Like old friends…

There are some books that come to you at a time of your life, almost as if invited, almost as if you need their visit, just then, that day, when you sink down in the couch or the bed and wrap the words around you like a blanket, and the characters come to you in conversation and share their hearts with you, and you leave the book better for it. You remember why you love, why you laugh, why you hope, why you grieve, why you pray, and you leave the book resolved to do more of all of it. You are forever changed by those pages, and upon finding them on the shelf, you greet the characters as old and dearest friends. So it is with this book. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. It is an absolutely luminous, beautiful book. And yet, it is the stuff of earth, the stuff of sorrow, too. Mr. Berry uses words with economy and deft grace. Perhaps it is near and dear to my heart because I live in these high hills where farms fall from grace to disrepair and are lost to memory, but now I have heard the memory of one, and I will never forget it.  Absolutely five stars.