Known to millions as simply "Sister Jean," the Loyola Chicago matriarch gives readers a remarkable memoir filled with history, wonder, and common-sense wisdom for this century and beyond.
"I've seen so many changes in the last 102 years, but the important things remain the same."
Part memoir, part philosophy text, and part spiritual guide, Sister Jean's wit, wisdom, and common sense seems to appeal to the broadest possible audience--religious and non-religious, old and young, male and female, sports fan and non-sports fan. Along with her collaborator Seth Davis, an award-winning writer, broadcaster and New York Times best-selling author, the book captures not just Sister Jean's words but also her spirit, as well as her sharp sense of humor. The reader feels just as the students at Loyola do when they knock on her office door, plop down in a chair, and ask if she would have time to chat, an activity that she still does daily at the age of 102.
The driving force inside Wake Up with Purpose! is the narrative of Sister Jean's fascinating life. She dips into her prodigious memory bank and draws the reader in as she retraces her path from a young girl growing up in the Bay Area of California (where her father kept a pet monkey and family ark beached on the shore and where she walked with her mother across the Golden Gate Bridge on the day it opened) to her studies to become a Sister at the BVM Mother House in Iowa to her long tenure as an elementary school teacher in Chicago and Los Angeles to her decades on university faculty at Mundelein College and Loyola University to, finally, her unexpected turn as a centenarian celebrity with multiple bobblehead dolls crafted in her image. Alongside those detailed recollections, Sister Jean lays out the life lessons she gleaned and expounds on broad, universal themes that tie everything together, providing priceless wisdom from a woman who's become a national treasure.
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“The amount of history the memoir encompasses is staggering, from the dropping of the atomic bomb to Black Lives Matter protests….Secrets to a long life well-lived [are] easy and applicable to anyone.”
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America magazine