“Torch,” Cheryl Strayed
If you know anything about Cheryl Strayed, it’s that they made that movie based off of her memoir about how she hiked the trail that stretches from Mexico up to Washington. Ringing a bell? So before she was famous for that movie and memoir, she wrote this book, a semi-autobiographical novel about a family in Montana that loses their mother to cancer, and the consequential breakdown of that family. Like I said, for anyone who knows anything about Strayed, this book will ring familiar, as her own family life can be seen straight through it. And she does say that, in the forward, it is based off true events but the characters etc etc are all fiction. It’s a compelling novel; but I suggest you read it before you read Wild or see the movie (probably too late for that!) because if not, you’ll be thinking about Strayed’s life the whole time, like I did.
“Gift From the Sea,” Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Wow. This is a tiny volume that is jam packed with tidbits of advice for women on how to remain independent and happy while living in a world that is selfish and that only takes, takes, takes. Although it was originally written in the 1950s, the large majority (90%) of her advice still rings true today. She sets up her quest: “…how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery.” And her advice has a lot to do with Bolick’s advice in Spinster: solitude. Making time for one’s self. Another of my favorites is to shed “hypocrisy in human relationships”. “I must try to be alone for part of each year, even a week or a few days; and for part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes in order to keep my core, my center,” she says. With references to Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and quips about the toxicity of society (without ever using the word society), Lindbergh’s short but insightful book is still a must read for any woman trying to survive in today’s world.