There is a popular meme that discusses the difference between buying books and reading books. The idea is that these are two different hobbies and it hits close to home. As much as I read, I still have hundreds of books on my shelves and on my Kindle waiting to be read. Since discovering the Libby app that is connected to our local library, I now limit my “real” book purchasing to books that I feel I will want to share with others.

As a result of my book purchasing pattern, I choose books to read based on my mood at the time, not in order of when they were purchased. One of the books I have been reading in the morning with my coffee deals with rituals surrounding grief. Released this Fall, the book features personal accounts of the author’s experiences with grief in relationship with these rituals. On Sunday, I felt the urge to add another book to my morning reading. I dug a book out of the piles that was published at the beginning of the pandemic in April of 2020. This book is a first person account of tragedy and healing and has engrossed me from the first page.

Both of the authors are female and both of them are proficient writers. However, the first book feels more like a textbook where the other one feels like a revelation of her soul. I am left to wonder how one book can resonate so deeply with me where the other one is surface level. Part of the difference is the structure of each book, but that is not the entire explanation. I look forward to seeing how these books work together to teach me something about my faith, my writing, and my life journey.