I am a person that likes a fresh start. Maybe that comes from moving around most of my life. I didn’t set a reading goal for 2021 based on trying to hit a high number. I now set it based on what I typically read. I’ve done high goals before and have met them. Now, I just want to enjoy what I read and make sure I read a balance of both fiction and non-fiction books. Here are the books I read to kick off 2021:
I heard about Rest on a podcast that interviewed the author. The book sounded interesting, but when I got to reading it, I found it long-winded. The ideas in the book are great and would be good to practice to balance work and rest. However, the book could have been much shorter. I would recommend at least skimming through it for those who are looking for tips on having a better life balance.
How can you find and stay true to yourself in today’s world? Day by day, the culture seems to get more and more divided and people stop talking to each other over politics or block people that they used to love dearly on social media. Technology and the 24-hour news cycle are loud and social media lets us shout back loudly with our own thoughts, ideas and opinions. However, the human connection might be getting lost. Braving the Wilderness focuses on how people can reach out and still connect with people – even when you disagree completely.
I read Eileen O’Finlan’s Kelegeen in the summer of 2018. I really enjoyed the story of Meg and Rory and what their families and village faced during Ireland’s potato famine. I’ve been waiting for the sequel to come out so I could find out what happened next to the couple. The sequel was released in December 2020. Erin’s Children is a fascinating historical fiction book giving a glimpse into life for Irish immigrants in America in the times shortly before the Civil War.
I’m starting to make our garden plans this year and we’d like to move toward gardening to store food rather than just to experiment with and eat. The Family Garden plan has great details, information and charts to help a family make a sustainable garden plan and grow enough food to eat and store.
I’m still exploring whether or not I want to do a podcast, so I skimmed through Podcasting for Dummies to get more information. This book has a lot of good information about podcasting and if I do decided to do a podcast, I will be checking it back out for the nitty-gritty details.
Midnight Sun is the companion to the Twilight series, the first book is told through the eyes of Edward Cullen instead of Bella Swan. Edward is stricken when he first meets Bella because her smell entices him more than anything he’s ever encountered during his long life. He plans to stay away, but there’s also something about her that pulls him back and wants to protect her. Maybe it’s also because she’s one of the few people that he can’t hear the thoughts of. He has a strong desire to know what she’s thinking. But, when he tries to scare her off, he finds out she’s feeling the same pull towards him that he feels toward her.
Ratio is another cookbook that was recommended to me by a family member. It’s a readable cookbook that teaches how there are specific ratios to cooking. For example, bread is often 5 parts flour, 3 parts water (plus yeast and salt). I found it to be a very useful book and an putting it on my list of cookbooks I want to own.
In By The Book, Anne Corey is mostly satisfied with her life. She chose to go to graduate school instead of following her boyfriend to San Francisco, which ended the relationship. However, despite the massive amounts of student loans, she loves being a professor at Fairfax University. She is sending out proposals for a book she has written about female authors. If it gets published, she will get on the tenure track and be able to spend the rest of her life doing what she loves. Then, a new president arrives at the university and of all the people in the world that it could be – it’s her former fiancé, Adam.
I’ve heard Ken Follett recommended a lot, but hadn’t read him until seeing this book on sale. Hornet Flight is a WWII historical fiction and tells a story about the Danish resistance. The story has a sharp contrast between its heroes and its villains. The main character is a teenager who risks his life to help England figure out how Germany is able to detect its planes before they come. I enjoyed the story, although the romance was a bit more graphic than I like.
What books have you read so far this year? Share in the comments!
