BOOKS FOR GIVING & FORGIVING

MARCH 20, 2020 | MICHELE SHARPE |

Have you been reading more during the COVID pandemic? Or thinking about reading more? Here’s five quick reviews of some favorites among the books I read in 2019. Looking back, “Books For-giving” makes sense since all of these books have some element of forgiveness to them, whether it’s forgiveness of another person, a culture, or oneself.

Many years ago, Gloria Steinem published Revolution from Within, which was my first introduction to the idea of holding your previous selves with love and forgiveness. It’s easy to judge our own trespasses more harshly than we judge others’ behavior. Steinem (as I recall) recommended visualizing your “old” self as a fallible human being and forgiving any wrong-doing or wrong-thinking.

But that’s a book I read thirty years ago. Here’s what occupied my mind in 2019:

The book that wowed me the most in 2019 was Kia Cothron’s novel, THE CASTLE CROSS THE MAGNET CARTER. That’s not a typo, but I’ve wondered if this weird title has something to do with the sad fact that this book didn’t win every single major literary award the year it was published. Or maybe it was the length. If you’re…