Reading Update

Book #37 was Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, by Rumer Godden. Godden wrote several novels about nuns and convents, and this is one of them. It's darker than the others. I liked this, and I'm continuing to read/reread as much of Godden's fiction as I can.

Book #38 was Cold Tangerines, by Shauna Niequist. I've read this several times since I bought it in 2012, and I enjoyed rereading it.

Book #39 was another reread, Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver. I used to have a copy of this, and I let someone borrow it and never got it back, but I was able to borrow it from the library. Since the last time I read it, I've learned much more about birds, and I was happy to see that there were many birds in the book that I hadn't really noticed before!

Book #40 was Apples Never Fall, by Liane Moriarty. While there are some serious themes in the book, it ends up being quite the feel-good read.

Book #41 was So Many Beginnings, by Bethany C. Morrow. This is billed as a "remix" of Little Women, but I heard the author interviewed and she said she'd never read the original novel. The girls in this version are African Americans, living in the Freedpeople's Colony of Roanoke Island. I'm quite curious to know how much the presentation of this place really mirrors how things were during Reconstruction. It was an interesting retelling, for sure.

Books #42, #43, and #44 were all comfort reads, rereads of The Horse and his Boy, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Last Battle. I'll never stop rereading these books, especially in times of stress.

Book #45 was The Road Away from God: How Love Finds us Even as we Walk Away, by Jonathan Martin. This was a reread, and here you can read what I wrote about it the first time I read it.

Book #46 was How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals, by Sy Montgomery. I found this in a list of comfort reads, and I enjoyed it.

Book #47 was Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind, by Judson Brewer. This is very good. Recommended.

Book #48 was When God Breaks Your Heart: Choosing Hope in the Midst of Faith-Shattering Circumstances, by Ed Underwood. This had a lot of good stuff in it, but I didn't like Underwood's suggestion that it's about finding the right kind of formula for your prayers.

Book #49 was Comfort Ye My People, by Kay Bruner. This reread is a devotional based on Handel's Messiah. It's really good!

Book #50 was Of Green Stuff Woven, by Cathleen Bascom. This was an entertaining novel about an Episcopal church faced with some choices about whether to sell land for which they've been offered a lot of money. It's about grasses, the environment, and people.

Book #51 was Nice Girls Don't Change the World, by Lynne Hybels. Hybels is the mom of Shauna Niequist (who wrote book #38 and many others), so it was interesting to read something from her point of view!

Book #52 was Breathing Room: Letting Go So You Can Fully Live, by Leeana Tankersley. Here's what I wrote about it the first time I read it.

 

Book #53 was Penmarric, by Susan Howatch. I've read this novel before, but it must have been pre-blogging, since there's nothing about it here on the blog. It's classic Susan Howatch: lots of characters, many points of view, complex relationships.

 

Book #54 was another reread, How to Survive a Shipwreck, by Jonathan Martin. I've read it several times. Here's what I wrote the first time.

 

Book #55 was Seeing Through the Fog: Hope When Your World Falls Apart, by Ed Dobson. This is Dobson's book about his diagnosis of ALS and how he continued living. This was published in 2012 and ALS finally killed Dobson in 2015. He lived 15 years after his diagnosis, which was way longer than the doctors predicted. This is a great book.