Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara

I joined the Adult Summer Reading Program at my local library. If you read eight books, you can choose a free paperback book. Well, I finished my eight books and chose this book. That was my first mistake. The second mistake was to actually read the entire book.

Please do not read this book. It is awful and the main character is depressing. It's not even worth it for me to write a plot summary for you. This book might have been okay for a plane trip, but I wasn't on a plane when I read it. Why did I even finish reading it? I've already spent too much of my life on this book, so I'm not even going to try and figure that out. I'm just going to move on. Next book, please!

Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen

Some of my most profound healing has been aided by reading Henri Nouwen (most notably, The Inner Voice of Love). This Nouwen book describes the three movements of the spiritual life:

1) From Loneliness to Solitude
2) From Hostility to Hospitality
3) From Illusion to Prayer

I found this book to be rich and a good addition to my daily Bible reading. It didn't hit me as powerfully as some other Nouwen books have in the past, but it was still helpful and encouraging.

"Being useless and silent in the presence of our God belongs to the core of all prayer. In the beginning we often hear our own unruly inner noises more loudly than God's voice. This is at times very hard to tolerate. But slowly, very slowly, we discover that the silent time makes us quiet and deepens our awareness of ourselves and God."
--Henri Nouwen

Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks

This is written by Nicholas Sparks of The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, etc. fame and his brother, Micah. They took a three-week trip around the world together. This book is part travelogue and part memoir so it alternates between describing the sights on the trip and the story of their childhood and young adulthood.

Reading about their family was touching, sad, and heartfelt. Reading about their travels made me cringe because these men are NOT models of cultural sensitivity. Americans already have a bad reputation abroad. I highly recommend that we don't let these men out of the United States again! Someone, please confiscate their passports.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

On a bleak, snowy night in 1964, Dr. David Henry delivers his own twins while his wife, Norah, is heavily drugged. The first baby is a healthy boy. The second is a girl with Down's Syndrome. Dr. Henry makes a decision, in an effort to protect his wife, to instruct the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take the baby to an institution. However, instead of leaving the baby girl at the institution, Caroline decides to leave town and raise the baby herself. Dr. Henry tells his wife that the baby girl died and she has no reason to not believe him. This story follows each family as the kids grow up, the secret is kept, and how the grief that follows never really leaves.

This book was absorbing and very readable. It was touching and true enough at the end that I had tears running down the sides of my face (I was reading on my back but didn't want to stop reading long enough to get tissue). Highly recommended.

The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War by Louise Steinman

The author's father served in the United States Army during World War II and survived the fighting in northern Luzon in the Philippines. These years of combat changed him forever and he never talked about the war. Years after his death, Steinman finds a trunk containing 474 letters that her father wrote to her mother while serving overseas. These letters chronicle her father's experience during the war. In the trunk, Steinman also finds the souvenir of the book's title: a Japanese soldier's white flag signed by friends, family, and neighbors for good luck. Steinman is determined to return this flag to the Japanese soldier's family and this begins her journey to Japan and to the Philippines to see where her father fought.

This book puts a personal face on war. Behind each "casuality" is a person with dreams, fears, and a family. This book is carefully researched and I learned more about the dynamics of the Southwest Pacific Theater of WWII. This book put me into a more subdued mood as I thought more about loss and war and how many men and women have been and are still being affected by war.

Just over dinner the other night, my friend and I were talking about how both of our fathers, who were both drafted and served in the Vietnam War, hardly ever talk about the war, but still watch documentaries and movies about this war. It makes me wonder what is still being worked out in our fathers' minds and what pain and grief remains unspoken and unresolved.

Runaway by Alice Munro

This is a collection of short stories, all about women of various ages. Well-written and pleasant to read. My favorite story was titled "Tricks." It was heartbreaking and sad, all about the timing of things that happen and don't happen and how it can affect the course of the rest of our lives.

Your Personal Renaissance: 12 Steps to Finding Your Life's True Calling by Diane Dreher

I love reading anything, not just books. Newspapers, magazines, blogs, and yes, I am probably one of the few that actually read prayer newsletters from missionaries. I also like to read things tacked on bulletin boards in public places, especially in downtown Mountain View on Castro Street. The other bulletin boards that I regularly read are on campus. When I am on campus for class, as I walk up to the third floor of the building, I stop on each landing to read the flyers tacked to the bulletin boards. Which is how I found out about this book.

This book is written by a professor at my school and the flyer on the board was announcing her fall class titled Finding Your Calling. This book will be one of the course readings. When I read the flyer, it touched something inside of me. So, I looked around to see if anyone was coming up or down the stairs...and I took the flyer off the bulletin board and put it in my backpack. Yes, I lead a very wild life these days.

I brought the flyer home and stuck it on my own bulletin board above my desk. I ordered the book and when it arrived, I saw that the professor/author was one of my peers in a class I took on Aging last quarter. When I took the class with her, I didn't even know she was a professor, but I did know that she was writing a book. I guess this is what she was working on!

This book is about finding your calling. It combines examples of people from the Renaissance with concepts in the fairly recent field of positive psychology (focusing on what promotes wellness rather than always looking at what goes wrong with us). Twelve steps are covered with exercises throughout (Dreher suggests you keep a "Renaissance Notebook," but I just jotted some thing down in my journal).

Overall, a very inspiring book, making me think about living more intentionally and working toward my dreams. The exercises were helpful in getting to know myself better and also in helping me think of ways to take better care of myself. Some of the examples from the Renaissance were kinda boring and I skimmed them. Also, the font was a bit annoying until I got used to it. However, I would recommend this book, especially if you're going through a transition or just wondering what to do next. I will keep this one in my library since I'll probably want to go through it sometime again in the future.

Here is a list of the twelve chapters. Just the titles inspire me. =D
Discovery: Realizing your joys and talents
Detachment: Clearing the path within
Discernment: Embracing your values, living with heart
Direction: Turning your ideals into action
Faith: Trusting your life and your world
Daily Examen: Staying on course with your dreams
Community: Gaining support from mentors and friends
Contemplation: Finding your inner oasis of peace
Creativity: Making your life a work of art
Reading and Reflection: Exploring new worlds within and around you
Physical Exercise: Building strength and wisdom
Discipline and Dedication: Bringing your dreams to life