Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
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In her follow-up book to Cold Tangerines, author Shauna Niequist shifts her gaze to the challenges and blessings of change in Bittersweet. Drawing from her own experiences in a recent season of pain and chaos, she explores the bits of wisdom and growth we earn the hard way, through change, loss, and transition, and offers her own reflections on what brought her hope along the way.Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Niequist (Cold Tangerines) returns with an often humorous and always contemplative series of personal essays on bittersweet experiences, illustrating through her own life that "rejoicing is no less rich even when it contains a splinter of sadness." Spiritually, the book bravely sets out to decipher the paradoxically co-dependent nature of happiness and grief. But Niequist's title should not be seen as simply a convenient theological metaphor; i t is also a literary device. Impressively, many of Niequist's perfectly concocted chapters weave in culinary themes, evoking the sensory, physical experience of the bittersweet along with the spiritual sense of it. When writing of deep friendship and the loss that sometimes accompanies it, her narrative often revolves around a dinner table, a cooking club, or a farmer's market. Niequist's ability to describe the sensation of eating a peppery arugula salad punctuated with sweet blueberries is just as evocative as her ability to express the intricacies of love, loss, hope, and doubt. Readers of all faiths will find this book courageous, sincere, poetic, and profound. There's nothing bitter in this sweet treat of a spiritual memoir. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents prologue: bittersweet....................11learning to swim....................15the blue house....................23the closer you get....................29what we ate and why it matters....................35heartbeat....................41on desperation and cold pizza....................47things i don't do....................53alameda....................61what we left in south bend....................67feeding and being fed....................71sea dreaming....................75grace is new math....................81twenty-five....................85thin places....................91gifts, under the tree and otherwise....................97coming home....................101what might have been....................107happy mother's day....................111say something....................117on crying in the bathroom....................123headlines and lullabies....................131san juan....................137the table....................141eight for eight....................147a blessing for a bride....................153love song for fall....................159ravenous....................165whole heart....................171join the club....................175princess-free zone....................181the home team....................187aurora....................191my patron saint....................197knees or buns....................203evergreen....................209the middle....................213steak frites....................219blueberries....................225phoenix....................231your story must be told....................237epilogue: spring....................243acknowledgments....................251
