P2YL | 34. Seven books for a slow season
'Good books for a bad day'
Books have always been my go-to guide and companion for making my life that little bit better, and never was this more true than during midlife separation and divorce.
Books were like packages of hope containing motivation and comfort, leading the way through and out of that lonely valley.
Time-tested books
Today, I’m contentedly remarried, feeling safe and secure, leading a satisfying life. And I’m grateful every day for this though I recognise the nature of life is uncertainty and change.
The books I describe here were part of the route to happier times. They are still on my shelves like old friends to be dipped into with affection and appreciation.
I make no apology for the fact most of them are quite a few years old. Time is the judge of a good book and these have proved themselves.
You Can Start All Over: A Guide for the Widow and Divorcée
by Marjorie Hillis Roulston. Out-of-print. Second-hand copies online at BookFinder
I’ve already raved about this author’s earlier book, Live Alone and Like It. In that book she showed how to perfect the art of enjoyable single living. After which, in real life, she met a lovely man and got married.
You Can Start All Over was written much later on, when she was a widow, and its contents relate just as much to divorcehood.
As she writes in her introduction:
‘When life brings a devastating change, leaving one alone and desolate, one can start all over. I have done just that, three different times, two of them for bitterly unhappy reasons.’
It is as though she is walking beside you throughout it all, from the earliest shellshocked days (‘Taking the blow’), finding a path to gradual recovery, through to just possibly, maybe, one day, contemplating finding new love (‘Are two husbands better than one?’).
All written in the sympathetically astringent tone of a friendly co-equal who knows you can do it.
Dating Game
by Danielle Steel
I’m not normally a reader of romantic novels but heartbreak leads one to some strange bedfellows, n’est-ce pas?
In Dating Game we meet Paris Armstrong whose husband announces he’s leaving her for someone else after twenty-four years of marriage. Like a lot of us she didn’t see it coming and doesn’t have a clue how to navigate the strange new world of online dating or re-enter the careers market.
Paris may be better off and a tad more glamorous than most of us (well, me, anyway) but I could still relate to her romantic experiments, expectations, and rejections as she begins tentatively to build a new life for herself.
Essential Help for Your Nerves
by Dr Claire Weekes
‘Nerves’ = anxiety, panic attacks, stress, breakdown, anything that sends you spiralling into that miserable state where you feel you cannot cope.
Journalist and Agony Aunt Virginia Ironside once said she had received literally shedloads of letters from people filled with gratitude after being recommended the work of Dr Claire Weekes.
Her wise and sensible approach to mental suffering relaxes and instils you with the beginnings of calm.
You read it and feel, ‘Somebody understands, and can help me. I can help myself.’
The Scent of Water
by Elizabeth Goudge
Goudge was once well-known as a writer for adults but today she is usually mentioned as the author of the children’s fantasy The Little White Horse, a novel adored by JK Rowling.
In The Scent of Water, protagonist Mary Lindsay gives up her London life for the English countryside and gradually discovers age-old wisdom that brings her new light.
It’s a good old-fashioned read (first published in 1963) suffused with reassurance alongside the grittier realities of life.
Elizabeth Goudge is a most unusual writer and woman. She had an awareness of the harshness along with a deep intuitive sense of, 'All shall be well and all shall be well, And all manner of things shall be well.'
I’ve written more about what I get from reading Elizabeth Goudge in a
highlighted feature
on my Journalism page.
Mr Good Enough: The Case for Choosing a Real Man Over Holding Out for ‘Mr Perfect’
by Lori Gottlieb
This book provided one possible answer to the question in my own mind as to why so many perfectly eligible, loveable women around me were single and not happy about it.
It also made me examine my own thought processes around dating and relationships with fresh eyes and a clearer perception, which led to the happiest of results.
I don’t necessarily like the term ‘Mr Good Enough’ (it obviously doesn’t do justice to my wonderful husband!) but I know what the author is getting at.
This book might just throw a switch in your own mind that gets your romantic engine running.
The Clear Light of Day
by Penelope Wilcock
Another romantic novel? Well not exactly. Esme is a fortysomething woman working for the church but feeling spiritually dead. Recently divorced, loneliness strikes at her core.
After moving to a country parish something happens to her and her life begins to change. No spoilers but the fact this is based on what really happened in the author’s own life made the book even more of a joyous read.
Through the Kitchen Window
by Susan Hill; illustrated by Angela Barrett
Sometimes in those days life was such a struggle I felt mentally and emotionally drained. Reading was wearisome and this was when I learned the calm pleasure of absorbing myself in books devoted to art and illustration. A bit of me would escape into the scene and leave my circumstances behind.
Through the Kitchen Window is a book of seasonal pictures, thoughts, and recipes. All the domestic pleasures of a peaceful life. Susan Hill clearly loves homelife and Angela Barrett’s exquisite illustrations evoke the serenity to be found in daily life approached in a spirit of love.
Focusing on the contents of this book was a way of focusing on what I wanted to move towards.
In the end, I reached home.
🌱🍃🌿
