Great Books I’ve Read in 2024 – Part 1

Do You Know Them?: Families Lost and Found After the Civil War by Shana Keller, illustrated by Laura Freeman
In this picture book set in the aftermath of the Civil War, Lettie slowly saves up pennies to place an ad in the newspaper. The ad is to ask for any information that might help reunite her and her uncle with their missing family members, who had been sold away from them long before slavery ended. On Sundays, Lettie reads the ads from others looking for family members to her church, as they all work together to share information, even if it’s bad news.
I didn’t know about this aspect of life after slavery, and this well-done picture book was an interesting way to learn about it. All the ads in the book are real ads that were placed in newspapers at the time, from the Last Seen project (www.informationwanted.org).

Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup
I mentioned that I was looking forward to this a few months ago, and I’m happy to report that I enjoyed it. It’s the story of an author trying to write a fantasy romance book and trying to make her characters cooperate (they rarely do). There are layers of the written story, of the author’s life, of exchanges with her editor (who perhaps looks like the Hot Enemy in the story, not because she has a crush on him or anything, of course).
The story started out as a series of Youtube shorts, and it’s the author’s first book. I was prepared to enjoy it, but I was also prepared for the possibility that it would just be badly written fun feels. But I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever read, but it was pretty good!

Restore My Soul: Reimagining Self-Care for a Sustainable Life by Janice McWilliams
This book about self-care is so practical. Janice McWilliams is a therapist, and she draws on knowledge and experience from her practice as well as Biblical principles. After introducing what good self-care is and why it’s important, she shares advice on managing your thoughts, emotions, rhythms, and living a fulfilling life. Each section includes a chapter of skills to consider and apply. The author encourages you to take your time with it and not try to do everything at once.
Restore My Soul is holistic and encouraging, and it’s an excellent, accessible resource for learning how to cope with life.

The Visual History of Type: A Visual Survey of 320 Typefaces by Paul McNeil
Last summer, I listened to The Medici by Paul Strathern, which I don’t recommend, for problematic reasons, but also because it didn’t hold my attention. The things that made me take notice the most were a few brief anecdotes on the history of certain fonts, how they were inspired by a particular person’s handwriting. After this happened two or three times, I thought, “Hmm, maybe what I actually want is a book about the history of fonts.”
This came up when I Googled that, and it isn’t what I meant. I was looking for some narrative nonfiction, and I will probably still look for that someday. After a break.
This book. I cannot convey to you the size of this book. It is enormous. I took an extra bag to work with me to carry it home after seeing it. I stopped reading it for a while because I hurt my back and it’s so heavy that it hurt to hold it. Even aside from that, it took forever to read because I couldn’t easily carry it around with me and read little bits at a time.
It’s so huge because it covers more than 550 years, and because most of each two-page spread is a large picture of an original example of the font being discussed. These are so cool to see. Also included is some technical information and a few paragraphs about the font. My one real critique is that this is presented in very small print. It might have been difficult to fit a larger size, and admittedly it’s probably time for me to get a new glasses prescription, but I found it uncomfortable, which didn’t combine well with the lack of easy ways to hold the book. But it was often such interesting information, and the writing style was professional but not textbook-dry. I got fascinating tea from the font world.
I love fonts, but in a very casual, adjacent to my graphics-making hobby way, and I have zero education on the subject, so I didn’t understand everything. But I learned things along the way, and even though this took six months to read and was exhausting, I’m glad I put in the effort. If you want an easier experience, just flipping through and looking at the pictures would still be great.

Invisible Wonders: Photographs of the Hidden World by Anand Varma
Speaking of pictures, this book of photography is amazing. Anand Varma is a photographer, and this book includes some of his pictures as well as some by others. The collection focuses on ways photos can help us see the world differently, whether that’s by magnifying things too small too see, or using light in interesting ways, or capturing movement, etc. There are a few pages of text in each chapter, but most of the book is focused on the photographs. They are beautiful. I regularly found myself gasping when I turned the page. It’s a lovely book to look through.

 

For more book recommendations, click here.

A Few Poems for National Poetry Month

Great Books I’ve Read in 2023 – Part 3

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter
As a 10-year-old, Guy Howard found his stepfather dead in the garden. The murder was not solved at the time. It’s now 20 years later, and Guy is determined to finally find answers. For a season of a Netflix true crime show, he gathers experts and people who were involved in the original investigation to go over the case.
The book is formatted as transcripts of the show episodes, with some newspaper clippings and emails and such in between. I enjoyed the unique formatting. It did make it hard to keep the characters straight at first, but that got easier as I went along. This format made it not particularly graphic or scary (though there was a good bit of language), but there was still plenty of tension, and it was very hard to put down.
Also, I had perhaps the ideal mystery-reading experience, where near the beginning I picked up on one detail and went, “This person did it, didn’t they?” Then I didn’t really think about it while reading. AND IN THE END I WAS RIGHT.

D&D Player’s Handbook by James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, and Bruce R. Cordell
This feels like a strange thing to recommend, but I enjoyed reading it. I haven’t (yet) had an opportunity to play D&D, but I wanted to create a character to try it out. First I checked out the book from the library, but I decided it would be more practical to own one, so I found a used copy on eBay. I slowly worked my way through a series of Youtube videos about creating a character (highly recommended), and then slowly read through the book, occasionally skipping lists or details that were about different types of characters so I didn’t confuse myself too much. It was surprisingly interesting and (mostly) easy to follow. The art was gorgeous. And it was refreshing in a way that’s hard to describe. I encounter a lot of fiction-writing advice on the internet, and it’s usually all about the things you’re probably doing wrong. But the attitude here was, “This is something we love, and we want you to love it too, and it’s supposed to be fun! You’ll probably create characters that are cliche, but that’s okay, you’ll get better. Use your imagination and enjoy yourself!” It’s a different context, obviously, and there’s a place for learning about what you’re doing wrong, but it was a nice reminder that quite often, when you’re doing something fun, the point is to have fun, not to constantly critique yourself.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
I read and enjoy a lot of different kinds of books, of all sorts of genres, but the ones that click the most for me are usually fantasy. This is the most me-feeling book I’ve read in a long time. It’s about a sentient house, and the man who lives there and cares for it, and the woman who gets sucked into their world. Opal is a fascinatingly unreliable narrator, trying to manage so many things: raising her little brother by herself, falling in love against her will, learning about the history of their town and the house, trying to stop the nightmares that haunt the town.
Definitely some content issues, and I didn’t love everything about it, but I so enjoyed the atmosphere and the slow-burn romance and the writing. And! It had occasional illustrations! I need more illustrations in books for grownups, please.

Her Story, Her Strength: 50 God-Empowered Women of the Bible by Sarah Parker Rubio
I mentioned this briefly in my Reading Recommended Books post a few weeks ago, but I wanted to talk more about it. Each of the 50 profiles includes a short dramatized story, some historical context, and a discussion of what God was doing in the woman’s life and what he is like. The illustrations are lovely, the story-telling is well done, and the lessons are deep and interesting, not moralistic. And it doesn’t just cover typical Sunday school characters, but considers all sorts of expected and unexpected choices.
This is marketed for girls 8 and up, but even as an adult I found it engaging and fascinating, and I learned things. And nothing about it is specifically for girls. Boys should know about God-empowered women of the Bible, too.

A Metrical Psalter: The Book of Psalms Set to Meter for Singing by Timothy and Julie Tennent
My brother and sister-in-law bought this for me from my Christmas list, and I’m so happy to have it. It includes the entire book of Psalms, adapted slightly into singable, rhyming rhythm. Each one includes suggestions of a few hymns whose tunes would fit that particular psalm, so you can pick one you know that suits your fancy. The back includes musical notation for every tune suggested, and there is also a website with free, simple arrangements to listen to for learning new ones.
I haven’t yet read (or sung) all the psalms, but I quite liked the ones I have. It’s a well-designed book; it feels nice, there’s a bookmark, and they clearly did their best to include everything needed to use it. Also, the copyright page states that the psalm arrangements can be copied to share with a group if credit is given, which I think is very kind; if a small group or church wanted to begin using this, it wouldn’t necessarily require a pricey investment.

For more book recommendations, click here.

Reading Recommended Books

I shared this on Facebook at the beginning of the year, and I got four recommendations. (There were a couple others, but I had already read them!) I did read all four. And I scrolled through my books on Goodreads to find others I’ve read this year that were recommended in some way. There are a couple doubles of who they came from, but I did find twelve books.

 

The Walk by Richard Paul Evans
Recommended on my original Facebook post.
The story of a man who loses his wife and his business and everything else and decided to walk across the country to cope.
Something I liked: The backstory of how the main character met his wife was cute.
Something I didn’t like: After he started walking, he listed every meal he ate, and I found it tedious.

The Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson
Recommended on my original Facebook post.
Magical storms are getting worse, and magical abilities are coming back. What’s the world to do?
(I haven’t finished the series yet [the books are SO LONG], but I’ve read a couple.)
Something I liked: The slow reveals of Kaladin and Shallan’s backstories have been very interesting.
Something I didn’t like: I didn’t particularly enjoy the chapters from Lift’s POV.

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
Recommended on my original Facebook post.
A young girl swaps places with her twin brother, because she wants to be a knight and he wants to study magic.
Something I liked: I enjoyed the developing friendships.
Something I didn’t like: The adults didn’t handle bullying among the kids well.

The Nightingale by Kirstin Hannah
Recommended on my original Facebook post.
Two sisters cope with WWII in different ways.
Something I liked: It started with one of the sisters looking back on WWII from the future, but you couldn’t tell which sister until the end of the book. I thought that was interesting.
Something I didn’t like: One of the characters chose to lie to her husband about some things that had happened while he was at war in a way that bothered me.

Come On, Seabiscuit by Ralph Moody
From some books my aunt gave me from her childhood.
The true story of a horse named Seabiscuit who was a very successful racehorse despite a lot of challenges.
Something I liked: The descriptions of races were exciting.
Something I didn’t like: It’s sad to see how Seabiscuit was mistreated at times.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
From a “Staff Picks” display at a library.
A club at a retirement village who study cold murder cases gets involved when someone is murdered in their town.
Something I liked: The humor and interactions are so fun.
Something I didn’t like: There are a lot of side characters to keep track of, and sometimes it was a little much.

The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Some kids I know really like this.
Rabbit siblings get caught up in war and politics and waiting for the king to return.
Something I liked: There were some cute sibling interactions.
Something I didn’t like: Everyone was very unkind and impatient with one of the kids’ very legitimate grief, in a way that made it seem like the kid was the one in the wrong.

Her Story, Her Strength: 50 God-Empowered Women of the Bible by Sarah Parker Rubio
A gift from a friend.
Brief stories about women from the Bible, along with information about the historical context.
Something I liked: Even though each section is quite short, this is so well-researched and thorough that I learned things.
Something I didn’t like: As with any retelling of Biblical stories, I had occasional quibbles about the portrayal of some details.

Felicity’s Short Story Collection by Valerie Tripp
A gift from a friend.
A collection of extra short stories about one of the American Girl characters.
Something I liked: The Valentine’s Day story was delightful and so sweet.
Something I didn’t like: Secondhand embarrassment.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Recommended by a coworker.
One sister is raised to be part of a political arranged marriage, but her youngest sister is sent instead. They find they’re much more suited to their new roles than their original ones.
Something I liked: The arranged marriage romance developed in a sweet and interesting way.
Something I didn’t like: A character was a traitor and I didn’t see it coming and was quite disappointed.

Quidditch Through the Ages by J.K. Rowling
Borrowed from a friend.
A handbook for the game played in the world of Harry Potter.
Something I liked: The detail about how the golden snitch was originally an adorable tiny round bird called a snidget.
Something I didn’t like: The font was very small.

Fantastic Beasts and Were to Find Them by J.K. Rowling
Borrowed from a friend.
A textbook from the world of Harry Potter.
Something I liked: Having so many different creatures is so fun and creative.
Something I didn’t like: I wanted more illustrations.

Great Books I’ve Read in 2023 – Part 2

Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith
Virginia Sole-Smith is a reporter, and in this book she collected research about how diet culture affects children. I thought it was very balanced, not insisting that weight never contributes to health issues, while showing that it’s much more complicated than “the more you weigh, the more unhealthy you are”, that sustained intentional weight loss works for very few people, that many people can make healthy lifestyle changes that are beneficial but don’t change their weight, and that in many cases we simply don’t know for sure how weight and particular diseases affect each other. All while emphatically insisting that fat people deserve respect. Period. Whether they’re healthy or not.
Virginia Sole-Smith talks compassionately about parents whose actions have contributed to their children’s disordered eating or poor relationships with their bodies. She encourages change for the better instead of trying to guilt parents into change. She also acknowledges that for the most part, doctors and teachers and coaches and the like genuinely mean well and are not trying to cause harm.
I have been uncomfortable with diet culture since I was pretty young, and this was useful for helping articulate why. I do think it could have benefited from some nuance about when people genuinely cannot eat some foods. While I definitely agree that specific healthy eating plans are often “gotta lose weight” in disguise, there are situations where health conditions mean someone must avoid certain foods, such as allergies or celiac disease. Even though there’s a difference, to someone who has dieted or dealt with an eating disorder or even just been bombarded with diet culture their whole life, it might feel the same. How do you navigate that emotional difference?
Also, at times, it felt too much like, “Everything is the racist patriarchy’s fault.” There’s a fine line between calling out systemic problems and placing all the blame on people with certain privileges you don’t like in ways that mean you no longer see them as complex people with their own problems, and I thought this crossed that line at times.
Which brings me to my biggest concern: I think the author’s own bias against men shows. In the chapter about dads is this paragraph:
“‘The assumption is, because we’re white men, we don’t need anything,’ one male eating disorder patient told Siegel when she interviewed him for her master’s thesis about eating disorders in the workplace. Siegel says she had to sit with that idea. ‘As someone who studies sexism, it was such a learning moment for me,’ she says. ‘As a feminist, I had such a visceral reaction to a man saying, essentially, “You don’t understand my man problems!”‘ Same. I admit to occasionally thinking, ‘But you’re a guy!’ when one of the dads interviewed for this chapter told me about feeling like their body wasn’t good enough. But that reaction is itself complicit with male diet culture-because all ‘But you’re a guy!’ does is reinforce our narrow ideas about who a guy should be. ‘People assume men can’t suffer, but they do, and they are,’ says Siegel. ‘And by not recognizing it, we’re perpetuating the harm.'”
I appreciate her recognizing this in herself. And yet, later on in the chapter on puberty, there is half a sentence specific to boys’ experiences and a whole lot about girls, and the comment, “I’ll be focusing on the experiences of people assigned female at birth in this chapter. That’s both because precocious puberty is more common for people who menstruate, and because the pubertal development of their bodies more directly intersects with anti-fat bias.” Does it really? Or do you not want to see the ways boys dealing with puberty suffer?
But that said, again, this is a helpful and needed book. Overall, it’s very good, and I’m glad I read it.

The Weekly Gratitude Project: A Challenge to Journal, Reflect, and Grow a Grateful Heart
This guided journal surprised me. I thought it looked promising, but I was mostly prepared to be disappointed. I was not! It almost entirely avoided the shallow, “We should be grateful to God just because he has given us so many physical gifts,” problem I see so often. Possessions were not ignored, but they were one part of a much broader theological basis. Even the entry about food included the question, “Are you experiencing a season of abundance or want right now?” (paraphrased).
I used it as a daily journal, not a weekly one, and it was a completely doable amount of material for that. Each entry is a two-page spread with a Bible verse, a few sentences of commentary, and 2-3 questions followed by blank lines. Some people might want more space, but personally I found it just right for something I could do in only five or ten minutes a day that was still genuinely helpful.
I know the cover features plants and a pretty tea cup, and that might make people expect it to be geared toward women, but nothing about the content is gendered in any way. There are some pictures of more plants and flowers throughout, but even these aren’t girly, and the colors are mostly muted greens and browns.
I am impressed. I will probably try some other journals from the series.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
This book came out a few years ago and has been very popular. I never picked it up, because my taste in books doesn’t tend to match very popular books. But I was doing a library summer reading challenge and one requirement was a staff pick, and this seemed like the best of the options.
I loved it!
It’s about four people who live in a retirement village. They have a club where they look into cold murder cases, and then actual murders start happening and they get involved in solving them. They befriend police officers and criminals, and get away with a lot by pretending to be harmless elderly people when they’re far from harmless.
It’s hilarious. The interactions are amazing. It’s not quite like anything else I’ve read, and it’s so much fun. I’m enjoying continuing the series. I believe the fourth comes out in September.

My Head Has a Bellyache: And More Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups by Chris Harris
This collection of poetry is a followup to I’m Just No Good at Rhyming, which is also excellent. The poems are mostly silly, often playing around with the shapes of words on pages, with an occasional heartfelt one thrown in there that might unexpectedly make you cry. There are jokes that carry through the whole book, like a poem made out of the page numbers, or the escaped word “buffalo” showing up in all sorts of places.
Chris Harris’ style reminds me a lot of the Jack Prelutsky poetry books I loved growing up. If you like one, I definitely recommend checking out the other.

Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness by Michael Card
I first read Inexpressible about three years ago. I read a lot of books, and even very good ones don’t always leave a lasting impression, but this stuck with me. I decided to pick it up again and liked it just as much, if not more.
Inexpressible is a study of the Hebrew word hesed, often translated “lovingkindness” or “steadfast love” or something similar. Michael Card (the musician) writes in a lovely style. I’m not sure how to describe it. Perhaps meditative? The book is broken into very short chapters and is not scholarly in tone, but it has a deeper, more poetic feel than most of the popular level theology books I read. And it’s so interesting. He writes about how this one word describes so much of God’s character, and ways that character is reflected in our lives. This time through I left a bunch of tiny post-its marking passages I want to revisit, and I now intend to check out more of Michael Card’s books.

For more book recommendations, click here.

Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag, 2023

It’s about halfway through the year, so it’s time for this.

1. Best book you’ve read so far this year
I think it might be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. Which I talked about last month, so I won’t go into it again.

2. Best sequel you’ve read so far this year
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, which, again, I talked about last month.

3. New release you haven’t read yet but want to
Borrow My Heart by Kasie West. Kasie West writes reliably cute, clean YA romances, and I read every one. It sounds like this one features some good old fake dating, which is always great. It actually came out today, hence why I haven’t read it yet. But I have a hold on it at the library, and a copy is already in transit, so hopefully soon!

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2022
In the latest Ant-Man movie, Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man), has published a memoir, called Look Out for the Little Guy! This book is actually being published. Goodreads lists Scott Lang as the author, with a short biography that’s about the character. I think this is such a cool idea, and props to whoever did the ghost writing for it. I hope it’s as fun as it sounds.

5. Biggest disappointment
I enjoyed most of Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown very much. It’s the story of a chef who is kidnapped by pirates, and the captain promises to let him live if he makes her one good meal every week. It’s written as the chef secretly keeping a journal of his experiences, and his personality shines through the writing so well. It’s engaging and unique. He slowly adjusts to life at sea, works with a hopeless lack of ingredients, and he and the captain start to become fond of each other.
And then I was so mad at the ending. So mad. Very disappointing.
(Spoilers, if you care: The captain died.)

6. Biggest surprise
For Christmas last year, I got a copy of The Hobbit that is a reprint of the very first edition, in all its details. It’s a beautiful copy. I mainly wanted it for a chance to read it without the changes that were later made to make the story fit in better with The Lord of the Rings, and I enjoyed it getting to experience that.
Unassumingly, at the very end, was a page of advertisements for other books the publisher was releasing at the time The Hobbit was published. One caught my eye: an English translation of Dashenka, or The Life of a Puppy by Karel Čapek, originally written in Czech. I found a library that had a copy they would let me borrow. It was so fun! Very realistic to the experience of raising a puppy, with super cute illustrations. There was also a section of photos of the real Dashenka, and they were delightful.
It came out of nowhere and was so enjoyable. If you can track down a copy, it’s a quick read and worth the time.

7. Favorite new author
Might be Brandon Sanderson.

8. Newest fictional crush
He’s not from a book (in this context), but I’ve been watching the TV show Titans, and I could probably have a crush on Dick Grayson.

9. Newest favorite character
It might be either Remus Lupin or Sirius Black from Harry Potter. I’ve had so much secondhand knowledge about them for so long that this doesn’t exactly feel new, but encountering them in context is even better.

10. Book that made you cry
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer. I just finished this one yesterday. I read it in about two days. It had some flaws, but it’s a really sweet story about Lucy, a teacher’s aide who is desperate to adopt a child she works with. She is broke, but gets an opportunity to try to fix that when she’s one of a few contestants in a contest to win the only existing copy of a new book by a children’s author who had stopped writing for several years. She gets to travel to his private island, bonds with the author and his illustrator, and works out some of her own problems. Things come together very happily. The crying at the end was good crying.

11. Book that made you happy
Margaret Rogerson’s An Enchantment of Ravens is one of my absolute favorite books. I finally read her other books this year. Sorcery of Thorns didn’t join the ranks of absolute favorites, but it still made me very happy. I enjoyed the characters and the romance. I enjoyed the backstory of the main character growing up in a magical library (that’s the dream, right?). I sent lots of commentary and ideas to my friend I write stories with.

12. Favorite book to movie adaptation you saw this year
Have I seen any? I’m not remembering any.

13. Favorite review you’ve written this year
I put a lot of thought into my review of Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith. Unfortunately, Goodreads seems to be having issues, so I can’t link directly to the review at the moment. (Edit: Here ’tis.)

14. Most beautiful book you bought this year
Probably Breath as Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, and Renew Your Soul by Jennifer Tucker. This was an impulse purchase when I was calendar shopping at the beginning of the year. I already knew I wanted to read it, because I had resisted the same impulse purchase once before, but that time I gave in. I’m glad I did, because it worked much better as something I could keep around and go through slowly than it would have as a library book. And yet again, I talked about this one last month.

15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
Look Out for the Little Guy!, as mentioned earlier. I want to pick up Living Freely and Lightly by Emily Lex, which is a guided journal related to her book Freely and Lightly. A friend recently reviewed the upcoming book One Star Wonders by Mike Lowery, and I think it sounds fun. Also I have a VERY SMALL stack of remaining books I currently own but have not read, and I want to get it down to nothing by the end of the year. I know one is C.S. Lewis Remembered by Harry Lee Poe and Rebecca Whitten Poe. And I think there are a few others, but I can’t remember what they are at the moment.