Then, over this Christmas Break, I picked up book after book and have had the greatest of revivals reigniting my love of spending an evening in a book. First, Christmas novels, for it is the season!
May I share?
- Karen Kingsbury's A Baxter Christmas: A new addition to the Baxter family saga (is it a saga? Surely, as so many books exist in this series...none, of which, have I read!) A story of forgiveness, redemption...both of which I need to have more...especially for family. Why is it so hard to deal with family!?
- Richard Paul Evans' The Mistletoe Secret: The third in this series, I loved the idea of the blog...reminds me of my love of blogging to an audience that you wonder is even out there! The main character's audience was one...and he came for her.
- Melody Carlson's The Christmas Angel Project: This may have been my favorite Christmas read! This one I am going to recommend to my ladies' book club for our next Christmas' read, as this one is about a ladies's book club. Cool. A club that learns about each other, about themselves, as they each take on angel project...to honor a member who passed. I truly enjoy being an angel in disguise. I have learned the more I disguise...the more the reward for me.
- Mary Kay Andrews' Blue Christmas
- Fern Michaels' Silver Bells: This was actually a compilation of Christmas novellas...just fun, easy reads. My take away...I need this sort of me-time more.
Then, Christmas was over...
- Beth Moore's The Undoing of Saint Silvanus: LOVED this book! Hope Beth Moore writes more fiction...but I do not want her to not write her nonfiction....sooooo...
- Corinna Montgomery's Clipped Wings: Everyone should read this book. Everyone. Written by a local of her experiences in Germany in the 1970-80's. Wow. Seriously considering a read-aloud of this book with my classes. Just loved how she met God in those prisons. Loved how God met here right there in those prisons. He meets us. We meet Him.
- Nora Roberts' Stars of Fortune and Bay of Sighs: Love waiting until a series completes and them reading them back-to-back! The third in this series should be delivered today. Yes, reading is again on my agenda for this afternoon/evening...just as soon as Mr. UPS gets here! About witches, shapeshifters, seers, and such. Again, reading this genre is just relaxing, entering another world...and then coming back to reality!
- Dean Koontz's Brother Odd: Picked this one up...as I wait for the above final novel in The Guardian series to arrive...had read the previous two some time ago. I like Odd Thomas. He is a Harry Potter sort of guy. One I would adopt. He just needs a mom, a sister, a friend...as we all do.
Ten books. As I told my husband, reading these books was medicinal. Very needed. We had a very busy Christmas Season. A very busy fall semester. A busy summer. A busy year. Was just great to end it with some downtime!
Now, for two 2017 Intentions for this blog:
- Read one book a week. Just for fun. My to-be-read pile is too high; thus, this year, I hope to conquer more of it, for I do not seem to be able to...nor do I want to...and, as The Man says, "One cannot have too many books"...thus, I do not see myself NOT purchasing books; therefore, I need to read them!
- Write about what I am reading. Cannot promise...even myself...that these will be long entries; thus, I am planning to write about one take-away, one impact that each read had on me, which is what I am now going to do for some of the above books...so if you read the commentary on each as you read this post, you took a fantastical journey and traveled into time!
Yes, I plan to get two more reads in this year...the above book arriving today...and the New Testament. I have almost completed it, which will make for my first time having reading the Bible cover-to-cover. Good for me...sad to say, though, this should have been accomplished many years ago. Many.
What reading goals did you accomplish? What are your 2017 reading goals? Reading anything good?
