For both writers and Zen Buddhists, paying attention is important. It stands to reason, then, that Tracy Franz's recently published memoir, "My Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk's Wife in Japan," is full of carefully observed detail — a praying mantis tucked into a corner, the rice-grain-length stitches on a monk's garments, an urn containing the bones of a beloved cat.
My Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk's Wife in Japan, by Tracy Franz.
308 pages