This week I reread Watership Down by Richard Adams, an influential book in my life. I read it the first time when I was in junior high. I had an hour bus ride and was able to get many pages in. I realized that the book was about more than rabbits seeking a new place to live in safety. It looked at different systems of government: authoritarian, kleptocracy, isolationist, and democracy. Adams manages to take these big ideas and make them vital to the lives of a group of rabbits. I wasn't surprised to learn that Adams served in World War II. His rabbit characters have the camaraderie of a group of soldiers fighting a fierce enemy. Hazel is the leader. His brother Fiver is a visionary. Bigwig is the powerhouse. Blackberry is the thinker. Dandelion is the storyteller. The rabbits have their own language and mythology, much like a Tolkien novel. What is needed for flourishing? A balance of freedom and responsibility.
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The Time Hop Coffee Shop by Phaedra Patrick is about a magical coffee shop. It only appears to the people it chooses. Greta Perks is in her forties and longing for her past life as a famous actress in coffee commercials. During that time, she met the man in the commercial who became her husband both in real life and in Maple Gold Coffee land. They had a daughter who also appeared in the commercials and is now a surly teenager. Everything in her life- her marriage, her career, and her relationship with her daughter isn't what she dreamed. Then she gets an invitation to the coffee shop, and a special blend lets her live in the town from the Maple Gold commercials, where she is gorgeous, successful, loved by her wonderful husband, and adored by her daughter. Life is perfect. Or is it? The main premise is fun, but I found the book's pacing a little slow and its message, live the life you have, somewhat trite.
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