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Five Books that Changed my Life

RAMONA AND HER FATHER
The first chapter book I ever read on my own was Ramona and Her Father, by Beverly Cleary. I remember being extremely proud of myself. I also remember being extremely disappointed that there weren’t balloons and smiley faces when I got to page 100. I mean, hello? Page 100? That’s cause for celebration.

THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING AT MACDONALD HALL
In the fourth grade, I laughed out loud when I read the first book in Gordon Korman’s Macdonald Hall series. A few months later, the author came to speak to my class. I found out that one, he from Montreal, same as me, two, he gone to the same elementary school as I had, and three, he had written his first book when he was 12 years old. TWELVE. I was incredibly inspired, and decided then that if he could do it, so could I.

THE HANDMAID’S TALE
I read Margaret Atwood’s brilliant and terrifying book about ten times in high school. Then I read it about ten more times. Then I decided to major in English lit at college.

BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY
The Helen Fielding novel introduced me to the Chick lit genre. I fell in love. The humor! The romance! The single girl’s story! I knew that this was the kind of book I wanted to write, and I began writing my first novel, Milkrun.

SLOPPY FIRSTS
By the time I read Megan Mccafferty’s hilarious novel, I already had two published adult novels under my best. But as I read the first book in the Jessica Darling series, I remembered how intense and hilarious the teen years were and decided that it was time to get started on my first YA novel, Bras & Broomsticks.

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Have you read any of these? I have read three of them! I especially enjoyed the Jessica Darling series and recommend it for high school and college students. If you look in the “books” category here, I have talked about a lot of the books that have been important to me over the years. I will name a few of them for you: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, and Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle. (All familiar titles if you have been reading here for a while.) But what I would really like to know (and I am sure Sarah would, too) are what some of your choices would be. What are a few books that have changed your life?

Sarah recently posted at Bookloons and will be at Beatrice and Random Acts of Reading tomorrow! You can also follow her on Facebook. Thanks for stopping by, Sarah!

On her ninth birthday, Rose discovers that she can taste her mother’s feelings in the lemon cake her mother has spent the afternoon making. While her mother’s food has unknowingly communicated longing and discontent, Rose can taste other flavors as well: the anger of a local baker she senses in his cookies, the contentment of a friend’s parents as communicated through lunchtime sandwiches. As Rose gets older, she copes with these feelings by eating a lot of processed food, but as she matures, she learns how to appreciate the people who love working with food, no matter what their emotions. She also learns to identify organic meat, the plants where different foods are processed, and can even tell where something was grown. By the end of the book, she is learning to make her gift (or curse, depending how you look at it) serve her, rather than the other way around.

This is a book about family secrets and coping mechanisms, though the extent to which it is about those things is not evident right away. As someone who loves food, I was fascinated by Rose’s strong connections to the food around her and how hard it was for her to take in other people’s emotions. I also enjoyed her journey from first discovering her skill to taking charge of it. It’s a sad book, too, as Rose’s family misses connecting with each other. It was different than what I expected, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Disclaimer: I was on hold for this book at the library for a while. The library called me, mispronounced my middle name as usual, and told me it had come in. But before I could get there to pick it up, a copy of this book appeared on my doorstep, compliments of DoubleDay. I was excited, to put it mildly. Despite the fact that they provided the book for me, I assure you that the thoughts on it are my own and were not influenced by DoubleDay or Random House. For the record, I still checked the book out of the library and then returned it immediately. Just to give them the circulation statistic. That’s how I roll.

(Almost) everything I know about the Jesuits comes from James Martin, and the more I read this book, the more I realized that I actually knew very little about the Jesuits. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything is both an introduction to the Jesuit way of life and an explanation of how those ideals can be useful to everyone. It discusses topics such as simplicity, chastity, friendship, obedience, thinking through our view of God, and prayer, just to name a few. The topics are handled with the humor and insight that I expect when reading one of Father Martin’s books, but there are times when it is, admittedly, a little bit dry. I also think that it’s not an ideal library book. Rather than being read straight through, it would probably be more useful as a book that one dipped into from time to time when one was specifically pondering something such as prayer. I know that I didn’t get as much out of the prayer chapters as I would have liked, just because I didn’t feel prepared to tackle an issue such as prayer.

With that said, I do want to share some of his thoughts that I found useful. I struggle a lot with feeling that God’s priorities are with others and that he gets around to me if he has the time. So I especially appreciated this passage on our images of God:

But my favorite image is one from the Islamic tradition, which depicts God as seeking us more than we seek God. It is a hadith qudsi, which Muslim scholars translate as a divine saying revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad. “And if [my servant] draws nearer to me by a handsbreadth, I draw nearer to him by an armslength; and if he draws nearer to me by an armslength, I draw nearer to him by a fathom; and if he comes to me walking, I come to him running.”

And this more humorous take:

God, an elderly Jesuit once suggested to me, is something like an old carpenter in a small village in Vermont. If you ask the townspeople where to turn for carpentry work or repairs, they will say, “There’s only one person to call. He does excellent work. He’s careful, he’s precise, he’s conscientious, he’s creative, he makes sure that everything fits, and he tailors his work exactly to fit your needs. There’s just one problem: he takes forever!”

I also appreciated the chapter on friendship and his list of tips for healthy friendships. I feel sometimes that I expect too much or am neglectful of relationships, so these tips were something I wanted to make note of: be honest, be open to challenge, wish the good of the other, know when to maintain a discreet silence, be welcoming, offer the freedom to change, laugh together, and help one another.

The main idea that I got from this book is that there is, truly, a possibility that we can change. I have been facing some difficult decisions and Father Martin’s thoughts on the decision-making process gave me the hope that I could make the right choice, which was about more than just choosing between two options. It also required me to think through the ways that I am living that are not in line with what I believe and whether there is anything that can be done about that. In the end, a big part of the process was about choosing to be a better sort of person. I was especially thankful for Father Martin’s thoughts and honesty on that topic.

I don’t buy a whole lot of books myself, but I would recommend this one for purchase. It has great insight on what it means to live a contemplative life. That’s a difficult task, both to focus your life on Jesus and to go about your work, but these are thoughtful and practical ideas on how it can be done.

1. Which of the Sammy Keyes books can you relate your life most to?

Interesting question. I’d say it’s more that some of the characters and events are pulled from my life than that any of the books represent my life. I grew up with both parents, three siblings, and dogs. My parents also immigrated to the States, so I never really got to know my grandparents. Contrast that to Sammy who lives illegally with her grandmother and a cat in a high-rise and has (as far as she knows) no siblings, and you see there’s not much common ground. But Heather Acosta? I definitely had someone like that in my life. And some of the things Heather does to Sammy really happened to me. (Think sewing pin jabbed in the derriere …) So it’s really more that I borrow events from my real life. Of course, I may embellish them, or play them down (depending on how much I want my mother to know), but it’s easier to write about an event or situation when you’ve actually survived it. A good example of this is Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy. The solution to that mystery is based on a very frightening situation I found myself in while renting a room when I was in graduate school. I took the fear and shock from that experience and gave it to poor Sammy! In Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes, Sammy finds herself in a basement with dangling black widow spiders. I’ve been down that basement. I can’t think of much more nightmarish than being trapped inside it. Again, poor Sammy! Hmm. Actually, the book that may best represent my life is probably Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things. We were big into backpacking when I was growing up, and so many of those things Sammy experiences out in the wild happened to us on one trip or another. Rattlers, ticks, scorpions, vultures, guys with guns, no water, getting lost, blisters … man, I’ve dealt with all of that. It was fun to revisit it from the comfort of my office and poke a little fun at it. So yeah. Okay. That’s the one.

2. What was the hardest Sammy Keyes book to write?

Definitely Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary. I had written the first four Sammys without a contract, so prior to their acceptance I had no deadlines or editorial revisions to deal with. Since I had a full time job teaching high school and two little kids, I’d been squeezing my writing around being a mom and being a teacher. But now in addition to writing Curse of Moustache Mary and meeting rewrite deadlines for the first four titles, my administration also assigned to me the overwhelming task of being the school’s yearbook advisor. It took me nearly two years to write Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary, and after I submitted it the editorial letter that came back to me was fifteen pages long, full of suggestions on how to make it better. I read the letter and cried.

3. I heard you ran the New York City Marathon, Did this experience have an impact on any of your books? (Note from Kari: Blair is a runner herself, so I thought this was a great question!)

I ran the NYC Marathon for the Exercise the Right to Read campaign—to put a spotlight on the importance of school libraries and to raise funds for libraries and kids who have no books. I’ve been a health-and-fitness runner my whole life, but never in a competitive way after high school, when I ran track. The marathon is a tough race and not one that I relish repeating (although I’ve now completed 5 for ETRTR). So I’m not a maniac runner, or someone who was so passionate about the “sport” that they could see writing a novel about it.

But I saw things in New York that I’d never seen before. My husband ran it with me and we were at maybe Mile 14 with the field still being very crowded. (It never did thin out to the point where you didn’t feel shoulder-to-shoulder with other runners.) So there we were, pushing along, definitely feeling the distance, when we came upon these two runners with a rope between them. And I’m thinking, What are these idiots doing with that rope? ‘cause it was blocking us, and this whole thing was hard enough on me without ropes in my way. And then I realize that one of the runners is blind and the other is his guide.

That was some moment for me. I, with my two long legs and two good eyes, thought running 26.2 miles was tough? How would I like to try it blind? I felt like such a whiny wimp.

Anyway, moments like that are the “seeds” I talked about yesterday. And this one was part of what eventually grew into my next stand-alone novel The Running Dream which will be out in January 2011.

So, to answer your question, yes! But not in the way I would ever have imagined.

Thanks for your questions, Blair, and thanks again to Kari for having me. I hope your readers will follow me to the next stop on the tour. I’ll be visiting Mrs. Magoo Reads tomorrow, where the Q&A will discuss mysteries in my real life, my writing process, and what I think about Nancy Drew. Hope to see you there!

Thanks to Blair for her great questions and to Wendelin for graciously answering them. You can follow Wendelin on her blog tour at the following spots:

May 31st: Where the Books Are

June 1st: Steph Su Reads

June 3rd: Mrs. Magoo Reads

June 4th: The Children’s Book Review

June 5th: Write for a Reader

June 6th: Mundie Moms

June 7th: Library Lounge Lizard

June 8th: Wendelin’s Jog Blog

Charlotte, in this book, is kind of the opposite. Her husband moved out after five months only to move back in a month later. While Charlotte is dealing with the emotional whiplash, she decides that she needs some time and finds her own place. She also finds herself incapable of making any kinds of decisions. Except decisions about things like, “Should I buy a new TV?” The answer to that is, yes, buy one that leaves no doubt that it is her own shiny new TV. Fill the pantry, fill the bathroom, fill the living room. Charlotte buys the things that allow her to make a new place for herself, but it is clear as the book moves on that she has no idea who she is. With or without the relationship. And it doesn’t matter if (unlike me) she was secure in her relationships before, because her friendships were defined by her being with another person, and that’s not happening anymore, either.

Enter Francesca, who introduces Charlotte to roller derby. Over the past few years, I have read Pamela Ribon’s own roller derby journey. It has clearly been very meaningful to her in her life, and she writes about it with such enthusiasm that I can’t help but be excited with her. Even though I would never want to do it myself. Come on, I know that none of you can see me in roller derby gear, either. I probably wouldn’t have gone to see Whip It, which, I repeat, I loved, without the roller derby knowledge that I obtained from her blog. So when I heard that this book would be, in part, about roller derby, I was intrigued. I don’t actually want to go to see roller derby. But I can handle reading about it. As Charlotte works out who she is and what is important to her in therapy and in roller derby, she continues to avoid the question of what, exactly, she is going to do about her broken marriage.

I have read all three of Pamela Ribon’s books, but this was, far and away, my favorite. I can’t necessarily relate to Charlotte. I have never been divorced, I don’t want to try roller derby, and I feel grounded in who I am a little bit more than she does. But I know what it feels like to let other people define you. I like what Charlotte learns, through roller derby, about what it means to be on a team together. I think there is a point in marriage where you realize what it means to be on the same team. I remember that it was as if a switch went on in my brain, that I had finally learned how to trust Mike enough to feel safe that he would make decisions with us in mind and that I could do the same. And when it comes to insecurity, there’s nothing that lets you believe in who you are and what you are good at like knowing that someone is in your corner. Though she takes some of them for granted, Charlotte has people in her corner, and roller derby helps her corner become a whole room. And that is why I enjoyed this book so much.

The first thing you should know is that The Cardturner is about bridge. I know, I don’t know anything about bridge, either. I can play spades and poker and I used to play rummy with my grandpa, but bridge (and pinochle with its crazy deck) seem awfully complicated. But this is why Louis Sachar is so good at what he does – I managed to understand what was going on even though I don’t know anything about bridge. As you would expect, I learned along with Alton, our main character. There is even a handy Moby Dick motif that shows up when Alton starts explaining bridge. If it’s in too much detail, you can just skip the whaling chapters.

Alton doesn’t know much about his great-uncle Lester except that he’s rich and that his parents are always encouraging him to suck up to him. So when Lester, who is blind, finds himself in need of someone to drive him to bridge tournaments and play his cards, Alton’s parents happily volunteer him. At first, Alton has no idea what is happening, but as he learns more about the game and his uncle (who prefers to be called Trapp), he begins to grow in confidence and maturity. As they become closer, they share thoughts on ideas and synchronicity that become crucial to the resolution of the story. Both of these characters are on a journey: Trapp wants to win at nationals, while Alton needs to stop letting things just happen to him and start taking control. As they push each other along those paths, we get to enjoy a memorable cast of characters, a family mystery, some suspenseful games, a little bit of romance, and a whole lot of bridge talk.

Mike asked me if this was going to be the next Holes. I told him it was okay if it was just its own thing, rather than having to be something else. I did see parallels to Holes in the way that family secrets were revealed and then redeemed by the characters’ actions, which is a theme that I appreciate in both books. More than anything, I loved that this book was firmly aimed at teenagers. Lots of my students (especially my boys) like Holes, and it would be great to have something else to give to some of my older boys. It’s not going to be quite as accessible as Holes, but it is a strong, memorable book, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Am I going to go learn how to play bridge? No, indeed. But it made me appreciate people who take the time to play it well.

There is a point in the book when Alton looks at everything he said to his great-uncle and realized how incredibly rude, insensitive, and just plain stupid he’s been all along. I loved that moment because we have all been there, and it is an important moment for Alton as he begins to think more deeply about the things that he has been told and the people in his life. This is a great book from a longtime favorite author of mine, one who is still at the top of his own game.

Random House provided me with a copy of this book to review. My opinions are my own.

My humble nerdy high school existence was pretty different from Devi, the main character in Gimme a Call. She spent the majority of her high school years with her boyfriend Bryan. When he breaks up with her just before senior prom, she realizes that she’s been on the wrong path. She has alienated all her girl friends, she’s not going to a good college, and she doesn’t really know who she is without Bryan. A combination of wishing well magic and a technological glitch means that her phone is suddenly able to call Freshman Devi. And every change that Freshman Devi makes causes Senior Devi’s life to change as well. Can they work together to achieve the best possible outcome of college and friends and maybe even a boyfriend? And what would that be, anyway?

My one complaint about this book is that I honestly could not keep all the characters straight. As Freshman Devi makes different choices, Senior Devi’s prom date keeps changing. But I wasn’t invested in those characters or that storyline enough to keep up with what was happening there. The rest of the plot, though it sounds convoluted, was actually very fun. Freshman Devi was able to learn something that it takes high school students years to learn: the more interesting you are as a person, the better friend and girlfriend (or boyfriend) you can be. She starts a path of learning how to have a more balanced life, one with friends and activities, one that’s focused on more than just a boy.

It was fun to see Senior Devi’s life continue to change minute by minute, and I enjoyed the dynamic between the two Devis as Senior Devi pushed Freshman Devi to work harder and get into a good college. (And, yes, she did sound just like a parent at times.) I especially enjoyed how the message of both working hard and enjoying yourself in high school came through without being too preachy. The two options were simply shown and the reader could easily see the pros and cons of each. I would have liked to see some exploration of some larger themes than just the social lives of Devi and her friends, but I can also accept that making those kinds of changes would mess a little too much with the space/time continuum (nerd alert). The book also left room for a sequel, so perhaps we will hear more about Devi and her adventures. Now that I have finished with it, I will be putting it in my school’s library and I think a lot of my girls will really enjoy it.

Random House provided me with a copy of this book to review. My opinions are my own.

Since I don’t work at the public library anymore, it’s hard for me to stay on top of every single thing I would like to read, so I hadn’t realized that he had some other books since then. I put his newest one on hold and also got a copy of A Jesuit Off-Broadway, which sounded so interesting to me. It’s about his time acting as a theological consultant for the play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot which was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and starred Sam Rockwell. Father Martin walks us through the theology and story of Judas’ time with and betrayal of Jesus as he is also telling us the story of how the play came to be and what the people involved learned from it.

I came away from this book thinking, yet again, that Father Martin seems like a kind and thoughtful man. I was impressed at how, in his story, he sought to respect everyone’s faith journey while also admitting that he truly hoped that the experience would in some way convert them to Christianity/Catholicism. I wished that there was more about the long talks he had with the author of the play, Stephen Guirgis, as they worked out the motives and consequences of Judas’s actions, because I would have loved to hear more of the honest questions and answers that they explored. I also learned a lot about some of the saints that the play featured and expanded my own ideas of who some of the disciples were – not just Judas but also Thomas and Peter. The thoughtful discussions about the ideas of forgiveness and despair were some of the other highlights for me personally.

I will admit that I couldn’t keep every cast member straight, but there was a chart at the beginning that I could have studied a little bit closer. I was especially impressed at how hard-working and considerate of each other the cast seemed to be. We all have this idea of diva actors, but these men and women seemed to be just the opposite and worked long hours to make sure the message of the play came through as clearly as possible.

I started reading this book just after I gave my This I Believe speech at church, and I was so disappointed that I hadn’t started it earlier, because I would have loved to include part of this passage:

C.H. Dodd, the great Scripture scholar, defined a parable as “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” In other words, parables are poetic explanations of concepts that are otherwise impossible to comprehend fully.

The concept of the kingdom of God is too rich to be encompassed by something as simple as a definition. And the notion of radical forgiveness is impossible to explain in a few words, no matter how carefully chosen. Jesus grasped the benefit of telling a story about, say, a father’s reconciliation with his prodigal son and allowing the hearers to tease out the underlying meaning for themselves. Besides, if Jesus had given a philosophical lecture to the predominantly peasant community, they probably wouldn’t have understood him anyway.

Where a strictly worded definition can be somewhat shallow and actually close down a person’s thoughts, a story is endlessly deep and more likely to open one’s mind. Jesus’ stories carried meaning without having to be converted into a concept, and the power of his parables was that they always went against the expectations of the audience, as when the Samaritan, hailing from a hated ethnic group, was ultimately revealed as the good guy who cares for the stranger. “The deep places in our lives–places of resistance and embrace–are not ultimately reached by instruction,” wrote the Protestant theologian Walter Brueggemann. “Those places of resistance and embrace are reached only by stories, by images, metaphors and phrases that line out the world differently, apart from our fear and hurt.”

That last paragraph explains a lot of Father Martin’s excitement about the play itself and the people he met while working with it. And it deeply resonated with me as I have been thinking so much about the power of story. I recommend this book for people who have an interest in theological stories and plays and for people who enjoy reading about the workings of theater productions. And I will reiterate my previous recommendation of My Life With the Saints, which is a book that has stayed with me since I posted about it almost exactly four years ago.

You can read Father Martin’s columns in America magazine and see him as an occasional visitor on The Colbert Report (here is a clip from a recent show).

-The winners of the paperback copies of Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan have been notified. The winners were: Lydia, Shellie, and Alannah. Congratulations to them!

-Don’t forget that we’ll be sharing poems in a couple of weeks on Poem in Your Pocket Day. Now is the time to be thinking of what poem you’d like to link up. (Also it is the time for me to be thinking of what poem I would like to link up. Gosh.)

-My new spring reading manifesto is as follows: I do not want to read one more book with an abusive, dead, or alcoholic parent (or spouse). I do not want to read any more books about cancer. No more books about the Holocaust. And, specific to Tales of the Madman Underground: I do not want to read about pet bunnies being killed and then mutilated. I never ever stop reading a book. I push through to the end. But I quit on that one. And I’m kind of proud of it. I’m sure there would have been things that made it worth it, but I decided that I just didn’t care. If you have some lighter, happier fare to recommend, I am up for it. (Currently reading Solar by Ian McEwan. Not light. Not happy. Someone help me.)

-I have, however, read some books that I recommend that I don’t think I am going to write up. Here they are, in short. After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick (the aforementioned cancer book but it was still great), Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (this is what I am talking about. Somebody get me some more books like this), Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (also this, more like this), Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin, and How Dolly Parton Saved My Life by Charlotte Conners/Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt (I liked this the best of any of their books). Go forth and read. And give me some recommendations.

Last week, when we were in DC, we went to the Holocaust Museum. I didn’t know whether I would tell you anything about the Holocaust Museum, because what would one say about the experience? I can’t say that I “enjoyed” it. But I do think it’s set up very well and it’s extremely moving. I have read a lot of books about the Holocaust, fiction and non-fiction, so I learned the most on the top floor, which is focused mostly on the Nazi rise to power. I had mentally prepared myself to cry a lot in the museum, but I didn’t, really. I cried afterwards at the Lincoln Memorial. I don’t know why, exactly, though the words on the Lincoln Memorial are moving and I do consider Lincoln to be my special friend. Maybe it was because we visited the FDR Memorial earlier that day, before we visited the Holocaust Museum. Lincoln was just a man, but he did act when he saw injustice. I don’t feel the same way about FDR. Which brings us to our book review.

The Postmistress is a novel set during World War II before America’s involvement. It features three groups of people: newlyweds Will and Emma, radio personality Frankie Bard, and Iris–the eponymous postmistress–and the community around her. When Will, a doctor, loses a mother in childbirth, he feels compelled to go to London for his atonement and help the victims of the bombings. There he meets Frankie, the voice on the radio who helped him make the decision to “serve his time” in London. Frankie, a reporter, is covering the London bombings but longs to go to the continent to gather up the whispers of a story she feels is brewing there. And Iris wants to continue to keep order in her small corner of the world, delivering the mail as precisely and carefully as she can in the hopes that will be enough to keep everyone safe. Each of these Americans is challenged in a different way by the War going on in Europe.

There is a scene in The Postmistress in which Frankie is on a train. In Germany. And things start happening. I turned to Mike and said, “We spent five hours in the Holocaust Museum and I am not sure I can do this.” I didn’t want to close the book, but I didn’t think I could take another Holocaust story right now. Thankfully the book did not go in the direction that trains and Germany and World War II might lead you to believe. But it was still a difficult book to read after so recently seeing the many signs of the rise of Nazi Germany.

What I liked best about The Postmistress is that it clearly focuses in on the idea of storytelling. Frankie tells little snapshots of stories, but she doesn’t stay for the whole thing. She doesn’t know what happens afterwards. She can come in and tell a moving story, but she doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting before or after. She gets to leave and move on. Frankie is living that kind of life in almost every way. After some conversations in the book, she starts to wonder whether that is enough. Blake also emphasized this theme by deliberately not giving a lot of background about her own characters, which I thought was incredibly smart. If she had undercut that point by weighing down her own story with life and relationship details, it would probably have been less satisfying in the end. Instead, we get just enough to realize that Blake is right, that life must be lived as more than just soundbites, that each person’s life is an intricate story, and while it is a privilege to observe someone’s story, we shouldn’t assume because of that that we know everything about them.

I had a difficult time keeping the characters straight at first, but then it all seemed to gel. If I still worked in the public library, I would have picked this for my book club in a hot second. The characters are wonderful, I loved the “female reporter” angle, and I especially enjoyed the questions about life and truth and the immediacy of war. Difficult in some ways, but satisfying and thought-provoking.