It's Monday

It's Monday!  What are you reading is a weekly meme hosted by  Sheila of Book Journey, where we share what we've been reading all week, or what we are planning on reading in the coming week.

This is what I've been reading..... 

I really liked this book.  I really admired the author, Cheryl Strayed, for sticking to something so hard when she really didn't have the preparation, nor had she done much research on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. 

She used her hike as a contemplative prayer.  To get over her grief, from the passing of her mother and her divorce from her husband.

I think you can have contemplative prayer in the great outdoors. What better place?  You can  commune with nature and contemplate the meaning of life, your life, your place in it, the things that happened to you, process life events, come to terms with your life.
Which is exactly what Cheryl Strayed did during her 4-5 month hike on the PCT.

Plus---I fancy myself a hiker  (but I'm really a walker), so I felt a kinship with her.  IF ONLY!   Like I said, I am a walker.  I want to be a hiker, but I don't want feet like that,  bruises like that, scrapes like that.  Plus I usually have two cameras and binoculars strapped around my neck--hard to hike, really hike--like that. 
Day hikes are fine, picnics are fine, long walks in the woods are fine.  
I can read a book doing all those things.   Cheryl Strayed burned each page she read every night to lighten her backpack load on the trail.
Nope, not a true hiker/backpacker am I.
But I loved the book.

I finished it this morning and started this one this afternoon:

It's good too.