Review of Go to Sleep (I Miss You), by Lucy Knisley

Humorous, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Go to Sleep

(I Miss You)

Cartoons from the Fog of New Parenthood

by Lucy Knisley

First Second, 2020. 178 pages.
Review written March 29, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

What fun! Lucy Knisley, a noted author/illustrator of graphic memoirs, has had a baby! This book is the result.

My own babies are 32 and 25 years old, but I still couldn’t keep from laughing with recognition as I read this book. She nails the ambivalences of parenthood – all the way from the intoxicating smell of their hair to the desperation when they won’t stop crying.

She covers so much! The trials of nursing, the baby equipment, the inventions we really need, the outfits they go through (ours and theirs), adventures in eating, and so much else.

This might make a fun baby shower gift for a new Mom. Though I’m not sure if you really want to warn them! I am sure that as they’re going through it, the laughter will provide comfort, as will the knowledge that they are not alone.

And for an old mom like me, we get the delight of being reminded of that time with our precious babies – and why it’s also a relief to be done with that time.

lucyknisley.com
firstsecondbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Marriage You Want, by Sheila Wray Gregoire and Dr. Keith Gregoire

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

The Marriage You Want

Moving beyond Stereotypes for a Relationship Built on Scripture, New Data, and Emotional Health

by Sheila Wray Gregoire and Dr. Keith Gregoire

Baker Books, 2025. 239 pages.
Review written July 29, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

Why did I order a book about marriage when I am divorced and not dating anyone? I have appreciated Sheila Wray Gregoire’s writings on Blue Sky and Twitter, and I wanted to hear more. The fact is, I grew up with the “biblical” marriage advice she debunks, and specifically turned to some of the books she critiques when my husband left me and I desperately wanted him back. After reading her articles, I took the unusual step (for me) of taking down my reviews of two books from that era – Love and Respect, by Emerson Eggerichs, and For Women Only, by Shaunti Feldhaun.

So what does this book contain instead? The authors challenge us that the way to determine if marriage advice is good is to look at the fruit – so they did extensive research on what thriving couples have in common.

We wanted to write a book about marriage that was healthy, evidence-based, and Jesus-centered. We wanted to show that data and Jesus can go together! As you read this book, you’ll see results from our various surveys and from other peer-reviewed studies that point to what creates not just a good marriage – but a great marriage.

So yes, this is a Christian book on marriage. But they’re not taking individual verses out of context to twist them to their perspective. They do address stereotypes about marriage that have been clothed in Christian garb and used to tell people this is the only way to do marriage.

Every single chapter shows results from the research to back up their points. I have to add at this point that right away the former Statistics teacher in me saw something I didn’t like – In some of their graphs, they cut out part of the y-axis. This is visually misleading, making a small percentage difference in data seem a lot bigger than it is. They also draw a line between data points where it’s not a linear situation – the x-axis was answers of “Strongly Disagree,” “Disagree,” “Slightly Disagree,” “Slightly Agree,” “Agree,” and “Strongly Agree.” They are not numerically continuous measurements, so a bar graph would be much more appropriate, and connecting the dots – as if there could be a regression line for discrete data – doesn’t really make sense. However, the underlying point of that particular graph was valid. (In this case, the categories were matched to “Relationship Flourishing Score” – and the statement this graph was measuring agreement with was “Men need respect in a way that women can never understand.” Agreeing with that – in men or women – was correlated with lower Relationship Flourishing scores.)

And they do break things out in lots and lots of smaller graphs related to individual questions without such problematic expressions. So that was a quibble from statistics-teacher me.

The framework of the book uses the acronym from their Bare Marriage website: Balance, Affection, Responsibility, and Emotional Connection. Essentially, the message I took away from the book is that marriages thrive when it’s not seen as a hierarchy, but as teamwork. And that included tearing down several beliefs I’d assumed throughout my marriage.

Here’s a section I liked from the Conclusion:

Yes, life is hard. Yes, marriage takes a set of skills that takes time to master. But when you approach your spouse and your marriage with curiosity, and when your spouse does the same, then marriage doesn’t have to be some heavy weight you carry your whole life. Instead, marriage can be the relationship that helps you bear life’s burdens as you run up the hill together. What the data in this book has consistently shown is that when you follow the teamwork approach we’ve shared, marriage becomes something that makes your burdens feel a little lighter, makes your footsteps land a little easier, and makes your smile shine a little brighter.

So often the message we’ve heard in church circles about marriage is that it’s hard, but God wants you to just stick with it regardless. But we want more for you. We don’t want you to just stay in a marriage you hate, we want you to create a marriage you love. And given that Jesus said he came that we might have life to the full, we think he agrees!

This book helps you gain tools to have that thriving marriage you want.

This book has got me thinking maybe dating again could be a good thing….

baremarriage.com
bakerbookhouse.com

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Review of Win-Win Miracles Still Happen, by Cheri Baugh Woods

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Win-Win Miracles Still Happen

by Cheri Baugh Woods

Front Line Book Publishing, 2025. 264 pages.
Review written August 6, 2025, from my own copy, ordered via Amazon.com
Starred Review

Full disclosure first: I consider the author Cheri Woods a friend, via her brother Kevin, who I talked with most weeks at church for years. I was in the group that Kevin asked to pray for Cheri when her life was in danger with leukemia, I picked out verses for Kevin to send to her when she was going through treatment, and later when my niece had leukemia at 3 years old and again at 7 years old, Cheri in turn prayed for her.

So I know how miraculous Cheri’s story is, and I ordered a copy the same day I heard it had been published. And yes, I’m biased, and knew I would enjoy the book.

I’ll be honest – this book is not traditionally published, and although Cheri thanks an editor in the Acknowledgements, the presentation is not as polished as what I’m used to as a librarian. There are occasional mistakes such as quotation marks out of place and some repetitive spots. However, I’m glad that I knew I would want to read Cheri’s full story and overlooked those things – because as soon as I picked it up, I was riveted. Getting a Christian memoir traditionally published is incredibly difficult, so I’m selfishly glad that Cheri didn’t wait for that to happen so I could read her book now.

And I didn’t really know the earlier part of her story – that her first husband turned out to be a bigamist, and her second husband passed away when she was 32 years old. From seeing her journey with cancer, I was not surprised to see her faith shine through in her entire story, as God brought her through all of those hard things.

Here’s how Cheri explains the title in her Introduction:

I am here to declare that my cornerstone remains intact. Through all my circumstances and experiences, I learned to rely on the strength, power, and mercy that God so generously gives each of us through our faith.

I began living a Win-Win life, which meant that no matter what came my way, even if that meant my death, I WIN!

If God chose to keep me here on the earth, I win, because it shows me He still has need of me. My purpose for living is not over, and he has more for me to do for the glory of His kingdom.

If God chose to take me home, I WIN again because to be absent from the body is to be present with the LORD. That is the ultimate win.

My hope is that my life’s events may be an encouragement and an inspiration for you to keep going as you encounter your own struggles and difficulties. I pray that as you read, you will grab hold and tap into God’s energy, his forever-loving lifeline, and begin to live your own Win-Win life.

Reading this book is like hearing from an encouraging friend with strong faith. Her story is amazing – I wouldn’t believe it if someone tried to put it into a novel – and it’s lovely to see how God’s hand has been on her life all along.

Cheri had to retire early from her career as a teacher and school administrator when she got a bone marrow transplant and a new immune system. So let me encourage you to purchase her book – the money will go to someone who can use it and deserves it. It’s not every day that you “meet” someone who’s been through incredible difficulties who has such a sunshiny spirit of God’s love. This book will not only keep you reading, it will bless and inspire you.

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Review of To Hear the Forest Sing, by Margaret Dulaney

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

To Hear the Forest Sing

Some Musings on the Divine

by Margaret Dulaney

Listen Well Publishing, 2016. 229 pages.
Review written July 3, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I always seem to enjoy “Musings” and put a whole category for them on Sonderbooks. But when I’ve finished a book of musings, it’s usually hard to explain why I enjoyed reading them so much. The title of this book hints that there will be plenty about nature, and the subtitle hints that there will be thoughts about faith and about God.

As usual, I think I’ll fall back on giving you a few quotations to give you the flavor. In this book, the essays were originally broadcast on a spoken word website, so each one is separate. But they do present a unified, thoughtful voice.

Here’s a part from the Prologue explaining the title:

Every early teacher who had me in her class – and most of them were very kind and patient – wrote the same comment on my twice-yearly reports: “Margaret is a well-meaning girl, but her head is always out the window.”

“Oh, but it makes so much more sense out there!” I would answer in retrospect now, if I could, “Trees don’t confuse, birds don’t baffle. Give me simple, clear things to learn like the roll of the hills, the turning of the seasons, and I will be as learned as the rest of them. Give me a field, a patch of woodland to read and I will unlock the wisdom of the ages, break the shackles of ignorance! Of course my head is out the window! You have to be in the woods to hear the forest sing!”

I loved this part about making art (both music and writing):

It’s love that propels us to create, not cynicism.

After many years of wrestling with my own frustrations, I have concluded that our gifts are just that, they are gifts. We might possess the power to postpone their use, try and hide from them, but I suspect we only manage to shade ourselves for a time from the intensity of our passions. This love of ours still shines brightly all around, and waits for us with the focused attention of a beloved dog. When we finally step out from under the protection of our denial, our loves will leap and bark and joyously circle us, too long neglected, racing forward and dashing back to us, hurrying us along on our illuminated path….

Perhaps all that this day really requires of us is to step out from under the cover of our resistance, step out and into the warmth of our loves. To say, today I will do this because I love it. I will write what I love, sing what I love, listen to what I love, read what I love, practice what I love, speak what I love.

I will love what there is to love today, and leave the details to a wiser hand.

And here’s a bit about giving and receiving advice.

As I age, I am more drawn to those who speak honestly to me. No matter how bitter the pill, no matter how long it takes to work, I do want this medicine. Give me your truth and allow me to determine whether it is the right remedy for me. Time will reveal its efficacy.

I would rather hear a truth from a friend, and adjust my behavior accordingly, than meet the reactions of cold consequence which could be much more harsh.

Maybe it’s time to turn that old line from the prayer book around to read, “Speak now and try never to hold your peace.” Speak if you must, absolutely. Speak and then step back. Give room. They are God’s to teach, God’s to hold, God’s to heal.

And yes, God is mentioned in this book. I also love this one:

This has me thinking that I might have discovered my next daily prayer. Dear God, please disabuse me of my calcified notions of how you work in this world. Surprise me, please.

Please don’t ever let me think that I am finished.

That should give you an idea of what you’ll find in this book. I enjoyed musing with Margaret Dulaney.

listenwell.org

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Review of The Tears of Things, by Richard Rohr

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Tears of Things

Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage

by Richard Rohr

Convergent Books, 2025. 173 pages.
Review written July 5, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via amazon.com
Starred Review

Richard Rohr has done it again! His latest book helps me see the prophets with new eyes – and see how the themes speak to us today.

Since prophets are looking at injustice and suffering, of course they’re applicable today, and give Richard Rohr gives us insights for approaching those things. I like the way he points out a pattern of growth in the prophets:

My favorite thing about the prophetic books of the Bible is that they show a whole series of people in evolution of their understanding of God. Like most of us, the prophets started not only with judgmentalism and anger but also with a superiority complex of placing themselves above others. Then, in various ways, that outlook falls apart over the course of their writings. They move from that anger and judgmentalism to a reordered awareness in which they become more like God: more patient like God, more forgiving like God, more loving like God.

I love that he points out that God’s abundant love and compassion is found over and over again in the Old Testament, and yes, even in the prophets.

The title of the book comes from a quotation from Virgil, which he expands on in the first chapter:

Prophets and mystics recognize what most of us do not – that all things have tears and all things deserve tears. They know that grief and sadness are doorways to understanding life in a non-egocentric way. Tears come from both awe and empathy, and they generate even deeper awe and deeper empathy in us. The sympathy that wells up when we weep can be life-changing, too, drawing us out of ourselves and into communion with those around us. This is continuously exemplified in the writings that we have received from the Hebrew prophets.

So the prophets begin by looking at what’s wrong with the world. They don’t flinch from the truth of the world. But Rohr emphasizes that they don’t stop there.

By following the prophets’ full journey from anger to sadness and beyond, we can mature in belief, as they had to do themselves. All the prophets started with anger, or even rage, at all the right things: injustice, oppression, deceit, misuse of money, power, even religion itself. But with only a couple exceptions (Nahum and Obadiah, who remained angry), they did not stop there. They were not just reformers; they were also mystics who were captivated by the wholeness and beauty at the heart of reality at the same time as they were confronting injustice. I hope to make those distinctions clear in this book. We miss the point when we confuse prophets with mere liberal humanists.

That gives you an idea of where the author is going with this book. He claims that for a mature prophet, it’s all about God’s unconditional love – and the journey to get us there presents ideas I’d never considered before.

My church went through this book, using it as a springboard for three meetings of “holy conversations.” We didn’t really study the book, but it got us talking to one another in fascinating ways.

I recently finished going through Richard Rohr’s book The Universal Christ with my small group, and we all agree that his books are not light reading, but they’re full of good things. This book is the same. He is a mystic, and his books are filled with mysticism, and my rational mind can’t always keep up. But I do know that I like the way he gets me looking at the world. And I love his affirmations of God’s love – even though the world is full of tears.

cac.org
convergentbooks.com

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Review of A Woman of No Importance, by Sonia Purnell

Audiobooks, Biography, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

A Woman of No Importance

The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

by Sonia Purnell
read by Juliet Stevenson

Books on Tape, 2019. 13 hours, 54 minutes.
Review written July 8, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I wish I remembered what prompted me to put this amazing nonfiction audiobook on hold, because it was a great tip. I don’t do a great job of reading big thick nonfiction tomes, but as an audiobook, it kept my interest all the way.

The author researched one of the most important spies of World War II, Virginia Hall. Yes, she was American, from Baltimore – but most of the time she did her spying for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) before the United States even entered the war.

Not only did Virginia Hall face obstacles and being underestimated and dismissed because she was a woman – she was also disabled, an amputee with a wooden leg. Those things kept her from getting to go far in the U.S. diplomatic corps, so when World War II started, she found work with the SOE.

She was in “free” France under the Vichy government for most of the war, building more and more networks in the Resistance, sending more and more information to the Allies, and helping the cause more and more. She was the sort who wouldn’t let them send her back to safety, even when it became apparent the Germans were figuring out who was causing them so much trouble.

All along the way, she faced frustrations because her assessments and requests weren’t given the weight due her experience – because she was a woman. But still, her expertise and skills made her incredibly effective and helpful for the Allied cause.

The story is riveting – especially the bulk of it where she is working in war-time France. It’s truly amazing how much she accomplished right under the noses of her enemies. This book helped me understand that her many years of service and the wide variety of ways she helped the Allied cause.

soniapurnell.com

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Review of Worth Fighting For, by John Pavlovitz

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Worth Fighting For

Finding Courage and Compassion When Cruelty Is Trending

by John Pavlovitz

Westminster John Knox Press, 2024. 154 pages.
Review written June 10, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I think of John Pavlovitz as someone who comes across as angry. However, even though this book features a picture of boxing gloves, it’s ultimately a book about making compassion our primary characteristic as Christians. And he indeed makes a strong case that this is worth fighting for.

The sections in this book are short, so it made an easy morning read to read one section. I found myself talking about what I’d read with other Christians, especially this passage:

What we believe about faith and God and the afterlife is not as fixed as we often like to think. It is rather an ever-shifting point in space and time. Very likely, you believe quite differently than you did ten years ago in both subtle and substantial ways, and ten years from now the same will almost certainly be true. In this way I like to think of theology as a place – as the specific location where you are right at this moment.

This is important as you interact with others, because it helps you recognize your limitations and potential. You cannot make someone be where you are. It’s not your job or your right to forcibly pull someone to your faith perspective, to make them see as you see or agree to the givens you’ve established in your mind. Your responsibility is to openly describe the view from where you stand and hope that something in that is helpful or encouraging or challenging to people. I never feel I need to convince someone to believe what I believe, only to let them know where I am and ask them to meet me there in relationship.

I love that perspective, because I hadn’t stopped to think about it, but, yes, my beliefs are quite different than they were ten years ago, in many ways. I think sometimes we feel like we’ve seen the light and been set straight in one particular area – so we want to set everyone else straight, too. But why would someone else have to follow the same path as me? John Pavlovitz comes at faith with a deep respect for each person’s journey with God – even of those who berate him.

Yes, John Pavlovitz often comes across as angry, but that seems to be coming from a place of compassion, for those who try to exclude others from the table.

He doesn’t pretend that it’s easy to be inclusive and welcoming. But compassion is worth fighting for.

Love is still the greatest weapon we have in the face of fear. It is still the antidote to all that afflicts us. No, opposing hatred isn’t hateful. Opposing hatred is how we embody love.

And he’s absolutely right that hatred and exclusion are becoming more and more common in our society. In the chapter “The Future We Want,” he includes a section on “The America Worth Fighting For” and encourages us to help make a future America that stands against white supremacy and defends the vulnerable. He encourages us all to use our own abilities to do what we can to make a better future.

Affirm life, speak truth, defend the vulnerable, call out injustices – and gladly brave the criticisms and the wounds you sustain in doing it, knowing that they are a small price to pay for the nation that could be if you speak – or the one that will be if you do not.

So that gives you an idea of what you’ll find in this book – encouragement to stand up and be more compassionate. Here’s another passage I marked:

Compassion is what defines the community we feel called into.

In this shared desire to care for one another and for this planet, we who are a disparate assembly find an affinity that transcends the other boxes. It is the bigger table we are building, the expansive community we are forming.

And this is the side we choose regardless of the other boxes: the side of empathy and equality and benevolence and diversity. These don’t come with a prerequisite doctrinal statement or political affiliation, nor with any condition regarding race or orientation or pigmentation. No group has a market cornered on such selflessness and decency.

The powerful thread knitting together this new chosen family in these days is humanity that gives a damn about other humanity. This is the place where like-hearted people can all find belonging and live fully and heal wounds and fix broken things.

And this compassionate coalition of those who give a damn is what will save the world.

johnpavlovitz.com

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Review of Everything Is Tuberculosis, by John Green

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Everything Is Tuberculosis

The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

by John Green

Crash Course Books (Penguin Random House), 2025. 198 pages.
Review written June 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

I am a fan of John Green’s turning to writing nonfiction. He thinks long and hard about so many aspects of his topic. The catch is that it’s hard to decide where to put this review. History? It’s full of that, but I put most adult History nonfiction in “True Stories” – which it also has. Musings? There’s plenty of thinking about what tuberculosis means to us humans and how things got that way. But I think I’ll settle for “Current Issues” – because ultimately the whole book shows us that we can choose to fight tuberculosis – or let it mutate and get more drug resistant and increase the number of people it kills every year.

I was a little bit familiar with the problem of drug-resistant tuberculosis spreading in poor communities because of having read Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, an amazing book that John Green refers to multiple times. This book is in that tradition – but honestly more readable and digestible. My theory is that John Green being a young adult novelist first is how that happened. The result is a compelling history of tuberculosis and humans’ relationship with it in a book that never lags.

John Green goes back in history – tuberculosis has plagued humans for thousands of years and has killed more people than any other disease – and shows us how attitudes toward the disease have changed, and tells us about the quest for a cure. Along the way, he interweaves the story of Henry, a teen in Sierra Leone who had been suffering from tuberculosis for years.

And yes, the story of tuberculosis is the story of prejudice. In years before the cure, many believed that non-white people didn’t get tuberculosis.

In Europe and the U.S., most white doctors believed that phthisis – as it was inherited by those with great sensitivity and intelligence – could only affect white people, and it was sometimes known as “The White Man’s Plague.” One American doctor, for instance, called it, “a disease of the master race not of the slave race.”. . .

Acknowledging that consumption was common among enslaved, colonized, and marginalized people would have undermined not just a theory of disease, but also the project of colonialism itself.

Now, though, tuberculosis is much more of a problem where there is poverty. Inflated drug prices keep poorer countries from using the most effective medication – which results in more drug resistant strains of tuberculosis, and may one day be everyone’s undoing.

My summary, though, isn’t nearly as interesting as John Green’s narratives, showing how everything is interrelated, and how tuberculosis has affected every aspect of human civilization. In the present, millions still die from tuberculosis every year – even though we have effective cures. This book explores all the sides of why that happens and gives us ideas for helping to stop it and eradicate TB once and for all.

johngreenbooks.com
tbfighters.org
youtube.com/@Tuberculosis-l1jSurvivorHenry

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Review of March Sisters, by Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

March Sisters

On Life, Death, and Little Women

by Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley

Library of America, 2019. 182 pages.
Review written November 2, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is a collection of four essays by four distinguished authors about Little Women. Each author focused on a different one of the March sisters. Kate Bolick wrote “Meg’s Frock Shock”; Jenny Zhang wrote “Does Genius Burn, Jo?”; Carmen Maria Machado wrote “A Dear and Nothing Else”; and Jane Smiley wrote “I am Your ‘Prudent Amy.’”

I loved this collection. Mind you, I read Little Women enough times in my youth to understand every single reference, no matter how obscure. Every single quote brought recognition. I’ve read a lot about Louisa May Alcott’s family and knew about the originals of each sister as well.

So for someone well-steeped in everything about Little Women, this book was a delight – delving deeply into psychological ramifications of details in the text, complete with references to the essay authors’ lives as well as references to Louisa May Alcott’s life.

Honestly? I’d never given this much thought to the other sisters – I was all about Jo. I was fascinated and captivated to think about the lives presented here with adult eyes, and through the lenses of the essayists.

I must recommend this book to my own sister. (One Christmas the two of us received an entire set of Louisa May Alcott’s books, split between us.) Anyone who has ever read and loved Little Women, take note!

loa.org

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Review of Logicomix, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou

Graphic Novel, Mathematical, Nonfiction Review 0

Logicomix

An Epic Search for Truth

by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou
art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna

Bloomsbury, 2009. 344 pages.
Review written May 12, 2025, from a library book.

Logicomix is a graphic novel fictionalized biography of Bertram Russell – but complete with a detailed explanation of the quest for a logically consistent foundation of mathematics – culminating in Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem.

As an undergraduate math major and a graduate student in math, I had a general idea of all this, and reading it now, I appreciated the specifics and the introduction to the people (all white men) who worked on those foundations. Something about having it all laid out in a graphic novel helped me understand the people and their quest and the interactions.

The story isn’t necessarily a pretty one. Russell had four wives, and the first one was given a “rest cure” after she realized he was falling in love with his best friend’s wife. I’m not sure I appreciated all the talk of mathematicians, or at least logicians, being prone to insanity, nor the dismissal of the children of logicians who had schizophrenia. But these were real people’s lives and that shows they didn’t clean it up for the twenty-first century.

So I do think those who will find the book most interesting are those who are interested in the quest for a provable foundation of mathematics – and how that quest was stymied. But I am one of those people, and I enjoyed this book.

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