Monday, December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas and a Christmas Poem From Anne Bronte




Music On Christmas Morning by Anne Bronte

Music I love – but never strain
Could kindle raptures so divine,
So grief assuage, so conquer pain,
And rouse this pensive heart of mine –
As that we hear on Christmas morn,
Upon the wintry breezes borne.
Though Darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music kindly bids us wake:
It calls us, with an angel’s voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice;
To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The Powers of Darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.
While listening to that sacred strain,
My raptured spirit soars on high;
I seem to hear those songs again
Resounding through the open sky,
That kindled such divine delight,
In those who watched their flocks by night.
With them, I celebrate His birth –
Glory to God, in highest Heaven,
Good-will to men, and peace on Earth,
To us a Saviour-king is given;
Our God is come to claim His own,
And Satan’s power is overthrown!
A sinless God, for sinful men,
Descends to suffer and to bleed;
Hell must renounce its empire then;
The price is paid, the world is freed,
And Satan’s self must now confess,
That Christ has earned a Right to bless:
Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,
And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:
The captive’s galling bonds are riven,
For our Redeemer is our king;
And He that gave his blood for men
Will lead us home to God again.


Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all my blogging friends!

Thursday, December 21, 2023

The 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 



For 2024 I have decided to participate in The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker (http://www.theintrepidreader.com)

As Marg tells us: "Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted (Historical Romance, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, History/Non-Fiction, etc" and you can choose from the following categories: 

20th Century Reader - 2 books  

Victorian Reader - 5 books

Renaissance Reader - 10 books

Medieval - 15 books

Ancient History - 25 books 

 Prehistoric books - 50+ books                                         

I have decided to go with 15 historical novels from the Medieval period (500 AD to 1500 AD).  It sounds like a fun challenge.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

My Top 5 Books for 2023

Next year I am hoping to increase the number of books I read so that my top 5 books will have more depth.  Still, this year I did read 32 books some of which I have reviewed.  And in no particular order here are my top 5:  

I have been hearing about Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe for years and this is a classic that definitely lived up to the praise.  As with two other classics (Frankenstein and The Call of the Wild), Things Fall Apart is not a very long book but it is so worth your time.













I am not a birder but H is For Hawk is a beautifully written memoir.  I would advise you read this book in the audio version by the author Helen MacDonald.  She reads her memoir with emotion and it adds to her story.













I loved The Outcasts by Sarah Stegall.  The setting 1816 Lake Geneva Switzerland and how one stormy night in response to a challenge from Lord Byron, Mary Shelley conceives the idea for her classic novel Frankenstein.  The story itself is interesting but in addition Sarah Stegall does a very good job of letting us know what Lord Byron, Dr. John Polodori, Claire Claremont and Percy and Mary Shelley may have been like and it rings true.  










I love Louise Penny's Three Pines Mystery series and A Trick of the Light is my favorite book so far in this series.  I enjoyed it so much because A Trick of The Light takes place entirely in the village of Three Pines and the focus is on Clara and Peter's relationship which has interested me from the start of this series.  




Many years ago I read Thomas Cook's Red Leaves and the book made a lasting impression on me.  I was pleased to discover this year that Thomas Cook's The Last Talk With Lola Faye is equally memorable and I did not see the ending coming!













Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season and a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Friday, December 01, 2023

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

When Lori Gottlieb was in her forties her life was going great.  She had a successful and fulfilling career as a psychotherapist, an eight year old son Zach who was everything to her; she was writing a new book and was in a relationship with a great guy.

But then one night two years into their relationship the great guy tells Lori it's over.  It's not that he doesn't want to marry Lori but he doesn't want to help raise her eight year old son. He likes Zach well enough but he has already raised his own kids and his parenting days are behind him. 

Lori is devastated.  The break-up brings on a midlife crisis and a friend suggests that maybe she needs to see a therapist.  Lori agrees and the result would end up being her bestselling memoir Maybe You Should Talk To Someone which was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. 

Now, some may ask themselves, do I want to spend an entire book with an author in her therapist's office as she discusses the break-up.   I worried about that too.  But Lori Gottlieb's sessions with her therapist represents only a small portion of the book. And as we get deeper into Maybe You Should Talk To Someone the boyfriend issues fade.  The book becomes about alot more.  It's part memoir but it's also about what therapy entails, how and why people change and the meaning of life.  And for me Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is most memorably about Lori's own patients and their struggles. 

Lori Gottlieb let's us in on the therapy sessions she has with four of her patients.  She has changed their names and the stories these patients tell are interesting and often heartbreaking.  I will not forget Julie's story in particular.  And these patients are a reminder of how we can never know what people have been through just by looking at them.  

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is very well written, humorous and I think the book will help many readers navigate their own journeys.  Over 42,000 reviews on Amazon.com for Maybe I Should Talk To Someone and 92% of them 4 and 5 stars.  That's very impressive and put me in the 4 and 5 star category as well.