Friday, January 19, 2024

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

 



Today's Featured Book 

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Genre: Fiction

Published: September 5, 2000

Page Count: 384 pages

Summary: 

“This is a book about Heaven,” says Jayber Crow, “but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell.” It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber.

Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow’s acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its goodness and frailty.

He began his search as a "pre-ministerial student" at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with "Old Grit," his profound professor of New Testament Greek:

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out―perhaps a little at a time."
"And how long is that going to take?"
"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."
"That could be a long time."
"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. "It may take longer."




 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City ReaderWhat book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.


I never put up a barber pole or a sign or even gave my shop a name. I didn’t have to. The building was already called “the barbershop.” That was its name because that had been its name for nobody knew how long. Port William had little written history Its history was its living memory of itself, which passed over the years like a moving beam of light. It had a beginning that it had forgotten, and would have an end that it did not yet know. It seemed to have been there forever. After I had been there a while, the shop began to be called Jayber Crow’s, or just Jayber’s. “Well, I’m going down to Jayber’s,” people would say, as if it had been clearly marked on some map, though it was so only in their minds. I never had a telephone, so I was not even in the book.








THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice, but Freda is currently taking a break and Anne of Head Full of Books is filling in. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

One thing you would sooner or later realize about The Good Shepherd was that it had no neighbors. Like (I think) most institutions, it was turned inward, trying to be a world in itself. It stood at the edge of the little town of Canefield, which it looked upon as a threat to its morals. In his many chapel talks and sermons, Brother Whitespade suffered over the possibility that some of the Canefield merchants might sell cigarettes to The Good Shepherd children for some of the tiny allowance of spending money we received, and over the possibly regrettable results of mixing between our older girls and boys and the older boys and girls of Canefield, who had not had the advantage of orphanhood and the moral instruction of Brother Whitespade.








The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer   

January 19th-25th - Have you ever loved a book that everyone else hated or hated a book that everyone else loved? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

My oldest friend begged me to read John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. "It's my favorite book!" she gushed.

So I read it.

I hate, loathe, despise A Prayer for Owen Meany. 

And yet so many people, including my friend Karen, love that book.

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