Title: Living Stones: 52 Love Letters
Author: Dimitria Christakis
Publisher: Westwood Books Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 978-1-64803-166-3
Pages: 412
Genre: Nonfiction, Religious, Self-help
Reviewed by: Leah Shepherd
Pacific Book Review
Living Stones: 52 Love Letters comes at the perfect time. With the coronavirus pandemic severely limiting how we can connect with each other, here comes this book extolling the value of personal, hand-written letters. Letter writing is an old-fashioned art that’s ideally suited to helping us emotionally connect with friends and family right now when parties, potlucks, and other celebrations have been put on hold.
Author Dimitria Christakis’ book shows us by example how to handle the art of letter-writing well. The author presents 52 letters written lovingly to her family members, friends, pastors, colleagues and others who touched her life in positive ways. The letters dig into themes such as family bonds, faith, kindness and loyalty. Each one is full of sincere affection and gratitude. Christakis has an admirable capacity for being vulnerable and genuine, never letting her love go unspoken. She reminds us to never take our own friends and family for granted.
The letters show us how to be specific in expressing our love and appreciation for others. Christakis explicitly praises her loved ones for unique traits she values in them, such as her sister’s reverence for God, her nephew’s tenacity, her colleague’s wisdom and resilience, and her friend’s “sass and brass.”
Christakis briefly introduces us to the letter recipient before each letter. Most of the letters start with a quite from the Bible, a poem or a song. Without being didactic, Christakis explains the quote’s meaning and how it connects with the letter recipient. Christakis is a teacher and a devoted Christian, and the faith-based messages are mostly ecumenical, not preachy or divisive.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of this book is its ability to inspire us to write letters to our own loved ones. The author asks detailed questions to prompt you to think about the people you could write to with love, affirmation and encouragement. The book is made all the more powerful by knowing that Christakis actually sent hand-written copies of these letters to their intended recipients before the book was published.
The last letter is addressed to Jesus. The author’s description of her own transformation from nonbeliever to believer around age 50 is inspiring and sincere. Throughout the book, she speaks as a relatively new devotee, a person “born again” and a “late-blooming believer.” She testifies that “faith cannot be forced.” She describes her local church as “bold, accepting, vibrant, and messy.”
Living Stones: 52 Love Letters is a fitting gift for someone who’s a Christian and an avid writer enjoying sentimental writing in general. Unlike many epistolary novels, you won’t find a linear narrative here; in this way it can be picked up and read, placed down and resume at any point. It’s a collection that expresses love and gratitude in all their varied, wonderful forms.
