When I was growing up in an era of three main tv channels, you only knew about things if they were in writing, on the news at 5, 6 or 10 or if you experienced it first hand. If a photograph was taken you would not see the results for weeks, or even months. It was easy to live in your own little world, unaware of what others were doing. My how times have changed! Much of what happens now is reported instantaneously and we can see exactly what we’re missing. The title of Mindy Kaling’s memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, plays on the fear that we’re missing out on something, somewhere. Kaling’s collection of thoughts and remembrances takes us back to her childhood in the Boston area. She shares the experience of growing up as a first generation Indian American. She takes us through the teenage trials of finding one’s identity while surviving middle school and high school.

One of the major turning points in her life is the discovery of Saturday Night Live. I remember the first time I saw SNL. My parents had picked me up from soccer camp in Texas and we were going to spend some time traveling around visiting relatives. That night in the hotel I watched SNL for the first time. I vividly recall the experience. For Kaling, she had found her people. She knew that these bits brought her great joy and she craved the experience of giving others that experience.

However, as the good daughter of her Indian American parents, she first pursued a college education at an Ivy League University. She was hugely successful at college and entered into the post college years anticipating similar success. She moved to New York City and had just enough of a struggle to provide witty stories before landing on the writing team of The Office.

Kaling’s stories are so much fun to experience through her writing. I could hear her voice as I read and see her facial expressions. Her new television show, The Mindy Project, is one of my must see shows. If you ever feel like you’re missing out on the “in” experiences, get together with Mindy Kaling through her writing and acting and you will find a kindred spirit.

One of the really fun things about reading is the ability to travel through the authors writings. Diane Morlan takes the reader to a small town in Minnesota in her two books Too Dead to Dance and Shake Down Dead. Three childhood friends work together to discover the secrets behind murder in both books. Jennifer Penny, Megan Murphy and Sister Bernadine have been friends since grade school and the same dynamics that bound them together then connect them now that Jennifer has returned to their hometown. Morlan does a great job of grabbing the readers attention from the very first. The first book centers around a Polka festival and highlights the areas heritage. The second book highlights deals with local politics and the secrets of a prominent family in the area. Jennifer jumps right into solving these mysteries and puts herself in peril as most good cozy protagonists tend to do. I look forward to Morlan’s next mystery and a return to Minnesota with the girls.

I’ve always like the idea of having tea – the British type of tea. Taking a break from the day and enjoying a biscuit and a spot of tea. The one time I visited England I enjoyed this tradition, complete with cucumber sandwiches. This may be one of the things that drew me to Susan Alison’s book White Lies and Custard Creams. That and the fact that it was free!
The large cast of characters took a while to connect with. The setting was unclear and I struggled to visualize where the action was taking place. However, about a quarter of the way in I became fully engaged and began caring about the characters and what would happen in their crazy lives. By the end of the book I was a bit sad to see them all go. A little bit romance, a little bit personal journey and a lot of intrigue, Alison weaves together the characters and their stories to provide for an exciting journey.

When I was a younger adult, I spent hours upon hours reading romances. Every Danielle Steele bestseller made its way into our house to be read in a few days time. I eventually realized that these books set an unrealistic example of what romantic love was really like and soon moved on to other types of writing. More recently, I have found some sweet romances that are fun for a quick read on my Kindle. These romances are often a tale of redemption or renewal for a young woman who has experienced heartbreak. One of my very first e-books was by Heather Wardell Life, Love and a Polar Bear. This free e-book is the first in what she calls The Toronto Series. I recently download the next four books in this series Go Small or Go Homes, Planning to Live, Stir Until Thoroughly Confused and A Life That Fits. The Canadian city of Toronto is an essential character in these books. Some characters even reappear briefly in other volumes. These books are a little bit formulaic, but are fun, easy reads. Wardell diverges from the common romances where a man is the key to a woman’s happiness. She build strong female characters and doesn’t always provide a storybook ending.

I also download another of her works Seven Exes are Eight Too Many. This book centered on a reality show theme. I have never been a big fan of this genre, so it took me a long time to really become engaged. I was able to figure out the outcome quickly and basically just worked to finish this one.

There are six more books in the Toronto collection and I look forward to reading those. I hope they are more like her earlier works and not Seven Exes. It is nice to experience a city that I have never visited and anticipate returning through Wardell’s book soon.

My family always gives me an exasperated sigh when we have to return to the house to check to see if the garage door closed or the curling iron was successfully unplugged. This sense of leaving something undone is a heritage I inherited from my mother, as did my sister. Image young Sarah’s panic when she realizes that she left her little brother locked in a hidden cupboard in her family apartment. When the French police came for her family, Sarah thought they would return within the day. She hid her little brother as a way to protect him. Her parents had not shared the reality of what would probably happen should they be taken away. When her parents were sent away, Sarah did her best to return to her little brother. Her quest to return to her brother and the legacy of that quest are the basis for Tatiana De Rosnay’s popular novel Sarah’s Key.

I was reluctant to read this book. Knowing the basis premise, I was afraid that it would just be too tragic. Once I finally decided to read it, I was instantly engrossed in the dual story of the World War II era Jewish family and the modern French/American family. De Rosnay wove the two tales together with a touch of intrigue that compelled me to keep reading. She provided elements of history and romance that balanced the tragic element of war. The ending was a little bit unsatisfying, leaving a few dangling elements. Sarah’s Key spent a great deal of time on the Bestseller’s Lists and a quick read revealed exactly why. I was sad to let the characters go when I finished this book – a true sign of a good novel.

From an early age we are taught how to care for ourselves. We learn how to dress ourselves, keep ourselves clean, provide food and other nourishment. However, we often go years without learning how to care for our soul. Lisa Colon DeLayhas written a short series of articles that she has combined into an e-document she calls Soul Care for Creators and Communicators. Within this document are many jewels of advice that speak to my soul. She discusses what Soul Care is and how it differs from traditional therapy. She lists 10 Signs that an individual may need Soul Care. All of this is tied to our spiritual journey. In the second volume of her work, she discusses Isolation and Community and the importance of avoiding isolation. Volume Three gives us 8 Paths to Learning. Volume Four shows the many Slumps, Burnout and Frustrations that we encounter and how the Sabbath can provide comfort for the journey. Volume 5 details God’s Grand Story from Creation to Redemption.

I found this work good for my soul as I travel down my specific journey. After years of full time paid ministry I gave a great deal of my soul to the work of the church. I encounter many of the slumps, burnout and frustrations that she discusses. Since leaving paid ministry, I have developed a tendency to isolate myself. This attempt to heal and protect myself from further frustrations, I often find myself causing my soul greater damage. Avoiding community takes me into my self thought and that can be a scary place to be. I find her list of 8 Paths to Learning to be helpful and need to print it out where I can reference it often. These 8 paths are: 1. Through the Holy Spirit 2. Through Scripture 3. In community 4. Through spiritual guides/teachers 5. Through Sacraments 6. Through devotional practices 7. Through Christian History/Tradition 8. Through the created world, a.k.a. “nature. These seem obvious, but I too often find my self spending my time watching tv or scanning the internet. I hope to focus on these 8 paths more often in the days to come and to care for my soul in the way that God intends.

Growing up in middle America in a suburb of Tulsa, I attended a mainstream United Methodist church. We were fairly involved, attending about every other week. I had a personal faith and a community that loved me unconditionally. I had no experience with a church or personal life that put strict boundaries on what I could do or be due to my gender. As I got older, I began encountering people who had a different view of gender and faith. With the advent of cable, Christian television grew in popularity. As a result, a more fundamental view of Christianity became present in our society. I was shocked to realize that people judged me and my faith harshly and found it wanting.

Fast forward thirty years and we now live in a society where in many arenas women and men are treated equally and given the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities. However, in Oklahoma at least, the debate about women continues. The rise of the idea that a godly woman would reflect the qualities of Proverbs 31. Books and businesses have embraced this with gusto, often distorting the idea until it no longer reflects reality.

Rachel Held Evans grew up in a very fundamental environment. She embraced the lifestyle and community provided by her church life entirely. She provided leadership as appropriate within her tradition and flourished. However, as she grew older and continued to explore her faith, her experiences and education challenged the lifestyle that she had been living. She eventually would grow away from that tradition as she grew towards a new relationship with God. She began to realize that the literal expression of the Bible that she had been taught was actually filtered through the lives and opinions of the church leaders.

In A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Held Evans chronicles the year that she took scripture about women and lived it literally. In doing this she exposes the hypocrisy that is present in the Proverbs 31 culture and challenges others to really look at why they are living the way they do and what the Bible actually says about their lifestyle. Held Evans has faced a great deal of hostility by the Christian community. They follow her blog and other writings with a fervor that borders on obsession. Just waiting for her to say something they disagree with and jumping on her with an intensity that would lead many to flee from Christianity. Having read her previous writings, I looked forward to reading this book and chuckling at her witty insight. I was so disappointed that she was forced to defend her writing on the internet and on television.

I shared this book with a group of women from my church and was so comforted to experience it in a similar way. We all found it educational and enlightening and full of humor. We had honest conversation about what scripture actually says about being a woman and found much common ground. One of the women enjoyed it so much that she is going to present it in a first person book review to other women’s groups this year. I find it slightly troubling that she feels compelled to pick and choose what parts to share in an effort not to offend anyone. I hope that as we grow in our faith, we will be open to reading the scripture ourselves and honestly reflecting on what they mean.

Young adult fiction has recently become a very popular genre. The book store now has an entire section for this genre and a best selling section promoting the most popular sellers. For months I saw the intriguing cover for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children on those shelves. The cover shows a young girl from the 1940’s levitating slightly over the wooded ground. I finally gave in to my curiosity and bought this book and began reading. Ransom Riggs weaves an intriguing adventure of a teenage boy facing his grandfather’s legacy of mystery. His grandfather had told him vivid stories of peculiar children that he knew while growing up in a children’s home during the early days of World War II. The grandfather would leave his home over the years under mysterious and suspicious circumstances. After the grandfather dies a violent death, the boy goes in search of answers. Accompanied by his father, the boy discovers the truth about his grandfather’s childhood and has to make some difficult decisions about his own future.

Riggs develops an entertaining group of children with peculiar talents. This would have been more fun if the impending doom didn’t loom over the story at all times. The open ending promises more to the story. Reading the young adult novel as an older adult reminds me of the time when the future was full of intrigue and promise, as well as uncertainty that can be frightening. Riggs balances the boys story with the story of the children in a way that is believable and intriguing. You cheer for the children to persevere over the circumstances of time and place, all the while suspending the truth of reality.

I just love Florida! The beaches, the salty air, the great food, all fill my soul with something that’s missing back in Oklahoma. Hayley Snow discovered that same love after she relocated to Key West for a man. In An Appetite for Murder Lucy Burdette captures the essence of the Keys. Snow is a bit surprised to find herself unemployed and unloved after her impulsive move. She realizes that she must get busy if she wants to stay in paradise and puts all of her energy into obtaining a job with a start up local magazine. A self professed foodie, she feels she has found her ideal job as a food reviewer. However, circumstances conspire to throw up roadblocks in her path. She gets drawn into a murder mystery that she feels compelled to solve quickly before she has to pay for a crime she didn’t commit. In typical cozy fashion, Snow stumbles upon the answers and narrowly misses harm to herself.

I must admit that the primary draw of this series is the location. Burdette does an excellent job of weaving the island into the plot and making it almost a character itself. As much as Snow wants to stay on the island, I long to return. I relish the fact that there are two more books on my kindle in this series waiting for me to read. A good series, it leaves me hungry for me, just like Snow’s reviews of local eateries.

The first book in a mystery series often spends a lot of time developing the main character and their situation. This tends to make the first book tedious and difficult to get involved with. Barbara Levenson dispenses with this tendency in Fatal February. She jumps right into the Mary Magruder Katz’s life with minimal back story. Immediately Katz’s past life is uprooted and a brand new job and love interest is established. Katz is a criminal defense attorney in Miami and is thrust into the criminal intrigue of her clients and associates. She impulsively jumps into her cases, risking her own security in the process. Her new love interest complicates the entire process. Justice in June continues Katz’s story both personally and professionally. Levenson does a good job of weaving the characters and the plots together with just enough of the unknown to keep the readers involved. Both books were quick and enjoyable reads. I look forward to her next release, Outrageous October.