People wrote in with relationship issues, grief over the death of a loved one, substance abuse problems, questions about one's career path etc. Cheryl would choose certain letters to respond to in the pages of the Rumpus, often bringing up stories from her own life which might help the letter writer see a path forward.
Tiny Beautiful Things is part self help book, part memoir. Cheryl Strayed writes beautifully and as with Wild she is very honest about sharing the events of her life.
Do I recommend Tiny Beautiful Things? It's hard to say because Cheryl's advise is compassionate and well thought out. But my issues and worries were different than the letters profiled in this book and so there wasn't as much I could relate to. That said, Tiny Beautiful Things would be a good book to read when you are in your 20's and 30's. And over 12,000 have reviewed this book on Amazon with 88% rating it 4 and 5 stars.
"I am not one of those purists who insist on reading the entire untrucated text at all costs. Moby Dick is a long book and time is short. Even a sentence, a mere phrase will do. The important thing is to spend some time with the novel, to listen as you read, to feel the prose adapt to the various voices that flowed through Melville during the book's composition, like intermittent ghosts with something urgent and essential to say" - Nathaniel Philbrick, Why Read Moby Dick?"
I have never read Moby Dick. It's a long book and I hear difficult to get through. But Why Read Moby Dick? (2011) by Nathaniel Philbrick is only 129 pages and serves as a great introduction to Melville's masterpiece. It's not surprising because Philbrick is an excellent writer. Winner of the 2000 National Book award for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.
And as Philbrick tells us it was the sinking of the Essex that partly inspired Mellville to write Moby Dick. The other inspiration was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville prior to meeting Hawthorne had been a popular writer of sea novels. But Hawthorne's writing which included passion and darkness inspired Melville to go deeper with his fiction. I have never gotten around to reading The Scarlett Letter either but at a little over 200 pages it is doable. And I might take Nathaniel Philbrick's advise and dip into Moby Dick at various points to see how I like it.
I'd much rather read this Philbrick book about Moby Dick than Moby Dick itself, no matter how good he thinks it is. ;D As for Nathaniel Hawthorne, I am a fan of his books.
ReplyDeleteI did hear that Moby Dick is a difficult read and the older I get the more I realize time is short. We can't read everything. But I plan to check out The Scarlett Letter.
DeleteI read Moby Dick several years ago and it was a huge effort to get to the end. I learnt tons about whaling but other than that I don't feel I got much out of the book. I'd read Melville's Redburn several years before that and really enjoyed it, much more interesting and importantly, 'shorter'!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on reading Moby Dick and I know what you mean. A few years ago I read The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner and I was lost pretty much all the way through. And so what did I read? I'm still not sure.
DeleteYeah I'm a bit intimidated by Moby-Dick and haven't tried it, but I have read Melville's novella Billy Budd in high school and liked that. I think Philbrick makes a good point about trying the epic. And I have read Strayed's book Wild (and mostly liked it) but not this advice column one. I wonder if anyone's seen it on Hulu? hmm.
ReplyDeleteI have made attempts to read Moby Dick and it starts out really well. But as I recall it wasn't long before it became a struggle.
DeleteDidn't see Tiny Beautiful Things on Hulu. Not sure how that would go because it's a collection of advise columns and so I am not sure what a film would be able to add.
Why Read Moby Dick? by Philbrick sounds very interesting. I have not read Moby Dick either. My husband did read it years ago and he still has a very nice edition of it that he bought in a used bookstore, so I could read it if I wanted to. His copy has only 570 pages (of fairly small print but not bad). I thought it was much longer.
ReplyDeleteMoby Dick is a great classic. I have never read it but Nathaniel Philbrick's book is a very good introduction before reading Moby Dick
DeleteI've read Moby Dick twice--the first time decades ago, and the second time just two years ago. I enjoyed it both times--true, there are some skimmable parts, but there are also so many fascinating parts, insightful parts, and sheer poetry parts that the experience is worthwhile. Both times I took months to read it--when I felt my mind wandering, I shelved it for awhile.
ReplyDeleteI definitely want to read Why Read Moby Dick?--sounds terrific!
I got tiny beautiful things out of the library ~6 months ago, opened it, read a few lines, and realized it just wasn't for me. I loved WIld, but I just didn't want to read about other people's problems in this format.
Why Read Moby Dick is an important book to read even if someone hasn't read the novel because Philbrink gets you excited about Moby Dick and his advise that sometimes you need to just dip into these classics and not feel you have to read the book chronolically is very sound.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I have what it takes to not read a book chronologically! I like to read an author's books in order written, but maybe I need to lighten up!
Delete