Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry
In an age when "keeping up with the Joneses" refers not only to material riches but also to a whirlwind of activities, author Katrina Kenison humbly asks, "Just whose standards am I living by, anyway?" Kenison, mother of two sons and former annual editor of The Best American Short Stories anthology since 1990, understands the hectic agendas, short tempers, and full-time careers today's families endure. But she has also learned to limit the chaos. The title comes from Kenison's youngest son, Jack, cuddled up with mom one quiet afternoon as she crochets mitten strings. He holds up a long piece of yarn and proclaims, "I'm knitting a mitten string for God"--a sweet phrase, but a bit misleading....Chapters with titles like "Grace," "Healing," "Spirit," and "Breathing" offer soothing pictures of a family life that honors patience, imagination, and Sundays without plans. Kenison weaves together personal stories and wisdom from such philosophers as Thoreau and Anne Morrow Lindbergh; the graceful resulting tapestry shows how peace and simplicity can be savored in a world hell-bent on pushing people to accomplish more, own more, and do it all as quickly as possible. --Liane Thomas --Publishers Weekly.
Mothers: Twenty Stories of Contemporary Motherhood
Transfiguring life into art, Barbara Kingsolver, Laurie Colwin, Mary Gordon, Sue Miller and Perri Klass are among the 20 writers, mothers all, who contribute stories, all previously published, to this well-chosen anthology about bearing or raising children. Editors Kenison (series editor for The Best American Short Stories) and Hirsch (Songs from the Alley) have chosen stories that illustrate "the complexities of mothering in America today." Klass's "For Women Everywhere," spiked with humor, tells of a 35-year-old single woman, nine months pregnant, who refuses to identify her baby's father: "I am not the kind to kiss and tell," she states. In Kate Braverman's disturbing "Pagan Night," a young mother contemplates killing her unnamed, unwanted infant son. Meanwhile, Kingsolver's "Quality Time" limns a divorced mother, hurriedly dropping off her daughter at daycare before running errands and going to work, who reflects that "Parenting is something that happens mostly while you're thinking of something else." Several tales deal with losing a child; of these, Alice Elliott Dark's "In the Gloaming," about a mother caring for her 33-year-old son dying of AIDS, is the most moving. Each entry is followed by a brief author's note on the story's genesis. In their thoughtful introduction, the editors express their wish that this group of tales may "serve as a step toward a 'mother's literature'"; it does, admirably. (May) FYI: Naturally, Mothers will be published on Mother's Day.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Meditations From The Mat:
Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga
This is a wonderful book of instructive and encouraging daily meditations centered on the practice of yoga. Gates synthesizes his experiences as a yoga student and teacher, former army ranger, and recovering alcoholic, and explores the practice of yoga in a fresh, relevant manner perfect for American readers. Each day's reflection begins with a thought-provoking quote and then explores one intriguing aspect of yoga philosophy. Gates weaves stories of his own remarkable healing and growth with the yoga sutras of Patanjali, and provides illuminating and moving explanations of how yoga teachings apply to real-life situations. With the help of accomplished writer Kenison, Gates succeeds in taking readers beyond the mat, and showing them how yoga works as a tool for transformation. Candid and engaging, Gates will inspire both readers currently practicing yoga and those who are thinking about it. Jane Tuma
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Best American Short Stories of the Century
The task had to be daunting, selecting the 55 stories that grace this volume. The title alone is daunting: the best? But the riches contained, including a foreword by Kenison and a deft introduction from Updike, prove the title accurate. Consider the resources mined: 2000 stories anthologized in annual best-of volumes since 1915. Although certain notable story writers, John O'Hara for one, never made it into the series and others who did have been crowded out of this volume, the stories excavated and displayed herein are gems. Often these are the gems one would expect, such as John Cheever's balance of the magical and the sinister in "The Country Husband," about an inappropriate desire that floods a man after a plane crash. What story captures better than "Greenleaf" Flannery O'Connor's affrontery before Protestantism and her vision of unearned grace? And would readers expect anything less of Dorothy Parker than "Here We Are," a scathing yet poignant depiction of a newly married couple bickering like old retirees? Indeed, the volume includes such signature stories as Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, where Have You Been?," Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl," Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From" and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." But some stories here by the well-known are not necessarily the best known. Fitzgerald is represented not by "Babylon Revisited" but by "Crazy Sunday," about the perilous life of a screenwriter employed at a director's whim. The transient world captured in Eudora Welty's "The Hitch-Hikers" seems far removed from the homier gardens, parlors, and post offices familiar from her other fiction. And readers can be grateful that Updike chose not "The Magic Barrel" but Bernard Malamud's "The German Refugee," a tale that ends with a dark if O. Henry-like reversal. In Kenison's words, these stories are "an invaluable record of our century." The book opens with Benjamin Rosenblatt's "Zelig," a tale of an immigrant who longs against reason to return to Russia. Immigration is a recurring theme, picked up again in Alexander Godin's sadly ironic "My Dead Brother Comes to America," And that we are nearly all descendants of immigrants is Aas apparent in Willa Cather's "Double Birthday" or Saul Bellow's "A Silver Dish" as in Gish Jen's bitterly funny "Birthmates," about a Chinese-American as trapped by his self-definition as by the racism of others. In his introduction, Updike writes, "The American experience... has been brutal and hard." The stories bear this out. In Elizabeth Bishop's "The Farmer's Children," two boys freeze protecting their father's equipment, while in Grace Stone Coates's lovely "Wild Plums," a young girl is forbidden to gather fruit with a family her mother deems socially inferior. Life on this continent may be brutal, but this extraordinary collection offers up dazzling writing that salves the wounds, as well as stories full of the pleasures of life.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.