Reading (52 Books in 52 Weeks)

What a year this has been! I would not like Job of the Old Testament wish a day or year away because it would be wishing away all the joys that happened as well. Instead let me desire to walk into the new year with Immanuel, God with me, and walk into it with strength, grace, and perseverance. When one has as many older family members as I have, I can not completely have a season without grieving. Let me take the blessing of having them with me for so long along with the sorrow of missing them when they leave our presence.

I couldn't accomplish all that I thought I would this year, and that's okay with me. I did not blog about all the books I read (although I took a few cool pictures); however, I did read 52 and more (71 actually -- maybe 72 if, before the end of the year, I finish The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton).

I did keep track on Goodreads and was able to take some (very poor) snapshots of my Year in Books 2019. So, here (or better displayed on Goodreads) you can see all of my 2019 books.

The shortest book was a book of poetry and I did not count it toward my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge. Nor did I count any of the children's books. I'm surprised a marketing person did not talk Samantha Shannon into dividing her book up into thirds for more sales; however, I'm not sure where she could have broken the book up.

I read The Donkey's Gift because it was on the bookshelf at my daughter's house and her friend suggested I read this book of his childhood. I'm surprised more people have not read it. (And, now by calling him her friend, I will find out whether either of them read my blog posts. Lol!)

The star rating for Daring to Hope is well-deserved. If you read her first book Kisses From Katie, I highly recommend that you follow up with her Daring to Hope. First, because she is six years older in the second book and she has had time to reflect on her 2011 story. Secondly, her expression and description of her grief at losing a good friend is both accurate and healing at the same time.

Liane Moriarity is known for her book Big Little Lies; however, it was the second book I had read by her. I found her first funny enough that I wanted to read this one also. I have not seen the television series of the same name.

All of the books pictured above, I did write blog posts for.

I wrote on all of the above except Austin Channing Brown's book I'm Still Here Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. I wanted to do a special post just for Brown's book because it was so incredibly good. I gave the book five stars and bought the book. I now follow her on Instagram.

After reading Austin Channing Brown's book, I started reading many more books by authors who are not considered white and male. It started an excellent practice -- one which I am continuing.

Books not blogged on (but reviews can be found on Goodreads)--

22. Under Our Skin by Benjamin Watson
24. The Librarian of Auschewitz by Antonio Iturbe (trans. by Lilit Zekulin)
25. The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
26. How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery
27. A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum (5 stars as you can see in the picture)
28. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
29. The Donkey's Gift by Thomas M. Coffey
30. The Tattoist of Auschewitz by Heather Morris
31. Twelve Patients Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer, M.D.
32. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
33. Reunion by Hannah Pittard

34. Reconstructing the Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
35. The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind by Barbara K. Lipska
36. Italian Rustic by Elizabeth Helman Minchilli
37. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (not for the faint of heart; check out Goodreads reviews first)
38. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
39. All the Place to Go by John Ortberg
40. The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison
41. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume (my granddaughter chose this one for me to read)
42. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
43. Running with a Police Escort by Jill Grunenwald
44. The Stars are Fire by Anita Shrive
45. Old in Art School by Nell Painter (audio version; recommended on a list of books for each age)
46. The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White

47. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shrive
48. My (Not So) Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella
49. Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarity
50. How the Bible Actually Works by Peter Enns (chosen by nephew to discuss with me)
51. Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis Majors
52. Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors
53. Love Does by Bob Goff
54. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen
55. Arabella by Georgette Heyer (my first introduction to this prolific writer)
56. Frederica by Georgette Heyer

57. Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
58. The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines
59. Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis -- actually I did blog on this one last week
60. Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Granny, McMillan, and Switzler (a work read)
61. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
62. Dominicana by Angie Cruz
63. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
64. The Quiet Gentleman  by Georgette Heyer
65. The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Heuertz
66. How to Walk Away by Katherine Center
67. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
68. Sorry, I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes by Jessica Pan

I'm not sure how Goodreads wound up with 71 books. I know I did have a couple of children's books in there that I did not count for my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge.

After 214 spam responses on the One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I decided to turn off the comment section on my blog, but feel free to respond to my reviews on Goodreads. I'm looking forward to 2020. See you next year!

P.S. My apologies to those reading this on a phone. I'm guessing that the formatting will be totally off.

Hoping (Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson)

I've fallen in love with a new author: Jacqueline Woodson. I met her through her book Feathers which I picked up off of the Black History display of books for children in my town's library.

It's the skinny book on the right with 'J' for juvenile on it. My review of the book on the left, Children of Blood and Bone, can be found here. As for the book in the middle The Sellout, I'm still reading it. Beatty writes satire which is not my normal go-to genre to read.

However, Feathers is the type of book I enjoy immensely: thought-provoking and discussable with characters I care about even though the book is written for a juvenile audience and short in length, all of which makes it a good choice for middle school or high school interdisciplinary units...or for a adult discussion group in need of something with fewer pages (say during a holiday season).

I picked up this book from the local library's display of books for Black History month in February. This book, along with the other two books mentioned already and three other books (I'm Still Here, Under Our Skin, and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Boy -- another children's book) are providing me with a diverse group of voices.

The voice in Feathers is gentle. As mentioned by other reviewers, Woodson includes a lot of issues--mom who keeps miscarrying, deaf brother, new boy in town who doesn't look like the rest of the classroom, classmate who struggles with living the Christ-following life versus saving souls, bullying, and outsiders.

I like that the deaf brother isn't just in the story to help the main character grow or move the story along. Granted, he is one of the "outsiders", but there is a little something "outsider" about each of the characters except the mean girls who are no longer interested in a good looking young man once they find out he is deaf.

I have to admit that my reading of the other books mentioned in this review raised a question for me as to whether the outsider coming into the community had to be this particular boy. I won't write more than that. There are some interesting twists at the end, and in the case of this book, you could read some of the reviews and find out all about the story, but I felt it meant something more to me to come at the story cold, knowing nothing about it.

💕💕💕 While I was able to pull from a small section (2 shelves) of our home library a number of books with diverse characters, I was disappointed to realize that only 3 of the 10 books had black or Hispanic authors. (We do have a large collection of books written by Alan Say, but he may be our only Asian author. ) Those three are Marie Bradby, Patricia C. McKissack, and John Steptoe. It's possible that when my children were young, we did not have access to more diversity anymore than we had access to characters with medical challenges being anything more than characters to help the main character grow. However, that is not the case anymore, and just reading about diverse characters is not enough. We all need to read works from a diverse group of writers.

--- At the moment, I can't think of a better way to grow in Christ-likeness in the area of seeing all humans as created in God's image than to get to know a diverse group of people as friends. And, if that is not forthcoming, then at least to start reading literature written by a diverse group of writers.