Book Chatter

Sunday Matters

This week was pretty good. The weather was better. When you are stuck in the house, just looking out a window and seeing blue skies is comforting.

Blue sky

Right Now:

Online church. It will be so good once we can all actually be in the building together. I am meeting with my high school group later in Zoom, too.

For the rest of the afternoon, cleaning out the garage. It’s become a dumping zone for everything not wanted. I don’t mind cleaning and organizing. I find it oddly soothing.

This Week:

More. Of. The. Same. As you can imagine. Work, M-F.

Going to try to work a couple of books in. I am once again in the mood to read.

I want to paint something in my Bible. I’ve not tried it before but I just want something pretty on the inside cover. The only supplies I have are watercolors so if I use very little water perhaps it could work.

Reading:

I am reading Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game. I also have a copy of The Glass Hotel which is getting a lot of attention right now. I may read that one next. Okay, I lied. I just checked and I do not have that one. I seriously thought I did. Darn. Oh well, I have plenty of review copies to read and my friend has been asking me to read Small Great Things. Perhaps, now is the time.

Watching:

I watched the bonus Tiger King episode. Waste of time. My husband also wanted to watch the TMZ special and that was not horrible but provided no new info.

Turner Classic Movies has a bunch of good movies coming on soon so I recorded a few that I’ve always wanted to see like The Lady Vanishes.

New Things I’ve Tried:

I tried a new turkey meat loaf recipe because ground beef or sirloin is a rarity where I am. This meat loaf was delicious and easy and everyone ate it, even my kids who are not usually fans of meat loaf. I made a double batch so I could have some sandwiches later.

Grateful for:

Every single worker on the front lines
Better weather
Kind gestures

Is everyone okay? Everyone healthy? I have some friends who have relatives who are sick or have been sick but they all seem to be improving. Thank you, God.

Just Mercy
By Bryan Stevenson
Spiegel & Grau, 9780812984965, August 2015, 368pp.

The Short of It:

Haven’t seen the movie yet but the book will be one that I remember for a long, long time.

The Rest of It:

A long time ago, I was listening to a podcast and one of the people being interviewed mentioned Just Mercy as a book she would never forget. I immediately made a note to read it and then decided to pitch it for my book club to discuss. But then there was a school shooting and the meeting had to be rescheduled. Sad, but true.

So it should come as no surprise that Just Mercy is scheduled for this month’s discussion, right smack in the middle of a pandemic. I knew enough about the book to know that the topic is a heavy one. Bryan Stevenson’s fight to address Capital Punishment and how it affects minorities, the poverty stricken, and even young children, did not seem like a topic I could handle during quarantine but I didn’t want to postpone the discussion again so I dug in.

Very glad I did.

This is a book that everyone needs to read. Young, old, in school, out of school. I was expecting a very depressing read but this memoir, to my surprise, was not depressing at all. I found it to be full of hope. Stevenson’s passion for his clients and the way he often went above and beyond what is expected of a lawyer lifted me up in a way that I wasn’t expecting. Honestly, Stevenson is a form of superhero I can get behind. He is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and even that sounds formidable and it is.

His memoir covers many cases and challenges but centers around one particular client, Walter McMillan. McMillian had a solid alibi for his whereabouts the day a young woman was killed but it didn’t matter because the town needed a suspect and so the accusations stacked against Walter. How? Corruption, racism, people not wanting to be wrong.

When they say some people wear capes, I agree. Some do. Checkout Stevenson’s TED Talk and you’ll see what I mean.