I hit those five stars so hard. This book is beautiful and thought provoking and full of so much lovely wisdom.

I think I could read a bit of this book every night forever. It’s joyful and hopeful, insightful and encouraging.

Sometimes a book just resonates with truth spoken to my soul. Madeleine L'Engle is one of the few authors that mean just as much to me as an adult as when I was a child. Just as A Wrinkle in Time communicated truth to me then, A Circle of Quiet communicates to me now. I'm not sure that it's possible to sum up the thesis of this memoir in a few words - it's more a free-flowing stream of consciousness regarding art, faith, family, touch, ontology and mystery. While written in 1972, it speaks relevantly to life today. It's inspiring me in my writing and my soul-searching, my fatherhood and my personhood. Looking forward to reading the other 3 journals in this series, and more of L'Engle's non-fiction musings.

Actual rating 2.5 ⭐ rounded up. I dnf'd at page 55. Just meh and not in the mood for this at all. May return to it.

I loved this thoughtful book and read it in small bites - there was so much to think about. It reminded me of the conversations I had in college when we thought such 'deep' thoughts, but it also challenged me to go deeper in my own thinking about my ordinary life. Why do I think the way I do, what is behind another person's anger/fear/sadness/distance? It made me slow down and look for meaning in my life on an every day basis. It made me take my own journaling more seriously and challenged me to dig deeper. I underlined SO much that I will go back and copy out so I can think about it again. Quiet books like this don't seem to be published any more. I'm looking forward to the other Crosswick Journals.

A lovely collection of thoughts, stories, and life lessons as a woman journals from her summer cottage. Though I didn't agree with all of her thought processes and conclusions, there are many a good quote or paragraphs to be found within its pages. And some great inspiration for Acts of Kindness. Not just my own story ideas, but for more intentional thought behind all our actions. In addition to encouraging the creativity of a writer.

This memoir is a near exact replica of what I want out of life. I’ve written it elsewhere in my reviews of her fiction but I’ve long thought that Madeline L’Engle’s descriptions of family life must have come from her own and it’s what I hope the inside of my home feels like. These reminiscences on humanity, faith, family, writing, music, death, and New England small towns was so wise and so lovely. She is not afraid to be unconventional and has truly considered her convictions about the world over decades of education. I especially her thoughts about writing or creating so encouraging and invaluable.

The first half of this book was lovely but the second half was often repetitive, tedious, and sometimes saccharine and moralistic.

I loved the Wrinkle In Time series when I was growing up so I was intrigued by this book. I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I really enjoyed reading her thoughts on life and the world. This was published in 1971, but so much of it still applies today. We can get so caught up in what is happening in the world and think it has never happened before when the base human struggles happen over and over in history, we just forget or don’t know about them. This book was a great reminder of that fact and some good wisdom for how to deal with it.

Poignant. Funny. Quirky. Eccentric. Provocative.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Made it almost half way through before I finally decided to put it aside. I just wasn't getting into it. Which surprised me because I was convinced I would love it - totally seems like my type of book.
Perhaps its just my mood. I want to try it again another time.

This book is about teaching children, writing, family and community, the modern world, love, religion and some other things. I don't agree with L'Engle on lots of things, but I agree with her on lots of other things, and I came away from the book feeling refreshed, revived.

Other favourite books on living I'd tag as self-help:
The Importance of Living by  Lin Yutang
A Room of One's Own by  Virginia Woolf (a book about writing is basically a book about living)
The Prophet by  Kahlil Gibran -- this one's a bit embarrassing, but I did like it, and it would be unworthy to exclude a book from a list for fear of appearing naive or obvious or uncultured. That would be behaving like that silly LJ community that made you list your top 20 books and then judged whether you were elite enough to join them, and never did anything else.