Madeleine L'Engle has chronicled her own life well in her journals and memoirs. In these volumes, she allows the reader access to her personal cosmology, shares the richness of her own reading and study, and offers inspiration for creating a meaningful life. It's easy to see the origins of her books' emphasis on family (she was an only child who lost her father at an early age), as well as her respect for true marriage of heart and soul (her own, to actor Hugh Franklin, lasted forty years).

Excerpt from Two-Part Invention