The Dream Lover is a historical novel at once expansively researched yet intimately imagined. George Sand may be the ultimate Berg heroine. 'A life not lived in truth,' Berg writes, 'is a life forfeited.' In this latest work, Elizabeth Berg has poured her own great gifts and her own great heart into the story of a woman determined to refuse any such forfeiture, no matter the cost.

The ability to know one’s limitations, to recognize the bounds of one’s own comprehension—this is a kind of knowing that approaches wisdom.

For why are we here if not to try to fathom one another? Not through facts alone, but with the full extent of our imaginations. And what are stories if not tools for imagining?

Unfortunately, being physically equipped to hear has little to do with the actual predilection to listen. Sharing a common tongue does not ensure earnest or successful communication. Missed connections occur among hearing people all the time, splitting open countless minor chasms and yawning gulches, fissures that no vaccine or technilogical advance will ever be able to mend or prevent. That task will always fail to us.

The Dream Lover is a historical novel at once expansively researched yet intimately imagined. George Sand may be the ultimate Berg heroine. 'A life not lived in truth,' Berg writes, 'is a life forfeited.' In this latest work, Elizabeth Berg has poured her own great gifts and her own great heart into the story of a woman determined to refuse any such forfeiture, no matter the cost.

Is there a wrong way to say "I don't know"? Yes. When we declare ignorance, it should be a) honest and b) in the spirit of opening ourselves up to hearing, to learning, to receiving. When we say "I don't know" under these conditions, the words can forge connection, healing, growth. But when we resist or disavow knowledge, when we profess ignorance as a way of donning armor and evading accountability, then we make a mockery of those words, and we rupture connections not only with others but within ourselves, within our souls.

There is nowhere morning does not go.