See You in a Hundred Years

See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America
By Logan Ward
BenBella Books, Inc. 2007
ISBN: 978-1-933771-15-1

Tired of their stressed-out 21st century city life, Heather and Logan Ward and their young son, Luther, sell their fashionable New York City apartment and buy a farm from another century in search of “the good old days.” They settle in the farming community of Swoope in Virginia’s Shendoah Valley, determined to live a “nothing modern” life out of 1900, for one full year.

Sounds romantic, maybe even idyllic, huh? But reality soon roosts with the chickens, forcing the Wards to face 1900 – and themselves –sans starry-eyed blinders: “Not only are we stressing ourselves out in order to de-stress, we’re rushing to slow down, recreating the past with the period-appropriate stuff (so much for Thoreauvian asceticism)” p. 27.

Divided into two parts, Green and Seasoned, part one rims with idealism, frustration, tension, angst, fear and exhaustion. Chapters include Goodbye, New York, Old Year’s Eve, Expedition to Nowhere, How I Learn to Drive, and Waiting for Rain. Part 2, Seasoned, turns a corner into guarded optimism, with chapters like Picking, Cleaning, Shelling Shucking, News from the Future, Under Fire, Home for the Holidays, and Back to the Future.

“Recreating the past” has its share of bumps, bruises, and adventure. Just making coffee and oatmeal before noon is a major accomplishment in their new century. Others include learning to drive a “bombproof” draft horse, Belle, and a wagon, battling drought, snakes, garden pests, rodents, exhaustion, a cantankerous wood store, and incredulous (at first) neighbors. The Wards must also learn how to milk twin Nubian goats, maker their own cheese and butter, do without a car, electricity, a phone, TV, computers, email, and running water. Not to mention doing laundry with a hand-wring “washing machine” and figuring out how to survive a Virginia winter with nothing but a wood stove for heat.

The early weeks of this “idyllic” project to return to “a simpler life” are “… marked by frustration and a growing bitterness toward one another. I was convinced that our animosity during the preparation period would melt away as soon as the project started,” Logan writes, “but things have only gotten worse.” (p. 91)

Obviously, “simple life” in a century past proves more complicated than either Logan anticipated. But there are other surprises: the art of the Drop-In. These unannounced, extemporaneous visits from neighbors initially irritate but later invigorate. Unexpected kindness. Generosity with skin on. Handmade birthday and Christmas gifts. A good sleep after a job well-done.

The Wards also discover the dawn-to-dusk, back-breaking world of a dirt farmer trying to eke out a subsistence from drought-thirsty land, a failing garden, unruly livestock, a horse with a mind of her own, and a Twilight Zone sense of disorientation that makes a pineapple cake look right side-up. They also discover cool water from their hand-pumped well. Homemade soap and outdoor baths with water heated on the stove. Fresh goat’s milk, eggs, and just-picked vegetables. Unhurried sunsets. Friends who invite them to parties, escort their headlight-less, horse-drawn wagon home after dark, and a seemingly surly neighbor whose gruff exterior belies a heart of gold. The satisfaction of eating what they’ve planted, tended and harvested on their own land, with their own hands.

This occasionally uneven, sometimes coarse and often hilarious chronicle takes us back one hundred years while wondering, “How did they do it?” Ward’s pithy commentary and observations include, “By respecting the past, we can live a more meaningful present – and future. All my doubts about why we left New York? The fear that I was fleeing adult responsibility, putting my family at risk because I could not cope with reality? Those worries were unfounded. This project isn’t about escape. It’s about exploring those inalienable realities facing humanity since the dawn of time – food, water, nature, community. It’s about finding our place in the continuum of history” (p. 227).

As their year in 1900 winds down, the little family forges tighter bonds. connections. Deeper roots. New skills. Old-fashioned ingenuity. A network of support not bound by time or technology. New friends. Neighbors. Community.

Written with a nimble touch and brisk panache, See You in a Hundred Years is persuasive without being patronizing, honest without being acerbic. It almost makes you want to chuck your stressed-out 21st century life for “the good old days,” too. Almost.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
By Peter Godwin, 2007
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN-10: 0-316-15894-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-15894-7

The Zulus and the Vendas of southern Africa believe that a solar eclipse occurs when a crocodile eats the sun. It is “the very worst of omen” explains author Peter Godwin. The prediction comes to pass and is recounted in this “white African’s” memories of Zimbabwe, an articulate, wrenching narrative of personal and political struggle that is both eloquent and tragic.

Godwin’s native Zimbabwe, where he was born and raised, was once a land of promise and potential, "Africa's great hope." Under the repressive regime of post-civil war dictator Robert Mugabe, however, the country becomes home of “the world’s fastest shrinking economy,” (p. 155), the politics of envy, reverse racism and “ethnic cleansing” (p. 176). It’s a country where local “commanders” adopt names like “Hitler Hunzvi” and “Stalin Mau Mau.” It’s a country where Mugabe’s “farm seizure program” (p. 177), and “land redistribution” schemes are little more than government-sanctioned stealing. It’s a country of massacres, thievery and thuggery, hyperinflation, collapses in farm production, fuel and food shortfalls and a disintegrating, phantom infrastructure.

Godwin writes, “This is what this vile president (Mugabe) has done to us – made scavengers of us all and stripped these grown men of their dignity as they fight over a worn bike tire. Reduced us all to desperadoes and thieves, made us small and bleak and old and tired. Made us lose our love of life itself. Split our families and left my parents impoverished, alone, afraid” (p. 246).

Zimbabwe is a mess. But it’s not the only thing that’s a mess. As the country disintegrates, so does Godwin’s family.

Beginning and ending with his father’s death, which parallels the country’s, Godwin chronicles the activities and excesses of the Mugabe government over eight years - July 1996 to February 2004. He reports on kangaroo courts, threats, intimidation, violence, extortion, massive voter fraud, mayhem, “Mugabe’s race-baiting stagecraft,” and marauding “war vets” (wovits) and their effect on his family and friends. All in elegant prose, without a trace of cloying reminiscence or self-pity. Godwin also details some of the desperate, often futile but courageous attempts of opposition parties and private citizens to stay the madness or aid their neighbors and friends.

Possibly the most heart-rending portion of Godwin’s tome is chapter 17 and 18. Here the conflicted son and sibling narrates the deteriorating physical health of his parents, the reburial of his sister Jain, and the death throes of his home country. As Zimbabwe descends further into madness, Godwin’s elderly, frail parents resolutely refuse to leave, clinging to their farm and his mother’s clinic, where she’s served as a physician for decades. Godwin’s distant, aloof father, George, to whom the book is dedicated, reluctantly – and finally - reveals his own family secrets and the source of his “autobiographical amnesia.”

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a haunting, harrowing narrative of the disintegration of a family and a country. Exquisitely written with fascinating detail and occasional rough edges, Crocodile is a highly readable, heart-rending memoir brimming with panache, pathos, despair and hope. A modern tragedy too powerful to ignore.

Epic: The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play

Epic
The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play
By John Eldredge
Thomas Nelson, 2004
ISBN: 0-7852-6531-7

Hollywood and Harlequin have too often hijacked words that used to mean something. Unfortunately, words like “romance”, “love story” and “epic” have become synonymous for tawdry, cheap and predictable. Not so with John Eldredge’s creative, clever and engaging little book of just over one hundred pages.

Epic unfolds as a four-act “play” with a Prologue and an Epilogue. Chapter titles – or Acts – include Eternal Love, The Entrance of Evil, The Battle for the Heart, and The Kingdom Restored. The Epilogue is The Road Before Us.

Shedding worn-out, pedantic rehashes, Epic is a “tell me the story” approach to the Story. The words may be different from what you’re used to - romance, betrayal, pursuit, Hero, Lover, rescue - but the Story’s the same: Creation, the Fall and original sin, struggle and schism, and God’s redemptive plan through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

Drawing from a variety of literary and cinematic genres including Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, Apollo 13 and Paradise Lost, as well as some great authors – Buechner, Milton, C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancey and G.K. Chesterton, to name a few – Eldredge retells the Greatest Story ever told in an eloquent, winsome manner that’s as flavorful and full-bodied as a premium Cabernet Sauvignon. Eldredge’s style is brisk, his tone genial. His paragraphs are conversational, well-seasoned with interrogatories, anecdotes and literary segues designed to explore, inspire, engage and explain.

In Act One, Eternal Love, Eldredge explains that the triune God is relational and personal from Genesis to Revelation, and longs for a relationship with his Creation, humanity. (Some of Eldredge’s themes in Epic regarding beauty, intimacy, and adventure are echoed in Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul – 2005.)

In Act Two, The Entrance of Evil, Eldredge tell us about the schism brought about by evil, free will, and sin. He asks - among other things: “Dear God – the Holocaust, child prostitution, terrorist bombings, genocidal governments. What is it going to take for us to take evil seriously?” In this section Eldredge recounts the biblical narrative of the fall of Lucifer as a result of pride and betrayal (pp. 33-37). He explains through example and illustration and biblical text that we live in a world at war as a result.

At thirty-one pages, Act Three: The Battle for the Heart, is perhaps overlong and occasionally overwritten. Flowery metaphors and descriptions of waterfalls, birds, “tulips and pine trees” are rehearsed perhaps more than is necessary, but Eldredge makes his point in recounting the glory of Creation, with humanity its final crescendo:

“God creates us in his image, with powers like unto his own – the ability to reason, to create, to share intimacy, to know joy. He gives us laughter and wonder and imagination. And above all else, he endows us with that one quality for which he is most known.

He enables us to love.”

It’s quite a risk, because with this ability to love God also gave us free will, including the freedom to reject him. “Why?” asks Eldredge on page 51. “The answer is as simple and staggering as this” he writes, “if you want a world where love is real, you must allow each person the freedom to choose” With that freedom we chose to reach for “that one forbidden thing.”

“….. at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.” This freedom resulted in original sin.” Free will is “where our story takes its tragic turn” (p. 54) a la Genesis 3:1-6. Says Eldredge, “You must understand: the Evil One hates God, hates anything that reminds him of the glory of God… wherever it exists. Unable to overthrow the Mighty One, he turned his sights on those who bore his image.”

Evil has invaded the Epic.

“God gave us the wondrous world as our playground, and he told us to enjoy it fully and freely. Yet despite his extravagant generosity, we had to reach for the one forbidden thing. And at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.” (p. 56)

Sin enters the Story and “spreads like a computer virus.” But wait, writes Eldredge, “every great story has a rescue” (p. 61). Enter Act Four: The Kingdom Restored. Here we see hope resurrected. Paradise regained. Our future secured. Tragedy turned into Triumph. Lover and Beloved reunited.

“One day soon we will round a bend in the road, and our dreams will come true. We really will live happily ever after. The long years in exile will be swept away in the joyful tears of our arrival home. … All we long for, we shall have; all we long to be, we will be. All that has hurt us so deeply will be swept away.

And then real life begins.”

I can’t wait.

***
Author’s Addendum:
Epic won’t appeal to everyone, but neither does Shakespeare or Doonesbury. There’s a certain crowd that “doesn’t get” Eldredge books. Based on my wholly unscientific and purely subjective observations, these folks invariably fall into the camp of… unimaginative, jaded and … dull? They seem threatened by the use of words like “romance” or “lover” in conjunction with God and toss accusations of “poor theology” or an “inadequate view of God” at those who do like gravel off a hot rod’s spinning tires. They can’t (or won't) “think outside the box” or stained glass windows and seem intimidated by anyone who does – yet remains biblically sound. I wonder if the same critics who bash Eldredge’s books would eagerly wade into Narnia, Middle Earth or Neverland with hammer and scythe as well, flailing away at will?

My advice to these stiff-as-a-board stuffed shirts: Take a deep breath. It’s not that scary. Lighten up and listen up. You might learn something.

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made: A Surgeon Looks at the Human & Spiritual Body By Dr. Paul Brand* & Philip Yancey Grason Company/Zondervan, 1980 Brilliant. Insightful. Astonishing. Tender and humane. Eye-opening. Fascinating. These are just a few words describing Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. In this winsome, remarkable work the unique function and vast complexities of the human and spiritual body are explored and explained with vivid, absorbing descriptions from both nature and nature’s Creator. In Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Dr. Brand covers vast quantities of medical science with the descriptive prowess of a gifted physician. He adroitly resists clinical “data dumps” as well as “dumbing down” the material and insulting the lay reader’s intelligence. Interweaving personal anecdotes and experience with surgical skill and precision, Fearfully and Wonderfully presents a seamless garment of health, vigor and efficiency in both the physical and spiritual worlds. (At just over 200 pages, I read it cover-to-cover in two and a half days.) The book is divided into four main sections – Cells, Bones, Skin, Motion – with five or six supporting chapters to each section. Several themes recur throughout the book: the need to serve the Head loyally, the unobtrusive nature of the Body’s firm skeleton, the softness and compliance of the skin, and the healing activity of Christ’s Body. “Taken together,” writes Brand, “these provide a sense of presence to the world – God’s presence. In the section on Bones, for example, Dr. Brand likens hard skeletal bones to basic fundamental truths of the Christian faith and the laws governing human nature and relationships. One of the most fascinating portions of this book is Dr. Brand’s discussion of skin and touch, which includes visibility, perceiving, compliancy, transmitting, loving, and confronting. “Skin” properties in the Christian community include “beauty, sensitivity to needs, compliance, and the steady, fearless application of divine love through human touch.” (p. 157.) Coupling the physical with the spiritual Brand writes, “The skin of the Body of Christ, too, is an organ of communication: our vehicle for expressing love.” He notes how frequently Jesus touched people He healed “… With His power, He easily could have waved a magic wand. … but He wanted those people, one by one, to feel His love and warmth and His full identification with them.” Brand says, “ … I firmly believe such love (of Christ) is best expressed person to person, through touch. The further we remove ourselves from personal connections with people in need, the further we stray from the ministry Jesus modeled for us.” Brand explains that Christian love, agape love, like skin, senses a need and responds instinctively, personally. This concept is expanded in the final segment on Motion or Muscles, which includes Movement, Balance, Dysfunction, Hierarchy, and Guidance. Following an eloquent and understandable discourse on Movement in the Body and the “biology of motion,” Brand discusses the importance of exercise to physical and spiritual health. “If, through paralysis, we lose movement, atrophy will set in and muscles will shrink away until they are absorbed by the reset of the body. Similarly, Christ’s Body shows its health best by acting in love toward other human beings.” (p. 179). Additionally, motion “… requires the smooth and willing cooperation of many parts who gladly submit to the will of the Head. If they act apart from the Head’s orders, their action, though powerful and impressive, will not benefit the body.” (p. 179). Taking readers further into the staggering – and fascinating - complexities of Motion, Brand reviews neurons and communication, neurophysiology, dendrites, synapses, motor nerves, glia cells, reflex and regulation, delegation and decision. The combination of freedom and cooperation necessary to effect movement closely parallels differing roles of “individual cells” within Christ’s Body and the part each has to play in ministry. Perhaps the most powerful portion of this book is the final segment, Presence. In the face of suffering, Brand asserts, the person who helps the sufferer most is rarely brilliant, technical, or equipped with a truckload of trite answers: “It is someone quiet, understanding, who listens more than talks, who does not judge or even offer advice. A sense of presence. … A hand to hold, an understanding, bewildered hug. The best we can offer,” writes Brand, “is to be there, to see and to touch…. We are what Jesus left on earth. He did not leave a book or a doctrinal statement or a system of thought; He left a visible community to embody Him and represent Him to the world… Christ has no hands but ours.” Insightful. Astonishing. Eye-opening. This book has been around awhile, but I just got to it. I’m glad I did. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made is a wonderful read for anyone who wants to better understand the workings of a healthy spiritual Body and what membership in that Body means. *At the time of publication, Dr. Paul Brand was Clinical Professor of Surgery and Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Louisiana State University Medical School and a world-renowned hand surgeon who pioneered research on leprosy in India. Among his long list of honors and distinctions is the prestigious Albert Lasker Award and the appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Dr Brand authored 100 scientific papers and seven books, including Clinical Mechanics of the Hand, which is the premier handbook for hand surgeons, physiotherapists and other hand specialists. Co-author with Philip Yancey of three inspiring books, Fearfully & Wonderfully Made, In His Image, and Pain - The Gift Nobody Wants, Paul Brand is also the subject of Dorothy Clarke Wilson's biography, Ten Fingers for God. He passed away in 2003 in Seattle, Washington.

Wisdom for Mothers

Wisdom for Mothers By Denise Glenn Kardo International Ministries, 1997, 2004 ISBN: 1-932960-00-7 NOTE: Euodia wishes to thank our friends at HEvencense (http://www.hevencense.wordpress.com/) for granting us permission to post this review at Paw Prints. Wisdom for Mothers is the first Bible study/workbook published by Kardo International Ministries under the MotherWise logo. “Although a woman may use this workbook for individual personal Bible study,” notes the Introduction on page 9, “she benefits most from being part of a MotherWise group that participates in the full MotherWise program” in which a group “meets for two hours once a week for 10 weeks.” This claim is open to debate for a number of reasons. First, a major flaw with this “program” is the frequent lack of focus, cohesion, and unified thought as well as author Denise Glenn’s penchant for proof-texting and her frequent violation of the historical-grammatical method of Biblical exegesis. Her reliance upon sources that many consider suspect or controversial is equally troubling. (See p. 87 as well as the Bibliography on p. 267 for examples.) An unseemly presentation of the concept of “blood covenant” (p. 116-117) is another. (More than one woman in my MotherWise group found this segment offensive and culturally irrelevant. Several felt it was in poor taste.) Although well-intentioned and passionate, Glenn’s lack of expertise and care in handling the Biblical text seriously hampers the bulk of her “Bible study” materials. Additionally, some women find Glenn’s breezy, chatty style appealing. Some don’t. It has been described as ”warm, charming and engaging” as well as “bubble-brained,” “air-headed” or “irritating.” Likewise, some ladies deem both the video presentation and Wisdom workbook “insightful and inspirational.” Others dub them “patronizing”, “plodding” and “tedious.” (Some college-degreed professionals I talked to found Wisdom “insipid, insulting” and “a waste of my time.”) Also problematic is the fact that the typical class format and leadership structure are easily susceptible to cliquishness. Leadership Qualities as listed in the accompanying Wisdom Leader’s Guide fail to connect with—or even mention–leadership skills and can easily place women in leadership or “mentoring” capacities who are “nice,” but painfully deficient in basic leadership skills. Whether or not a candidate has any gifting or experience in leadership is not mentioned. Leader’s Guide directives such as meeting “regularly outside of class to discuss the progress of the class” are often vague and ambiguous and seem to do little more than encourage gossip and other counter-productive behaviors. To be fair, many of the Biblical principles and applications offered in this 260+ page resource are sound. However, the material founders dangerously when it strays off Scriptural charts and heaves onto the reefs of personal agendas and peculiar application from questionable sources. Some women may benefit from this studies. Others may find them geared toward quick, mass consumption on a “burgers and fries” level. Wisdom for Mothers is not for everyone. This study is best suited for women who’ve been married a few years - say, five or less- or for women who’ve been married longer but are baby Christians or non-Christians. Wisdom is NOT for mature Christians. Serious students of Scripture will find little here to fuel authentic spiritual appetites and may opt to look elsewhere for more balanced, substantive meals. ”Boring,” “square one,” “painfully rudimentary,” “dull,” “makes me feel like I’m in Kindergarten,” and “can we move on?!” were comments I heard over and over again related to Wisdom. Like food from a Drive-Thru window, a suitable label for Wisdom might be: “WARNING. Contents hot, marginally nutritious, and incredibly average. Proceed with caution.” *** For a more detailed review, visit: http://hevencense.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/book-review-wisdom-for-mothers/

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees: A Novel by Sue Monk Kidd 2002 by Penguin Books ISBN: 0142001740 Roaming my "home away from home" - the library - last week, I scanned shelf after shelf of books and just couldn't find the One. Know what I mean? The "One" book or author that grabs your eyes, hooks your attention like trout on a line, and jumps off the shelf into your hands. I couldn't find it. So I asked Lisa, the children's librarian, for a recommendation. Lisa steered me toward Adult Fiction and The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. Odd title? Maybe. Here's what I found: The first thing I noticed was the cover art. "New York Times Bestseller" was plastered across the top, above a half-full jar of honey with a Black Madonna label. "Bestseller" is often enough to raise an eyebrow, maybe two. I find that many "NY Times Bestsellers" appeal to me about as much as Lindbergher cheese. But back to The Secret Life of Bees. This 302-page story is set in South Carolina in 1964. It starts slowly but picks up steam as protagonist Lily Owens, a fourteen year-old trying to come to grips with a painful past, runs away from her "father" - if you could call T. Ray Owens that. One thing leads to another and next thing we know, Lily has sprung her black friend/housekeeper Rosaleen from jail. Rosaleen has been unjustly jailed for "assaulting" some white men who were trying to prevent her from registering to vote. As the story unfolds further, we learn that Lily's life has been shaped by the blurred memory of the afternoon when her mother, Deborah, was killed. Lily was four years old at the time, hiding in the bedroom closet when a gun went off. We're never entirely sure who fired it - whether it was Deborah, struggling with T.Ray (whom Lily refuses to refer to as her "father"), Lily, or just an accident. Whatever happened - and we're never really told categorically - Lily's mother is dead, leaving her alone with T.Ray and Rosaleen, a black woman T.Ray hires out of his peach orchard to help care for his young, motherless daughter. Rosaleen is beaten up in jail and taken to the hospital for stitches. Lily springs her out of the hospital and the pair escapes to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. In Tiburon Lily and Rosaleen wander into the pepto-bismol pink house of "the calendar girls," May, June, and August Boatwright. Lily and Rosaeleen are taken in by this "eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters," and introduced to the fascinating world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna, aka: Our Lady of Chains. Here Lily finds the true meaning of family and that real love is color blind. A quirkly, bittersweet story, The Secret Life of Bees is "about" a lot of things: a daughter's desperate attempt to understand her mother, her search for her own identity, race relations during the Civil Rights era, and how family can sometimes be found in the most unexpected places. I also think it's about female friendship and how the unique dual balm of truth and kindness offered within that context can help heal the deepest hurts. Filled with realistic emotion, authentic, dynamic characters and heart-felt dialogue, The Secret Life of Bees is lavishly written and filled with hope. Reading it is like opening an unassuming, orphaned gift at Christmas and finding something worth keeping. CAVEAT: The Secret Life of Bees is NOT - and does not pretend to be - a "Christian" book. It isn't a theological treatise, Sunday school lesson, nor an evangelical sermon. It is a novel. Don't take it for anything else. Although the story is rich and imaginative and worth reading, some readers may find parts Bees objectionable. Still worth the read.

Chocolat: A Novel

Chocolat, by Joanne Harris 2000, by Penguin Books ISBN: 0-14-100018-x Close your eyes. Breathe deep. Inhale the "rising vapor from the melting couverture. The mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive; the raw and earthy tang of the Americas, the hot and resinous perfume of the rain forest. This is how I travel now, as the Aztecs did in their sacred rituals: Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia. ... The Food of the Gods, bubbling and frothing in ceremonial goblets. The bitter elixir of life." (p. 53) "Bubbling and frothing" is an apt description of this sumptuous dessert from Joanne Harris. Part fable, part sermon, part social commentary and part farce, Chocolat is a rich read for sophisticated palates with a taste for withering wit, realistic characters, and barbed humor. Though not for the faint-hearted, this delectable dish stirs up glimpses of insolent arrogance and brash hypocrisy a la restaurateur and wife-beater Paul-Marie Muscat, narrow-minded bigotry in the pompous Caroline Clairmont, heaving hedonism in the alternately acid-tongued and mischievous old woman, Armande Voizin, and hope in the escape and blossoming of gentle Josephine Muscat. It all begins when beautiful, headstrong Vivianne Rocher and her daughter Anouk sweep into the anemic French village of Lansquenet on the heels of a carnival. Carefree and vivacious, the dark-haired Vivianne seems to enjoy tweaking the noses of the establishment, but when she opens her chocolate shop directly across the square from Pierre Reynaud's church, trouble drips over the village like chocolate under an August sun. Vivianne's knack for divining and indulging each villager's secret delight brings her to loggerheads with the strait-laced Reynaud and many of his flock. Reynaud deems the newcomer a threat to his flock and his personal enemy - a plot twist which doesn't make much sense, but indulges certain prejudices. Convinced that only a witch could or would wield such powers, Reynaud determines to disrupt the chocolate festival Vivianne plans for Easter. Vivianne gradually coaxes some monochromatic villagers into living Technicolor, courtesy of "The Food of the Gods." She enrages others by befriending a crew of river gypsies and offering work to their enigmatic leader de facto, Roux. Harris arranges characters, dialogue, and descriptions with a deft and attentive touch that's a feast for the eye and ear as well as the tongue. Aromatic, scintillating and delicious, Chocolat is generously garnished with melt-in-your-mouth wit and pathos. It should not be mistaken for an entree, but as a dessert Chocolat is near the top of the menu.

A

The Gift

The Gift, by Richard Paul Evans Simon & Schuster, 2007 ISBN: 1416550011 The Gift opens with a soliloquoy dated “Christmas night 2006. ” Best-selling author Richard Paul Evans maintains from page one on that “this is not a Christmas story.” Maybe. Maybe not. Protagonist Nathan Hurst is an in-house detective for Salt Lake City-based MusicWorld (p. 11). He was also born with Tourette’s syndrome and about “twenty different manifestations from vocal tics to head jerking and grimacing” (p. 3) and “the need to touch sharp objects” (pp. 5,6). That’s not all. Among the other heavy personal baggage Hurst carries is an intense aversion to Christmas due to the tragic loss of his brother on that day and his father’s subsequent suicide a year later, also on December 25. Hurst’s childhood destroyed, his family all but gone, Nathan’s mother “was never well after that” (p. 7). He leaves home at age 16 and rarely - if ever - looks back: “Christmas was just another day on the calendar. I never believed it could be otherwise until I met Addison, Elizabeth, and Collin. The Bible says that God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the things which are mighty. My story is about one of God’s weak things. His name is Collin, a frail, beautiful little boy with a very special gift.” Special, indeed. Like another Child of long ago. Stranded in a Denver airport by a Thanksgiving snowstorm, Hurst has a raging fever, a bad case of bronchitis and an even more severe case of unresolved guilt. His dynamo office assistant who never misses a beat, Miche, has booked him two appointments: one with the presidential suite in the airport hotel and another with the doctor. Standing in a “long line outside the Delta help counter,” Nathan meets Addison Park and her two young children, Elizabeth (age 5), and Collin (age 9). The boy has leukemia. And something else. A gift. A remarkable, incredible gift that the cynical, jaded Hurst experiences first-hand. Collin is a generous, affectionate young boy. He wants to help others, but exercising the gift comes at a terrible price to Collin and those who love him, especially his mother. As the story develops we meet an avaricious ex-husband with the ethics of an Anaconda, Hurst’s rarely lucid mother, now in a nursing home, a teenage boy whose brain cancer has him teetering on the rim edge of imminent death, hordes of hucksters looking for a quick buck and skeptics looking for a quick headline, a boss who makes Simon Lagree look like the tooth fairy, a doctor who repays a great kindness with his own unexpected generosity, and a certain in-house detective who hasn’t been able to maintain a relationship beyond the expiration date on a carton of milk but finally finds love, forgiveness, and peace. Peppered with excerpts from Nathan Hurst’s journal, a trademark Evans technique, The Gift is a story of healing in all its various phases and forms. The book, which can be easily read in an uninterrupted afternoon, quickly engages the reader who learns along with Hurst that “no hurt is so great that love cannot heal it” - and that Christmas “is indeed the season of miracles.” In The Gift Evans showcases what he does best: skillful, heartfelt, first-person storytelling. Evans has an unusual talent for crafting a tale in such a way that you feel as if he’s seated across from you at your kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee and telling you his own story. The Gift includes some unusual plot twists and turns, but focuses on themes of love, loss, tragedy, hurt and healing. Skillfully woven throughout the entire story is a gentle message of hope. As Elizabeth opines in the Epilogue: “In the end, love wins” says Hurst (or is it Evans?). “There could be no greater message of Christmas than that.” I think he’s on to something. This is a wonderful “non-Christmas” Christmas story. I loved it. Richard Paul Evans fans will eat this one up as surely as newbies will discover a good book is also a good friend. Enjoy!