book – Page 7 – watercress words by Dr Aletha

Isaiah 61:1-4 ESV

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

book All the Pretty Things — All the Pretty Things by Edie Wadsworth

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;

that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”

In All the Pretty Things, Edie Rudder Wadsworth explores the “heart of health” by telling

“the story of a Southern girl who went through fire to find her way home.”

Edie is a medical doctor who escaped poverty, a dysfunctional family, physical and emotional abuse only to find that wasn’t enough to cure the pain in her heart. In this memoir, she explains how she searched to find relief and to bring peace, hope and wholeness to her heart and her family.

“We have been snatched out of the fire of our brokenness in order to serve and love and bless the dear ones God has placed right in front of our eyes, the ones who need our very meager gifts and offerings the most-

the fatherless, the misfits, the prostitutes, the jailbirds-

and all those whose despair has rendered them hopeless.”

(By joining the book launch team, I received a free PDF copy of the book to review )

All the Pretty Things is available at Tyndale Publishers

You can earn points for free Tyndale books at this link.

Weekend words – sharing words of faith, hope and love from the Bible and other carefully selected sources.

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I read the Parade magazine in my Sunday newspaper regularly (see previous post). To celebrate 75 years of publication, the editors commissioned author Ann Patchett to create a list of “The 75 Best Books of the Past 75 Years” .

As Ms. Patchett explained, she enlisted the help of the staff at Parnassus Books, a bookstore she owns in Nashville Tennessee. They limited their consideration to books written in English. She calls the list a “mash-up that exemplifies the passionate convictions of 17 booksellers.”

Many of the books of the list are unfamiliar to me, but I recognized some well known classics like

Charlotte’s Web

The Old Man and the Sea

Fahrenheit 451

A Wrinkle in Time (a personal favorite of mine)

Where the Wild Things Are

To Kill a Mockingbird, and

the Harry Potter series.

Although many books deal with birth and/or death to some extent, I searched the list for ones with a definite medical connection or theme that ran through most if not all of the book. I’m sharing those with you here.(There might be others, these seemed most obvious to me) . They are listed in chronological order by publication dates.

Caution: Most of these discuss adult themes and issues which may not be appropriate for children or adolescents without adult guidance.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

This is a novel about a woman with depression but is considered semi-autobiographical. The author , Sylvia Plath, a poet, suffered from depression and died by suicide not long after publishing this book, her only novel. It was also made into a film.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey.

This may be more familiar to you as the same titled movie which won five major Academy Awards, including Best Actor Jack Nicholson and Best Actress Louise Fletcher.

The novel’s events take place in a psychiatric hospital and examines the treatment and mistreatment of patients in such facilities.

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James D. Watson, PhD.

the double helix molecule of DNA — used courtesy of skeeze on Pixabay

As the name implies, Dr. Watson wrote about his and Francis Crick’s discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The book mostly ignored the contributions of Rosalind Franklin, who also worked on DNA, earning it criticism for this.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Described as a young adult novel, it relates the story of a female high school student who sinks into depression after being raped, which she is afraid to report to anyone.