Favorite Book of 2016 - Karen Harris

Writers read!  And here is one of our By the Bay 2 authors’ favorite books of 2016.


Written by Karen Harris

Book Title: Telling Secrets

Author:  Frederick Buechner

Genre:  Memoir

Setting:  Family life from the late 1930’s-present mostly in the US

Pages:  106

Publication date:  1991

Publisher:  Harper Collins

Opening Line: “One November morning in 1936 when I was ten years old, my father got up early, put on a pair of gray slacks and a maroon sweater, opened the door to look in briefly on my younger brother and me, who were playing a game in our room, and then went down into the garage where he turned on the engine of the family Chevy and sat down on the running board to wait for the exhaust to kill him.”

Favorite Passage:  It was hard to pick a favorite, so I chose one I loved for its humor and pathos:  “She excoriated the ravages of old age but never accepted them as the consequence of getting old.  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me today,’ she must have said a thousand days as she tried once, then again, then a third time, to pull herself out of her chair into her walker.  It never seemed to occur to her that what was wrong with her was that she was on her way to pushing a hundred.  Maybe that was why some part of her remained unravaged.  Some surviving lightness of touch let her stand back from the wreckage and see that among other things it was absurdly funny.  When I told her the last time she was mobile enough to visit us in Vermont that the man who had just passed her window was the gardener, she said, ‘Tell him to come in and take a look at the last rose of summer.” 

Review:  Frederick Buechner manages to weave the difficult memories of his childhood into his unexpected spiritual journey with an ease that holds one’s attention and one’s heart.  His reminiscences are at once poignant and funny, written with a natural, lyrical flair.

About the author: Karen Harris is a writer and editor from San Francisco, now residing in Virginia Beach.   Her story “I Have A Dress” appeared in By the Bay: East Beach Stories.  Her story “Comings and Goings” will appear in Volume II  which will be published in 2017.