Tag Archives: Titles

art, Books

Political Intrigue For Children

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Brooklyn, NY: Beatrice. 2019

The words Child and Machiavelli aren’t usually found in the same sentence, but Claudia Hart put them together. Inside are wonderfully old fashioned illustrations that accompany political advice such as You gotta be tough. People won’t really like you but they’re probably only your friends ‘cos they think they can get something off you anyway and People who cheat are always more successful than people who are always honest. Such advice isn’t part of typical parenting, at least not overtly, but I wonder how often similar messages are received during childhood.

Machiavelli isn’t a great resource for nurturing the spirits of the young and impressionable, in a typical form or this cheeky one. But that’s why it’s so gripping. I think it conveys a truth, this coming together of lessons in power and nursery illustrations:

Only the spiritually immature offer such advice, and only the spiritually stunted would waste a life putting it into practice.

Books, Meditation, observation

Sounds Like What It Is

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Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2018

Chomp. Flush. Hoot -Onomatopoetic titles all. Carl Hiaasen’s titles are sound tracks for the stories they front. Full of humor, life in Florida, and the courageous young vanquishing the crooked old, they are quirky tales of hope and working for something larger than personal gain. But the word squirm induces the action in a way that the others don’t.

What makes me squirm isn’t a snake, although snakes play a major part of the plot. It’s not an upcoming test or the high expectations of others. It’s likely to be something I’ve done that’s come to light, something I’d rather others not know – and what I do when confronted with it. It’s hard to sit still, hard to stay put when I’d rather slide out of my chair and sneak out of the room. It’s what I do when I’d rather not admit to my own failing. I squirm when the smallness of my actions breaks through the carefully crafted inflated persona I offer the world. That deflation that reveals my true self makes me squirm.

When I get squirmy in my spiritual life, it’s a sure sign that I’m trying to present a false face to God. Like a child, I do my best to wriggle out of the encounter. But when I stop squirming, when I drop back into my true self, I learn the truth that’s so simple and so hard to keep hold of: that false face, that public persona – it’s too small to contain the image of God which is who I really, truly am.

And it’s too small for who you really, truly are as well.

[This is one in a series. For more information, click Title Search above…]

Meditation, observation

Asphalt Thinking

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Penguin Press, New York, 2023

It’s a famous line from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot. Behind the title, you’ll find pictures of city streets full of cars and empty of people, stories of murder over parking spaces, and the headaches parking codes create for building lower income housing or repurposing abandoned buildings for inner city housing. I finished Henry Grabar’s book over a year ago and it still haunts me every time I see acres of asphalt surrounding empty malls. I doubt I’d have thought much about it if I hadn’t been captivated by the title.

For most of my adult life, and now, I’ve owned a car – and I’ve lived within walking distance of almost everything I need to live. I’m planning on retiring in such a place as well, making it easier to give up driving when I’m no longer capable of doing it safely. I’ll lose a bit of freedom to remain independent post-driver’s license. I’ll have to plan around train and bus schedules rather than drive whenever it suits me. I’ll need sturdy shoes and outerwear for walking around in inclement weather.

I won’t have as many choices. I’ll have to limit my groceries to what fits in my wheeled cart. I’ll end up waiting at train stations and bus stops, and I’ll have to accept things running behind schedule with as much grace as I can muster. Such a life may not be paradise, but it just might be a dream come true.

[This is one in a series. For more information, click Title Search above.]

Books

A Few Magical Words

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Captivating Titles

I was pulling books off the shelf Monday, part of Fall cleaning, when I ran across these six books. Two were gifts, two part of a series I found at the library, one purchased for my son a decade ago, and the remaining one required reading for a preaching class. Each one captivated me with their titles. Genre didn’t matter, age of intended audience beside the point: something in me had to walk through the words to see what was hidden beyond and behind them.

I still wonder why I was so drawn to the titles – enough to take a deeper dive into the titles themselves. How can a scant few words work such magic? Perhaps you’ve had that same experience. As we move toward Halloween, perhaps you’d be willing to share with me the titles that worked their magic on you…

[This begins the series. For more on this, click Title Search above…]