A LIFE IN LIGHT by Mary Pipher is subtitled "Meditations on Impermanence" and it is a wonderful reflection on life and universal truths about resilience and becoming, about "finding coping tools, appreciating beauty, and seeking transcendence." A well-known psychologist and best-selling author (Reviving Ophelia and Women Rowing North), Pipher recounts short vignettes from her own life – special meals, beloved pets, best friends, and favorite books. All the while she comments on light and its importance to her: "Reading offered me hope, soothed me in difficult moments, and gave me a sense of the immense complexity of the human spirit. There are all kinds of light in the world – from the sky, during moments of bliss and awe, and from the lemony circles on the tables of the Beaver City library." A LIFE IN LIGHT received starred reviews from Booklist ("teaches gentle lessons on gratitude and celebrating life") and Publishers Weekly. It is an amazingly comforting work and one to be savored again and again. Writing, she says, was "the light of living life twice, once in real time and once in reflective time.... Writing gave me an intellectually challenging life in which I could still live quietly in my own home... spend[ing] my time telling stories." For another brief glimpse into Mary Pipher's advice for balancing despair with joy, see her recent piece in The New York Times: "How I Build a Good Day When I’m Full of Despair at the World."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/opinion/coping-climate-war-happiness.html

Psychologist and author Mary Pipher revisits the impact of her childhood, family, education, and career, on her evolving sense of self and purpose in A Light in Life: Meditations on Impermanence (Bloomsbury, 2022). In short essay form, laid out chronologically (for the most part), Pipher brings readers to the foreground of her younger years, including one particularly traumatizing one where she and several of her siblings were sent to live with other relatives. She encountered hunger, limited heat, and a visceral longing for her mother.

Reflections on Pipher’s ability to find the saving grace, the light, in each experience illicit appreciation for her tenacity, familial loyalty, and decades-long career exploring the inner workings of relationships of clients, and her own self.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bloomsbury, and the author for the e-ARC.