Cold Tangerines (Niequist)

Cold Tangerines is a collection of essays about “celebrating the extraordinary nature of everyday life.” It’s very honest and intimate. At times, it’s even very funny.

Overall, I loved this book. The author has such a lovely way of looking at things and she is a terrific writer. It’s not a perfect book; some parts are repetitive and we are kept in the dark about what really happened with the loss of her job even though the topic appears frequently. That didn’t keep me from enjoying the book though. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“What God does in the tiny corners of our day-to-day lives is stunning and gorgeous and headline-making, but we have a bad habit of saving the headlines for the grotesque and scary.”

“Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways… When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life.”

“There’s normal life, kind of day-to-day make breakfast, do the dishes kind of life, but just underneath that, like a throb of bass you feel in your chest, I feel a whole other thing going on. In the midst of taxes and email, there is something sacred, something special dipping and weaving within that same old thing, like a firefly, like a great song, and it reminds you that the dishes and the taxes are real, but so much more is real, too. The sacred mixes in with the daily when you have a conversation with someone you love, or when you read a great book, or when you do something courageous. It’s still just a normal day, but there’s something bigger, something more compelling going on, too.”