Nora Seed decides that she doesn’t want to live anymore when she tires of constantly facing the regrets of her life. After she attempts to end her life, she’s stuck in a sort of in-between: a never ending library that’s full of alternative choices for her life. With the guidance of Mrs. Elm, her high school librarian turned Midnight Librarian, Nora searches for the one life she could have lived in and found happiness. I can’t say that I loved this book because I found it quite predictable. I nearly gave up on it halfway through, but decided to keep going with the hopes that it might surprise me. It didn’t. BUT! It offers a wonderful perspective about the lives we currently live and how much hope we can all continue to carry, no matter how dark our lives might seem. And we all need that reminder right now.

This was the first collection of poems by Mary Oliver that I’ve read and am now captivated. It’s a slim volume and completely approachable for us lay poetry people. I don’t understand form or how poems are built at all, but I still felt like I got enough out of these poems to feel a connection with the world around me. Here’s a snippet from Woodshed, in which she talks about the work spent keeping wood ready for the fire:

This is how it is,
year after year –
everything put by,
nothing kept,

everything used up.
And that, as much as anything,
is the wonder of it,
I say philosophically —

how it all
gathers and vanishes,
how it all
goes up in smoke.

“There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over any encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it."

This journal covers a year in the life of the poet May Sarton in the early 70s. She is living in the tiny village of Nelson, New Hampshire, along with Punch the parrot and various friends and neighbors who visit occasionally. Her journal focuses on finding time to write poetry and spending time in her garden. Almost every single entry includes an update on the fickle New Hampshire weather and the flowers she has displayed throughout her home. I loved this and made about a million (okay, more like 33) Kindle highlights, which you can read here.