• Biography

    The Summer of the Great Grandmother

    Summer of the Great Grandmother tells the story of Madeleine L’Engle’s last summer with her mother. It’s the second of L’Engle’s four “Crosswicks Journals,” but since I read them out of order it…

  • Novels

    The Love Letters

    Madeleine L’Engle’s The Love Letters (1967) weaves together two stories: one from today, and one from yesterday. Charlotte Napier, fleeing to her mentor (and mother-in-law) in Portugal to rethink her troubled marriage, comes…

  • Nonfiction

    Walking on Water

    Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art is an extended meditation on the nature of the creative process, the purpose of art, and the significance of an artist’s faith. The…

  • Bible,  Poetry

    Healing and Hiding

    This morning, I read a story that’s always intrigued me: the woman with the hemorrhage who came through the pressing crowds and touched Jesus’ robes. I’m using a harmony of the gospels these…

  • Nonfiction

    Trailing Clouds of Glory

    This week, browsing through the children’s section at the library, I saw Madeleine L’Engle’s name on this book I’d never heard of. Having just finished A Circle of Quiet, I was ready to…

  • Biography

    A Circle of Quiet

    A Circle of Quiet is one of Madeleine L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journals. It’s the third one I’ve read; the others are Two-Part Invention and The Irrational Season. I found this one to be an…

  • Biography,  Christianity

    Art Lesson

    I’m really enjoying Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season, and trying not to read it too quickly. Today I read her commentary on some works of art. L’Engle writes, “Christian graphic art has often…

  • Bible,  Poetry

    Sarah

    This week I read the story of Abraham and Isaac and was confronted with its difficulty again. Sometimes poetry finds a dwelling place in the midst of a tangle, so I’ve looked around…

  • Novels

    Certain Women

    Sometimes I like books without any idea why. Madeleine L’Engle’s Certain Women is about an actress who returns to attend to her dying father, a stage actor who reviews his life through the…