Finding my mother again
Relentless By Lisa Tamati, Ocean Reeve Publishing, $35 .. .. .. .. .. ..
Lisa Tamati knows all about carrying on despite everything. She’s an extreme endurance athlete, one of those nutty people who runs 200km through the Gobi Desert. She also writes books and does podcasts and documentaries about endurance sport.
When her mum, Isobel, then 74, collapsed with an aneurism and stroke in 2016, Lisa took charge of returning her to health when everyone told her that even if she survived, she would be very compromised.
It’s due to her perseverance that her mother four years later is a fully functioning person, able to drive and make her own decisions. This is her daughter’s story.
It was a very hard road and the prognosis was bad. Isobel wouldn’t be able to walk, and her mental capacity was less than a severe dementia patient. Lisa fought a medical system with limitations, determined to get her mother back.
There’s plenty about treatments, the set-backs and despair, and the hope and insights. Lisa also talks about her own distance runs as well the principles of her mindset.
Her mother’s recovery is testament to her tenacity. What’s missing is her mother’s voice. I would have liked to hear from her about what her wishes were.
This is really only her daughter’s story.
— Linda Thompson
Did Jesus have a wife? It’s an intriguing question that has fired imaginations since the crucifixion — although the church’s stance seems to be a very definite no — but Sue Monk Kidd says yes, he did.
She then goes on to imagine who she was and how Jesus’ life was when he was with her. Her name was Ana and she was the daughter of a wealthy man who worked in the court of Herod Antipas — he of John the Baptist beheading fame.
She fell in love with the Messiah before he began his ministry. Her betrothal to the loathsome but wealthy landowner Nathaniel ben Nananiah, a wealthy landowner, gives Monk Kidd the opportunity to explain some of the traditions around marriage and the treatment of women as mere chattels. (Ana is only 14.)
The city in which Ana lives is afflicted by a “fever sickness” and the “entire city was closed up tight as a fist”. The end result is that Nathaniel dies and Ana instead marries Jesus, travelling with him to his family compound in Nazareth. She makes it her mission to record the lives of the Biblical women — despite writing being banned for women.
I’m not convinced the women of Ana’s era spent as much time bemoaning their lot wishing they had the kinds of freedoms we take for granted today.
Does it work? Mostly. There’s
Last Writes: A personal journal for final wishes, closing reflections and your last legacy By Rebecca Zwister and Penny Tucker, Last Writes, $39.99 .. .. .. .. .. ..
What a good idea — a book in which you can write all the things you want your loved ones to know when you die.
It sounds a bit morbid, but actually it’s sensible. I’ve recently navigated a sudden death, and it would have been so helpful to have this information to hand when I needed it. You’re blundering around making something thrilling seeing characters and places met elsewhere (even if that was Sunday School) and getting an idea of their possible backstory.
Readers will recognise the wicked Herod, the dancing Salome, the disciples, Mary, and will understand why Lazarus looks so much healthier later in the story. Religious belief is not necessary to enjoy Longings, but an open-mindedness and interest in a 2000-year-old story that has continued to resonate is. momentous decisions when you’re not in your right mind, having no idea what your loved one would have wanted.
This little book would have helped. So think about it now. What would you want to happen after you die? Wouldn’t you want your family to know your thoughts and memories?
The sections include “my life and legacy” — what you’d like to be
Monk Kidd researched her book for four years and gives flesh to figures who dwelt in the shadows of the historical and religious background of the time. She has taken actual historical events, reimagined them and built a realistic narrative around them.
But Monk Kidd’s ultimate goal is to give voice to women, too often silenced in history. They are often unnamed, their stories given barely a glancing mention, if at all; their roles undervalued and undermined. In a detailed author’s note, she cites Thunder: Perfect Mind, an ancient text dug up from a graveyard near the Nile in 1945. Warning: googling this will lead you down an internet rabbit hole of ancient texts and Jewish sects. I’d heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, found about the same time, but not Thunder: Perfect Mind, an ode to the femininity of God. Which kind of proves Monk Kidd’s point: women have been silenced for too long. remembered for, life lessons, the people you have loved, achievements, books you’ve loved. Include treasured memories, family and friends and stories.
And the practical things — who to contact immediately, what you want to happen, what sort of ceremony or funeral you’d like, what should happen to your ashes, what to do with belongings, pets and other items.
This is a useful book with some occasionally irreverent and funny directions.
Everyone should have a copy.
— Linda Thompson
My Mini Could Tow That By Don and Marilyn Jesson, Bateman Books, $39.99 (Hardback) .. .. .. .. .. ..
This is a beautifully presented book of a collection of miniature vintage and classic caravans otherwise known as tinies and teardrops.
Readers get the privilege of looking inside these beautifully designed compact spaces and reading about how the owners had found them and in most cases lovingly restored them.
I loved the 1963 Liteweight Silver Mist 11 foot four inch and the 1960 Pixie 10 foot.
This is a book to pick, browse through and enjoy stepping seeing the end result of a lot of hard work.
— Linda Hall
Happy Ever After By C.C. McDonald, Penguin Random House, $37
Such a nice family. Naomi has a lovely wee daughter, a nice house being turned into a mansion, a husband.
But while she seems to have everything, Naomi and her husband are drifting apart. The usual stuff – baby demands, no sleep, money concerns, his job, his depression, their failed attempts to have another child.
Naomi has met another parent at day care, and he’s hot. So she does the stupid thing, at the pool where their kids learn to swim, (which is even stupider).
After that, the hot dad disappears and she thinks she’s off the hook for her regrettable act. But her life begins to fall apart and there’s obviously someone who knows what she did and won’t let her forget.
This is well written and very readable, but the characters are not likable, and Naomi seems to be a self obsessed idiot. An excellent lightweight story with several plot shifts. — Linda Thompson