![\"Books](\"images\/20120521-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLooking through this month’s list, it definitely looks like I’ve been on a fiction kick. Of course, I have a half dozen non-fiction works in progress in my bag or on my Kindle–but I just haven’t been finishing them at the rate I’ve been finishing fiction. <\/p>\n
But why worry? Balance is for the birds. Why not add unbalanced reading to all the rest of the stuff that’s currently unbalanced in my life?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This month I read:<\/b><\/p>\n Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books<\/a> to see what others are reading this month!<\/p>\n Looking through this month’s list, it definitely looks like I’ve been on a fiction kick. Of course, I have a half dozen non-fiction works in progress in my bag or on my Kindle–but I just haven’t been finishing them at the rate I’ve been finishing fiction. But why worry? Balance is for the birds. Why … Read more Nightstand (May 2012)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9449"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Adult Fiction<\/h3>\n
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\nI’m continuing to enjoy these historical novels set around the early church. This one includes (can you guess?) Saul, the church persecutor, in addition to familiar characters (both Biblical and fictional) from the previous books in the series. I’m realizing that this is as far as the series goes at this point. Oh my! I’ve committed the unthinkable, getting engrossed in a series that isn’t finished yet!<\/li>\n
\nAn okay series, mostly fluff but good for a turn-off-your-brain read. I enjoyed The Drifter<\/i> (the second book in the series) best. In it, a Kansas widow saves a drifter who was being mauled by a wolf–and then tries to force him to marry her so she can keep her homestead claim. Maybe I just enjoyed that one because I’m a sucker for stories of marriages of convenience.<\/li>\n
\nRuth Caldwell causes trouble wherever she goes. She doesn’t intend to do it, but not even a half dozen young ladies finishing schools has been able to turn her into a “letter perfect” woman. When her mother’s dying wish sends her to California to stay with the father she never knew–and when the father turns out to be no longer living… Well, things get interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed this story.<\/li>\n
\nThe sequel to the aforementioned title, Bittersweet<\/i> follows Ruth’s sister-in-law Laney, whose longstanding crush Galen has finally started noticing her. But when the squatter living on Galen’s land makes a startling revelation, Laney’s hopes and dreams come crashing down. I’m definitely enjoying Hake these days.<\/li>\n
\nHatcher sure likes her suffragettes. I’m not quite as fond of these I-will-never-marry-oops-I-fell-in-love heroines as she seems to be. Hatcher’s books are fluffy reads, okay but not amazing.<\/li>\n
\nA bit unique among Hill’s works in that it includes a bit of a mystery (about 3\/4 of the way through). Oh, and it includes a bad mother (probably what sets it apart most from Hill’s other works.) It took a while to get started, but once it was going, I enjoyed it well enough.<\/li>\n
\nA beautiful, introspective novel with realistic, nuanced relationships. This is probably the best novel I’ve read so far this year. Read my full review here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"Books](\"images\/20120521-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBooks in Progress (That’s where all the Nonfiction is!)<\/i><\/div>\nAdult Non-fiction<\/h3>\n
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\nA basic nutrition guide put out by the Focus on the Family Physician’s Resource Council. I gave it a “meh” review<\/a> and suggested that I should write my own Christian nutrition reference–something that I’m only half kidding about.<\/li>\n
\nBarbara H. wrote an excellent review of this book<\/a> just as I was finishing it up and returning it to the library. I didn’t feel the need to write a repeat review. Suffice to say that it was very good. I’m so thankful that God opened my eyes to His marvelous grace six years ago in Jacksonville, Florida. I pray that others will recognize that they were not only saved (past-tense) by grace, but that they also walk (present-tense) through God’s grace. This book is a good reminder.<\/li>\n
\nResearch, I tell you, research. :-) And maybe just my own continuing curiosity. I’m still pretty bummed that my midwife career didn’t pan out.<\/li>\n
\nI read every blurb all the way through. I tried one recipe. I returned the book to the library. I ordered myself a copy. Jennifer Reese is my hero, comparing the homemade version to the store-bought for everything from cake to cheese to hot dogs. Alice of Supratentorial also wrote some thoughts on this book<\/a> while I was in the middle of it. Her conclusion: Buy it. I concur.<\/li>\n
\nThe back of the book explains that this is “a landmark anthology that proves there is a distinctly female way of being funny.” If this anthology showcases this distinctly female way of being funny, I can summarize said distinctive way in two words: Not Funny. 600 pages of venomous bitterness. Blech. I gave up when I still hadn’t found anything funny by page 229.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"Books](\"images\/20120521-03.jpg\")
<\/p>\nUp Next (Books Still Waiting to Be Read)<\/i><\/div>\nJuvenile Fiction<\/h3>\n
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\nJane is a motherless tomboy throwing mud in the Philadelphia streets before William Baldt shows up on her doorstep to apprentice under her father. Then she’s off to school to learn how to be a lady (after all, William thinks it’s important). Jane pines for William when he leaves on a ship for Washington Territory, but the two correspond as promised–and at last Jane leaves for Washington to become William’s bride. When she gets there, though, she discovers that Washington isn’t quite what she expected–and neither is her fiance. This was a very strange book. It’s labeled as juvenile fiction by my library, but it’s really not. It’s pioneer fiction, with a main character who starts as a girl and emerges as a woman. I suppose it wasn’t edgy enough to be labeled YA–and couldn’t be adult fiction because Jane isn’t even 18 when the book ends. It was pretty good, if unclassifiable.<\/li>\n
I checked out Rinaldi’s book about Lady Jane Grey during my last library trip–so now it was time to see how she would portray Jane’s cousin, Elizabeth. The Redheaded Princess<\/i> didn’t disappoint. It was a enjoyable detailed little novel about the girl who would become Queen Elizabeth I.<\/li>\nJuvenile Non-Fiction<\/h3>\n
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\nA glossy, full-color history of rural one-room schools. I cried a little (for real) when I read: “In addition to the Amish, Hutterite, and other parochial schools, there are still more than 800 one-room public schools, mostly in Nebraska…” Sadly, in the twelve years since this lovely little history was written, one-room schools have disappeared from Nebraska’s landscape to be replaced by consolidated schools that offer long bus rides and sub-par educations. Despite the sadness this book reminded me of, the book itself is a wonderful tribute to the way the majority of American students learned for over a century.<\/li>\n
\nDo you plan on celebrating the Passover with your little ones? If you don’t, you should consider it (talk to me for more info about how the Passover points to Jesus.) If you do, you should consider picking up a copy of this book to prep your kids for what’s to come. This lovely book goes through the basic order of the Seder, describing what is done (“Now we hold up the roasted lamb bone”) and pointing backwards to the Exodus (“Then the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Israelites.”) This is a great introduction to the Seder–and worth having<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"What's](\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/images\/buttons\/nightstand.jpg\" "\\"What's")
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