Mimosa Tree - Greene County, Virginia 

Summer Reading

I recently finished reading Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead. The narrative takes the form of an extended, meditative letter written by a minister nearing the end of his life to his young son. Gilead is not a "page-turner" but a book to linger over. I found myself reading passages over several times, reluctant to turn the page. It is a book to read more than once.

"I was struck by the way the light felt that afternoon. I have paid a good deal of attention to light, but no one could begin to do it justice. There was the feeling of a weight of light--pressing the damp out of the grass and pressing the smell of sour old sap out of the boards on the porch floor and burdening even the trees a little as late snow would do. It was the kind of light that rests on your shoulders the way a cat lies on your lap. So familiar. Old Soapy was lying in the sun, plastered to the sidewalk. You remember Soapy. I don't really know why you should. She is a very unremarkable animal. I'll take a picture of her."

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Picador, New York, 2004