The Silent Boy

 The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry

2003

Weight: 5.6 oz

Method of Disposal: Recycling (unfortunately)

This is another book that is in such poor shape that I cannot donate it.  The truth is that it was already falling apart when I came into possession of it, and it has only grown worse with each move.  I did want to read it before letting it go though so it was the last book I read in my time off after surgery.

It was a very sad book.  Not the whole time you are reading it, though from the beginning you know the ending will be tragic.  You just do not know how yet.  The tragedy of this book is not some shocking, never heard it before, cannot imagine it happening sort of thing, but something that feels much more common and, maybe because of that, even heavier.  

The book is told from the point of view of a 9 year old girl and much of it is about her feelings and thoughts about a misunderstood boy, who would now likely be diagnosed with autism, but at the time was just seen as different, and even scary to many people in the town.  Though the people that actually knew him knew that he was very gentle.  You could tell by how he loved animals and they loved him.  I cannot say much more without spoiling the book.  Ultimately, I think the author was giving us a snapshot into what it was like for girls and women, for people with autism, for people in different class systems, and for people in general at the turn of the 20th century.  As always, when looking at history, there are moments of nostalgia and plenty of good things happening, but some things can seem unnecessarily bleak due to the customs and beliefs of the time.  It is still haunting in that those customs continue to shadow us today and are not completely gone.

Yes to Life

 Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Viktor E Frankl

2020

Weight: 12 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving to my dad 

I thought my father gave me this book, but when I asked him if he wanted it back once I read it and he acted as if he would also like to read it I began to wonder.  I gave it to him.  I do know that the reason it came into my possession is because of him, even if I bought it.

Last year, I was attending a seminar and was asked to consider a quote that might speak to me spiritually or remind me of something important about life and living.  I was struggling to think of an actual quote, though I could find some misquoted snippets supposedly from Buddha overlaid across beautiful, peaceful pictures.  Thank you, Google.

My dad happened to call, and I told him what I was doing.  He immediately recommended a quote from Viktor Frankl and said I should read Man's Search for Meaning.  As soon as we got off the phone, I went in search of it and quickly realized I had read it previously.  At that point, I think I might have then purchased Yes to Life.  It did not seem at all unlikely that a man that survived a concentration camp and the Holocaust to then go on to write books about saying yes to life might know something about what the meaning of life might be or, bare minimum, have an inspiring quote I could share.  The one my dad recommended was some form of this, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  Something I do consistently try to remind myself ever since.

I did not enjoy Yes to Life as much as Man's Search for Meaning, but the power is still there.  Frankl talks about having started to write this book before his time in the concentration camp.  In fact, he sewed the manuscript into his jacket when he was taken away, though his coat was ultimately taken from him.  At some point, at the camp, he began to focus his mental energy on surviving so that he could share what he had written in the manuscript and, while he lived in the cruelest of human conditions, he began writing it again, in his head.  A large part of what I think he wanted us to know is that finding a reason to live will lead us to finding out how to live, which is not to say that there is much that is beyond your control.  The only thing you can always control is how you react to what is happening around you and/or to you.  We do not need to ask what the meaning of life is.  We need to answer the question of life with meaning.

Rick Bragg

2 x The Speckled Beauty and His People 

Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South 

2021 

Weight: 20.13 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving two to dad and one to a friend

Two different people gifted me The Speckled Beauty within weeks of each other, and I felt loved.  I had just finished reading Where I Come From, which I purchased at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga.  Bragg has a couple essays where he mentions The Speckled Beauty and some other dogs, The Dancing Skinny and Pup McGraw.  I had already started naming dogs at the shelter after them.  We are still on the lookout for our Pup McGraw, but we had a Speck, a Speckled Beauty, and a Dancing Skinny.  I guess I should do a Bragg too.

Everyone seems to love Rick Bragg, and I like to buy at least one book anytime I go into an independent bookstore--or really any bookstore these days--so, when I saw his name on the new arrivals wall, I grabbed it right away.  It was a collection of essays, and it was good.  I did think I would have enjoyed them more by stumbling on them one by one in magazines or online but, realistically, that had not happened often so this was my best chance to read them.  I just could not resist reading them all at once, which might have taken away some of the power of them individually.  I thought about my dad several times, especially when he talked about fishing without the idea of catching anything.  My father often says he is going to feed the fish when he goes fishing.

The Speckled Beauty I enjoyed even more.  I liked the feel of reading it.  It was a slow meander and, though my bad dogs are indoors and I would never dream of doing some of the things with them that I read in the book, like his brother using motor oil to treat mange, I am not unfamiliar with this way of being with dogs.  I have met and talked with dog owners like these (Given, I have told them not to use motor oil). Bragg describes his dog, his brother's dogs, his mama's dogs.  They all have a different outlook on dogs and a way of being with them, and they all clearly love dogs very much.  Bragg and his mom take in only the most pitiful of strays and love them no matter how terrible they are, maybe love them because they are so terrible.

But, this book was not just about a dog or about dogs.  It was about people, about the South, about getting older, about loss.  It was beautiful and sad and funny and easy and hard.  At one point, Bragg caught me so off guard that I just burst into tears.  I was not expecting it at all and was shocked, as I laid in bed next to my sleeping wife, holding this book close to my chest, scaring my own dogs who woke with a start when they heard my sobbing.  And, it was not because the dog died, and it was not because of the dog at all.  In fact, the main dog lives in this one, folks.  That is a rarity in and of itself.  It was because Bragg has a way of letting you in so that you do not just read the words but feel them fully.  His indirect descriptions bring up powerful emotions.  He may be talking about a dog, but through that dog we learn so much about him and his family.  

It is good stuff.

Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation

 Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation by John Lewis

2021

Weight: 11.3 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving to a Friend

This book includes some basic, quick reflections on the things that are most important in a life.  John Lewis speaks his most surface level thoughts on marriage, fear, mentors, hope, the future, Covid-19, same-sex marriage, immigration, art, activism, heroes, and so on.  It is a book of reflections.  If you know much about John Lewis, none of this will feel particularly new or insightful, but it is a nice memory of him and his life.  There is no doubt, and it has been expressed by so many people, that we lost a great man in 2020.  This book is an easy read and might be a good introduction for young students.

Asymmetry

 Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

2018

Weight: 8.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving Back to Friend Who Gifted It To Me

This one just did not work for me.  I wanted it to, especially after my dear friend told me that her sister, who passed away this year, had loved it.  As I read it, I had questions for someone that could never answer them.  In the way that death does, this book took on a meaning it never was meant to.  I tried to read someone into it that I wanted to be here still and could not find them.  Not that I would be the one that would find her if someone could.  Someone that really knew her, like my friend, might could do it. So, I want to give her the book back, knowing she will look also.

 It has been a little over half a year since there was a day that her sister and best friend was alive and it, at once seems like it has been no time at all and also seems like it has been an impossibly long time.  Grief is such a brutal component of love.  We have no choice but to endure it.