• Books and Reading

    Reading Report, Vol. 23: My Literary Goals for 2025

    January 8, 2025 - By 

    As I promised in my first post of this new year, I am back this week with an update on my reading life. With all the stress of renovating, selling our house, packing up and moving across the country, and just normal daily life “stuff”, reading became very difficult for me in 2024. I would start books, only to drop them a chapter or two in. I would turn on an audio book only to mentally tune it out while my mind filled with distracted thoughts and to-do lists. In the evenings when I would normally have picked up a…

  • Books and Reading

    The Reading Report, Vol. 21: 2020 Year in Review

    December 15, 2020 - By 

    My, oh my, how time does fly! Moving to a new state and getting all settled, home renovations, homeschooling, Revelation Wellness Instructor Training, and podcast jobs have all kept me on my toes this fall! They have also taken so much of my physical and mental energy that blogging has taken a sad hit this year. But I have some time today, and I wanted to sit down and look back on this year in my reading life. Maybe sometime I will get around to a more general “life update” type of post before the end of 2020. For now,…

  • Books and Reading

    “The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club” Book Review

    June 4, 2020 - By 

    This past weekend I finished reading The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers. It is one of her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, and it was, of course, an enjoyable read. I seem to be gravitating to an awful lot of mystery stories this year. I guess it is no wonder because with the world in such chaos, I need a good detective book to take all the broken bits and puzzling clues and finally bring everything to a satisfying end. As my friends at the Literary Life podcast have pointed out in the past, mystery novels move from…

  • Books and Reading

    “Seacrow Island” Book Review

    May 12, 2020 - By 

    I seem to be on a roll with the heartwarming family stories here lately. Today I’m writing a review of Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren. This book fulfills the category of a “Classic in Translation” for the B2tC Challenge and the “Book by a Minor Author” for 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge. The edition I read was translated beautifully by Evelyn Ramsden. This gem of a book was written by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, best-known for creating the character of Pippi Longstocking. But Lindgren was actually quite prolific, writing many children’s series, dozens of stand-alone novels, and even some screenplays.…

  • Books and Reading

    “My Family and Other Animals” Book Review

    May 2, 2020 - By 

    If you are looking for some light fiction that is also written in sparkling prose, My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell is the book for you. I really cannot say enough good things about this read. It was sheer delight. The book begins with a family of four children and their widowed mother tired of their humdrum average British life. On a whim, they sell their house and move to the island of Corfu and rent a house sight unseen. The story is told from Gerald’s perspective as the youngest brother, describing his family with a loving touch, though…