Book Reviews

The Boy, the mole, the fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (Book Review)

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The Boy, the mole, the fox, and the Horse
Charlie Mackesy

My mother handed me this book and encouraged me to sit and read it immediately. What an uplifting, beautiful book. It is easily readable in a very short time, and yet it is a book that deserves to be savored. With statement like, “the truth is everyone is winging it” and “sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent”, this book made me smile and want to reread it.


Meet these four unlikely friends who discover their devotion to each other and ways they can uplift each other. With beautiful illustrations and sparse words on each page, this book can be enjoyed by people of almost any age.


So as my mother recommended this to me, I recommend it to you. You can check if out from your local library and read it daily until it must go back. You can buy it and read it repeatedly until you give it to a friend who needs a reminder that they are loved. I invite you to read this book and remember you are loved more than you know

Book Review-Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler

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I have been reading this book for so long because I didn’t want to hurry through it and finish it. I was sad when I came to the last page because I loved the book so much that I wanted it to go on and on. (If you love this book like I do, please listen to her podcast, Everything Happens with Kate Bowler. And when searching for the exact name of her podcast, I learned there is a podcast called Everything Happens for a Riesling which I have not listened to although the name makes me laugh).

If you believe that everything happens for a reason and find comfort in that belief, then I am not here to change your mind. The author of this book would encourage you to not say those words outloud to others as they may not find them comforting. This book is what happened when one person learned that she had non-curable cancer and her whole world view needed to be reexamined.

In these pages, you be challenged in what you believe and how you support others who are suffering. You will laugh at the absurdity of life. You may cry as you remember that we were never told that life is fair even though we’d life for it to be.

“What if rich did not have to mean wealthy, and whole did not have to mean healed? What if being people of “the gospel” meant that we are simply people with good news? God is here. We are loved. It is enough” (21).This book is for people who read a sentence like this and want to hear more of the story.

“Everyone is trying to Easter the crap out of my Lent,” I say to my friends though gritted teeth and tears” (134). It is a book for people who love Easter and know real life contains so much Lent that doesn’t need to be rushed through.

I encourage you to read this book, and then we can talk more about it.

Tidying Up (Again)

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Earlier this week, my husband suggested we watch Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix. Halfway through the first episode, he paused the show and said, “Are you ready?” My bewildered look was enough to let him know I was unsure for what I was supposed to be ready. He said, “We start with the clothes.” Looking at the clock and seeing it was 8:45pm on a work night, I wondered from where this burst of energy and excitement came. So, together we decided to modify the plan and begin some of the clothes that night as sleep is important. Now, after two nights of tidying all of the downstairs clothes have been sorted (we find ourselves in a complicated season of life with clothing upstairs and downstairs). Seven bags of clothing and shoes are ready to move on to new homes.

My long time readers may remember that this isn’t my first time time tidying. I reviewed the book and tidied up back in 2015. Keeping up with tidying is challenging. When I do this process (whether it is exactly as suggested or with my own variations), it is freeing. I smile when I see a piece of clothing that has been a part of important celebrations like the dress I wore to a wedding or the shirt I wore to my Grandma’s birthday party. And just because something played an important role in my life does not mean it still sparks joy, so I smile, remember, and thank the item for its time with me.

So despite all that must be done in the day, we are taking the time to take evaluate what we have and what we need. It is challenging and it is exciting too. If you are feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff living in your home, you might try this book or show and spend some time tidying up!

Gracious God, Why do we hold on to stuff we don’t need? Why do we let our stuff control us? Free us, Holy One, from the power our stuff has over us. Help us to surround ourselves with what sparks joy and to let the rest go. Amen.

Book Review- LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practical Guide to Transforming Professional Practice by Kimberly D. Acquaviva

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LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practical Guide to Transforming Professional Practice by Kimberly D. Acquaviva
This is a must read for anyone who works in palliative or hospice care. In an easy to read and understand style with time spent looking at nursing, social work, spiritual care, physicians, and aides, this book provides ideas and a framework for how to improve your work. Through reflections by professionals and examples of how well care can be provided, you will learn from this book. You may be challenged by this book as you are encouraged to change the way you do something or the way you think. Each chapter includes-chapter objectives, key terms, chapter summary, perspectives (the reflections by professionals), key points to remember, discussion questions and a chapter activity. The structure of the book makes it perfect for a book study at work or personal reading to enhance your work. I recently led a discussion at my work using the first chapter and focusing on our own bias and key terms. One activity that I shared in my recent presentation comes from page 17 of the book, “Over the years I’ve been asked many times why lesbians, gay and bisexual people feel the need to ‘tell people about their sex lives’ by coming out to others. Rather than answer the questions directly, I like to respond by asking the questioner to try the following exercise. If you are heterosexual and currently in a relationship with a person of another gender, keep track of how many times you make reference to this person (either by name or by such terms as boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife) in your conversations with colleagues, friends, neighbors, and family members this week. At the end of the week, reflect on why you felt the need to share your heterosexuality with so many people.

This exercise never fails to leave people surprised by how often heterosexuality is casually disclosed in everyday conversation. Mentioning your sexual orientation to others isn’t telling people about your sex life; it is sharing a part of who you are as a person”.

It is a good exercise for many of us to try. In fact in one presentation, I had just spoken about my husband and no one paid any attention until I read this piece and then people pointed it out to me. This is just one example of how the author will increase your awareness of what you are doing well and what you could be doing better to care for all the people you serve in hospice and palliative care. 

So if you or someone you know works in hospice or palliative care, please read this book and share it.  

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi-Book Review

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I began reading this book on an airplane traveling to a much needed and anticipated vacation in Aruba. I am not sure this is the right time for most people to read this book, and yet it had been on my to read list for too long. I had recommended it to a hospice patient who wanted to read a book about dying written by someone who was actually dying. I told her when I recommended the book that I had not yet read it. In her memory, I wanted to read this book so I knew if it was something to recommend to someone else. And so I began reading it on a cold morning after leaving the airport in Baltimore. I took a break from reading to look out the window and saw the sun shining, blue waters, and islands of the Bahamas. While I had been reading, I had been transported to another place.


This book will transport you into Paul’s life. When reading these words, I felt like I was there with him in the desert in Arizona, in medical school with a donor (the kinder term for cadavers), in the hospitals and Operating Rooms. And then you go with Paul from his work as a surgeon to his life as a patient looking for meaning in the time he has left. The books ends with an epilogue written by Paul’s wife after his death.


I read this book quickly even as I recognized that it covers the difficult topic of one’s own mortality. I cried on the beach as I read the epilogue even though it was stated from early on that Paul was going to die. And I thought about my hospice patient who I would (now) recommend she start this book from Part 2-Cease Not till Death. My patient didn’t need to hear about his life before the diagnosis. She wanted to hear from someone else who had walked the journey toward death and stopped to share his or her own story. She did not want to read about all that one was giving up with a terminal diagnosis because she was living that herself. If I had read this book before she died, I would have encouraged her to read the epilogue because it talks about Paul’s last days and how he is surrounded by those he loved.


I do recommend this book for anyone who wants to ponder what it feels like to die young and to know you are going to die sooner rather than later.
This is a book for people who love poetry and literature and autobiographies.

I am still searching for a book to recommend to my hospice patients that is written by someone who is dying and who speaks in easy to understand terms about how their diagnosis and living their last days affects them.

The Holy Bible-Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness (Book Review)

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Last year I read the Bible with a group of wonderful people who helped me stay on track. Together we talked about our favorite and least favorite sections of reading. It required dedication and a commitment to reading every day for 365 days.

This year I read, The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness by Zach Weinersmith. This 67 page (small) book is a quick read.

Now, you might wonder why there are 67 pages and only 66 books in the Bible? The answer is that Revelation gets two pages. 

So now you are wondering how the author condenses each book of the Bible to so few words? Here is one example. “Amos becomes like the 14,000th prophet to note that Israel is making God mad and when you make God mad things go bad” (30). Or something from the New Testament. Mark-“Basically, Matthew’s Gospel, but with less boring, more ACTION, and your choice of two endings!” (41). That one reminds me of an informercial. 

This book was a Christmas present from a friend and it has brought me hours of joy as I read and reread it. And then, I read it to other people. I was thinking about how this little book might be helpful in the life of faith. I think he has a really great idea here. What if for your next Bible study, everyone tried to summarize a book of the Bible in one page, one paragraph, one sentence. What is the essence of each book? Or if you are studying a book of the Bible, compare what this book says to what you think is the main point. Is this author correct? How would you rewrite or change his words? 

So, if you need a new Bible, this might be the one for you. Only if you are willing to keep an actual Bible next to it for reading along this abridged one. Enjoy!

The End of Your Life Book Club-Book Review

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The End of Your Life Book Club

Will Schwalbe

Here are a few things you should know about me as you read this review.

1-My Mom and I love to read!

2-My Mom has cancer.

This book was shared with me by a friend who first asked how my Mom is doing as this isn’t a book you recommend to most people who are actively grieving (anticipatory or otherwise). When she heard that my Mom was doing well through her treatments, she encouraged me to read this book.

This is the story of a mother and son making good use of their time waiting in doctor’s offices by discussing books they have read. Their book club is how they share their stories with each other and how they support each other. This is a story of grief, family, hope, kindness, and faith.

From the title and the beginning of the book, the readers know Mary Anne (the mother) is going to die. Even knowing that in advance did not diminish the tears I cried at the end of the book. Each chapter features a book (or books) they read together. This book increased my “to read” list as they shared snippets from books always enough to intrigue the reader and not enough to give it all away.

I recommend this book for anyone who loves to read and loves discussing books with others. This book is great for people who want a glimpse into how others cope with death, dying, and grief. And you should read this book if you enjoy smart, funny, and sad books.

“No one in the family has ever really gotten over Bob’s death. We talk of him daily, recounting stories and imagining what his reactions would be to new books and recent events. He remains for my family the perfect model of how you can be gone but ever present in the lives of people who loved you, in the same way that your favorite books stay with you for your entire life. When I talked with Mom about Bob, I wondered if I would be able to talk about her the same way when she was no longer here” (57).

“Were you sad to leave Cambridge?” I asked her.

She was, she said. Very sad. But she was also looking forward to being back in New York. “The world is very complicated,” she added. “You don’t have to have one emotion at a time” (88).

“I realized then that for all of us, part of the process of Mom’s dying was mourning not just her death but also the death of our dreams of things to come. You don’t really lose the person who has been; you have all those memories” (128).

“I was learning that when you’re with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time” (130).

“And then something occurred to me. “You know the thing about our book club is that we’ve really been in it all our lives.

Mom agreed but pointed out that she’d been doing the same thing with others too–talking about books with my sister and brother and some of her friends. “I guess we’re all in it together,” she said. And I couldn’t help but smile at the other meaning of the phrase. We’re all in the end-of-our-life book club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one” (281).

Book Review-Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times

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Recently while logging some miles for work, I heard Adam Hamilton on the radio talking about fear. He is the pastor of Church of the Resurrection United Methodist Church in Kansas and is a prolific writer. The book he was talking about that day was his latest book, Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times. 

The part of his book that he focused on in that conversation was

Face your fears with faith.

Examine your assumptions in light of the facts.

Attack your anxieties with action.

Release your cares to God (35).

 

In this time of fear and anxiety, his words stuck with me. What role does our faith play in our ability to live with fear? Where do we get our facts and do we check the information we are given? What actions are we taking to lower our anxieties? And then can we release all our burdens to God?

Since my sermon for the coming week was about fear ruling the actions of the disciples, I thought this would be a good book to read. The book was a fast read for me. There were many quotes that made it into my sermon and influenced my thinking while writing the sermon. Because I was so drawn in by the FEAR acrostic, I hoped it would feature prominently into the book. Hamilton did talk about it frequently and yet I wanted him to go into more examples of how we might live this out in regular, daily situations.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the fears of life that are highlighted in every newscast and many conversations with friends and colleagues. You should read this book if you want an easy primer into how fear affects you as a human. This book is good read for anyone who wants to live more by faith and less by fear.

“Jesus preached that the essence of God’s hope and expectation for the human race was that we love God with our entire being, and that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. He even said that we were called to love our enemy. If this ethic of love sounds too high-minded to be of much practical use, we can start by asking one very concrete question: ‘In the situation I find myself in, what is the most loving things I can do?’” (63).

In his book, Hamilton shares three principles he has learned about the fear of failure. “Most things are never as hard as your fear they will be” (86).

The second principle is “‘Successful people [however you define success] are willing to do things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do’. Fear keeps many people and organizations from ever reaching their real potential” (86-87).

“And the third principle, which I’ve shared with many leaders over the years, I call ‘discernment by nausea’. Often when you come to a fork in the road, a decision you have to make between taking this path or another, you’ll find that one path seems easier, safer, and more convenient. More often than not, though, the other path—the one that’s harder, riskier, more inconvenient, the one that leaves you feeling a bit nauseous when you think about it—is the one you should take. Jesus used different language to comment on the same phenomenon. He noted that life tends to present us with two roads we could take. One is broad and easy, yet it leads to destruction. The other is narrow and hard, but it leads to life” (87).

 

“When we fear God—when we revere, respect, and stand in awe of God—we fear everything else a little less” (208).

Book Review-Hospice Whispers: Stories of Life

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Hospice Whispers: Stories of Life 

Rev. Dr. Carla Cheatham
I highly recommend this book for anyone who has cared for a loved one who was dying, anyone who works in a helping profession, anyone who loves stories of ordinary and extraordinary people, and anyone who wants a glimpse into the world of hospice.

I do this work everyday and I still found myself crying in a restaurant while reading this book. These stories will tug at your heart, make you smile and cry, and give you insights into why hospice workers keep coming back to work day after day.

Ask any hospice worker and we will share stories like this with you. We’ll also share our mistakes too. Like the time I was sitting with my patient’s wife. He had just died and she was tearfully holding his hand. I told her how much I enjoyed visiting with them and how they’d been a good team for so long. She responded, “68 years.” I said, “That’s a long time.” She looked me in the eye and said, “Not long enough.” And she’s right, when you love someone it is never long enough.

This book uses stories to tell what we do and don’t do in hospice. You will be impressed by the work of all the disciplines on the hospice team. “This book was intended to point to the rich gifts and experiences that punctuate what seems to the outside world an impossibly sad job. My hope was to make death seem a little less scary, to make hospice just a little better understood, to help families and even patients feel just a little more prepared for what the process can look like” (174).
I am thankful to my supervisor who gave me this book for Christmas last year. I am thankful that I (finally) took the time to sit down and read it. This book is a gift. I hope you’ll read it and open yourself to the joy that is contained within these pages.
If you ever have the chance to hear Carla speak, please go. I have heard her multiple times and every time it was worth it. She speaks to a variety of audiences, and I know she will have something to say to you that you need to hear.

A Man Called Ove-Book Review

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A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman
So often a big part of my job at hospice is helping people realize their purpose and set goals. When someone can no longer work or possibly leave their home, they might feel useless and a burden to family and friends. By listening and encouraging them to share their story, a new purpose for living can be found and new goals can give life added meaning.
Ove is a man who feels like his life has no meaning. And on the surface, Ove is easy to dislike. He is a grumpy man who wants to be left alone. Everything in his life must be just so and when we meet him things are not right in his life, and he cannot imagine they will/can ever be right again. I hope you’ll join Ove on his journey through grief, finding a new purpose (even if he doesn’t want one), and love. It is a two tissue book. (My Mom and I agree on that).
“One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else’s future. And it wasn’t as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living. Grief is a strange thing” (326).
Warning-due to the themes in this book, if you are actively grieving the death of a loved one, this may not be the right book for you at this time. Instead I would recommend The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper which also explores themes of grief only in a more lighthearted way.