My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira & Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe

This novel contained all I want in a book: well-researched historical setting, captivating narrative of true humanity, and revealed the medical profession for that time period in which I was totally ignorant.      

Book cover summary:   "Mary Sutter is a brilliant young midwife who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Determined to overcome the prejudices against women in medicine --- and eager to run away from recent heartbreak --- Mary travels to Washington, D.C., to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of two surgeons, who both fall unwittingly in love with her, and resisting her mother's pleas to return home to help with the difficult birth of her twin sister's baby, Mary pursues her medical career against all odds. Rich with historical detail --- including cameo appearances by Abraham Lincoln and Dorothea Dix, among others --- and introducing a heroine whose unwavering determination and vulnerability will resonate with readers everywhere, My Name is Mary Sutter is certain to be recognized as one of the great novels of the Civil War. " 

Review by Journal of the American Medical Association: "Oliveira's scrupulously factually researched canvas allows it readers to witness through human experience the agonizingly complex relationship of disease, mutilation, death, and healing in war ... Oliveira makes the horrifyingly unimaginable become vivid through the drama encircling the intersecting lives of her central characters, for whom war reveals untold depths of human misery as well as compassion, new understanding, and indomitable, undefeated creativity."


It was interesting for me to note that shortly after I read My Name is Mary Sutter, I was rereading, as an adult, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe. I was completely impressed and encouraged by the deep faith given to the character of Tom.     

  

A Mystic Garden by Gunilla Norris

A Mystic Garden, Working with Soil, Attending to Soul is another book by Gunilla Norris. I shared Inviting Silence back in November 2014.This book was read last month as I was anticipating gardening with much longing. The weather of these past few weeks has not brought gardening any closer and I have yet to be able to make the beds ready for seed.

Making the Bed

   Here it is then, three feet by five feet --- a place for greens, a box of hope. It has plenty of sunlight but it's also closer to the garage, and therefore shade lasts longer into the day.  That is good for lettuce.
   The sides of the bed are almost a foot tall. This is a space with a specific purpose. I am not confused about what should be here --- good soil and a variety of lettuces.
   In the house I have a space just for prayer and contemplation. It's a space to help me stay on purpose, to not be confused about what I am doing. Even so, all kinds of things crowd into my mind and heart, thinking, planning, drifting, it's hard to leave room for just being in the presence of God. I'm boxed in by old habits.
  Limitations are necessary for development and growth. Any limitation can be a prison or a place of freedom.  It depends on our attitudes. I need to accept that I can't grow cabbage and broccoli and tomatoes all in the same place.  I have to keep to one or two crops to grow anything decent here,. This kind of limitation is true about a lot of things. In contemplation especially, the willingness to be confined to deep listening, to patient stability, is a proven way to root into God. This can feel like a kind of pregnancy if we will only stay quiet, if we don't interrupt what is really happening. No wonder it was said of pregnant women that they were "confined" with child.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY --- "Norris cycles through the four seasons of a gardener's heart...She writes lyrically about dormancy and transformation, soil and nourishment, roots and blossoms."

Lists to Live By, Compiled by Alice Gray, Steve Stephens, John Diest

For those of us who love lists this is a must have book. It goes beyond just the normal list and says it is "for everything that really matters."  There are over two hundred lists within Lists to Live By with topics such as Life's Transitions, Standing Strong, and Wisdom. "The lists are brief and usable, and at the same time, valuable and thought provoking. Lists are a great way of wrapping up powerful thoughts in and easy and accessible package." There are three collections of  Lists to Live By.
Here is a list:

WHAT CANCER CANNOT DO
Cancer is Limited ---
It cannot cripple love
It cannot shatter hope
It cannot corrode faith
It cannot destroy peace
It cannot kill friendship
It cannot suppress memories
It cannot silence courage
it cannot invade the soul
It cannot steal eternal life
It cannot conquer the spirit.
    

Brother Hugo and The Bear written by Katy Beebe, illustrated by S.D. Schindler

This book is so beautiful! A friend told me about a book she had read to her daughter and thought of me while reading; thanks Suelinda!  Just the title let me know, it was one I needed to read. In the Author's Note to the reader, she shares how there is truth behind this story. In a letter by Peter the Venerable (Benedictine abbey of Cluney 1092-1156), he told about his unfortunate incident with a bear and a manuscript. The illustrator gives life to the medieval setting. http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Hugo-Bear-Katy-Beebe/dp/0802854079/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425396347&sr=1-1&keywords=brother+hugo+and+the+bear

The Mother's Song by Meinrad Craighead & Illuminating the Threshold by Jan Richardson

While going through a self-guided retreat last month, this book, The Mother's Song by Meinrad Crighead was quoted. I am so glad it snagged my attention enough to request it from the library. It is an unforgettable book filled with the creative art and prose of the author. 

From the Introduction:  I draw and paint from my own myth of personal origin. Each painting I make begins from some deep source where my mother and grandmother, and all my fore-mothers, still live; it is as if the line moving from pen or bush coils back to the original matrix. Sometimes I feel like a cauldron of ripening images where memories turn into faces and emerge from my vessel.  

 The retreat was Women's Christmas Retreat  Illuminating the Threshold by Jan Richardson. I have shared this retreat and link with several as it was very encouraging for me. Here is Jan's explanation of Women's Christmas Retreat:
 

Did you know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is celebrated as Women's Christmas? Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women's Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a break and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.
Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy and hurried in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It's become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women's Christmas—or anytime you're in need of a space of reflection. This year's retreat is titled "Illuminating the Threshold." I have a lingering fascination with thresholds, those betwixt and between places that emerge when we have left what is familiar but have not arrived at what lies ahead. This retreat offers an invitation for you to engage your own thresholds and do some reflecting and dreaming there.

Here is her website if you are interested in downloading the retreat: http://sanctuaryofwomen.com/blog/
You will also be impressed with her style of art and poetry.

Ancient Furies A Young Girl's Struggfles in the Crossfire of World War II by Anastasia V. Saporito

This book was extremely hard for me to put down and since it isn't a "skimming kind" of book, I put in a lot of late night reading hours. I finished it last week on the 70th Anniversary of Liberation for Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This memoir isn't about a Jewish family, but a "stateless" Russian family who were living in Belgrade, Yugoslavia when the forces of Nazi Germany invaded and destroyed the city. As the author died before this book was ready for the publisher, it was finalized by her husband.  Here is the dedication given by Anastasia Popova Saporito:

This book is dedicated to my children, who have a right to know more of their mother, her background, and therefore their heritage than time, or circumstance, or the pain of remembering ever permitted me to tell them; to my parents, who gave me both life and the "foundation" needed to prosper; to Kristina, who has lived always in my heart, and whose memory so often guides me in my own kitchen; to my husband, whose constant love, urging, and editing finally brought this memoir to completion; and finally to the millions who lie in unmarked and/or forgotten graves throughout the world, victims of armed conflicts they neither sought nor under stood.

 Quoting Desmond Tutu from Made For Goodness: In an extraordinary way, we can return to goodness more quickly when we have a clear vision of the present. That clarity about the present is rooted in making peace with the past. Putting words to our pain begins the process of building that peace. In speaking the truth of our pain, we start to collect the memories of what we have done or experienced. When we retell our stories we can be heard into healing. We can be heard back to wholeness, back to goodness, back home to ourselves. Being heard into healing is a need experienced not only by the perpetrators of heinous crimes.  It is a basic human need that we all share.

Read Ancient Furies and be part of the healing as you listen to story of Anastasia.    

  

Daphne Du Maurier

Over the years, I have tried to read all Daphne Du Maurier has written, but I have failed  Of course, it all started with Rebecca! What a story! And you never ever know Mrs. De Winter's name. My next favorites are:  The Glass Blowers, The House on the Strand, The Scapegoat and The Birds. Also read and in my library are the following:  Rule Britannia, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, Mary Anne, The King's General, I'll Never Be Young Again, Hungry Hill, The Parasites, The Flight of the Falcon, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte,  Don't Look Now. Daphne Du Maurier's autobiography  Myself When Young  and Letters From Menabilly by Oriel Malet are interesting books on her life. Cannot forget to mention that the characters of Rebecca and/or Mrs. De Winter have been continued by other authors:  Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman is one I have read.


Still on my To-Read List are several:  Breaking Point, The Loving Spirit, Julius, The Doll: The Lost Short Stories, Castle Dor. Golden Lads, Winding Stair, and Mrs. De Winter by Susan Hill.