This is kind of a book review of a book about…books, and a review about a book about a writer. It’s also a super meta post about me and my love of books and my faltering and wonky identity as a writer, being Catholic, and loving Mary. It’s all kind of mashed together. Isn’t who we are and what we do kind of all mashed together?
A book about books
I first picked up The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald a couple of years ago, and it got lost in my pile of books to read. I was diligently making my way through the pile, but I would add books to the top and never make it through to the bottom. I finally mixed it up a bit and got down to the business of reading this most delightful book, new to me in 2019 but published in 2016.
What a lovely read. The characters are quirky. Revelations come via letters, and there are endless references to books and authors. Everything about it appealed to my nerdy book sensibilities. Of course, the plot, a rather unconventional love story about a Swedish young woman who falls in love with a whole town in rural Iowa and finds a home there, entertains and offers a lovely lesson about how books have the power to change us.
A book about Mary
An unexpected bonus from this book was my desire to reread some of the books mentioned in the novel. I even embarked on a perusal of my bookshelf, looking for books worth reading again. I’m currently making my way through the shelves, reading some for the first time, and a good many to reread with new eyes. Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Shoemperlen falls into the latter category. I read it some years ago, a gift from friends. This recent reading has spoken to me in a most intimate and endearing way.
The narrator, a novelist, encounters the Blessed Virgin Mary standing in a corner of her living room. It’s not the typical apparition, as Mary is just looking for a quiet place to lay low for a while. Of course, the visit is exactly what the narrator needs at this point in her life.
This Mary is everything I’d want if the Blessed Mother decided to show up in my living room for a visit. While a work of fiction, it gave me a great deal to think about — especially cultivating a friendship with Mary. I really would open up my home, and heart, to a visit from Mary. We’d cook together, chat over tea, maybe have a glass of wine on the porch and watch the sunset. Even go to the mall. Why not? What better way to spend time with a dear friend?
I want to write like that!
Both books have appealed to me as a writer, and I often returned to passages that seemed to speak directly to me. It’s not that I would like to write books like these, though that is true. It’s more a case of finding myself in these books.
It has been decades since I immerse myself in a book in this way. Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard of teaching literature — I haven’t given myself permission to get lost in a book for the shear joy of reading. It has inspired me to return to writing fiction, and the important art — to dare sharing it with others. We’ll see where that goes.