Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Letters to a Young Therapist by Mary Pipher

This is a collection of letters written to the author's supervisee on the art of therapy. I think it's applicable to most anyone who is thinking about relationships, life, and taking care of yourself.


A quote I liked:

"Children have lives fully as complex as those of adults. Adolescence can be torture, young adulthood filled with angst, and adult life thorny with problems. People get married or they don't. Their children grow up or they don't. They grow ancient or they don't. Old age, if people make it that far, requires the patience of Job. To survive, we must all learn to live in the world with broken hearts." --Mary Pipher

3 comments:

Tyler Watson said...

Elaine, I love this blog. I'm sad that I'm just looking at it now. Great stuff.

I noticed in your review of Kingsolver's newest book that you'll put a book down if, "The author doesn't use quotation marks when people are speaking." Does that mean Cormac McCarthy is anathema to you? I've fallen in love with his stories and especially his prose. It takes a while to get past the lack of quotation marks, but once the reader is in the rhythm his novels flow amazingly.

By the way, I'm finally getting around to Bridge of Sighs.

Elaine said...

Hi Tyler! Welcome to my blog!

Yep, I don't normally read books that don't use quotation marks.

But because I highly value your reading recommendations (back in college, you suggested My Name is Asher Lev which I still read almost every year and now I think I've read all of Potok's books), I will pick up a Cormac McCarthy and read at least the first 50 pages. Which one do you recommend I start with?

Russo has another one out, That Old Cape Magic, which was pretty good.

Tyler Watson said...

The Road is wonderful. It's a book I'll re-read for a long time. It's probably his most accessible that I've read, but other works like All the Pretty Horses are also worthwhile. I love his prose.

Asher Lev -- what a wonderful book.