This book has been on my to be read list for quite some time. It got there by seeing it named by some well read women, Noel Piper and Ann Voskamp.

Hannah Coulter is written by Wendell Berry. A fiction book that is written from Hannah’s point of view and in her voice. It is the story of her life, starting as a farm girl and ending as a farmer’s widow. It is a story filled with love, war, life, death, suffering, and joy. It is also filled with family, the blood kind and the kind that bonds despite having different blood.

I loved this book. I have enjoyed many books but all for different reasons. I enjoyed this book because it was real. I don’t mean in the non-fiction type of real, but the story seemed real. It wasn’t about a princess in a faraway land and it didn’t  have a fairytale ending. It was about a housewife, an average housewife, who doesn’t have it all figured out. She does learn a lot through her life, through love and war.

You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

This book didn’t keep me on the edge of my seat, but did keep calling me back. I would read a couple of chapters and feel satisfied to set it down to wait for a few days. Then have another free moment and pick it up again.

It was a simple story. Sometimes simple is good, even in a book. It is relaxing to read that kind of book once in a while.

You see Hannah’s life as a girl, young woman, and a well aged, wise woman. Hannah seemed like the kind of woman I could learn from, a mentor.

I wasn’t sure how I would like it since it was a woman’s life written by a man, but Berry wrote her well. It was written well and has whet my appetite for more books by Wendell Berry.

I would recommend this book to any young or old woman.

Have you read Hannah Coulter?

Have you read a book that you enjoyed because it was simple and real?

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