The Christmas Bookshop, written by Jenny Colgan
A woman whose life isn't playing out like she wants. A strained relationship between sisters. A bookstore that's about to go out of business. A lonely old man. A supportive community. A predictable story filled with reminders that relationships are worth the effort, arrogance is unattractive, humility is appealing, communication is essential, and your own happiness should never be your primary goal.
p. 93, "Children's books today are so terribly anodyne, don't you think? Love yourself, love yourself, be kind, blah blah, love yourself. I think we can get a little beyond that, don't you, Leone?"
p. 116, "I mean. Smile at the dawn? What does that even mean? Find your own happiness? Well, what if your happiness is ... I don't know ... kicking dogs? Do what you love? Unless you're a pedophile. I mean, it's ... I think people get unhappy trying to do what makes them happy. Don't tell my publisher."
p. 219, "It's just people trying to be happy," she said.
"I understand that," said Oke. "I'm just not sure it's the best way to go about it."
"What do you think happiness is?" she asked him.
"A by-product," he answered immediately, "to being useful."
She looked at him. "What?" she said. "What do you mean?"
He looked back at her, surprised. "Well, he said, "if you do good work and are useful, that makes you happy."
I was looking up a different book at the library when I spotted this one. As one who struggles against bitterness, I suspected it would be a good book for me to read. And it was. I appreciate her humility in describing her own experience with unforgiveness and her kindness toward those facing the same problem. She's compassionate and practical, which is a helpful combination. This is a book I should probably just buy a copy of because there were so many quotes I liked, things I'll need to keep pondering and continue to be reminded of.
p. xvi, The more our pain consumes us, the more it will control us.
p. 10, Those who cooperate most fully with forgiveness really are those who dance most freely in the beauty of redemption.
p. 32, What we look for is what we will see. What we see determines our perspective. And our perspective becomes our reality.
p. 41, I must separate my healing from others' repentance or lack thereof. My ability to heal cannot be conditional on them wanting my forgiveness but only on my willingness to give it.
p. 44, (She named a specific person and a specific act, but I left those parts blank because I like the structure of her statement for any offense.) "I forgive _____ for _____. And whatever my feelings don't yet allow for, the blood of Jesus will surely cover."
p. 45, I only needed to bring my willingness to forgive, not the fullness of all my restored feelings.
p. 74, Love is a thing of depth. When forced to stay on the surface, it flounders about like a fish out of water. A fish can't live on the surface, because it can't breathe. It breathes oxygen but not from the surface air. Fish pull water through their gills, which dissolve the oxygen from the water and dispense it into their bodies. If they don't get below the surface, they will be starved of what gives them life. Love is a bit like that.
Love needs depth to live. Love needs honesty to grow. Love needs trust to survive.
When starved of depth, it flounders. When deprived of honesty, it shrivels. And when trust is broken, love is paralyzed.
p. 75, I've heard it said that people fall in love. I wish the expression was more like, "We found love, and then we chose it over and over together."
p. 92, Whole, healthy people are capable of giving and receiving love. Giving and receiving forgiveness. Giving and receiving hope. Giving and receiving constructive feedback. Giving and receiving life lessons tucked within the harder things we've been through.
p. 111, Forgiveness releases to the Lord your need for them to be punished or corrected, giving it to the only One who can do this with right measures of justice and mercy.
p. 123, Relationships that need boundaries will not get better on their own.
p. 124, When you empty all your emotional, physical, financial, or relational resources to help another person who doesn't want to be helped, you will become more and more unhealthy in the process.
p. 127, We can forgive them. But we cannot control them. And we should not enable them.
p. 127, Forgiveness releases our need for retaliation, not our need for boundaries.
p. 132, Boundaries aren't to push others away. They are to hold me together.
p. 135, It's for the sake of your sanity that you draw necessary boundaries.
It's for the sake of stability that you stay consistent with those boundaries.
But always remember that, as we grow with Christ, our capacity for compassion should have the propensity to expand. Therefore, it's for the sake of maturity that you ask the Lord to help you reassess those boundaries.
p. 150, If we try and draw conclusions from the well of our deep pain, we will only have the sorrow of today to sip from. If, however, we draw strength from the deep well of God's promises for tomorrow and His faithfulness to us in the past, His living water is the goodness that will seep life into our dry and weary souls.
p. 150, (quoting Jim Cress) "Hope is the melody of the future. Faith is dancing to that melody right now."
p. 164, God's faithfulness isn't demonstrated by his activity aligning with your prayers. It's your prayers aligning with His faithfulness and His will where you become more and more assured of His activity. Even if, maybe especially if, His activity and His answers don't look like you thought they would.
p. 168, We try to control what we don't trust.
p. 174, Bitterness doesn't just want to room with you; it wants to completely consume everything about you.
p. 184, What if bitterness is actually a seed of beautiful potential not yet planted in the rich soil of forgiveness?
p. 200, Now, I'm realizing the antithesis of peace isn't chaos. It's selfishness. Mine and theirs. Self-care is good. Self-centeredness is not.
p. 200, Peace is the evidence of a life of forgiveness.
It's not that the people all around you are peaceful or that all your relationships are perfectly peaceful all the time. Rather, it's having a deep-down knowing that you've released yourself from the binding effects of the constricting force of unforgiveness and the constraining feelings of unfairness.
p. 202, Not forgiving someone isn't teaching the other person a lesson, nor is it protecting you in any way. It's making the choice to stay in pain.
p. 214, Maturity isn't the absence of hard stuff. Maturity is the evidence that a person allowed the hard stuff to work for them rather than against them.
Most of the time we only think about what hardships take from us. Maturity helps us see how hardships can add what's missing in our development. Maturity helps us become more self-aware. Maturity helps us process with healthier perspectives. Maturity sets us up for healthier relationships. And maturity has a depth of empathy for others and a patience for imperfection that is less likely to get so easily offended.
Parnassus on Wheels, written by Christopher Morley
A traveling bookseller ready to sell his business, the spinster (how a single, 39 year old woman is described in the book) who impulsively buys his book wagon and sets off on an adventure, the woman's brother who's an author and neglects the farm they share in favor of writing. This quick read is charming more than a century after it was written.
p. 39, "Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean."
p. 136, What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a man is settled in one place he yearns to wander; when he wanders he yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is content - all the great things in life are done by discontented people.
p. 145, I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvelous insight into human nature, which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small - like looking at the Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.
p. 146, I good book out to have something simple about it. And, like Eve, it ought to come from somewhere near the third rib: there out to be a heart beating in it. A story that's all forehead doesn't amount to much.
Four sixth grade students, one teacher, the tangled web of ways their lives are connected, and their unprecedented success in a middle school Academic Bowl. A story about caring for others, learning about yourself, and prioritizing friendship. This is one of the kids' school books that I read for myself.
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