Author Christina Hamlett sent in this review for one of her favorite books:

There are numerous self-help books on the market that enable people to cope with major life transitions—divorce, the death of a spouse, the move to a new neighborhood, the onset of empty-nest syndrome. Nothing attacks life changes better, though, than the wit and mirth of Catherine Goldhammer’s Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea. Her conversational style is hilarious and reads as if she is sitting across the table from you over coffee and talking about her move to a fixer-upper house by the sea with a daughter who is most defiantly her own person. My favorite paragraph is the mother’s observation about the simplicity of life as seen through the eyes of their brood of fluffy chicks: “The chickens went about their little chicken lives, eating and drinking and pecking. When I picked them up, they settled into the hammock I made of my shirt and went to sleep. Their beady little eyes drooped and they leaned their little heads against my thumb. Chickens are masters at living in the moment. I should stop worrying about them, I told myself. I should bow to their greater wisdom.”

It’s a wonderful lesson about resiliency (and comfort) from which we all can learn.  —  Christina H., Pasadena, California