Paris. September 2025
I’m grateful for the amazing new and back list books I read and relished this year, and my two book clubs—the Rockledge Readers (thank you, darlings!), my book club of 2 (best friends forever!)—plus tiny libraries in the neighborhood, and my public library, which provides SO much joy!
Rebecca Hines shared the following parable in class this week:
A Zen monk asked his students, If you’re carrying a cup of coffee and someone bumps into you, why did you spill the coffee?
All the students answered because someone bumped into me. But he said, No. You spilled the coffee because coffee was in your cup. If you’d had water in your cup, you would have spilled water. If tea was in your cup, then you would have spilled tea.
I feel better about the world having ridden home on the bus yesterday in the rain.
Normally, I walk home from the chiropractor’s, a healthy half-hour uphill. But to my surprise, I felt a light rain slowly starting as I left the office. I quickly checked my phone and saw it was about to pour! I had come out without an umbrella.
What a splendid year for reading! I had a superabundance of favorites. It was tough to choose, but here are my 16 favorite books for 2024.
This week, my dear friend SB mentioned these two lines from Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day:
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
– Mary Oliver
I instantly recognized this query as one threading through my thoughts over recent months—with a twist.
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