Love of Life

"The lights were dim," writes the author of this compact, deeply heartwarming tale, "and I could only see shadows, but I felt a sense of warmth and peace around me. I was an infant in a bassinet. I do not remember the words my parents spoke, only the fact that I had such a wondrous feeling of love and security. I have managed, somehow or other, to preserve that feeling to this day." It's a very powerful feeling to have somehow held onto that lies at the heart of her story. Most of us fail to manage it. Nancy Sabatino's voice throughout is honest, clear-eyed, and utterly free of pretension. She's a Brooklyn girl through and through. She knows, blissfully and invariably, who she is, speaking with a vivid sense of openness and confidence. Francis Loyola was right when he said that, if you gave him a child until the age of four, you could have her back for life; and the author's character reveals itself on every page of Love of Life. She's industrious, irrepressible, and utterly devoted to her parents, her husband, and her three boys through thick and thin. Hers is a story worth reading more than once, because it reminds us in unmistakable terms what truly matters in life-and how to find wonder and joy in all our waking moments.