My book club is reading “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are,” by Brene Brown.
Admittedly, I have only read the introduction so far, mainly due to ridiculous time constraints, not for a lack of interest. But I think this book will be thought-provoking and will generate a good discussion. It definitely warrants serious highlighting.
Here’s a gem from the intro:
“The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”
My book club discussed “Welcome to Utopia: Notes From a Small Town” last week, but in the days since, my mind keeps wandering back there. Back to the coffee drinkers and the little cafe. Back to the gym and the general store …
The author, Karen Valby, tells about the book in the above video. I really enjoyed it, and I think it’s because I related to it on so many levels. Having grown up in a small town, the people of Utopia were familiar, and being a writer/reporter I understood the challenges Valby faced with this project.
She was able to establish relationships with the people in town so that they trusted her with their stories, and that’s no easy task, especially as an “outsider.” I’m from Wise County and now write for the Messenger … in Wise County … and it’s still hard to establish that trust with people sometimes. Valby even made friends with the local coffee drinking group, forever earning my respect and admiration. That’s a tough crowd.
Last summer I joked with a friend about “breaking into” a local coffee drinking group to find out what was really going on in the county, so the following quote hit home with me. This is Valby describing what happened when she asked coffee drinker and new friend Ralph if she could join him and his buddies.
“When I asked Ralph if I might join the men for coffee one day, he sat there dumbfounded a bit before saying, ‘Well … sure … you’d be welcome. They all might think it’s a little different now with you and all … being different.’ He scratched his forehead nervously. ‘A woman might pass through the store but to just come and sit down and talk? Nope, that hasn’t really happened much. But you just come and I’ll see that they be nice.’”
While discussing the book, some of the events reminded us of similar things that had happened around here, and we laughed, celebrating the good and poking fun at the bad. Those of us who had grown up in a small town even felt slightly protective of the story. One friend commented that she didn’t want to recommend it to her sister-in-law in Houston because she was afraid she wouldn’t “get it.”
Valby did a good job of describing the good and bad things about life in a small town, and she pointed out in the introduction “‘utopia’ comes from the Greek, and is literally translated as ‘no place.’ There’s no such thing as an ideal community, not when real people with richly dramatic lives clutter up the picture.”
This is from “Welcome to Utopia: Notes from a Small Town” by Karen Valby. She says everyone in Utopia, Texas, eats at least one meal a day at the Lost Maples Cafe, and in the quote below she’s describing the scenario on Sundays.
“On Sunday mornings, people arrive in shifts set to church bells. First come the members of the Church of Christ, then it’s a dead heat between the Baptists and Methodists. The Living Waters congregation likes to worship long and hard, so the evangelicals have to take tables where they can get find them.”
Sound familiar? This was just one of many passages that rang true with me having grown up in Wise County and now living here again. I’ll admit, it made me smile.
The book is written as a series of letters between Juliet and various people, and today’s quote comes from a letter Juliet wrote to Sidney, her dear friend and publisher. She is describing the delights of train travel since World War II has ended. She is especially happy because there are no more black-out curtains in the windows of homes, and she explains why in the quote below.
“All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don’t consider myself a real peeper — they go in for bedrooms, but it’s families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.” ~ “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I was already drawn to this character because she, too, is a writer, but this quote further solidified my connection to her because much to my husband’s chagrin, I also like to snoop in this way. I can’t help it. It’s just fun to witness in passing a moment of their lives.
I’ll admit, my blogging has been lackluster this summer. But instead of offering lame excuses, I decided it’s best to just jump back into the blogging routine. I think I’ve made this declaration before, but … let’s not look back, and instead move forward.
I’m easing in with a quote of the week. A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article in the July issue of Texas Monthly on the 25th anniversary of “Lonesome Dove,” and interviews were conducted with people associated with the book and later the movie. When I came across the quote below, as spoken by one of Larry McMurtry’s friends, it rang true for me, growing up in Wise County and also spending time in Montague County with family.
“I stayed at his (Larry McMurtry’s) house in Archer City once for a month or two and began to understand what living in the country means: It’s sitting in a little bitty restaurant, looking out the window at a cow, but you only have powdered creamer for your coffee.” ~ Dave Hickey, an art critic, professor of art practice at the University of New Mexico and a longtime friend of McMurtry
You can read more about my impressions of Archer City in my Bookends column in this week’s All Around Wise.
The last two years I’ve had an intense interest in literary nonfiction.
“I got this idea of doing a really serious big work – it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.” ~ Truman Capote
Capote was talking about his ground-breaking novel, “In Cold Blood,” which chronicles the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter and his family in Holcomb, Kansas. Capote and Harper Lee, who was his childhood friend, interviewed investigators and thousands of residents. It’s considered the original nonfiction novel.
“The Help” has been a treasure trove of quotes. The story takes place in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.
Here’s an example:
“I feel that bitter seed growing inside a me, the one planted after Treelore died. I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain’t a color, disease ain’t the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming — and it come in ever white child’s life — when they start to think that colored folks ain’t as good as whites.”
Things have been a little slow here at Shelf Space the last few weeks, but let’s kick things into high gear again. Today I want everyone to share a quote from their most recently acquired book.
It can be a book you purchased, borrowed from a friend, checked out from the library or downloaded to an e-reader – whichever book most recently came into your possession.
Here’s my entry:
“So Jackson’s just one white neighborhood after the next and more springing up down the road. But the colored part a town, we one big anthill, surrounded by state land that ain’t for sale. As our numbers grow bigger, we can’t spread out. Our part a town just gets thicker.”