April / booklist

 In April I read four 4 star books (didn't love, but solidly enjoyed).

Pineapple Street, Jenny Jackson 

(2023 / fiction / audio)

This was a lighter listen set in New York & I had fun casting the characters in my mind.

Sea of Tranquility, Emily St John Mandel 

(2022 / sci-fi/time travel)

I ended up enjoying this more than I thought I would.

"I had already moved too fast, too far, & wished to travel no further. I've been thinking a great deal about time & motion lately, about being a still point in the ceaseless rush."

"If there's pleasure in action, there's peace in stillness."

From Scratch, Tembi Locke 

(2019 / memoir / audio)

This was a lovely memoir, tho slower paced. Spanning 20ish years of the love & loss of her husband she met in Italy.

"I kept going because I wanted to know how one puts one's life together again. Making up the bits & remnants into a new whole."

"We held between us a kind of secret of life & what mattered most - & that secret, the deep understanding of the constancy of nature, & it's opposite, human impermanence, was what I hoped would help us gain our equilibrium."

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

(1955 / non-fiction)

This one would go on my 'books for living list' ~ her thoughts on motherhood & living simply ring truer than ever today.

"the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity."

"the world today does not understand the need to be alone."

"What guarantee have we that the future will be any better if we neglect the present?"