One Long Listening by Chenxing Han is a beautifully crafted exploration of the complexities of communication and connection. Han's writing is both lyrical and profound, drawing readers into a world where silence and listening play pivotal roles in understanding ourselves and others. The narrative is rich with personal anecdotes and insightful reflections, making it relatable and thought-provoking. While some sections may feel a bit introspective for those seeking a more straightforward narrative, the depth of emotion and wisdom presented makes it a rewarding read. Overall, it's a compelling book that resonates on many levels, earning a solid 4 stars.

A beautiful memoir of grief and spirituality that shows us various snippets of Buddhism and the author's own reflections studying in a Taiwanese Buddhist monastery. I did find the untranslated sections a little confusing, but once I got to the end of the book and re-read it one more time, I saw the beauty and I found the book rather moving.

This book is profound, humorous, gorgeously written, and so unusual: it blends memoir, travel, spiritual insight, and linguistic adventure. It's remarkable in how Han uses Chinese characters -- and other languages too -- to enrich the text and (to English-speaking readers who don't know these other languages) give a direct experience of mystery, exactly what the narrator is undergoing, . And yet the context makes the words clear. I've never seen this tricky technique accomplished with such skill.

The spiritual insights are leavened with wry humor throughout, and I loved how through Han, the reader could venture into hospital wards and discover what chaplaincy is. This book is about kindness, care, and the importance of not-knowing (not coming with preconceived notions) that is the essence of listening.

I invited his author for an event, and she was fantastic!

I know that one long listening will be deep medicine for many people. Through letters to a dying friend, conversations with patients at the hospital where she worked as a chaplain, glimmering details from her time at a monastery in Taiwan, and memories of her immigrant childhood, Chenxing weaves together a story that is utterly immersive and poetic. She also plays masterfully with language, not only with English prose but also by interspersing words and phrases in Mandarin, Shanghainese, Japanese, Khmer, and Thai throughout the text, never directly transmitting them in English but giving their sense through the context of their stories. There is truly no other book out there like it. See it shine brightly atop a lighthouse beside the ocean where it was born.

I received this from NetGalley and I really enjoyed. Told by a Buddhist chaplain as they experience and learn their new profession and about life.

It was intriguing to learn about topics I didn’t know about such as chaplaincy and Buddhist practices. I also love the message that grief is not linear.

As friendships rightfully grow in their perceived importance in our culture, the loss of a friend will understandably appear in more narratives. Like last year's Stay True by Hua Hsu, one long listening revolves around the loss of Chenxing Han's friend. I've not read any books by chaplains before, but regardless, it's refreshing to read a chaplain whose understanding of death is not tied up with Christianity. Han's book is moving and one of many necessary stories to come about what it means to face death in a culture that needs wider understandings of grief and mourning than we've so far had.

I have a feeling the version of this in actual book form will make a bit more sense than the ARC did.

This book was moving, even if I had a harder time following along and figuring things out. It was a great reminder of the impermanence of life, home, family, and all we tend to feel will constantly be in existence. Chenxing's life sharing shows us how nuanced our lives can be, yet how similar to others - how small connections have great impacts - and how we all deal with our life's path in our own way.

I truly believe that the reason I didn’t love this books as much as I thought I would is because of the meandering nature of the writing. Many people love stream of consciousness writing but I am not one of them. I often found that I was loosing the thread while reading. I do think that the intentional decision to include names and passages in their original languages was good as it immersed the reader in the text more. While I wanted to love this book so much more, as I well read anything about grief, unfortunately it didn’t work for me.

It started out really intriguing. I'm not at all familiar with chaplaincy, and it was interesting to learn more. But as it went on the the prose and plot and asides and personal notes blurred together, I couldn't keep myself interested.

Received a free copy on Netgalley.

Thank you to the NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

3.0

A pretty good memoir with a stream of consciousness narration and important topics covered including grief, friendship and spiritual. Han does their best to recollect the moment, and you can tell, it’s fragmented and quick, much like a memory and I thought that must have taken incredible skill to capture something like a memory into writing. They delve into moments and try to relive them as best as possible and most of all, they really respect the people around them.

However, I’m not entirely sure what this book is really about: is it about grief in general or her own grief that she is trying to deal with in her life. I didn’t get a good grip on the message of this memoir - I’m not sure what to think of that. I didn’t feel the grief emanating from the pages, nor the importance of friendship or spiritual care - Han rarely provides much insight to her own emotions into these topics so I’m not sure what I learned from the memoir. I did learn some Chinese, so there’s that. I feel like memoirs need a message in order to be important, they’re also meant to shed some insight into a person’s emotional state at their memories and how they felt - it needs to be a real reflection of their memory and their psyche.

Because of the stream of consciousness narration, the memories bounce and change in a single sentence that I didn’t even realise that it was a change of topic until I re-read the sentence. I don’t know if I like that style, especially for a memoir. I feel like again, memoirs are a moment for reflection and insight, but with the sporadic rate the narrative flows, it’s hard to keep up. Also Han uses strange nicknames for their friends and characters but then doesn’t really elaborate on the meaning behind them - for example, I don’t know why they calls her friend ‘the sunrise friend’, because it could mean a lot of different things (do they bring light to the world? Were they born during sunrise? Do they wake up at sunrise?), so if they worked on expanding their world a little, I think it would make good clarity.

Another point that was really distracting were the nonsense footnotes sometimes. One of them just repeated a word and I remember thinking that it didn’t add any substance to the narrative Han was trying to create. The footnotes were too much, and almost all were nonsensical and did not elaborate on things much further or provide context which is what they are meant for. If Han could work on carefully selecting their footnotes and see which ones are worth keeping in the story, that would make the narrative seem more polished.

Overall, it’s not bad, but it’s not that great either. Which I hate because I understand what Han was trying to do, it just wasn’t executed or edited well.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. This felt like a stream of consciousness where the speaker is telling you a story, but adding in lots of side trips along the way which is a bit disorientating at times. Grief is like that too. You think you're in one place and suddenly find yourself in another place without any warning. Grief is universal, but it also can make us feel alone. I mostly cried my way through this book as the author talked about losing her good friend and how the grief takes over. My sister passed away 2 years ago and the grief is still a part of me. The author speaks of her time as a chaplain in a hospital which I also connected with my time as a hospital social worker and doing similar grief work with patients' families. A book filled with emotion and thoughts about healing after a loss.

This is a beautifully written, emotional memoir that looks at grief in a perspective that is not typically found in the western literary world. I enjoyed reading about the people that chenxing has supported as a chaplain, as well as her own first-person account of her own grieving process throughout the years. I found solace in this honest and vulnerable narrative.

“Here is what I can tell you about the structure of this memoir … [T]he structure has no beginning or end. Fluid as a river, sure as one too, it evaporates all distinction between past and future, sickness and health, life and death.”
Thank you to North Atlantic Books and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
In this heartfelt memoir, Chenxing Han writes a beautiful dedication to a dear friend, recounting how her work began to exist as she studied to become a chaplain. As she meets people from all walks of life in their most vulnerable states, Han also contemplates her friendship with her roommate. This book’s prose is incredibly personal and reflective. It emphasises the beauty of life, self-growth, and finding the words to be able to express profound love for family and friends.

This poetic and introspective memoir recounts a Chinese anerican Buudhist experiences in an oncology ward and a stay in a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand where he learns about meditation and giving spiritual support.

One Long Listening by Chenxing Han is a deeply profound memoir exploring the ways we process and move through loss and life's transitions. Han shares with us her work as a Buddhist and chaplain who supports grieving families while working in hospice care. Written with such vulnerability, honesty, and heartache she also shows us the ways remembering and honoring our connections to community and our loved ones help support our mental health during life's toughest moments.

I really enjoyed the personal stories about the families she supported during her chaplaincy and the relationships she forged within these family systems during her time in service to them. The parallel process between supporting grieving families while moving through her own grief still stick with me after reading. Thank you to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!

one long listening is a brave and open memoir that to me felt like an introduction; to chaplaincy (i had never heard of the concept), to the lives, thoughts and feelings of patients with a beautiful range of ideas and emotions around death and mortality, love and relationships. how these ideas are interwoven and intrinsically linked is explored through memories and letters - through these windows chenxing han guides us through the exhilarating turbulence of life, in heart tears, in belly laughter, and in reflection this book will change you in some way, i promise.

one aspect of the memoir form is that scenes and moments are explored, rather than sequential narratives or plot line. han details her memories of life as a chaplain on call in an oncology ward through a series of interactions with patients and their loved ones. each scene is recounted deliberately and approached cautiously, as one would approach a first encounter with a stranger; indeed, that is what the majority of these encounters are. these described memories felt like glimpses of human connection, shards of a shattered mirror: in each fragment we are exposed to a message, an observation or a feeling. as these interactions shape the writer, they also shape us as we ourselves bridge the space between our lives experience and the lives we are allowed to glimpse.

primarily, i would say this memoir centres around the themes of grief and mortality. without leaking spoilers or too many quotes, there’s of loss and life are explored so articulately and exposes ur to a huge variety of concepts and outlooks. an example of this is that the memoir explores grief and the emotional weight associated with it using a model similar to the stress bucket model - some people might seem to cope with carrying the weight of losing a loved one, but might have a meltdown seeing a small tragedy such as a squashed butterfly or a bird brought in by a cat. in these approaches han provides us with space to formulate our own reflections and guides usin this. reading this book is as a conversation with open ended questions that provoke thought and reflection.

definitely my favourite part of the memoir were the emails exchanged between chenxing and her friend, preserved between these pages almost as artefacts for us to discover. whilst the conversations in these emails come from the central narratives of the memoir and centre around terminal illness and the themes/emotions associated with that, we are also invited into this private relationship between two friends. it is a reminder that platonic relationships can be connections that transcend the situational relationships forged with family. it was also a little heartbreaking to learn about this friend’s passing, but it feels like we heal a little from our own emotional traumas/grief as we read these emails. the structure of the book really reminded me that our every interaction with other human beings is just a glimpse through a window into a small part of their soul, but can still teach us so much about ourselves and how we perceive the world.

overall i would highly recommend this memoir, i would say it’s one of the best memoirs i’ve read and it’s written with a fluidity of writing that is so lyrical and engaging to read. something personal i really enjoyed was trying to decipher the mandarin characters (my chinese is not so great but i like challenging myself and definitely made myself giggle when i got it horribly wrong). if you’re asian american or have an immigrant background i think you would also be able to find reflections on that identity among the pages, although i can’t personally comment on that.

I enjoyed this but the footnotes are distracting. Perhaps it would be better to read this in hard copy rather than an ebook because the formatting interrupts the flow. Or is it the style of writing? Like one long stream of consciousness. I’m going to revisit this book when it is published.