The world changed so much in March! I read more slowly as I processed through the world events and then I read a lot since I had a lot of time to relax at home. I got lost in some great fiction for the most part. Here’s what I read in March:
Best friends since a hike during college orientation, Wynn and Jack decide to take a semester off and enjoy a trip of a lifetime. They decide to canoe the Maskwa River in Northern Canada without the restrictions of deadlines. However, in The River, the trip becomes a race against time when they spot a wildfire of gigantic proportions heading toward the river. If they can’t get to a part that’s wide enough across before the fire hits, they could get trapped in the flash as the fire reaches across the river.
Lily Ross is the wife of Sheriff Daniel Ross, mother to two children with one on the way and daughter of a coal miner who died trying to rescue miners. Everyone in the area lives each day hoping to not hear the siren from the mines. Talk of miners creating a union is getting stronger as the mine owner wants to reopen the “widowmaker” – a shaft that collapsed and killed many good men. Lily doesn’t know her husband has taken the miners’ side until he is murdered. In the wake of his death, she is offered his job as sheriff until a special election can be held. The town thinks she’ll just be a placeholder, but she can’t rest until she sees justice done for her husband’s death in The Widows.
We all want to do things well and use our time efficiently. However, in today’s world, we often feel called to do several things at once and have to-do lists that are as long as we are tall. This frantic pace is not great for our work or personal lives. Taking the time to figure out what tasks are most important and to do them efficiently can lead to not just better productivity, but a better overall life. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time addresses how we can take a look at our lives and do just that.
What makes a person want to run the Iditarod – a more than 1,000-mile sled dog race in the bitter cold of an Alaskan winter? It is a fine madness, according to Gary Paulsen, the author of Hatchet who ran the Iditarod twice. He started just by moving north and owning dogs. Then, he started running the dogs through the wilderness, staying out longer and longer. It was his wife who knew first, asking him on his return once if he was going to do “that race.” He tells about his experience in Winterdance.
In The Paris Library, Lily feels lost in the aftermath of her mother’s death and her father’s marriage to another woman just a year later. She then gains two brothers in quick succession and starts helping more at home than being with her friends. A neighbor, Odille, has taken a liking to Lily and starts giving her a place of sanctuary at her house where she can learn French and vent about her life. Odille is a Frenchwoman who married an American soldier at the end of WWII. As Lily opens up, she wonders what Odille’s story is and why she never talks about the family and friends she left behind in Paris. The book comes out June 2.
I found book 2 in The Seasons of Grace series in my stack of books to read in my house and got the first one in the series from the library. Grace, a young Amish woman is dealing with her mother leaving the family and wonders what secrets her mother has. An outsider about her age has come to stay in their community to fight cancer in a natural way. Both have to deal with tough decisions when it comes to family and friends. I don’t think I’ll get the answers until I read the next four books, though.
Trauma is an unfortunate trend in our world. Many, too many, people experience some kind of trauma in their life – child abuse, violent crime, abuse, war. Studying trauma and finding the best ways to help people deal with and have control over their lives is the work of Dr. van der Kolk. In The Body Keeps the Score, he reviews his decades of research and study and comes up with some surprising results.
How do we make decisions? How do we know we’re making the right decision? Sometimes it’s a matter of instinct and other times, it’s a matter of research and thinking. The best decisions, however, are often made with little information and are made quickly. Except when stereotypes or high levels of stress cloud our judgment. In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell explores scenarios where our subconscious takes over and makes judgment calls.
In Blaze of Light, Gary Biekirch joined the Army hoping to become a Green Beret. It hadn’t been a dream, but after hearing a buddy say he was going to join the Marines, Gary picked becoming a Green Beret because a book he had just read was becoming a movie featuring John Wayne – The Green Berets by Robin Moore. He had been wandering in life before that but after more than a year of training, he was a Green Beret medic on his way to Vietnam. He was assigned to camp Dak Seang, which supported a local village and had locals working alongside the soldiers.
On a Falling Tide is a captivating tale of suspense, history and romance. The story unfolds at a pace that is realistic and the ties between the past and the future are strong. Charity sees a ghost who draws her close to the cliffs. Matt comes just in time to save her from a rockslide, but he doesn’t believe in ghosts. Charity researches the area and finds more about the ghost – a young woman named Lydia who was betrothed to an older man by her uncle for a business deal. She loved someone else and just wanted to live a single life where she could study science, but her world did not allow for that. She died in a rock slide on that very beach.
In Lovely Wild, Mari has overcome a traumatic childhood and created a life for herself that she finds ideal. She has a husband who takes care of her, two children she adores and enough food to ensure she’ll never go hungry. However, there is more to her past than she knows and it will all come to the surface when her husband takes their family back to the house she grew up in. She also discovers a betrayal that makes her wonder if her ideal life was every truly real.
The Wounded Healer is a short book about how to minister to yourself, people and society in a world that’s constantly going. While the book was published 41 years ago, it is very applicable to today’s society. There are four short chapters, each focusing on a different segment of Christian ministry. One of the key lessons is that ministers (everyone) need to recognize their own sufferings so they can have empathy for those they are ministering, too. Can’t we all use more empathy in our lives now?
Praying doesn’t come easily for many people. In Praying Women, Sheila Walsh explores 10 areas that people can focus on to have a richer prayer life. While the book focuses on women, the tips could really be used by anyone. One big tip is to use the Bible to pray, especially using the Psalms. She also discusses how to pray when it’s hard, when you don’t know what to say and when it seems God is silent.
We will all get older and will eventually need to figure out what life in the retirement years will look like. There are many areas that need to be thought about and researched: finances, health, lifestyle, location and estate planning. Thinking about these topics ahead of time can help people not just enjoy retirement, but win at retirement. Winning at Retirement: A Guide to Health, Wealth & Purpose in the Best Years of Your Life is not a complete guide to retirement; however, it goes over all the important topics and gives an overview of the most important information for that topic. It then gives lists of other resources to dive deeper into topics like TED talks and in-depth retirement books.
What did you read in March? Share your finds in the comments below! I’m always looking for good book recommendations!
