What’s on the Flock’s Bedside Table?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to introduce you all to the goodness that is the community over at Flock: a nesting place for restless souls. Joining an online community when it is just starting is a rare opportunity.  Getting in on the ground floor means you have time to get to know each other, and you don’t get lost in the crowd.

I long to show you more of the good things that are going on in the Flock, but I’m trying to balance privacy with my boundless compulsion to sing Flock’s good praises. (It really is very cool over there.) For instance, just today Karen Mori Bonner, one of our liscensed therapists, came by to help us understand the symbols in our recurring dreams. It was just fascinating! Oh, I wish you would join us there!

Flock needs to be a place of safety and security, so I can’t go about pell-mell letting the whole internet in on the discussions that go on there. People need a little privacy to tell their stories. But suffice it to say, what’s going down in the Flock  is good stuff!

I am trying to think of ways to let you in sideways a little, and you can learn a lot from people by what they read. So today I am sharing with you some of the intriguing books that Flock members have on their bedside table. There are A LOT of good ones, so I’ll start with just three novels today. May you find a book to companion you on your journey — and may you join us in the Flockso we can be your withmates as well.

Much Warmth,

-Rachelle

Sing Them Home: A Novel
This is a new novel from Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken for You, which was a formative novel for me in my process of deconstructing/reconstructing faith. (See this postfrom 2005 to see what I started breaking.) Now Kallos is back and Publisher Weekly says: “This novel will find a welcome audience in anyone who has experienced grief, struggled with family ties or, most importantly, appreciates blossoming talent.”

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett. This debut novel is about a white woman gathering stories from the black women that served in their upper crust households in the early 1960’s. Again from Publisher Weekly: “What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel…set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver… Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.” (This one was raved about by more than one Flock reader!)

Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel 
Oh, thank God Audrey Niffengger is writing again! I adored The Time Traveler’s Wife. It remains one of my all time favorite novels. And her incredible The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel is a favorite art piece of mine. (It was ten years in the making!) Now Niffenger is back with another haunting tale, as described by Amazon reviews:  “The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London, eager to try on a new experience like one of their obsessively matched outfits. I am SO buying this the next time I am in an English booksellers!

Stay tuned for more recommendations from the Flock bedside table. Sign up on my mailing list, or follow me on Twitter and you won’t miss a single post. Thanks for being here!

Posted in Magpie Girl
Tags: books, magpie suggests |