Another Book I'm (re)Reading Now...

I'm usually not a fan of Christian fiction because it seems to be totally unrealistic, and I've found few Christian fiction books that were well written.  Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, however, is a different story.  I first read this novel several years ago, and I've forgotten much of its plot, which is why I'm so excited to be reading it again because I remember how much I adored it.  

So far I've read the first fifty-one pages, and I'm hooked again.  The story is beautiful and beautifully written.  Rivers uses language flows seamlessly from page to page, and her use of imagery hooked me from the beginning.  The theme of discovering God's truth is easily plucked out of the first few pages and carries the reader's attention while focusing her on the protagonist of the story.

It's lovely, and I can't wait to keep reading.

I hope you're reading something fabulous too,

What I'm Reading Now...

Night is the story of Elie Wiesel, a Jewish man who survived the holocaust.  Wiesel tell his tale painfully, deeply, and truthfully, making his pain and suffering and fear come to life.

I read this book for the first time in junior high, and I'm excited to read it again.  

What I'm Reading (Also)

Do you know Jodi Picoult?  If not, you're in trouble.  Well, not really, but you're definitely missing out.


Picoult is one of my favorite authors, and I intend to read all of the books she has written. (I like her that much!)


Her novels have creative and interesting plots that pull me in immediately, but at the heart of her work is always a dilemma, a giant question of morals and ethics that makes me reconsider beliefs I've clutched onto without really exploring.  


Right now, I'm enjoying The Pact.  It's a story about love and loss and complication, oh, and murder. . .or suicide.


                 I can't wait to see how it ends, 

What I'm Reading Now

"To millions of loyal viewers, she’s “Hoda Woman,” Kathie Lee Gifford’s slightly more restrained sidekick on the fourth hour of the Today show. Still others know her as a correspondent for Dateline, for which she has traveled from Baghdad to Burma and covered everything from hot zones to hurricanes. Now Kotb tells her own story, beginning with her Egyptian immigrant parents’ embrace of the American dream right to her nightmare year battling breast cancer and dealing with divorce. Throughout, Kotb’s voice is as infectiously enthusiastic as her trademark smile, each episode imbued with stalwart courage and sincere charm. From her fondness for the music of James Taylor to her fierce loyalty to New Orleans, Kotb’s memoir of life on the road, on the air, and in the trenches is not only an absorbing inside look at the high-speed world of high-stakes journalism, it is also one charismatic woman’s story of how a can-do attitude and caring family have provided the foundation and support for an exhilarating life." --Carol Haggas




“Hoda writes the way she lives: honestly, intelligently and beautifully. No matter how her hair looks. And the reader can tell no matter what she’s sharing at the moment that she is smiling that big Hoda smile. You will too.”
—Kathie Lee Gifford, New York Times bestselling author of Just When I Thought I'd Dropped My Last Egg: Life and Other Calamities

You should totally check it out, 

What I'm Reading Now

Presidents interest me.  All Presidents of the United States.  Regardless of their political parties or religious affiliations or good choices or bad choices, I think they're neat. 


It fascinates me that someone would want to run the country.  I mean in reality.  Sure, I'd love to run the country in theory because in theory everything I did would be awesome and everyone would love me and it wouldn't be hard to make decisions because the right answer would be obvious.  Is that your Presidential dream, too?  I thought so.


I recognize that in reality the presidency is inexplicably difficult to maneuver.  Everyone will not be happy with you at one time, no matter what you do.  Probably President Obama could step outside tomorrow and talk about the nice blue hue of the sky, and someone would be upset.  It's just the way life is, I guess.


My parents taught me to respect the office of the President.  It didn't matter if my guy didn't get elected or if my guy was in office and made decisions I didn't like, the President is to be respected and appreciated because, in the end, he's probably doing his best.


So, I decided that I'd like to read memoirs of this fine country's leading fellows.  Since Decision Points was conveniently available on my iPad (I'm talking convenient as in it-was- right-there-on-the-first-page-of-the-store-I-didn't-even-have-to-search-for-it-convenient) and when I heard this President speak he was hilarious, I decided to start with former President George W. Bush's memoir.


So far, I like.

What I'm Reading Now

Drawing heartbreaking beauty out of the simplest of details, Ann Voskamp invites you into her grace-bathed life of farming, parenting, and writing—and deeper still into your own life. Here you will discover a way of seeing that opens your eyes to thanksgiving, a way of living so you are not afraid to die, and a way of becoming present to God that brings you deep and lasting joy.

Voskamp's words weave a web of beauty, gratitude, understanding, and salvation that will lovingly nudge you into a better, more fulfilling life.  After a precious friend recommended this book to me, I have been enthralled with its genuineness and its profoundly simple message.  As I near the end, I find myself reading fewer and fewer pages at a time, just to savor its wisdom. 

What I'm Reading Now

From Publishers Weekly:

Deck is a man on a mission. From greasy spoon menus to national park signs, he and his cohorts (including co-author Herson) road trip around the nation looking for, and attempting to correct, spelling mistakes, misplaced apostrophes, and other small but apparently significant abuses to the English language. While Deck and friends approach their trip with a good sense of humor, early chapters feel prosaic. Before departing Deck contemplates the "madness" of the endeavor. Is correct commas from a car really all that wild? And surely we could have done without the litany of bear-related pet names Deck's girlfriend often employs when addressing him. Given that most readers drawn to this book will already share the authors' penchant for consistent and "proper" language, more substantial exploration of their evolving motivation would have been stimulating. Deck and Herson speed past questions of race, class, dialect, and education that their quest inherently raises. While the moments of human interaction run from tender to hostile, the end result doesn't add up to more than the sum of its anecdotes. Though the many snapshots included (often in the "before and after" vein, showing the fruits of their labor) add welcome humor.

I started last night. I'm on page three. So far, HILARIOUS.

What I'm Reading Now

Fascinating true story of Eustace Conway, who left his comfortable suburban home at the age of 17 to move into the Appalachian Mountains, where for the last 20 years he has lived off the land.

I haven't quite gotten started yet, so we'll see if this story is as "fascinating" as Gilbert's website claims. I thoroughly enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling hit Eat, Pray, Love, so I thought I'd give another one of her works a try. I'll let you know how it goes (I think I say that too much :).

What I'm Reading Now

A synopsis from Picoult's website:

Shay Bourne - New Hampshire’s first death row prisoner in 69 years – has only one last request: to donate his heart post-execution to the sister of his victim, who is looking for a transplant. Bourne says it’s the only way he can redeem himself…but with lethal injection as his form of execution, this is medically impossible. Enter Father Michael Wright, a young local priest. Called in as Shay’s spiritual advisor, he knows redemption has nothing to do with organ donation – and plans to convince Bourne. But then Bourne begins to perform miracles at the prison that are witnessed by officers, fellow inmates, and even Father Michael – and the media begins to call him a messiah. Could an unkempt, bipolar, convicted murderer be a savior? It seems highly unlikely, to the priest. Until he realizes that the things Shay says may not come from the Bible…but are, verbatim, from a gospel that the early Christian church rejected two thousand years ago…and that is still considered heresy.

Change Of Heart looks at the nature of organized religion and belief, and takes the reader behind the closely drawn curtains of America’s death penalty. Featuring the return of Ian Fletcher from Keeping Faith, it also asks whether religion and politics truly are separate in this country, or inextricably tangled. Does religion make us more tolerant, or less? Do we believe what we do because it’s right? Or because it’s too frightening to admit that we may not have the answers?

What I'm Reading Now. . .Satisfying a Hunger

You may have noticed (but you probably didn't) that my "What I'm Reading Now" list is growing beyond its normal size. Here's what's happened to my normal reading habits:

Usually, I stick to reading one book at a time; I don't like to confuse plot lines and characters. Lately, though, it's like I've been hungry to read. Yes, I said it; I have a hunger for reading. This hunger has led me to revise my regular rules of reading.

The dictionary will stay on my reading list for the duration of 2010. (I'm really going to need to get on that dictionary reading to reach my goal, huh?)

I started reading Cleaving before school was out, but in the move home from the dorm, it has gotten jumbled in all of my things and is currently missing in action. So, it's just on my current reading list because I haven't finished it. Lame, I know.

I decided that I needed to read poetry on a more regular basis. If you don't know, I am a HUGE fan of poetry. It's difficult; it's interesting; it's beautiful. Poetry is my thing. Don't be mistaken, though. Poetry being my "thing" doesn't mean I claim to be a scholar; I just enjoy working through poetry. So, I decided to read Colossus again. I read it for an American Lit class while I was at Harding, and I really enjoyed it. I want to read through it again just for pleasure; I definitely won't be as rushed.

I've been reading and enjoying Women Food and God, but it's not exactly a novel that I would confuse with another, so I decided to add Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging to my list. I'm planning on starting that one right after I finish this post; I borrowed the book from a friend who promised it wouldn't disappoint, so I'm pretty excited to get going.

I've never had a current reading list be so long, but I'm really very excited about it. In school, I always enjoyed reading multiple works at the same time and juggling my reading schedules, so it makes sense that I would enjoy that in my personal reading schedule, right? Yes. Okay, so it definitely makes sense in theory, but I'll let you know how it goes in practice. I'll either fall in love with this whole idea, or I'll drive myself insane. Either way, I gave it shot.

What I'm Reading Now

Roth's thesis, that the way we eat reflects our core beliefs about life, is thought provoking. I'm not sure she's wrong, but I'm not sure she's right either. So far, Roth's writing has led me to consider and reconsider the way our society views food and eating and women and how all of those things connect to various beliefs about life and God and spirituality.

Eating is one of the most significant pieces of American culture, and Roth has tapped into that in a powerful way to explain the severity and danger of compulsive eating as an attempt to solve bigger problems in our lives.

I'm enjoying grappling with her assertions.

What I'm Reading

Perhaps you've noticed in the What I'm Reading column that Webster's New World Dictionary is listed. That's right, I'm reading the dictionary. One of my goals for 2010 is to read the dictionary, cover to cover.

So far, I'm a little behind, but I am determined to finish the dictionary before the clock strikes 2011.

I know it's a weird goal. It's different and peculiar and unexpected, but it's something that I really, really want to do. One day this terrible thought entered my mind, and I began to believe that there was no way for me to be a respectable English teacher if I had not, in fact, read through the dictionary.

Now, I don't believe that in order to be a good English teacher you have to have read a dictionary; I just believe that in order for me to be a good English teacher I have to have read a dictionary. In fact, I doubt that many brilliant teachers of English have completed this daunting task. However, it's still something that I need to do. So, I chose this year to do it.

Wish me luck. :)

What I'm Reading...

Well, I gave up on Beloved. Admittedly, I gave up too soon; I hadn't even read ten full pages. I started the book in a too-tired state and just didn't have the guts to pick it up again after that. The next thing I knew, Christmas had come, and I had received a beautiful pile of books that I had asked for, books that I had been wanting, really wanting, to read. So, I removed my bookmark from Beloved, promising to return to it again someday, apologizing for my abandonment, and I picked up Julie & Julia.

I'm about halfway through Julie Powell's memoir of the year she cooked through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and, so far, it is hilarious. Powell is brutally honest and writes with amazing humor. This book is laugh-out-loud funny, and I can't wait to finish it.