It always amazes me how books can connect people. I know that whenever I meet someone new, a question that is sure to show at least part of our “kindred spirit-ness” is “So, do you like to read?”. If the answer is in the affirmative, and the person starts waxing eloquent about their beloved authors and books, I know we’ll definitely have something to talk about for awhile.
Archive | March, 2011
When Marriage Meets Grace
dusting bookshelves
Our little living room may not have much going for it in terms of real furniture, but it does have three matching bookshelves. The books they hold make up the lack, creating the kind of cozy decoration that, to me, helps to make a house into something more. The pretty ones are as good as any picture hanging on the wall.
The thing with books and bookshelves is that many little (and big) hands can quickly vanquish any sort of order in record time, no matter how you arrange them! It is a good thing that dusting the bookshelves and putting them back into place is a job that is more fun than work…
Why Sequels Aren’t Equals
If you’re a book lover, like me, you have a favorite author (or several). And at some point, you will have read all the works by said author. What happens then? Do you sigh sadly, make a cup of tea, and begin writing yourself? Perhaps you check out a new author from a reading list, or ask a friend for a recommendation. You could even read a book about the author (I have two such books on my reading list, biographies of beloved authors Elizabeth Goudge and Bess Streeter Aldrich) or make a pilgrimage to places they lived, wrote, or wrote about.
Or, you can read a sequel by another author.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a great deal of variation in the quality of such “sequels.”
2011 March of Books Reviews
It’s been quite the March of Books. Some of us have blogged about little but books this month, which is no chore for a book-loving blogger! Especially when we got to show off our favorite copies of our favorite books.
But now it’s time to wrap it all up by sharing the links to all the books we’ve been reviewing on our blogs this month…
When Marriage Meets Grace
Love That Lasts
I read a lot of books about relationships in my late teens and early twenties. Enough to know that they aren’t all helpful and encouraging. And they most definitely are not all must-reads. When I got married, there were the few books I didn’t pack — the ones I kept handy for reference as I…
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
I can’t remember where I first saw the book Letters of a Woman Homesteader. The wonderful cover caught my eye right away and the title was intriguing, but the clincher was the fact that I could read it right away on my iPod — for free!
I was not disappointed. Not only is the premise interesting — a young widow with a small daughter who decides to go out West and claim her own homestead — the writing is excellent…
The Chasm at the Edge of Eternity
When I opened Randy Alcorn’s latest book, The Chasm: A Journey to the Edge of Life, I had some idea of what I’d find. The Chasm, I knew, would be the gulf that separates us from God — and the bridge over it, the Cross.
But The Chasm is a lot more than just a little book expounding on that apt illustration. It is a modern-day version of Pilgrim’s Progress in the style of Lewis, Tolkien, and Peretti…
Charity’s Diaries
Most fiction that I’ve been exposed to has felt cheap, shallow, and unedifying. The unrealistic light in which romantic fiction often paints life and love has led many a girl to look for love in the wrong places, or be dissatisfied with life in general…
Charity’s Diaries are different. Like one of my favorite authoresses, Louisa May Alcott, Elisabeth Allen wrote Charity as a real girl who is not perfect, who faces realistic disappointments and heart struggles and fears, just like we all have had at some point in our lives. And like Gretchen, I often read the pages with tears in my eyes as time after time I recognized some of the life, I too, have lived, written into the pieces of Charity’s thoughts in her diary and daily life that are captured in these books…
Books About Books
I have a special section for them on my bookshelves: books about books. As if I don’t have enough books already, I have books full of more book titles to find!
There’s Books Children Love: A Guide to the Best Children’s Literature by Elizabeth Wilson. And of course, Jim Trelease’s ever-popular The Read-Aloud Handbook, along with Terry Glaspey’s Book Lover’s Guide to Great Reading: A Guided Tour of Classic & Contemporary Literature…
The Reading Balance
Years have changed a lot of things for this bookworm. The responsibilities and demands of life have shifted my priorities: I don’t read as much as I use to read, and for a while, I read almost nothing at all. In part, many moves that kept books tucked into boxes for months or years at a time were to blame. But that wasn’t the only reason.
I doubt that over-reading in general is something that much of the population today has to worry about. But sometimes I wonder if we take time to find balance in our reading, in what we read, how we read and yes, even how much we read…
