A dear friend sent me these photos of someone reading my book on the beach in Mexico.

This book really exceeded my expectations. It was the last in a pile of books I got from my mom as she cleaned out her bookshelves before a cross-country move, and our interests don’t always overlap so some of them have been not quite my cup of tea.

From the cover and back-of-the-book copy, I thought this might be kind of sentimental and horrible, but this memoir of a Washington DC lawyer’s return to her Appalachian hometown to work as the receptionist in her father’s rural medical practice was entertaining, funny, and full of compassion.

I don’t usually go in for “heartwarming” but this book has a lovely perspective on what it means to live as humans in community with each other, as well as a keen sense of the ridiculous. Hard to put down, easy to get caught up in.

It was also an interesting thing to read in the midst of the health care discussions going on in the U.S right now.

Review by Julia Silge on GoodReads.com

Real love can never be “unrequited” because real love does not envision any quid pro quo. Thus any aura of sadness or failure around the love life of an old maid is a misperception.

Partisanship is a tragedy.
Half the United States being divided against the other half with both sides calling each other mean names is a tragedy.
The loss of trust in each other’s good intentions is a tragedy.
The refusal to love and make a selfless gesture toward the middle is a tragedy.
“And one who understands the nature of tragedy can never take sides.”
From Will Campbell’s “Brother to a Dragonfly”

An amazing group of women! Kathy Roach Leveille, Sue Hensley, Barbara Oran, Sue Watson, Linda McRae Price, Ann Story Williams, Myrna Roach (instigator of the event, trying to hide), Carolyn Jourdan, Jacki Kirk, Linda Parks, Glenda Newton, Betty Sewell (we invaded Betty’s beautiful house), Carol Mohney.

Had a great time with these ladies from Kingston: Roberta Rhyne, Edde, Marilyn, Rae, Ella, Harriet, Jo, Becky, Mary Elise, Katy, Leila, Bonnie, Ruth Ann, and Jean. (They weren’t all able to squeeze into this photo unfortunately.)