September, the Black Hole of Reading

When you write a blog about the books you read, everyone assumes you want to talk about it. In public. In church.


Let me explain.

My dad is the associate pastor of our church and he opened one of his messages recently by asking people the title of the best book they'd read recently. And then looked straight at me and said, "You blog about books, Kelsey. What have you read?"

I blanked. Maybe it's because it was September and I was reading pre-tests on theme and narrative, along with books on how to communicate better with adolescents, and basically falling into bed at night instead of actually reading. Or maybe it was the on-the-spot thing. But the only thing I could think of was the last book I'd read, not the BEST book I'd read. And it happened to be a book on changes in modern theology called A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McClaren, RECOMMENDED BY MY DAD. I'm sure I sounded like a total suck up. And worse, I haven't even finished it. See the sentence about it being September. And all my previous statements about me and non-fiction.

So, yeah, don't ask me to cite my favorite books on the spot or before parent-teacher conferences. You might get an open-mouthed stare in return.

The upside is that I was publically shamed into reading again and just finished a GREAT book as a result. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a sweet story made all the better because it was an accidental find in the book club section of the library (I can't say enough good things about that shelf! It's not stealing from the book clubs; it's random selections of the ones available to book clubs, so it's like a pre-sorted shelf of great choices). So maybe you all know about this book already, but it was a surprise gift to me.

Harold Fry is an ordinary retired Englishman with an unhappy wife who cleans too much. One day he receives a letter from a long lost friend, telling him goodbye as she is dying of cancer. He sets out to mail a response to her and decides suddenly to walk the hundreds of miles to visit her, believing she will live as long as he walks. Amazing premise. And it gets better, as the author uses Harold's ordinary heroism to celebrate the ordinary uniqueness of everyone he meets. Harold has ups and downs in his journey (similar to Cheryl Strayed in Wild and, strangely, to Forrest Gump's run across the country) that are quite expected and yet luminous at the same time. It's a book of contradictions and seamlessness. It's the kind of book I long to write.

I won't tell you if he finishes his walk, or if his friend lives, just as I won't tell you the outcome of his relationship with his son, or if he patches things up with his wife. I will tell you, though, that you'll want to walk across England yourself, or visit some of the historic spots he stumbles upon, or maybe just try to see the people you stumble upon with a bit of the grace that Harold does.

And how I wish I'd read this book earlier and could have shared it with my church that day, because in the humanity and the pain and the grace, there is love.

I'm going to keep the two non-fiction books on my nightstand and read them in bits, but I'm also ready and needing to go back to my beloved novels. And I have a stack! What should I enjoy first? I've got The Sweetness of Forgetting (thanks, Aunt Pat), Where'd You Go, Bernadette (who recommended this?), and Me Before You (thanks, Kelsey and Taunya).