A positive story about the power of faith and forgiveness.
In her debut memoir, a Texas woman recounts how her faith in God helped her through her husband’s job loss, the deaths of loved ones, and an attempt on her life.
Musgrave’s inspirational book is a brief but powerful account of a number of tragedies she suffered in a span of just six months. Three phone calls, in particular, changed her life. In the first, her business-executive husband told her that he’d just been let go from his job after 28 years. Then came a call from her sister, four months later, saying that their father had suddenly died of a heart attack. A few weeks later, she received what may have been the worst call of all: her daughter had committed suicide and left her parents a note saying that she wanted them to raise her 6-year-old son. As if that combination of circumstances wasn’t soul-crushing enough, the author was later shot in a robbery attempt outside a store and nearly lost her life; she went on to battle intense pain and extensive nerve damage from a bullet lodged in her spine. Remarkably, despite all this heartache, the book manages to be quite uplifting overall. For example, the author often returns to a theme of simple faith, including the literally childlike faith of her grandson, who saw her crying one day and said, “Why don’t you do like I do…I just call on Jesus to help me, and He always does.” She says that her decision to study the Bible was the best one of her life and explains how the Scriptures gave her hope for the future. She also writes about forgiving her shooter: “If this young man…would ask God to forgive him, he could be my next-door neighbor in heaven.” Although the book is clearly written and easy to understand, a few passages use religious language that may be unfamiliar to some readers, such as when she calls her trust in herself “my arm of flesh.” This story of her rich, full life doesn’t describe merely surviving these ordeals, though—she also tells of going on to sing for the governor of Texas, start a decorating business, and win the Ms. Mature Irving Pageant.
A positive story about the power of faith and forgiveness.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500329709
Page Count: 62
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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