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1,051 books
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1,709 voters
Rachel Townzen
https://www.goodreads.com/rtownzen
“It's a funny thing, coming home. Everything smells the same, looks the same, feels the same, but you are different; the contrast between who you were when you left and who you are now is heightened against the backdrops of old haunts. (42)”
― Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
― Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
“With each passing day, I allowed myself to become a little more intoxicated by limitless possibilities which seemed sometimes to roll in with the fog, murmur suggestions that would have made me run yelling from them had I been anywhere [other than San Francisco], then leave me to cope with that special brand of terror bestowed by sweet and sour tastes of freedom.”
― Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
― Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
“The painful things—Werenro’s story, Re-nefer’s choice, even my own loneliness—seemed like the knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
― The Red Tent
― The Red Tent
“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comes in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you’re at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you’ve forgotten. It haunts you until it becomes a part of you, shadowing you breath for breath.”
― Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
― Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
“In a world without forgiveness, evil begets evil, harm generates harm, and there is no way short of exhaustion or forgetfulness of breaking the sequence. Forgiveness breaks the chain. It introduces into the logic of interpersonal encounter the unpredictability of grace. It represents a decision not to do what instinct and passion urge us to do. It answers hate with a refusal to hate, animosity with generosity. Few more daring ideas have ever entered the human situation. Forgiveness means that we are not destined endlessly to replay the grievances of yesterday. It is the ability to live with the past without being held captive by the past. It would not be an exaggeration to say that forgiveness is the most compelling testimony to human freedom.”
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Around the World in 80 Books
— 31233 members
— last activity 20 hours, 28 min ago
Reading takes you places. Where in the world will your next book take you? If you love world literature, translated works, travel writing, or explorin ...more
The End of Your Life Book Club
— 143 members
— last activity Jul 31, 2014 12:48AM
Meaningful books and the impact they have on our lives. When my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer, I would often go with her to chemo, and we wou ...more
Rachel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Rachel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,882 books
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23 friends
580 books
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189 friends
907 books
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125 friends
872 books
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103 friends
787 books
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212 friends
272 books
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81 friends
414 books
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73 friends
980 books
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33 friends
More friends…
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