Small Things Like These (Oprah’s Book Club) by Claire Keegan 📚

A short but impactful book. A small story that punches well above its perceived weight and sticks around with you for a bit. (As Manton said)

Plus, a definite Irish atmosphere.

On Living

he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?

Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

On People

for people were bound, he knew, to reveal not only themselves but what they knew, in conversation.

But people said lots of things - and a good half of what was said could not be believed.

People could be good, Furlong reminded himself, as he drove back to town; it was a matter of learning how to manage and balance the give-and-take in a way that let you get on with others as well as your own. But as soon as the thought came to him, he knew the thought itself was privileged and wondered why he hadn’t given the sweets and other things he’d been gifted at some of the houses to the less well-off he had met in others. Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.

On Time & Chance

to each was given days and chances which wouldn’t come back around. And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.

The years don’t slow down any as they pass.

It seemed both proper and at the same time deeply unfair that so much of life was left to chance.

On Adulting

When he reached the yard gate and found the padlock seized with frost, he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed, but he made himself carry on.

and lose himself in the mechanics of the ordinary, working week. Sundays could feel very threadbare, and raw.

Random Bits of Wisdom

It’s only people with no children that can afford to be careless.

So many things had a way of looking finer, when they were not so close.

Found Poetry

It was a December of crows.