met Jan, I had deferred admission to a graduate program in American Studies at the university. I had to enroll for the fall of 1974, or my admission would be rescinded.

While on campus, I attended a preview of The Riot Report: A Presidential Commission Defied Expectations By Telling A Hard Truth at the LBJ Library and listened to a panel discussion on the Kerner Commission, which was the focus of a PBS video. The screening of about half of the video and the debate were intellectually challenging, and I knew I could have been part of it had I gone to graduate school. However, I chose not to dwell on the past and instead focus on the present, taking one step at a time and looking forward to the future.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that pursuing a PhD would mean leaving behind the life I had built in New York City with Jan. As much as I had once dreamed of becoming a college professor, the thought of being away from her for an extended period was too much to bear.

In the end, I tore up the final paperwork from the school and threw it away, knowing that my heart was with Jan and that I had made the right decision.

We reminisced as my wife and I sat down for dinner with friends a decade ago. Then, my wife revealed something I had never known before. She confided she had been dating two men simultaneously. However, after meeting me, she knew that I was the one for her and decided to break things off with the other two guys.

Jan’s confession left me stunned for a moment. I had no idea Jan was dating other men when we first met. I would never have asked her to stop seeing them if I had. She explained that breaking things off with the other two men was difficult, but they both understood. On the other hand, her girlfriends did not know why she would break up with two guys just a day after meeting me.

When I saw Jan, my heart skipped a beat, and I felt the sparks fly between us. I knew then that she was the one for me. Without hesitation, I chose love over practicality and committed myself to a life with her. As our love blossomed, it transformed my life beyond my wildest dreams. Fully embracing love can lead to incredible personal growth and transformation.

One Rose Changed My Life

One Rose Changed My Life

As our lips met, an overwhelming surge of emotions flooded me, unlike any I had ever felt. This experience made me realize how one single rose can change our lives when that love is an eternal force that never ceases to exist.
Richard W. Brown April 1, 2024

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Jan Clears the Deck!

Choosing Love Over a PhD

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 28 seconds
Jan Lilien and Richard W. Brown

Jan Clears the Deck!

"Yes, I knew Richard was the one the moment we met," Jan said in response to a question from our dinner guests about how we fell in love. "When I got home on Monday, the first thing I did was make two phone calls. I had been dating two guys, and I did not see any reason to continue to see them after I met Richard." 
Richard W. Brown December 14, 2021

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Accepting the Full Measure of Love
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Stories: The Collected Short Fiction

Read: March 2026

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Stories: The Collected Short Fiction

by Helen Garner

Stories: The Collected Short Fiction by Helen Garner, one of Australia’s most cherished writers, is featured as a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by The New Yorker. This collection presents a finely crafted assortment of short stories showcasing Garner’s “generous, category-defying imagination,” as noted by the New York Times Book Review. Helen Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of Australian life.

A woman sends postcards from the beautiful Gold Coast to a former lover. A chorus of voices from her hometown gossips about a friend who has returned after going astray. A young girl discovers a hidden box filled with frightening secrets.

In Stories, you will find a collection of short fiction from a unique literary voice. These tales explore the complexities of love and longing, capturing the pain, darkness, and joy of life, all conveyed with Garner’s characteristic sharpness, honesty, and humor. Each story stands on its own as a perfect piece, but together they showcase the remarkable talent of a master of various literary forms.

Helen Garner is an accomplished writer known for her novels, short stories, screenplays, and non-fiction works. In 2006, she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature. A decade later, in 2016, she was honored with the prestigious Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2019, she received the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

Among her notable works are Monkey Grip, The Children’s Bach, Cosmo Cosmolino, The Spare Room, The First Stone, This House of Grief, and Everywhere I Look. Her diaries, titled Yellow Notebook, One Day I’ll Remember This, and How to End a Story, were published together as a single volume in the United States.

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!

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Thirst Trap

Read: November 2025

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Thirst Trap: A Novel

by Gráinne O'Hare

Filled with heart and humor, Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare is a lively celebration of friendship, embracing uncertainty, and indulging in “just one more round” before heading home. This sharply funny novel explores the challenges of being in your late 20s as you approach 30, questioning when you will tire of morning hangovers, dead-end entry-level jobs, and late nights at bars. This friend group is about to discover the answer.

Sometimes friends hold you together.
Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart.

Harley, Róise, and Maggie have been friends for a long time. They met in primary school years ago, and they are still together, spending their nights on the sticky dance floors of Belfast’s grungiest pubs. Each woman is navigating her own challenges—entry-level jobs, messy romantic entanglements, and late nights—but they always find their way back to each other and to the ramshackle house they share. Amidst the familiar chaos, the three are still grieving their fourth housemate, whose room remains untouched, with the weight of their last big fight lingering heavily over them.

The girls’ house has witnessed the highs and lows of their roaring twenties—raucous parties, surprising (and sometimes regrettable) hook-ups, and hellish hangovers. However, as they approach thirty, their home begins to crumble around them, and the cracks in their friendship become harder to ignore. In the midst of the wreckage, they must decide whether their friendship will survive into a new decade or if growing up sometimes means letting go.

Gráinne O’Hare is a writer from Belfast based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She received a Northern Debut Award for Fiction from New Writing North and was awarded funding by the Arts Council for the development and completion of her first novel. She has also been shortlisted for the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and the Bridport Prize, and came in the top three of the Benedict Kiely Short Story Competition.

She is a media sub-editor for Criticks reviews of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and holds a PhD in eighteenth-century women’s life-writing from Newcastle University.

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!

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Western Lane: A Novel

Read: March 2023

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Western Lane: A Novel

by Chetna Maroo

Western Lane: A Novel by Chetna Maroo is a taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete’s struggle to transcend herself. Western Lane is about three sisters who have lost their mother. Their father is encouraged to provide structure in raising his daughters. Gopi, the narrator, is a squash player, and her father imposes a brutal training regimen. I highly recommend this novel!

The following passage explains the importance of squash to Gopi and how she views the world.

In the court, your mind is not only on the shot you’re about to play and the shot with which your opponent might reply, but on the shots that will follow two, three, four moves ahead. You’re watching your opponent’s position and the game he or she is playing, making calculations. This is how you choose which way to go. Though your mind is following several paths at once, it’s not a splitting but expansion forwards and backward in time, and it happens so quickly that it feels like instinct. Sometimes, you don’t even know you are thinking.

In the first few pages, I wondered what I would have done if I had been a single parent when my sons were young. I do not believe I would have imposed on my sons what Gopi’s father did to her. However, I have found reading and art to be powerful tools to help me cope with grief. I have focused on rituals, structure, and purpose.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot, and its echo.

But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.

An indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we know ourselves and each other.

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.

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Discontent

Read: October 2025

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Discontent: A Novel

by Beatriz Serrano

“Discontent” by Beatriz Serrano is a bold and darkly humorous novel that follows a young woman whose carefully constructed office persona starts to unravel when she is compelled to attend her company’s annual retreat. On the surface, Marisa’s life appears enviable. She lives in a beautiful apartment in the heart of Madrid, has a charming neighbor who often spends time with her, and has quickly ascended the ranks at a successful advertising agency.

And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the banality of corporate life. Marisa hates her job and everyone at it. She spends her working hours locked in her office, hiding from her coworkers, bingeing on YouTube videos, and getting high on tranquilizers. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or tries to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.

However, Marisa’s dubious success, which is primarily built on lies and work she has stolen from others, is in danger of being exposed when she’s forced to attend her company’s team-building retreat. Isolated in the Segovia forests, haunted by the deeply buried memory of a former coworker, and surrounded by psychopathic bosses, overzealous coworkers, flirty retreat staff, and an excess of drugs, Marisa finds herself acting on her wildest impulses. She is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.

Beatriz Serrano is a striking new voice in international literature. A writer and journalist who has written for publications such as BuzzFeed, Vanity Fair, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, El País, SModa, and Vogue. Along with writer Guillermo Alonso, she currently co-directs the podcast “Arsenic Caviar“, which won the Ondas Prize for best conversational podcast. Discontent is her first novel. She lives in Madrid.

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!

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The Pull of the Stars

Read: June 2022

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The Pull of the Stars

by Emma Donoghue

After Jan’s death and over two years of COVID, The Pull of the Stars might not seem like a good read for me. But I had placed this book on my to-read list a few months ago.  The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue is set in 1918 in Dublin; a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love. It was a page-turner that engrossed me at that moment. When I reached the last page, I wanted the story to continue. 

The details about childbirth, life, and death were riveting. All three of the main characters are ones that I could have imagined in an episode of Call the Midwife. That Dr. Lynn was a natural person underscores the depth of Ms. Donoghue’s research and writing skills. 

Julie and Bridie’s characters were so real it was difficult to believe that they were not also based on natural persons. 

I strongly recommend The Pull of the Stars.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

In an Ireland ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumored Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers somehow do their impossible work. In the darkness and intensity of this minor ward, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways over three days. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic but shepherd new life into a fearful world.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

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The Worst Hard Time

Read: September 2019

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The Worst Hard Time

by Timothy Egan

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan was initially a book I selected from the e-library because nothing else I wanted to read was available. Once I started reading the book, I could not put it down.

Now that we have had the warmest summer since 1936 during the dust bowl, the book has even more meaning.

According to The New York Times,

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect.”

With the likelihood of more ecological catastrophes in the immediate future, this is a book I highly recommend.

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