Welcome to the May 2020 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com! Since our family schedule has been radically altered…
10 CommentsRelevant Fiction for Body & Soul
Category: My Scribbler’s Heart
What a perfectly timed resource! Show of hands: Who’s feeling a little anxious? Who’s struggling to hand it all over to God, multiple times a day? 🙋🏻♀️ Worries about health, family, education, the economy, our world, and on and on. THIS journal is a prescription for finding peace.
Allison Gingras shares her personal lifelong struggle with worry and anxiety, helping you to journey to a place of peace and trust. This journal uses Scripture, the saints, devotions, and more to guide you with plenty of space for you to reflect. (And you can make it pretty with some colored pencils too!)
Leave a CommentHow did you first conceive the idea for Sisters of the Last Straw?
It is so strange how God works. I had a Bible study with a number of women for about thirty years. We were great friends and one night at our meeting we started laughing about how we all should have been nuns. Looking around at the five women in the group who are all good women, I had to laugh. We each have our own foibles and personality quirks. I laughed and said that we would probably be kicked out of any order because of our bad habits. Another woman said that we would probably have to form our own order. After much laughter and silly plans for the order, one of the women said, “We better call it the Sisters of the Last Straw.” I wrote my first story about the nuns for those women. Then I decided to write a children’s book to teach children that while all people have faults, we can love God and each other. That is how the Sisters of the Last Straw were created.
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Amid the odd circumstances of this Easter, we’ve tried to keep our traditions. Streaming religious services isn’t the same as being there, but I’m grateful we’re at least able to do that.
We prayed a modified Stations of the Cross that became part scavenger hunt when the 7-year-old hung the fourteen photos randomly around the house. We made Resurrection eggs (search Pinterest for examples), baked Hot Cross Muffins (found here) and Paska bread, dyed eggs, and in place of the Easter flowers we usually buy, my daughter picked us a bouquet of violets. We’ll re-read a new favorite Easter book, The Other Side of Easter by Beth Gully.
It’s all lovely. But there’s a subtle undercurrent that something’s not right.
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I invited Catholic Writers Guild members on the group’s Facebook page to recommend one of their books for reading during this pandemic. What follows are their recommendations, in the author’s words. It’s a mix of fiction and nonfiction. Choose a fun escape, something to expand your knowledge, fiction that edifies, or a means of deepening your faith.
Also check out this list of reading recommendations at Dappled Things: “Literature in the Time of COVID-19”.
Links below are to Amazon, but you can find most, if not all, at additional retailers and some on additional ebook platforms – maybe even on audiobook.
Pandemic Reading Picks from Catholic Writers Guild Authors #CatholicsatHome Share on X 1 CommentWelcome to the April 2020 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com! It’s sad that shortly after my husband…
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The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by M. Joseph BédierMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This classic of romance literature, which obviously influenced subsequent classic works, had eluded me for decades. I’d only heard mention of it in recent years and came across this Hillaire Beloc translation at a low cost.
I wish I’d read this in the context of a classroom or group/club rather than independently because there is much absent in the text that would make for great discussion. Responsibility, the nature of love, honor, duty, sacrifice – these are all found within Tristan and Iseult, but not in any depth.
There’s some lip service to God and honor, but the lovers absolve themselves from any responsibility because they just can’t help themselves. They (mistakenly) drank a love potion, you see. Whoopsie.
Despite that disappointment, I found this worth reading as a seminal work, and it did mostly hold my attention.
Classics Dracula, A Christmas Carol & The Romance of Tristan and Iseult: My takes in Relevant Fiction Reviews. Share on X Leave a Comment
A large part of my days revolve around serving my family. You’d think that they’d be the beneficiaries in that equation, but I’ve been reminded lately how good these people are for me.
For a person who has the propensity to live in her head too much, they are refreshingly grounding. They are real. With real physical needs, real childish silliness, real human interactions, and delightful senses of humor.
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