Books I'm re-reading

All That Matters ~ by Jan Goldstein, 2004, fiction (California, New York, Maine), 198 pages, 9/10

Jennifer Stempler has nothing left to lose.  The love of her life left her, her mother died in a senseless car accident, and her Hollywood producer father started a brand-new family — with no room in it for her.  So, 23-year-old Jennifer decides to pursue (permanent) oblivion — in the form of Xanax and tequila — on the beach near her home in Venice, California.  But Jennifer's depression is no match for her nana's determination.

Gabby Zuckerman refuses to let her granddaughter self-destruct.  With her trademark feistiness, this force of nature whisks Jennifer back to her home in New York City, intending to prove to Jennifer that her life cannot possibly be over yet.  In fact, it has just begun.  Through jaunts in Central Park and road trips to Maine, Gabby tries to teach Jennifer how to trust and hope again.  But when Gabby reveals a secret — one that challenges Jennifer with a haunting and heartbreaking truth — Jennifer must find whether she has it in her to provide the final gift only she can give.

I have been culling my shelves before moving into a new apartment in February.  I've read this one before, but I've decided to read it again.  Then I'll donate it to our little Crown Center library, shown in this photo.

Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner ~ edited by Ellen E. Garrigues, 1895 and 1910, poetry, 46 pages

This is a slim little volume, with brown covers imprinted with slightly darker brown words.  That's why I photographed the title page instead of the cover.  It belonged to the aunt I was named for.  Bonnie Reynolds was my mother's only sister.  It was her textbook in high school, back in 1921.  This one is probably a collector's item, even though she marked in it as she studied.  It's another one I'm about to re-read.

Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way ~ by Lao Tzu, a new English version by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1997, religions, 126 pages

When I taught religions of the world at Chattanooga State, I took my collection of Tao Te Ching translations and asked students to find #11 and read it aloud to the class.  That's my favorite chapter, so the students got to hear several versions of it.  My own personal favorite translations were Stephen Mitchell's and Ursula K. Le Guin's.  Here's her version of number eleven, which I now have on my Kindle.

The uses of not

Thirty spokes

meet in the hub.

Where the wheel isn't

is where it's useful.

Hollowed out,

clay makes a pot.

Where the pot's not

is where it's useful.

Cut doors and windows

to make a room.

Where the room isn't,

there's room for you.

So the profit in what is

is in the use of what isn't.

Ursula K. Le Guin:  "One of the things I love about Lao Tzu is he is so funny.  He's explaining a profound and difficult truth here, one of those counter-intuitive truths that, when the mind can accept them, suddenly double the size of the universe.  He goes about it with this deadpan simplicity, talking about pots" (p. 14).

 

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.