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About the author
Kaite Stover
3 books50 followersDirector of Readers' Services for
The Kansas City Public Library;
former adjunct faculty for MU Columbia; columnist and book and audio book reviewer for
Booklist
; contributing writer for NoveList; Library Journal Mover & Shaker 2003.Contributed chapters to
Integrated Advisory
and
Research-Based Readers' Advisory
. Frequent presenter at ALA, PLA, MLA, KLA, MPLA. Member of ALA, PLA, RUSA, YALSA. Booklist Advisory Board Chair, Sophie Brody Award Medal Committee, RUSA CODES Readers' Advisory Committee, Alex Awards Committee. Big fan and supporter of indie bookstore Rainy Day Books.
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November 22, 2009from Booklist:
Faith-Finding Mission
ReaderGal has been pondering faith lately. Faith is frequently lost and found. It is sought, contemplated, and encouraged. It can be had, but can it be kept? ReaderGal looks for guidance from the following women who have struggled with the same questions.
Anne Lamott reminds ReaderGal that faith builds slowly. It can be found in the mundane activities of daily life, where it’s typically dispensed in small doses. In the short vignettes that make up Traveling Mercies, Lamott writes about the trials of being a single parent to her son, Sam; the pain of watching a beloved friend succumb to cancer; and the moral conundrum she faces with Sam when they witness a man mistreat his dog. Lamott reminds ReaderGal that one can have faith, even if one also feels fear and doubt.
For Kathleen Norris, raised Protestant, faith is rediscovered in a Benedictine monastery. In The Cloister Walk, Norris shows readers the profound significance of living in quiet solitude and the meaning found in a ritual as ordinary as doing the laundry. Norris carries this newfound perspective back to her life on the Great Plains and feels the transformation in everyday activities such as taking a walk or sitting quietly. ReaderGal is moved that one can be raised in one faith and find it in another.
What happens when you’re staring faith right in the face, and you don’t believe it? Mariah White faces just that situation when her daughter, Faith, announces she is hearing divine voices, displays stigmata on her hands, and appears to bring her grandmother back from a fatal heart attack. Jodi Picoult chronicles the difficulties Mariah has in Keeping Faith when her ex-husband demands sole custody of their daughter in order to hide her from the media frenzy the seven-year-old faces.
Faith is edible, as Barbara Kingsolver discovers in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Putting their love of the earth to the test, Kingsolver and her family spend a year living off their own land on the produce found within a 50-mile radius. Botanical miracles take some time to manifest, and the Kingsolvers grow anxious in March, waiting for the first crop of asparagus. As the days pass, the culinary adventures continue with the wonder of collecting eggs from hens and the breathless wait for the turkey chicks to hatch. ReaderGal needs to look no further than this food memoir to know that faith is as close as your own backyard.
Faith is also as near as the next heartbeat, and no one knows this better than Jill Bolte Taylor. After suffering a massive stroke, this Harvard-educated brain scientist puts her faith in science and brings herself back to full capacity. Her miraculous journey of the mind and the soul is recounted in My Stroke of Insight, a compelling medical memoir that proves you can do anything if you put your mind to it, even if you only have half a mind.
Sometimes a person loses faith in everything and must go looking for it. Elizabeth Gilbert experienced a mental, physical, and spiritual crisis and trekked halfway around the world to reawaken her belief that life could be rewarding. Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s delightful voyage to enlightenment through pizza and prayer, delicately balancing the physical and the divine. In Italy, she heals her heart with lasagna. An extended visit to an ashram in India helps her put Band-Aids on her wounded spirit, and once in Indonesia, she begins to peel them off. A funny, endearing, human story of starting over from the middle. The looming Hollywood version of this charming book, starring Julia Roberts, may test ReaderGal’s faith.
Faith-Finding Mission
ReaderGal has been pondering faith lately. Faith is frequently lost and found. It is sought, contemplated, and encouraged. It can be had, but can it be kept? ReaderGal looks for guidance from the following women who have struggled with the same questions.
Anne Lamott reminds ReaderGal that faith builds slowly. It can be found in the mundane activities of daily life, where it’s typically dispensed in small doses. In the short vignettes that make up Traveling Mercies, Lamott writes about the trials of being a single parent to her son, Sam; the pain of watching a beloved friend succumb to cancer; and the moral conundrum she faces with Sam when they witness a man mistreat his dog. Lamott reminds ReaderGal that one can have faith, even if one also feels fear and doubt.
For Kathleen Norris, raised Protestant, faith is rediscovered in a Benedictine monastery. In The Cloister Walk, Norris shows readers the profound significance of living in quiet solitude and the meaning found in a ritual as ordinary as doing the laundry. Norris carries this newfound perspective back to her life on the Great Plains and feels the transformation in everyday activities such as taking a walk or sitting quietly. ReaderGal is moved that one can be raised in one faith and find it in another.
What happens when you’re staring faith right in the face, and you don’t believe it? Mariah White faces just that situation when her daughter, Faith, announces she is hearing divine voices, displays stigmata on her hands, and appears to bring her grandmother back from a fatal heart attack. Jodi Picoult chronicles the difficulties Mariah has in Keeping Faith when her ex-husband demands sole custody of their daughter in order to hide her from the media frenzy the seven-year-old faces.
Faith is edible, as Barbara Kingsolver discovers in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Putting their love of the earth to the test, Kingsolver and her family spend a year living off their own land on the produce found within a 50-mile radius. Botanical miracles take some time to manifest, and the Kingsolvers grow anxious in March, waiting for the first crop of asparagus. As the days pass, the culinary adventures continue with the wonder of collecting eggs from hens and the breathless wait for the turkey chicks to hatch. ReaderGal needs to look no further than this food memoir to know that faith is as close as your own backyard.
Faith is also as near as the next heartbeat, and no one knows this better than Jill Bolte Taylor. After suffering a massive stroke, this Harvard-educated brain scientist puts her faith in science and brings herself back to full capacity. Her miraculous journey of the mind and the soul is recounted in My Stroke of Insight, a compelling medical memoir that proves you can do anything if you put your mind to it, even if you only have half a mind.
Sometimes a person loses faith in everything and must go looking for it. Elizabeth Gilbert experienced a mental, physical, and spiritual crisis and trekked halfway around the world to reawaken her belief that life could be rewarding. Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s delightful voyage to enlightenment through pizza and prayer, delicately balancing the physical and the divine. In Italy, she heals her heart with lasagna. An extended visit to an ashram in India helps her put Band-Aids on her wounded spirit, and once in Indonesia, she begins to peel them off. A funny, endearing, human story of starting over from the middle. The looming Hollywood version of this charming book, starring Julia Roberts, may test ReaderGal’s faith.
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