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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
As a big fan of essay collections, I was excited to pick this up despite not being familiar with the author. The writing in this collection is calm, quiet, and often lyrical. Kisner takes on multiple thought-provoking topics related to philosophy, religion, and modern culture. The pacing of the collection was well done, with shorter pieces mixed in amongst longer, more engrossing essays.
A wonderful read if you enjoy essay collections, non-fiction, or long form articles!
As a big fan of essay collections, I was excited to pick this up despite not being familiar with the author. The writing in this collection is calm, quiet, and often lyrical. Kisner takes on multiple thought-provoking topics related to philosophy, religion, and modern culture. The pacing of the collection was well done, with shorter pieces mixed in amongst longer, more engrossing essays.
A wonderful read if you enjoy essay collections, non-fiction, or long form articles!
Beautifully written. A diverse grouping of essays that explore history, culture, and society along with their intersections with individuality.
funny
reflective
slow-paced
just so good, what a magnificient twenty something collection of essays
reflective
medium-paced
some essays interested me more than others, definitely relevant and interests ideas! gave me something to chew on but lost its flavor in the second half
reflective
medium-paced
This was more of a traditional essay collection than I was expecting (and less about theology/big thoughts about religion/spirituality and more cultural moments that religion has fostered in America), but I was crying as I read the last page of the final essay so that has to count for something
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
"The room went still. The doctors and nurses stopped their work as her husband quietly extended his palm toward hers. The air between them grew warm and vanished, and then everyone was weeping in the fluorescent light."
Easily one of my favorite essay collections I've read this year if not of all time. Kisner writes beautifully about the spaces and moments that fill up the space between our eyes and brain.
Kisner is incredibly detailed in her research. Each one of her essays is filled with interesting details and observations. From the ways in which we understand the brain to the first white lady to get a tattoo, it's evident that the amount of love and research put into each of these pours through. She watches an autopsy and asks whether the death is morally a homicide or an accident. In this way, I'm reminded of Didion, in the way that Kisner takes a topic and applies a magnifying lens of cool detachment.
But that isn't to say that this collection isn't filled with emotion and heart. While the facts remain unbiased, Kisner always ties them into her own life and her personal insecurities and shortcomings. And really, what enamored me about this book is Jordan's ability to see shimmering in the air. The moments when she draws the thin threads between what is at hand, and what it means to her. How the mind and thereby reality can be changed through sheer will and the tinted lenses you wear. Particularly in the pieces about religion, where she longs for spirituality in the secular sense, herself being a former Christian, I felt it most prevalent.
In this way, Jordan wants what we all want. A fullness. Belief when there is nothing to believe. Reassurance that this project - life - is worth it. Thin Places tries to find it through contradictions and small unseen details. In this regard, I don't know how successful Kisner is (genuinely, I don't, nor do I think of it as a shortcoming), but at least she's trying.
It did feel a bit front-loaded as a collection, but the first few were already so good that she had me hooked from the start.
Favorites include: Attunement, Thin Places, Jesus Raves, The Other City, and Habitus
"...if you are stuck somewhere small in your mind, somewhere unhappy or afraid or paralyzed or heartbroken, all of which are a kind of claustrophobic circling and circling, you might be able to reverse-engineer an expansion, shove yourself through into some larger mind place by putting yourself in the way of some vaster spaces if the world. At least I think that's so."
4.5-5/5
Easily one of my favorite essay collections I've read this year if not of all time. Kisner writes beautifully about the spaces and moments that fill up the space between our eyes and brain.
Kisner is incredibly detailed in her research. Each one of her essays is filled with interesting details and observations. From the ways in which we understand the brain to the first white lady to get a tattoo, it's evident that the amount of love and research put into each of these pours through. She watches an autopsy and asks whether the death is morally a homicide or an accident. In this way, I'm reminded of Didion, in the way that Kisner takes a topic and applies a magnifying lens of cool detachment.
But that isn't to say that this collection isn't filled with emotion and heart. While the facts remain unbiased, Kisner always ties them into her own life and her personal insecurities and shortcomings. And really, what enamored me about this book is Jordan's ability to see shimmering in the air. The moments when she draws the thin threads between what is at hand, and what it means to her. How the mind and thereby reality can be changed through sheer will and the tinted lenses you wear. Particularly in the pieces about religion, where she longs for spirituality in the secular sense, herself being a former Christian, I felt it most prevalent.
In this way, Jordan wants what we all want. A fullness. Belief when there is nothing to believe. Reassurance that this project - life - is worth it. Thin Places tries to find it through contradictions and small unseen details. In this regard, I don't know how successful Kisner is (genuinely, I don't, nor do I think of it as a shortcoming), but at least she's trying.
It did feel a bit front-loaded as a collection, but the first few were already so good that she had me hooked from the start.
Favorites include: Attunement, Thin Places, Jesus Raves, The Other City, and Habitus
"...if you are stuck somewhere small in your mind, somewhere unhappy or afraid or paralyzed or heartbroken, all of which are a kind of claustrophobic circling and circling, you might be able to reverse-engineer an expansion, shove yourself through into some larger mind place by putting yourself in the way of some vaster spaces if the world. At least I think that's so."
4.5-5/5
a solid essay collection exploring spirituality and the boundaries of the self