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…
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…
When my sister got married, she left I Kissed Dating Goodbye and several other books on my bedroom shelf for me to read “someday”. But I didn’t feel an urgent need to look at them.
I’m the third of four kids in my family. Being twelve years younger than my sister, I learned a lot about teenage relationship struggles at an early age. Even though I didn’t yet understand what it was all about, the principles of courtship have been a part of my life ever since I can remember. Watching my older siblings conduct godly relationships—and subsequently standing as bridesmaid in their weddings—convinced me that a God-honoring courtship was the best path to marriage. I would just naturally follow in their footsteps—right?
Commencing the high-school years challenged me to re-think my perspective…
“I would define ‘hidden art’ as the art found in the ordinary areas of everyday life. Each person has, I believe, some talent which is unfulfilled in some hidden area of his being — a talent which could be expressed and developed.” -Edith Schaeffer When I first read Hidden Art, by Edith Schaeffer, several years…
I love reading. Books are beautiful – the covers, the pages, the words. The smell of the paper and the ink, too. And then there’s the story!
But what’s a girl to read? The choice of books is vast. And although it’s tempting to judge a book by it’s cover and read a book that displays a gorgeous picture or an intriguing title, that’s not always wise—not for a girl who loves Jesus.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life…”
I’m really not one for “inspirational” books. Too many of them seem fluffy, unsubstantial, or fake, written by people who seem to not realize that life is actually really hard sometimes.
When I first heard of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp, I wasn’t even planning on reading it…
I was at another meeting of homeschool moms. Tonight, the discussion topic was a book that only half of us had read.
I hadn’t read it. And I’ll admit, I was slightly prejudiced against the book and the authors.
But listening to one mom, I thought it sounded like a fabulous book on parenting.
Hearing another, though, I was afraid it might be filled with too many rules and not enough grace.
I laughed as I concluded that you could easily think you were hearing reviews of ten very different books when in a room full of ten homeschool moms who were talking about only one book…
Of the many books that have shaped my life over the years, next to the Bible and one or two other books, it is Pilgrim’s Progress that holds one of the most treasured places in my heart. It has been, in many ways, another lamp to guide my feet through these paths of life.
