A Medley
What I'm reading, what I'm listening to, and a note for the one who is waiting
Hi friends, and happy Thursday. Here in central Illinois, it feels as though the weather is slowing shifting from spring to summer—it’s the perfect day for some front porch writing time. Also on today’s agenda: shopping at my favorite local boutique for a dress to wear to my sister’s retirement celebration, and later, a long walk around the lake. Wherever you are, and whatever your day looks like, I hope you’re able to take a minute to step outside, take a deep breath, and stare at the sky for a few minutes.
📚 What I’m Reading
Last month, I read eight books1—six novels, and two books about the craft of writing. I’ll share a list of the books below for easy reference; after that, you’ll find star ratings (more than half are five-star books for me!) and brief reviews of each book. Happy reading!
April’s Book List:
Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins
Counterweights: An Essential Practice for Holding Hope in a Heavy World by Shannan Martin
Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd
Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg
The Keeper (Cal Hooper # 3) by Tana French
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
The Names by Florence Knapp
Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In the late 1960s, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón married Peter Brennan Jr. in Puerto Rico. A few years later, they relocated their young family to St. Louis, Missouri. Their daughter Ruth desperately wants to feel a sense of belonging in her new community, so she does her best to discard all of the trappings of her Puerto Rican heritage.
Over Ruth’s strident objections, her daughter Daisy becomes curious about Puerto Rico and moves to San Juan as a young adult. When Daisy is severely injured in a hurricane on the island, Rafaela and Ruth return to the island to care for her. While keeping vigil at Daisy’s bedside, they begin to reflect on their lives—the risks they took, the reasons why, and the resulting joy and heartbreak.
I loved this multi-generational family story. I especially appreciated how the author explored the ways in which relationships within a family and a community influence our sense of belonging in the world.
Words I’m remembering:
”I have waited a long time for the long term.”
Counterweights: An Essential Practice for Holding Hope in a Heavy World by Shannan Martin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shannan Martin’s words are always exactly what I need to read at a given moment in time.
It’s hard to deny the weightiness of our world right now—and I bet I’m not the only one who sometimes feels tempted to turn away from what feels heavy in favor of something bright and breezy. But bright and breezy alternatives don’t always feel accessible these days. So how do we navigate our broken world, while still holding onto hope?
In Counterweights, Shannan Martin introduces us to the practice of finding counterweights: holding the good and the bad, the darkness and the light, with both honesty and hope. In each essay, she reminds us that it is critical to pay attention to what weighs us down as well as to what lifts us up. In collecting counterweights, we shift the scales back toward peace and wholeness.
This will be one of my top five books of 2026.
Words I’m remembering:
“The practice of gathering counterweights is about creating moments of sustenance from the raw materials of what we’re given. It is about holding everything in honest tension. Both/and. Our counterweights help us move forward and breathe through the heaviness. At their best, they can’t be bought or sold. They aren’t a matter of luck or reserved for the privileged. They are widely accessible and casually weird, entirely personal and communal to their core. They are their own reward. And they are happening all the time, ready to steady us on our feet.”
Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Drawing on stories from her own life as a writer, as well as those of other writers like Harper Lee and Maya Angelou, Sue Monk Kidd reminds writers that our work begins at a soul level. This, she believes, is where creativity originates. Our work as writers, then, is to figure out how to access that creativity and transfer it into words on a page. Kidd readily acknowledges the challenges inherent in this process, which is comforting to hear from a best-selling author!
I read this book slowly, pausing to think and make notes in the margins. Writing Creativity and Soul reads as both a memoir and a guidebook. If you’re a writer who feels a bit lost, or stuck, this book is for you.
Words I’m remembering:
“Creativity begins in chaos. That’s just the way it is. The challenge is to bring form and order to it…Bringing control to the work begins with ‘sitzfleisch’, a German word meaning the ability to sit through a demanding phase of work…As I sit there…something quietly begins to happen. My confusion gives way to tiny breakthroughs and moments of clarity. Gradually small light bulbs pop on, a shape emerges, maybe even the traces of a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Several Short Sentences About Writing is the most interesting book about writing I’ve ever read.
Klinkenborg—previously a member of the New York Times editorial board and currently a creative writing professor at Yale—wrote this book to help writers unlearn some of what we learned in a classroom. Specifically, he wants us to remember that writing includes more than syntax and grammar, topic sentences and outlines. Writing must first include noticing and thinking about the world around us.
The unique structure of this book makes it easy to read a few pages at a time. This would be an excellent book for a high school writing curriculum. I would have loved to have had it when we were homeschooling our kids!
Words I’m Remembering:
“Most of your time will be spent making sentences in your head.
In your head.
Did no one ever tell you this?
That is the writer’s life.”
The Keeper (Cal Hooper # 3) by Tana French ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tana French is one of my favorite authors. In The Keeper, she concludes the story of retired Chicago police detective Cal Hooper, one of her most beloved characters.
Rachel Holohan was nearly engaged to the son of the wealthiest man in Ardnakelty, a small town in Ireland, when she went missing. After her body was found submerged in the river at the edge of town, authorities began to investigate her death. Immediately, the investigation becomes complicated: long-held grudges resurface, quiet battles for power become noisier, and assumptions begin to fracture the community. When Cal Hooper is drawn into the quest for answers, what he finds threatens his relationship with his fiancée Lena, an Ardnakelty native, as well as the townspeople who have only recently welcomed him into their community.
I love how Tana French explores the ideas of strong friendships, community ties, and what it looks like to search for—and find—belonging in a new place.
Words I’m Remembering:
“The things he’s come to prize in this place are not, mostly, the ones he moved here in search of. The beauty is all there and more, but he was also picturing simplicity and peace, maybe even innocence, none of which showed up in any noticeable quantity. Instead he’s found the intricate webs, constructed over centuries, that bind people to one another, to their land, and to their past. He’s under no illusion that these bindings are simple or innocent, either. They’ve sliced people to the bone, scourged them out of town, choked them to death. But alongside all that, they’ve held the place together, steadfast in the face of time, dark happenings, rifts, attacks, and sieges.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I waited nearly a year for this book to be available at the library! It was well worth the wait.
In this epistolary novel, the main character is 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp. Nearly every morning, Sybil sits down at her desk to write a letter. She writes to people she knows—her sister-in-law, her brother, and her best friend. She also pens letters to people she doesn’t know personally, including authors Joan Didion and Ann Patchett.
When Sybil receives a letter from someone she has never written to, a person she encountered years ago, she is forced to reexamine an impossibly challenging season she’d much rather forget. In doing so, she understands the power of forgiveness in a new way, allowing her to live the remainder of her life with more freedom and peace.
Words I’m Remembering:
“When you find a place for yourself in the world, it feels like music.”
And also, this:
“I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.”
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PJ Halliday won the lottery—literally—but several years of tragedies have taken its toll on both his bank account and his health. When he learns that his high school sweetheart is newly single, PJ decides to drive from his home in Massachusetts to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona in an effort to win her back.
Just before he is due to leave, PJ unexpectedly becomes the guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. He decides to bring them, as well as his adult daughter, along on his road trip.
This is a novel about families—the ones we are born into, and the ones we find—and the second chances that forgiveness offers us. If you enjoyed Kevin Wilson’s Run for the Hills, I think you’ll like this one—it’s a fun mix of quirky and sweet.
The Names by Florence Knapp ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I read this book on a Sunday—I started it after church, and finished it after dinner. I couldn’t put it down! And I’ve already recommended it to several people.
Cora is married to Gordon, a doctor who is well-respected by the community but an abusive husband at home.2 When their first son is born, Gordon intends for them to name the baby after him, continuing a long-held family tradition. But when Cora steps into the registrar’s office, she pauses.
What follows is fascinating: the author tells three different versions of Cora, Gordon, and their children’s lives in alternating fashion over the course of thirty-five years. Each version is shaped by the name Cora chooses to give their son.
I loved this book.
🎶 What I’m Listening To
When I find an album I love, I’m all in and I listen to it on repeat. Lately, I’ve been drawn to Ella Langley’s new album, Dandelion. I love listening to “You and Me Time”, “Choosin’ Texas” (it’s everywhere right now for a reason), and the title track, “Dandelion”. My very favorite song on the album is “Somethin’ Simple”.
⏳ …and a note for the one who is waiting
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several conversations with friends who are in a waiting season. While each circumstance is unique, they all have one thing in common: each person has been praying a specific, heartfelt prayer for a long time.
I’ve been there. I know how hard it is to wait for a prayer to be answered.
When I’m able to, I share this story with people who are waiting. It encourages me all over again each time I share it; my hope is that it encourages you, too.
Many years ago, I was part of a mom’s group that met one morning a week. At the end of each gathering, we shared prayer requests. One sunny spring morning, a woman mentioned that for several years, she’d been praying for her husband to attend church with her on Sunday mornings. As a group, we prayed for this man, and we also promised to pray for him in our own personal prayer times.
Four days later, on the very next Sunday morning, I saw my friend and her husband sitting across the aisle from us. I remember smiling to myself as I thought about how happy she must have been to have her prayer finally answered.
And then, God surprised us by doing more than we could possibly have imagined. At the end of the service, our pastor invited people who wanted to be baptized to come up to the front of the auditorium. Before our pastor finished speaking, I saw my friend’s husband stand up and walk down the aisle toward the pastor. He was shaking his head as he walked, as though his mind couldn't believe what his feet were doing. My friend walked next to him, tears streaming down her face in disbelief. He was baptized that very morning.
I’ve never forgotten what it looks like—what it feels like—to see the exact moment a long-prayed for prayer is answered.
When I remember that story in the middle of a waiting season, my prayer posture shifts from desperation and frustration to trust and peace. I’m praying the same for you.
Waiting with you,
Deb
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Just a heads up to let you know that I found these scenes to be disturbing to read. Please take that into consideration if you decide to read this book.