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72. The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Adrienne Bulinski

Author:   Andy Andrews

Genre:  Fiction, Self-Improvement

227 pages, published April 30, 2005

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Traveler’s Gift weaves a business fable about a man named David Ponder who loses his job and money, but finds his way after he is magically transported into seven key points in history.  At each location, Ponder meets historical the following historical figures and learns these important lessons:

 

  1. Harry S. Truman:  The Buck Stops Here.   “I accept Responsibility for past.  I control my thoughts.  I control my emotions.  I am responsible for my success.  The buck stops here.”  Are you in control of your life?  Are you leading your ship or are you a passenger, allowing others to determine where you go.  Do you blame moments of the past for your current situation?  Do you allow the weather to determine how you feel?  Stop and take control over everything that matters.  Today.  You and only you should be in control over your success.

 

  1. King Solomon:  I Will Seek Wisdom.  “I will be a servant to others.  I will listen to the counsel of wise men. I will choose my friends with care.  I will seek wisdom.”  Do you read?  Remember, rich people have big libraries and poor people have big TVs.  Do you ask the advice of those you find to be wiser than you?  Do you hang out with people that can help you grow and not tear you down?  Do you help others or hinder them.  Never stop growing.

 

  1. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain:  I am a Person of Action.  (Chamberlain’s group of men were on the extreme left flank for the Union Army that was protecting Gettysburg.  Most of his men were dead or severely injured and they were out of ammunition.  They could not retreat as that would mean the South would advance and take Gettysburg.  They couldn’t sit there and wait either as that would mean sure defeat.  Chamberlain had no choice but to charge.  “I do not fear failure, for in my life, failure is a myth. Failure exists only for the person who quits.  I do not quit.  I am courageous. I am a leader.  I seize this moment.  I choose now.  I am a person of action.”  Act.  Do not hesitate.  Do not fill your mind with possibilities of negative outcomes.  Take action.

 

  1. Christopher Columbus:  I have a Decided Heart.  “I will not wait. I am passionate about my vision for the future.  My course has been charted.  My destiny is assured.  I have a decided heart.”  What could you discover if you were so passionate about your future?

 

  1. Anne Frank:  Today I Will Choose to be Happy.  “I will be grateful for the miracle of abundance.  I will greet each day with laughter.  I will smile at every person I meet. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit.  Today I will choose to be happy.”  Is being happy a choice?  Can you decide what kind of mood you are in?  Yes it is and you can.  Good things and bad things will come your way.  You can decide how these things affect you.  Be grateful and express gratitude.  Smile often, laugh with your friends and family.

 

  1. Abraham Lincoln:  I Will Greet This Day with a Forgiving Spirit.  “From this day forward, my history will cease to control my destiny.  I have forgiven myself.  My life has just begun.  I will forgive even those who do not ask for forgiveness.  I will forgive those who criticize me unjustly.  I will forgive myself.  I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.”  How many hours have you lost due to resentment and anger?  How many relationships have been ruined as a result of your ability to say “I forgive you”?  How many opportunities went by the wayside because you couldn’t forgive the one person that matters most, you?  Holding on to anger towards another person is an incredible waste of time and energy.  Often times the other party has no idea of your feelings anyway!  Forgiveness is not something to be hoarded inside but rather should be given away whenever possible.  It has no value unless it is given away.  If and when you make a mistake, do not keep yourself down.  Own the errors of your ways and forgive yourself so that you can move forward and continue to grow.

 

  1. The Archangel Gabriel:  I Will Persist Without Exception.  “I will believe in the future that I do not see. That is faith. And the reward of this faith is to see the future that I believed. I will continue despite exhaustion. I focus on results. I am a person of great faith.  I will persist without exception.”  The last person Ponder meets is the Archangel Gabriel who shows him a picture and tells him the names of the children that he never had.  Ponder responds that they always wanted more children but did not think they could afford it.  Gabriel tells Ponder that they are in a warehouse filled the dreams and goals of the less courageous.  It’s a very somber moment.  There are no second chances.  Once an opportunity is missed, it is gone forever.  You will miss some, plenty actually.  But there will be many many more.  Be ready.

 

Quotes

“Life itself is a privilege, but to live life to the fullest- well, that is a choice.”

 

“Successful people make their decisions quickly and change their minds slowly. Failures make their decisions slowly and change their minds quickly.”

 

“You are where you are because of your thinking. Your thinking dictates your decisions. Decisions are choices.”

 

“I will not waste time on second thoughts. My life will not be an apology. It will be a statement.”

 

“As children, we were afraid of the dark.  Now as adults, we are afraid of the light. We are afraid to step out. We are afraid to become more.”

 

“My smile has become my calling card.  It is, after all, the most potent weapon I possess.”

 

“Every man of character will have that character questioned. Every man of honor and courage will be faced with unjust criticism, but never forget that unjust criticism has no impact whatsoever upon the truth. And the only sure way to avoid criticism is to do nothing and be nothing.”

 

“First we make a choice. Then our choices make us.”

 

“I possess the greatest power ever bestowed upon mankind, the power of choice.”

 

“The answer, of course, is that we are always and forever influenced by those with whom we associate. If a man keeps company with those who curse and complain—he will soon find curses and complaints flowing like a river from his own mouth. If he spends his days with the lazy—those seeking handouts—he will soon find his finances in disarray. Many of our sorrows can be traced to relationships with the wrong people.”

 

“A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me. Often, the person who develops a servant’s spirit becomes wealthy beyond measure.”

My Take

While the structure of The Traveler’s Gift seems a bit forced at times, there is a lot to like about this book.  Andrews tells his story and imparts his pearls of wisdom in a very reader friendly manner that is easy to follow and understand.  I agree with his life lessons and am glad to be reminded of them.  The Traveler’s Gift is a book that I wholeheartedly recommend.

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71. Big Little Lies

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   

Author:   Liane Moriarity

Genre:  Fiction

460 pages, published July 29, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book and Book

Summary 

Big Little Lies tells the story of three friends in a seaside Australian town of Pirriwee.  Madeline, a divorced and remarried mother of three, is funny, passionate, remembers everything and forgives no one.  Her ex-husband and his new zen wife Bonnie have moved into her beloved beachside community and Madeline’s daughter seems to be to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her.  Celeste is a woman of striking beauty married to Perry, a incredibly handsome and rich man who seems to the outside world to be the perfect husband and father.  However, things are not always as they appear to be.  Jane is a very young single mother who, with her son Ziggy, are recent arrivals in Pirriwee and are befriended by Madeline and Celeste.   Jane harbors a sad secret and has concerns about her son’s character when he is accused of accosting a girl in his Kindergarten class.  The stories of these three women develop and intersect in interesting ways that culminate in a potential murder at the Pirriwee Public School’s trivia night.

 

Quotes

“They say it’s good to let your grudges go, but I don’t know, I’m quite fond of my grudge. I tend it like a little pet.”

 

“Everyone wanted to be rich and beautiful, but the truly rich and beautiful had to pretend they were just the same as everyone else.”

 

“If she packaged the perfect Facebook life, maybe she would start to believe it herself.”

 

“I mean a fat, ugly man can still be funny and lovable and successful,” continued Jane. “But it’s like it’s the most shameful thing for a woman to be.” “But you weren’t, you’re not—” began Madeline. “Yes, OK, but so what if I was!” interrupted Jane. “What if I was! That’s my point. What if I was a bit overweight and not especially pretty? Why is that so terrible? So disgusting? Why is that the end of the world?”

 

“Every day I think, ‘Gosh, you look a bit tired today,’ and it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s not that I’m tired, it’s that this is the way I look now.”

 

“The only woman who deserved a philandering husband was a philandering wife.”

 

“Nothing and nobody could aggravate you the way your child could aggravate you.”

 

“Stick with the nice boys, Chloe!” said Madeline after a moment. “Like Daddy. Bad boys don’t bring you coffee in bed, I’ll tell you that for free.”

 

“every relationship had its own “love account.” Doing something kind for your partner was like a deposit. A negative comment was a withdrawal. The trick was to keep your account in credit.”

 

“This was not the career she’d dreamed of as an ambitious seventeen-year-old, but now it was hard to remember ever feeling innocent and audacious enough to dream of a certain type of life, as if you got to choose how things turned out.”

 

“It was just so very surprising that the good-looking, worried man who had just offered her a cup of tea, and was right now working at his computer down the hallway, and who would come running if she called him, and who loved her with all of his strange heart, would in all probability one day kill her.”

My Take

I have read Liane Moriarty’s (author of The Husband’s Secret, What Alice Forgot, and Truly, Madly, Greatly) Big Little Lies twice, the audio version last year and the book version this year when I assigned it to my book club.  As Gretchen Rubin opines in The Happiness Project (which is one of my all time favorite books):  “the best reading is re-reading.”  I’m not sure that  I gained a lot more the second time around, but I did enjoy it both times (although the narrator’s voice with her heavy Australian accent on the audio version took some getting used to).  The women protagonists of Big Little Lies draw you into their lives and it is not hard to empathize with their pain, struggles and heartbreak.  I was especially moved by Celeste, the rich and beautiful woman who seemed to have it all, but who realistically thought she might not live another year.  Big Little Lies is worth a read and I recommend it.

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65. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Atul Gawande

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Medicine, Health, Public Policy

282 pages, published October 7, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

In Being Mortal, Gawande, a practicing surgeon, tackles the difficult issue of how medicine can not only improve life but also death.  While modern medicine has made amazing advances in the past few decades, it is still challenged when dealing with end of life issues where the interests of human spirit and dignity are often inadequately considered.  Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Doctors, committed to extending life, often impose devastating procedures that may extend the quantity of life, but also severely impact the quality.  Gawande argues that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families and offers examples of better models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly.  He also explores hospice and shows that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Quotes

“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence.  A seemingly happy life may be empty.  A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.  We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out. Why would a football fan let a few flubbed minutes at the end of the game ruin three hours of bliss?  Because a football game is a story.  And in stories, endings matter.”

“Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can’t, someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end.”

 

“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.”

 

“It is not death that the very old tell me they fear. It is what happens short of death—losing their hearing, their memory, their best friends, their way of life. As Felix put it to me, “Old age is a continuous series of losses.” Philip Roth put it more bitterly in his novel Everyman: “Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.”

 

“Modernization did not demote the elderly. It demoted the family. It gave people—the young and the old—a way of life with more liberty and control, including the liberty to be less beholden to other generations. The veneration of elders may be gone, but not because it has been replaced by veneration of youth. It’s been replaced by veneration of the independent self.”

 

“Being mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone. Medical science has given us remarkable power to push against these limits, and the potential value of this power was a central reason I became a doctor. But again and again, I have seen the damage we in medicine do when we fail to acknowledge that such power is finite and always will be. We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?”

 

“The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. If you don’t, mortality is only a horror. But if you do, it is not. Loyalty, said Royce, “solves the paradox of our ordinary existence by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves the will which delights to do this service, and which is not thwarted but enriched and expressed in such service.” In more recent times, psychologists have used the term “transcendence” for a version of this idea. Above the level of self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they suggest the existence in people of a transcendent desire to see and help other beings achieve their potential.”

 

“You may not control life’s circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.”

 

“We’re always trotting out some story of a ninety-seven-year-old who runs marathons, as if such cases were not miracles of biological luck but reasonable expectations for all. Then, when our bodies fail to live up to this fantasy, we feel as if we somehow have something to apologize for.”

 

“A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”

 

“The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life—to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be.”

 

“Sometimes we can offer a cure, sometimes only a salve, sometimes not even that. But whatever we can offer, our interventions, and the risks and sacrifices they entail, are justified only if they serve the larger aims of a person’s life. When we forget that, the suffering we inflict can be barbaric. When we remember it the good we do can be breathtaking.”

 

“People with serious illness have priorities besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys find that their top concerns include avoiding suffering, strengthening relationships with family and friends, being mentally aware, not being a burden on others, and achieving a sense that their life is complete.”

 

“Your chances of avoiding the nursing home are directly related to the number of children you have.”

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62. The Kingmakers Daughter

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Phillipa Gregory

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

417 pages, published August 14, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

The Kingmaker’s Daughter tells the intriguing story of Anne Neville, her sister Isabel, and their manipulative and influential father, the Earl of Warwick, one of the most powerful men in England during the Cousins’ Wars.  He continually uses his two daughters as pawns in his political games, but they grow up to be influential players in their own right.  At the court of Edward IV and his beautiful queen, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne grows from a charming child to become ever more fearful and desperate when her father makes war on his former friends.  The tide turns against her and she is left widowed and fatherless, with her mother in sanctuary and her sister married to the enemy.  Edward’s brother Richard rescues Anne from her sister’s house and she eventually ascends to the throne as queen. Having lost those closest to her, she must protect herself and her precious only child, Prince Edward, from a court full of rivals.

 

Quotes

“I would carry myself with much more dignity than her. I wouldn’t whisper with the king and demean myself as she did. I wouldn’t send out dishes and wave to people like she did. I wouldn’t trail all my brothers and sisters into court like she did. I would be much more reserved and cold. I wouldn’t smile at anyone, I wouldn’t bow to anyone. I would be a true queen, a queen of ice, without family or friends.”

 

“I have seen statues that would look stodgy beside her, I have seen painted Madonnas whose features would be coarse beside her pale luminous loveliness.”

 

“Richard looks into my eyes and once again I know us for the children that we were, who had to make our own destiny in a world we could not understand.”

 

“I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes, and he kneels before me and takes the riding boots, holding one open for my bare foot. I hesitate; it is such an intimate gesture between a young woman and a man. His smiling upward glance tells me that he understands my hesitation but is ignoring it. I point my toe and he holds the boot, I slide my foot in and he pulls the boot over my calf. He takes the soft leather ties and fastens the boot, at my ankle, then at my calf, and then just below my knee. He looks up at me, his hand gently on my toe. I can feel the warmth of his hand through the soft leather. I imagine my toes curling in pleasure at his touch.”

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54. A Man Called Ove

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Christy DeMeyer

Author:   Frederik Backman

Genre:  Fiction

337 pages, published July 15, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

A Man Called Ove takes place in a small town in Sweden and tells the story of Ove, a 59 year old widower who is a cranky curmudgeon who spends his days patrolling the neighborhood for minor violations.  Ove is a man of rigid values and has little patience for those who don’t measure up to his standards. When a lively immigrant family from Iran moves in next door, Ove’s impervious exterior begins to crack open and we learn his back story which has brought him to such a place of sadness.  We also learn about the fundamental decency and integrity of the man and the extent of the impact he has had.

 

Quotes

“Men are what they are because of what they do.  Not what they say.”

 

“Men like Ove and Rune were from a generation in which one was what one did, not what one talked about.”

 

“This was a world where one became outdated before one’s time was up.  An entire country standing up and applauding the fact that no one was capable of doing anything properly anymore. The unreserved celebration of mediocrity.  No one could change tires. Install a dimmer switch.  Lay some tiles. Plaster a wall.  File their own taxes. These were all forms of knowledge that had lost their relevance.”

 

“Now you listen to me,” says Ove calmly while he carefully closes the door.  “You’ve given birth to two children and quite soon will be squeezing out a third.  You’ve come here from a land far away and most likely you fled war and persecution and all sorts of other nonsense.  You’ve learned a new language and got yourself an education and you’re holding together a family of obvious incompetents.  And I’ll be damned if I’ve seen you afraid of a single bloody thing in this world before now….I’m not asking for brain surgery. I’m asking you to drive a car. It’s got an accelerator, a brake and a clutch. Some of the greatest twits in world history have sorted out how it works. And you will as well.”  And then he utters seven words, which Parvaneh will always remember as the loveliest compliment he’ll ever give her.  “Because you are not a complete twit.”

 

“We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people.  Time to say things to them.  And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.”

 

“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.”

 

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us.  A few days, weeks, years.  One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for.  Memories, perhaps.”

 

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the great motivations for the living.  Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury.  Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis.  Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival.  We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves.  For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by.  And leave us there alone.”

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50. The Tsar of Love and Techno

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Katy Fassett

Author:   Anthony Marra

Genre:  Fiction, Anthology, Foreign

332 pages, published October 6, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

This fascinating and very well written collection of stories set in the USSR and modern day Russia contains a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking.   A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina.  Several women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners, who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love.  Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. Great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts.  With its rich character portraits and a reverberating sense of history, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating book.

 

Quotes

“You remain the hero of your own story even when you become the villain of someone else’s.”

 

“The future is the lie with which we justify the brutality of the present.”

 

“A single whisper can be quite a disturbance when the rest of the audience is silent.”

 

“There are so many paths to contentment if you’re open to self-delusion.”

 

“Endurance, I reminded myself, is the true measure of existence.”

 

“Never forget the first three letters of confidence.”

 

“If there is an operation, and if that operation is successful, she says she will move to Sweden. I fear for her future in a country whose citizenry is forced to assemble its own furniture.”

 

“You remember how Mom had that embroidered pillow?  When she got upset, she’d shout into it and no one would hear her.  That’s Facebook.”

 

“Turning I would to I did is the grammar of growing up.”

 

“The calcium in collarbones I have kissed. The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks. We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space. A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia. We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are.”

 

“I guess our lives are all dreams – as real to us as they are meaningless to everyone else.”

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48. A God in Ruins

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Kate Atkinson

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

468 pages, published May 1, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

A God in Ruins is a companion book to Life After Life, Kate Atkinson’s absorbing family drama which used the artifice of creating multiple lives for protagonist Ursula Todd set against the back drop of England during the first and second World Wars.  A God in Ruins dispenses with the multiple lives convention and shifts the focus to Teddy Todd, Ursula’s beloved younger brother.  At a very young age, Teddy becomes an RAF bomber pilot in World War II, is reported missing, presumed dead, but reappears at the end of the war having spent two years as a POW in Germany.  This is the story of Teddy’s war and his life after coming home, from his time as a young husband and father to his days as an elderly grandfather.  Teddy is particularly challenged by his unappreciative and angry daughter Viola who supplies much of the humor in the book.

 

Quotes

“Was I really such a terrible mother?’ she asked Bertie. ‘Why the past tense?’ Bertie said.”

 

“She had never been without a book for as long as she could remember.  An only child never is.”

 

“The whole edifice of civilization turned out to be constructed from an unstable mix of quicksand and imagination.”

 

“Moments left, Teddy thought.  A handful of heartbeats. That was what life was.  A heartbeat followed by a heartbeat.  A breath followed by a breath.  One moment followed by another moment and then there was a last moment.”

 

“The purpose of Art,” his mother, Sylvie, said—instructed even—“is to convey the truth of a thing, not to be the truth itself.”

 

“As you got older and time went on, you realized that the distinction between truth and fiction didn’t really matter because eventually everything disappeared into the soupy, amnesiac mess of history. Personal or political, it made no difference.”

 

“He was a baby once, she thought. New and perfect, cradled in his mother’s arms.  The mysterious Sylvie.  Now he was a feathery husk, ready to blow away.  His eyes were half open, milky, like an old dog, and his mouth had grown beaky with the extremity of age, opening and closing, a fish out of water.  Bertie could feel a continual tremor running through him, an electrical current, the faint buzz of life.  Or death, perhaps. Energy was gathering around him, the air was static with it.”

 

“What a good husband you are”, Nancy said afterward, “always taking your wife’s side rather than your mother’s.” “It’s the side of reason I am on”, Teddy said, “It just so happens that that’s where you’re always to be found and my mother rarely.”

“He didn’t make plans himself any more. There was now and it was followed by another now. If you were lucky.”

 

“Secrets had the power to kill a marriage, she said.  Nonsense, Sylvie said, it was secrets that could save a marriage.”

 

“Best always to praise rather than criticize.”

 

“If he hadn’t been the father of her children, Viola might have admired Dominic for the way he was so easily able to absolve himself of all obligation simply by asserting his right to self-fulfillment.”

 

“The “eat” part was easy.  The praying and loving were harder.”

 

“The more Viola forgot her mother, the more she missed her.”

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44. The End of the Affair

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Graham Greene

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, Romance

192 pages, published 1951

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

Set in London during and just after the Second World War, The End of the Affair examines the obsessions and jealousies within the relationships between three central characters:  writer Maurice Bendrix,  Sarah Miles,  and Sarah’s husband, civil servant Henry Miles.  The narrator of the book is Maurice, a rising writer during World War II in London based on Graham Greene, and focuses on his relationship with Sarah based on Greene’s lover at the time, Catherine Walston, to whom the book is dedicated.   While Maurice and Sarah fall in love rapidly, he soon realizes that the affair will end as quickly as it began as he cannot contain his all consuming jealousy and frustration that Sarah will not divorce Henry, her kind but boring husband. When a bomb blasts Maurice’s flat as he is with Sarah, he is nearly killed.  After this, Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation.  Maurice is still consumed with jealousy and hires a private detective to discover Sarah’s new lover.  Through her diary, Maurice learns that when Sarah thought Maurice was dead after the bombing, she made a promise to God not to see Maurice again if God allowed him to live again. After her sudden death from a lung infection, several miraculous events occur, bringing meaningfulness to Sarah’s faith.  By the last page of the book, Maurice may have come to believe in a God as well, though not to love Him.

 

Quotes

“It’s a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.”

 

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

 

“I want men to admire me, but that’s a trick you learn at school–a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there’s something to admire.”

 

“My passion for Sarah had killed simple lust forever. Never again would I be able to enjoy a woman without love.”

 

“I measured love by the extent of my jealousy.”

 

“I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn’t settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.”

 

“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”

My Take

The End of the Affair is the first book that I have read by iconic British writer Graham Greene and it did not disappoint.  I especially enjoyed listening to the Audio Book version narrated by Colin Firth (an actor I like quite a bit) who does a great job with the material.  Greene brings to life the misery, insecurity and jealousy that is the ugly underbelly of Maurice’s all consuming, obsessive love for Sarah.  A fascinating, albeit depressing, book that I can unreservedly recommend.

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24. The Nightingale

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Summer Youngs  

Author:  Kristin Hannah

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

Info:  440 pages, published February 3, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

The Nightingale tells the tale of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle, and their experiences in rural France during World War II.  After her husband Antoine joins the French army at the start of the war, Vianne is left to manage on her own with her daughter Sophie and soon finds herself billeting a German officer with a softer side in her home.  Vianne eventually starts to shelter Jewish children after their parents are deported to a concentration camp and even adopts three-year-old Ari, the son of her best friend Rachel.  Vianne’s younger and bolder sister Isabelle joins the French Resistance and becomes the Nightengale, an integral part of the underground network that leads Allied soldiers through the Pyrenees to safety in Spain.  As the war progresses, the sisters’ relationship and strength are tested.  With life changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Vianne and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.

 

Quotes

“Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”

“Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.”

“But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”

“I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.”

“Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.”

“She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.”

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

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21.  Why Not Me

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   

Author:  Mindy Kaling

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, Humor

Info:  240 pages, published September 15, 2015

Reading Format:  Audiobook

Summary 

In Why Not Me?, Kaling, writer and actor on “The Office” and “The Mindy Project,” shares a series of essays that provide hilarious details from her personal and professional life, from new friendships to beauty tips.  A follow up to her earlier Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, which is also very funny and covers her childhood and young adult years, Why Not Me? focuses on Kaling’s Hollywood career and adult personal life. 

 

Quotes

“Who is the beauty icon who inspires you most?  Is it Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Halle Berry?  Mine is Nofestreau because that vampire taught me my number one and number two favorite beauty tricks.  Avoid the sun at all costs and always try to appear shrouded in shadows.”

“People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you’re succeeding. People do not get scared when you’re failing. It calms them. But when you’re winning, it makes them feel like they’re losing or, worse yet, that maybe they should’ve tried to do something too, but now it’s too late. And since they didn’t, they want to stop you. You can’t let them.”

“the best kind of laughter is laughter born of a shared memory.” 

“People don’t say “Give me your honest opinion” because they want an honest opinion. They say it because it’s rude to say “Please tell me I’m amazing.”

“People talk about confidence without ever bringing up hard work. That’s a mistake. I know I sound like some dour older spinster on Downton Abbey who has never felt a man’s touch and whose heart has turned to stone, but I don’t understand how you could have self-confidence if you don’t do the work… I have never, ever, ever, met a high confident person and successful person who is not what a movie would call a ‘workaholic.’ Because confidence is like respect; you have to earn it.”

“Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn’t always mean your parents. If you do that, you will be fine.”

“As I got older, I got craftier and less obvious, but I’ve always put a lot of energy and effort into people liking me. That’s why I’ve never understood the compliment “effortless.” People love to say: “She just walked into the party, charming people with her effortless beauty.” I don’t understand that at all. What’s so wrong with effort, anyway? It means you care. What about the girl who “walked into the party, her determination to please apparent on her eager face”? Sure, she might seem a little crazy, and, yes, maybe everything she says sounds like conversation starters she found on a website, but at least she’s trying. Let’s give her a shot!” 

“I want to say one last thing, and it’s important. Though I am a generally happy person who feels comfortable in my skin, I do beat myself up because I am influenced by a societal pressure to be thin. All the time. I feel it the same way anybody who picks up a magazine and sees Keira Knightley’s elegantly bony shoulder blades poking out of a backless dress does. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen my shoulder blades once. Honestly, I’m dubious that any part of my body could be so sharp and firm as to be described as a “blade.” I feel it when I wake up in the morning and try on every single pair of my jeans and everything looks bad and I just want to go back to sleep. But my secret is: even though I wish I could be thin, and that I could have the ease of lifestyle that I associate with being thin, I don’t wish for it with all of my heart. Because my heart is reserved for way more important things.” 

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