Tag: book reviews

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What I’m Reading – September 2024

What I’m Reading Now

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio – This is Holly’s debut novel, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. The main character, Lauren, returns home one night to find that reality has somehow shifted and she is married. As she tries to figure out what is going on, her husband goes to the attic to change a light bulb and disappears and a different husband comes down the ladder. So fun!

What I Recently Finished

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes DuMez – This was a fascinating account of the development and evolution of white evangelicalism in America written by a historian. I found it very easy to read and extremely educational.

Pack Up the Moon by Kristan Higgins – This novel is about a man whose wife wrote him letters before she died and had them delivered to him every month for the first year after she passed. It was reminiscent of P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern – in a good way!

The Library of Borrowed Hearts by Lucy Gilmore – I love books about books, and this novel features a librarian who discovers a 60-year old love story written in the margins of books. It was a charming book!

Earth’s the Right Place for Love by Elizabeth Berg – This is a another great installment from a writer I have admired for many years. It is a coming of age story which provides the backstory for the Arthur Moses, the main character in The Story of Arthur Truluv.

Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg – This is the story of John and Irene, who are divorced but are still connected by their 18-year old daughter Sadie. It is beautifully written, as are all of her books.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare – This is Book 1 of the Infernal Devices series, which is the prequel to the Mortal Instruments series. Both of these series are part of the Shadowhunter Chronicles. It was a recommendation from my friend Kim, who is a big fan of young adult romance and fantasy books. I don’t always love her selections, but I really enjoyed this one and am going to continue reading the series.

What I’ve Added to my TBR List

I added quite a few books to my list this month:

  • The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman (short story)
  • The Bookstore Wedding by Alice Hoffman (short story)
  • The Bookstore Keepers by Alice Hoffman (short story)
  • Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver
  • Natural Selection by Erin Hilderbrand (short story)
  • Heartstopper: Volume One by Alice Oseman
  • The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore
  • Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
  • Close Knit by Jenny Colgan
  • The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
  • The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers
  • The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
  • Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
  • The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak
  • The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
  • Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland
  • The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
  • The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
  • Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
  • Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum
  • What You Are Looking For Is In The Library by Michiko Aoyama
  • Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
  • Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
  • Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
  • The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – August 2024

What I’m Reading Now

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes DuMez – I am just a few chapters in and I am totally engrossed in this book.

Pack Up the Moon by Kristan Higgins – I just got this one on my Libby app; haven’t started it yet.

What I Recently Finished:

The Sister Effect by Susan Mallery – I gave this one five stars. It was so well-done.

The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton – I gave this one two stars, which is pretty rare for me. I did finish it, but it just wasn’t my favorite style of writing.

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center – This was an enjoyable book about two writers writing and falling in love. Very good.

Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle – Another five star book. I loved the premise and I didn’t guess the twist, which doesn’t happen very often.

The Summer Book Club by Susan Mallery – This was a good read.

Toxic Prey by John Sandford – Yet another five star rating – I have hardly given any this year and now I have three in one month! This is listed as #34 in the Lucas Davenport series. Goodreads also has it filed as #3 in the Letty Davenport series since it includes her as well (she is Lucas’s daughter.) I flew through this one.

What I’ve Added to my TBR List:

Miss Amelia’s List by Mercedes Lackey – This is #17 in the Elemental Masters series

Nashville Dreams by Pamela M. Kelley

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – June 2024

What I’m Reading Now:

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center – I’m about a quarter of the way through this one. It’s a cute story about a woman who loses the ability to see faces after a surgery.

The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go From Here by Kaitlyn Schiess – I just downloaded the audiobook from the library for this one, so I haven’t started it yet.

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight – I have made a little progress on this one since last month. It’s a bit esoteric for me, but I plan to finish it still.

What I Recently Finished:

Random Death by J.D. Robb

Let’s Pretend This Will Work by Maddie Dawson

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

I haven’t added anything new to my TBR in May. I currently have 90 books on my list.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – May 2024

What I’m Reading Now:

Random In Death by J.D. Robb – this is #58 from the In Death series, and it’s great so far, as they all are!

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight – I haven’t made much progress on this one since last month. I’ve been reading mostly fiction.

What I Recently Finished:

What is Love? by Jen Comfort

Second Chance at Christmas by Emily Engberts

Blank by Zibby Owens

Secrets of Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth

Christmas at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth

No Home Like Nantucket by Grace Palmer

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

The Happiness Plan by Susan Mallery

A Little Ray of Sunshine by Kristan Higgans

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Beyond Fragility: A Skills-Based Guide to Effective Anti-Racist Allyship by Yara Mekawi

A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today by Bonnie Kristian

I also added 63 fiction books to my TBR list. Instead of participating in Stuff Your Kindle Day, which gave me mixed results in book quality, I went through my list of books I have read and looked up what my favorite authors had written since I last read them.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – April 2024

What I’m Reading Now:

What Is Love? by Jen Comfort – I think this was a free book from Amazon First Reads. I just started it and it looks like it will be cute, if formulaic.

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight with Cody Matchett – I just started this one but I like it so far.

What I Recently Finished:

Sunshine of Your Love by Kirsty McManus – I got this book for free from Stuff Your Kindle Day. The premise was a bit odd – two people have to job share for three months to compete for a job. It’s a typical enemies to lovers story.

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth by Juliet Gauvin – Another free book. This is about a woman trying to find herself after losing a mother figure in her life. I really enjoyed it.

Airborne Hearts by Maggie Louzella – Another free book. A cute romance.

She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky – 5 stars to this one. It is written to mothers and daughters specifically. I don’t have a daughter, but I was raised with a lot of harmful teachings in this area, and this book was very helpful in recognizing and addressing those issues.

Return to Serendipity by Liza Lanter – Another free book. A standard story of a woman who both gets a divorce and inherits property from a deceased relative. Not bad.

Cottage at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Another free book. Another divorced woman who inherits property, this one also includes three friends who all move to the location where she inherits property over the course of the next few books. I enjoyed this one enough that I kept reading the series.

Bakery at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Book 2 in the Bella Beach series

Bookshop at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Book 3 in the Bella Beach series

Lighthouse at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Book 4 in the Bella Beach series

Payback in Death by J.D. Robb – This is book 57 in the In Death series. I love these books, and this one did not disappoint. The series centers around Eve Dallas, who is a homicide detective in futuristic New York City. So good!

Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope by Rachel Gilmore, Candace Lewis, Tyler Sit, and Matt Temple – I read this Lenten devotional in conjunction with a virtual Bible study led by my pastor. It was very good. It dealt with a lot of topics that are new for me to consider and showed me areas that I need to learn more about.

The Worst Christmas Ever? by Rebecca Paulinyi – Another free book. Woman gets cheated on and runs away to find herself. Ends up starting a new business and a new relationship within a few weeks.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

The Last List of Muriel Beaumont by Laura Pearson

Secrets of Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth

Return to Bella Beach by Kate Wentwortj

Christmas at Bella Beach: A Novella by Kate Wentworth

Random in Death by J.D. Robb

Passions in Death by J.D. Robb

Lawyers and Lattes by Rebecca Paulinyi

The London Flat: Second Chances by Juliet Gauvin

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – March 2024

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth by Juliet Gauvin – A charming story about a woman who goes to a faraway place to grieve the loss of the woman who raised her and reevaluate her life choices.

She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky – I don’t have a daughter, but I have heard that this book can be good to help reframe some of my own past.

I am also still reading my Lenten devotional, Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope.

What I Recently Finished:

That’s What Love Is by Amy Rose – Got for free on stuff your Kindle day. It was not terrible, but not very good either. It ended quite abruptly, I thought.

Coming Home by Piper Reece – Another stuff your Kindle find. Cute story.

The Beauty of Perhaps by Eryn Marie – Another stuff your Kindle find. I actually liked this one quite a bit. I seem to enjoy stories where people go to faraway places to get away and find a new job or love interest.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan – I read this one because I had watched The Wheel of Time series on Amazon Prime and had never read the books. I will probably not read anymore of the series because this book was just so long and didn’t hold my interest very well. It’s also hard to keep track of everything that’s going on, which I also found true of the show.

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister – This was a really good book illustrating how a book can affect different people at different times and in different situations. Very enjoyable.

The Lighthouse Cafe by Bebe Reed – Another stuff your Kindle acquisition. It was okay, a sweet story.

Pride, Prejudice, and Pledging by Sara Marks – This was a decent retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t great.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? The Bible and Modern Science and the Trouble of Making it All Fit by Janet Kellogg Ray – Very interested in this topic

God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines – One I have wanted to read for a while

What Is Love? by Jen Comfort – This is my free Amazon First Reads for March.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – January 2024

I haven’t written about what I’m reading since December of 2020, but of course I have been reading all along. According to my records on Goodreads, I read 79 books in 2021, 73 books in 2022, and 58 books in 2023. I have decided to start posting about my reading again.

What I’m Reading Now:

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price – This would have been a great book to have when I was first diagnosed with autism, although much of it relates to more recent discoveries about autism and how it is expressed in various marginalized groups.

Launching Your Autistic Youth to Successful Adulthood by Katharina Manassis – This has some really helpful information for parents of kids on the spectrum. It’s another one I wish I had sooner because a lot of it applies to kids who are still in high school. It is still helpful even with Michael being out of school for a couple of years.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan – This is the first book in The Wheel of Time series. For some reason, I never picked it up back when it was first published in 1990, but I have watched both seasons that are out of The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime, so I thought it would be good to read at least the first book in the series. It’s a good book but harder to read because I already know the basic plot from the show. I have borrowed it from the library twice but not finished it yet, and now the Libby app is showing all copies expired. I’m not sure if I want to finish it badly enough to buy it on Kindle.

What I Recently Finished:

I haven’t finished any books yet this year, so I’m not going to list any books here this month. I plan to start listing books I’ve read with the next update.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak – I had started this book a long time ago and didn’t finish it, but I have decided to give it another try. I believe this one is mainly about universal reconciliation. I am interested in reading books on the other beliefs about hell as well.

Leave It To Us by A.C. Arthur – I got this book for free as part of Amazon’s First Reads. It looks like an interesting story about three sisters who inherit their grandmother’s beach house.

Postscript by Cecelia Ahern – This is a sequel to P.S. I Love You, which was a great book. I bought it with some of my Christmas money from my mom.

Freckles by Cecelia Ahern – Another book by Ahern, who I enjoy. Also bought with Mom’s Christmas money.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+

book-reviews

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The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+: Winning Strategies to Make Your Money Last a Lifetime by Suze Orman is a great book full of timely information. I borrowed it from my online library app and finished it in two days!

Having turned 50 last Christmas, I have to admit my thoughts have turned to retirement a time or two. Not that I have any intention of retiring soon, but the topic is on my radar now more than it was before. I don’t feel that I have done a super job at preparing for it up to now, so I was afraid that this book would just make me feel inadequate and hopeless. But Orman approaches the subject without being heavy-handed or berating anyone for choices they have made so far.

The book is well-organized, moving through chapters about family and working years on to ones covering your transition into retirement and beyond. In most chapters, she gives some information and then lists out her recommended action points in bullets before going into detail on each one. At the end of that discussion, she provides a recap of the main points from the chapter. I found it very easy to read and follow what she was saying.

Some of the highlights for me were:

  • How to help your kids and parents without sabotaging your retirement
  • Changes to make while you’re still working that will give you a boost
  • Discussion about housing options and costs
  • A thorough explanation of how Social Security, Medicare, and pensions work
  • Managing your money for the long-haul

Other chapters focused on investing, including a good discussion about bonds, finding a financial advisor, and getting your documents in order, of which I have only completed a will.

Overall, I enjoyed her writing style and appreciated her personal stories illustrating the points she was making. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to focus on the area of retirement planning.

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Decluttering at the Speed of Life

dsl

Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K. White was recommended to me by Sandra Madeira recently, and I was fortunate enough to find it online at my library.

The book itself is an easy and interesting read, and I got through it quite quickly. The method she describes is very different from KonMari, so if you find that to be overwhelming, you may take better to this one.

She recommends focusing on visual clutter first, starting at the front door and moving through the spaces where you would be most likely to have guests. Armed with only a black trash bag and a donateable donation box, start first by discarding any trash in the space.

Next, put any items that you absolutely know where they go away and put any items you definitely know you are done with in the donation box. Once you have handled all the easy stuff, it’s time to tackle the rest.

Take each item and ask yourself where you would look for it first. You can also ask whether you would actually look for it or whether you wouldn’t even remember that you had it. If you would look for it someplace, take it to that place immediately and put it away. If that place is full, remove stuff from that place until it will fit and then put the stuff you removed into the donation box. If you wouldn’t even look for it, just donate it and be done with it.

The beauty of this system is that if you get interrupted or sidetracked, you won’t be left with a pile of things that are in the middle of being organized. All you will have is a bag of trash and a box to take to the donation center.

The next time you declutter, start again at the front door and attack any visible clutter. Hopefully even if an area has become re-cluttered, it won’t take as long to deal with it this time and you will be able to move on to other areas.

There is a lot more detail to the method in the book, and she walks you through the process in several different areas of your home, repeating and refining the steps each time.

I highly recommend this book. Although I have already KonMari’d my house, I like this method as a way to keep things picked up. I also plan to use it with a friend who wants my help with her house as it makes the most sense for her personality and lifestyle.

What method do you like for decluttering?

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Books on Decluttering

I started out my decluttering journey by reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, and I can’t recommend it enough. Her KonMari method of decluttering and organizing really made the difference for me. I finally feel like my house is under control.  There are aspects of the book that were a bit too out there for me, but overall it made a lot of sense.

I have since read Kondo’s second book, Spark Joy, and wasn’t as impressed with it as with her first book. But it was an easy read and since I checked it out of the library I could just return it when I was done.  It does contain a lot of illustrations, which are especially helpful for understanding her method of folding clothes.

Two other books I have read as well are Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki and The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson.

Goodbye, Things is a fascinating book that both details Sasaki’s journey towards minimalism and gives advice to would-be minimalists.  Although he has gone much farther down the minimalist road than I ever would, I found it inspiring to read his thoughts on the process and how it made a difference for him.  It contains a good mix of philosophy and practical ideas.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning was also a quick read, although I don’t feel that it added much to what I have already read and watched via YouTube on the topics of decluttering and minimalism.  Magnusson’s main idea is that we should clear out our excess stuff before we die so that those we leave behind aren’t forced to deal with it all.  While I definitely agree with her premise, I didn’t get much else out of this book.

I know I haven’t gone into a lot of detail about these books, but hopefully this short review has given you some ideas of what you might like to read on this topic.  If you have other books to recommend, please leave me a comment and I will check them out.

Thanks and happy reading!