The previous year, I had read 26 books, but as 2013 began, I was in the middle of an unexpected divorce, changes were on the horizon, and I needed a new way to find my way. And so I read, and read, and read, and the words and stories carried me both into the depths of myself and into beautiful new imaginations for my soul.
Many of the books I read were memoirs -- stories of challenge and survival, loss and new life, the unexpected and the blessed-ed unexpected.
Ever the over-achiever, I was not content when I finished my quest a month early. With four weeks left in the year, I read four more books in December. So here they are my "56 Books in 52 Weeks."
Most of them, I would read again. Many of them, you may enjoy. Because of that, look for reflections on at least some of them in the weeks to come.
2013 was the year of reading for me. Perhaps 2014 will become the year of writing.
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Becoming
Odyssa: Epic Adventures on the Appalachian Trail, by Jennifer Pharr Davis
Blueberry
Summers: Growing Up at the Lake, by
Curtiss Anderson
Breathwalk:
Breathing Your Way to a Revitalized Body, Mind, and Spirit, by Gurucharan
Singh Khalsa
The
Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin
A
Dog for All Seasons: A Memoir, by
Patti Sherlock
Dog
Years: A Memoir, by Mark Doty
Dogs
of Bedlam Farm, by Jon Katz
Following
Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary
Friendship, by Tom Ryan
The
Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition, by Doreen Carvajal
The
Freedom Writer’s Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change
Themselves and the World Around Them, The Freedom Writer’s Diary: How a Teacher
and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them, by The Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell
Fumbling:
A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino De
Santiago, by Kerry Egan
Going
Nuts!, by David W. Jones
The
Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life, by Jasmin Darznik
The
Good, Good Pig, by Sy Montgomery
The
Great Northern Express: A Writer’s Journey Home, by Howard Frank Mosher
Half
a Life, by Darin Strauss
Healing Walks for Hard Times, by Carolyn Scott Kortge
Heart
in the Right Place, by Carolyn
Jourdan
Home
by Another Way, by Barbara Brown
Taylor
I
Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust, by Livia Bitton-Jackson
An
Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-old panhandler, a busy sales
executive and an unlikely meeting with destiny, by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski
Learning
to Breathe: One Woman’s Journey of Spirit and Survival, by Alison Wright
The
Little Bookstore of Bigstone Gap: a memoir of friendship, community, and the
uncommon pleasure of a good book, by
Wendy Welch
The
Long-Shining Waters, by Danielle
Sosin
Mrs.
Lincoln’s Dressmaker, by Jennifer
Chiaverini
Not
Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs, edited by Rachel Ferschleiser and Larry Smith
Off
Balance, by Dominique Moceanu
Open
Secrets, by Alice Munro
Orange
is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, by Piper Kerman
Pastrix:
The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, by Nadia Bolz-Weber
The
Pilgrimage: A Contemporary Quest for Ancient Wisdom, by Paulo Coelho
The
Practice of Saying No, by Barbara
Brown Taylor
Prairie
Silence: A Memoir, by Melanie Hoffert
Running
with Champions: A Midlife Journey on the Iditarod Trail, by Lisa Frederic
Second
Wind: One Woman’s Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents, by Cami Ostman
The
Secret Life of Objects, by Dawn
Raffel
Sheepish:
Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet, by Catherine Friend
Shepherds of Coyote Rocks: Public Lands, Private Herds, and the Natural World, by Cat Urbigkit
The
Sound of a Wild Snail Eating” A True Story, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
The
Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel
Simon
Storycatcher:
Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story by Christina Baldwin
Summoning
the Mountains: Pilgrimage into Forty,
by Amy Allen
Tell
Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life, edited by Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May
Three
Among Wolves: A Couple and their Dog Live a Year with Wolves in the Wild, by Helen Thayer
Two
Feet, Four Paws: Walking the Coastline of Britain, by Spud Talbot-Ponsonby
Unicorns
of Balinor: Night of the Shifter’s Moon,
by Mary Stanton
Unicorns
of Balinor: Shadows Over Balinor, by
Mary Stanton
The
Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by
Rachel Joyce
Walking
the Gobi: A 1600 Mile Trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair, by Helen Thayer
Walking
Through Cancer, by Elyn Aviva
Wesley
the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl, by Stacey O’Brien
Why
Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?, by Brian D. McLaren
Wild:
From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed
With
Violets, by Elizabeth Robards
Without
a Map: A Memoir, by Meredith Hall
Y,
by Marjorie Celona
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