It’s now December and I’m enjoying reading Christmas-themed books! In November, we took a quick road trip to Tennessee, so I got some audiobooks in, along with some good fiction and non-fiction. I would highly recommend Soundtracks to anyone. Here is what I read in November:
Yancey has written many Christian living books and Where the Light Fell is his autobiography. He was brought up in a religious home, but not one where faith was made personal. He suffered emotional abuse from his mother after his father died. He had to come to his own understanding of God, which ended up being the opposite of his brother’s understanding. It’s a hopeful story.
I highly recommend Soundtracks to anyone who overthinks or had an internal voice that won’t stay quiet. It has great suggestions on how to tame the voice and overthinking. Each chapter provides a concrete suggestion. It has inspired me to take a better initiative of who I want to be and how I want to think. There is a short, youth-edition called Your New Playlist that is good for teens and young adults.
Band of Sisters is a historical fiction book set during WWI. There are so many set during WWII that I was excited to find one about WWI. A group of alumni from Smith college ventures to France to help villages that were almost destroyed by the Germans. Based on a true story from letters the women wrote, the book is full of drama set near a war zone. I enjoyed reading about this brave group of women.
Hansen wrote a Christian book about how people need to recognize that they are sinners. I ended up skimming through most of The Truth About Us as it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. It has a good message, but could have been a shorter book.
After reading Soundtracks, I came across an earlier Acuff book that he wrote as Christian satire. He had a blog by the name “Stuff Christians Like” and it sounds like an earlier version of Babylon Bee. I laughed a lot since he adds some additional commentary to the chapters in the audiobook.
Jim Jordan is one of our representatives in Ohio and I wanted to read his new book. However, Do What You Said You Would Do contains no new information regarding the events of the past couple years and is even already outdated on some topics. I ended up skimming some of it.
For anyone dealing with anxiety in themselves or their children, Anxious Kids has a lot of great advice. I listened to the book, but it probably would have been better to read it so I could take some notes of the suggestions. It’s a secular book, but there are concrete suggestions for both parents and kids alike.
Willow and Mason both find themselves in Salem, Mass., the summer before their senior year of high school. Willow can’t find anyplace she feels at home after her parents divorce and her mother throws herself into her work. Mason is a foster kid whose mom is an addict and is placed with a family where the mom knows his mother. Willow finds out she barely knows her mother. Mason is obsessed with finding his own mother. As their paths cross at Willow’s old family home that is going on the market, they find a person to help them find their lost things. Spells for Lost Things is a fun, easy read and appropriate for teenagers to enjoy.
When her best friend disappears on graduation night, Kathryn’s world forever changes. She leaves town and tries to keep herself from all the ties to her old life. When her 10-year reunion comes around, she finds herself returning home after a divorce. She doesn’t want to stay, but her mother gets her a freelance gig at the local newspaper and she is assigned to look into her friend’s disappearance. She starts digging and in finding new details, she starts finding herself again. Desire Lines is different from other Kline books I’ve read, but it was an interesting storyline.
I listened to Happiness is a Serious Problem and while Prager brings up many good points on how to live a fulfilled life, there are also some key points I disagreed with. His viewpoint is from a Jewish, but almost secular, view where holiness is not the key goal of life. I enjoy listening to Prager’s podcasts as they usually make me think things over. This book did the same.
Send For Me is a memoir turned into a historical fiction novel. The entire book made more sense to me after reading the epilogue (it should have been stated at the beginning). The author found old family letters from when relatives escaped from Germany before WW2. The letters explained her grandparents’ desire to keep everyone in the family close by to keep them safe. The story is a bit disjointed at times and letters are put in between chapters without saying who is writing to whom. The message, though, is that one generation’s trauma can affect a family’s dynamic for generations to come.
What did you read recently that you enjoyed? Share in the comments! I’m always looking for good book recommendations!
