Springfield's Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Commemoration

Injustice is the Issue

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 9 seconds

Jan Working for COPE

I attended Springfield’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Commemoration today.

The participants read Rev. Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

To describe a collaborative reading as powerful understates its impact.

I had attended a similar event in Cranford, and we complimented each other.

As a widow, I often hear of the problems caused by those who do not understand the plight of widows except other widows.

That is an issue, as I have felt the pain. Before becoming a widow, I failed to empathize with those who lost a loved one.

However, compared to the larger injustices in society, they are mere sleights.

As Dr. King said,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Focusing on continuing to repair the world is what I need to do to address the injustices, but it also helps me manage my grief by reminding me of the life and love that Jan and I shared.


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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Our Collective Astigmatism

Last night, I attended the Cranford Community Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Commemoration.

The annual event, held this year at Cranford's First Baptist Church, is one that Jan and I would attend together. Being back in person was, I thought, what would make the event inspiring.

Most years, the keynote speaker does an adequate job, but last night Rev. Dr. Randall M. Lassiter, the Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Paterson, set a new standard. Rev. Lassiter is also President of the NJ Convention of Progressive Baptists.

Like other great speakers, Rev. Lassiter's speech rose to a crescendo that challenged the audience to confront their astigmatism so they could see our crisis.

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Springfield's Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Commemoration
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Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories

Read: September 2023

Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories

by Kate Atkinson

Today, I commended reading Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories by Kate Atkinson, is a dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep, a secretary who watches over the life she has just left, and a man who bets on a horse that may—or may not—have spoken to him. Everything that readers love about the novels of Kate Atkinson is here—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.


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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We Are All the Same in the Dark

Read: January 2023

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We Are All the Same in the Dark

by Julia Heaberlin

We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin is a novel I highly recommend and wish I had read earlier. The title summarizes the reality of all humans, that in the dark we are all the same. Disabilities do not define us, just as being a widow does not define who I am. In this twisty psychological thriller, Julia Heaberlin paints two unforgettable portraits of a woman and a girl who redefine perceptions of physical beauty and strength. Her novel has helped me redefine my grief.

I have been a widow for almost twenty-one months. After a trauma of that magnitude, it is easier to let the widowed state define me. But I am more than just a widow! But I am a father, grandfather, friend, neighbor, advocate, and more. Reading We Are All the Same in the Dark helped me embrace myself and not wallow in widowhood.

The novel begins with the discovery of a girl abandoned by the side of the road who threatens to unearth the long-buried secrets of a Texas town’s legendary cold case. In the first section, I was still determining if I wanted to continue. Once I read about Odette Tucker and Angel, it became a page-turner. 

This line from Odette given to Angelica, aka Angel, summarizes the characteristics that each of us should live by.

Tender. Resilient. Strong. Resourceful. Kind. Empathetic.—Six words Marshall Tucker wrote on a piece of paper to describe his daughter, Odette.

As a mensch-in-training, I will strive to live by those six words.

We are truly all the same in the dark.

We Are All the Same in the Dark is the ninth book I read this year.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

It’s been a decade since Trumanell Branson disappeared, leaving only a bloody handprint behind. Her pretty face still hangs like a watchful queen on the posters on the walls of the town’s Baptist church, the police station, and the high school. They all promise the same thing: We will find you. Meanwhile, her brother, Wyatt, lives as a pariah in the desolation of the old family house, cleared of wrongdoing by the police but tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion and a new documentary about the crime.

When Wyatt finds a lost girl dumped in a field of dandelions, making silent wishes, he believes she is a sign. The town’s youngest cop, Odette Tucker, believes she is a catalyst that will ignite a seething town still waiting for its missing girl to come home. But Odette can’t look away. She shares a wound that won’t close with the mute, one-eyed mystery girl. And she is haunted by her history with the missing Tru.

Desperate to solve both cases, Odette fights to save the lost girl in the present and to dig up the shocking truth about a fateful night in the past–the night her friend disappeared. This night inspired her to become a cop, the night that wrote them all a role in the town’s dark, violent mythology.


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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The God of the Woods: A Novel

Read: July 2024

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The God of the Woods: A Novel

by Liz Moore

I started reading “The God of the Woods: A Novel” by Liz Moore today. Several reviews recommended it as a great summer read. The story is set in August 1975, the same month and year my spouse Jan and I married. Liz Moore weaves a multi-threaded story, inviting readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

The novel begins with a camp counselor discovering an empty bunk at an Adirondack summer camp belonging to thirteen-year-old Barbara Van Laar, who has mysteriously vanished. Barbara is not just any teenager; she is the daughter of the family that owns the camp and employs many residents. What makes this disappearance even more intriguing is that Barbara’s older brother went missing similarly fourteen years ago and was never found.

As the search for Barbara begins, the novel unfolds into a thrilling drama, delving into the deeply buried secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow. This novel is said to be Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching work yet.

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Vanishing World

Read: April 2025

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Vanishing World

by Sayaka Murata

Today, I began reading Sayaka Murata‘s Vanishing World, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. This novel, from the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, presents a surprising and highly imaginative story set in an alternate version of Japan where sexual relations between married couples have disappeared, and all children are conceived through artificial insemination.

Sayaka Murata has established herself as a remarkable observer of society’s peculiarities, delving into our contemporary world with bizarre and unsettling insights. Her portrayals of a contentedly unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman who believes she is an alien in Earthlings have resonated with millions of readers globally. In Vanishing World, Murata takes her vision to a bold new level, envisioning an alternative Japan where attitudes toward sex and procreation diverge significantly from our own.

As a girl, Amane is horrified to learn that her parents “copulated” to conceive her rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. She seeks to escape what she perceives as her mother’s indoctrination into this peculiar “system.” Despite her efforts, Amane’s attractions to both anime characters and real people carry an undeniable sexual weight.

As an adult in a suitably sexless marriage—where sex between married couples is regarded as taboo, akin to incest—Amane and her husband, Saku, decide to relocate to a mysterious new town called Experiment City, or Paradise-Eden. In this community, all children are raised collectively, and every person is considered a mother to all children. Men are beginning to experience pregnancy through artificial wombs that exist outside their bodies, resembling balloons, and children are nameless, referred to simply as “Kodomo-chan.” Will this new world finally cleanse Amane of her strangeness?


Sayaka Murata is the author of several books, including Convenience Store Woman, which won the Akutagawa Prize, Earthlings, and Life Ceremony. Freeman has recognized her as a “Future of New Writing” author, and Vogue Japan has honored her as a Woman of the Year.

Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated works from more than a dozen Japanese writers, including Ryu Murakami. She resides at the foot of a mountain in Eastern Japan.



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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.



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Demon Copperhead: A Novel

Read: December 2022

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Demon Copperhead: A Novel

by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver is a must-read page-turner! Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

With more knowledge about the devastation of an economy that works for a few and the opioid crisis, I felt as if I was reading about people I knew. Although the book focuses on the impact on boys, it also details the devastation that girls experience.

If Jan had read Demon Copperhead, she would have encouraged me to read it. It reminds us of the work we must do to repair the world.

As a widow, it was a reminder of the long road that we must all take even after we have hit bottom.

WNYC’s All of it hosted an interview with Barbara Kingsolver in which she speaks about Demon Copperhead and her writing.

Demon Copperhead is one of the NYTimes’ top five fiction books of 2022. I have read three of them, The Candy House, The Furrows, and Checkout 19.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damage to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion and, above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.


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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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.



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