It's Monday and I am so tired!

Wow, this has been a long week. We had people over several afternoons/evening this week and we made a heroic pilgrimage to the mall on a Friday night. I am pleased to report that we made it home with the family intact and shoes for both kids. In other news, I played the piano for the entire service on Sunday and there was lots of extra music for that service. Have I also mentioned that we are in the beginning phases of planning a second service?

If you need me, I will be curled up in a pile of blankets with a book, either reading or taking a nice nap. Thanks.



Read This Week:

Found: A Story of Questions, Grace and Everyday Prayer
By Micha Boyett



The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress
By Ariel Lawhon


Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Reviews of The Lost Sisterhood and Bark
Literary Life: Blogging and Kids


Reading Now:

The Opposite of Loneliness
By Marina Keegan


Up Next:

Orfeo
By Richard Powers

What are you reading this week?

Blogging and Kids

Shortly after I started this blog, I thought I would add a weekly segment where David and I discussed the books we were reading together. Our very first book was I Can Do It Myself. Some months, we posted almost every week. During some months, we didn't get to it very often. But it was something he was excited about and it started a great tradition for us where we read together and then talked about the stories.

Recently, David didn't seem to be as excited about doing book reviews. When he said he didn't want to talk about his books, I let it go for a few months. I love that he loves reading and I don't want to make it an obligation. I want it to be something that is fun for him. Since then, David has started reviewing books again. In fact, he wanted to sit down and review several books at once.

When I recently read an article by the lovely Sarah Bessey about giving her children some privacy, I started to really think about how the kids appear here on my blog. I appreciated what Sarah wrote about getting permission from her older kids before she posted their pictures or wrote about events in their lives. I think, as parents, we certainly don't want our kids to grow up to find embarrassing pictures and stories that will be stuck in cyberspace for eternity.

There's also the persistent worry that your pictures of your precious kids will end up on someone else's website or used by a company without your knowledge. That is some scary stuff. I want to share some pictures of my kids because they are (obviously) a big part of my life. At the end of the day, this blog is for me to remember the books that I love and the things that were happening in my life during this time. I love doing the 52 series and I think it's going to be a lot of fun to look back on at the end of the year. But every time I post a picture, I put a watermark on it in the hopes that it will deter any would-be picture stealers.

I want my children to be a part of this blog, as long as they want to be. Now that David is getting older, he can decide if he wants to talk about books with me or if he wants his pictures up here on the blog. Today, he loves both of those things. Next month, he might feel differently and that's ok.

If you are a parent or grandparent, how do you decide what  to post online about your kid(s)?

Bark: Stories

Bark: Stories

By Lorrie Moore

Alfred A Knopf February 2014

192 pages

From the library

Highly acclaimed author Lorrie Moore has released a new collection of stories. The characters in these tales are dealing with the fallout of divorce, the devastation of losing a loved one, and the everyday pain of trying to connect with a child with disabilities. There are only eight stories in this collection, but their inhabitants try to put on a brave face and perhaps offer a wry quip or two as they stumble through the pain and uncertainty of life. 

I enjoyed Lorrie Moore's novels A Gate at the Stairs and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and was looking forward to reading her short stories. But I found myself disappointed in this collection. When you are reading a novel, you get to see the writer do many things because there are hundreds of pages and many plot events to write. In a short story collection, readers want to see the depth and the width of a writer's ability. Some of my favorite collections make me cry and laugh, all within the same book. But Bark feels very monotone. Each of the stories seems to deal with characters who are dealing with long-term pain. Moore does not show us the moment when the pain starts or the moment when it seems they can't take it anymore. Instead, she focuses on the moment in the middle when it seems like it will never end and grief will just be a terrible and continual part of life. 

Moore seems to lose the essence of the stories in trying instead to be clever and political. There are many good lines in these stories that are funny but it feels very forced, as if Moore is asking us to realize just how clever she is. I also got tired of the political undertones in several of the stories. In the title story, Ira's despondency over his failed marriage and his new girlfriend's lack of interest is compacted by the war he can't stop watching on TV. In the story Foes, Bake gets into a heated disagreement at a benefit dinner with a woman who lobbies for the conservatives and was badly burned during the attack on the Pentagon. Instead of feeling sympathy or pity, we are left with a vague feeling of disgust, both for her politics and for her person.

I liked Lorrie Moore as a writer. She is incisive and can write the sort of phrases that punch you in the gut with their beauty and precision. I understand why she is revered by many in writing circles. Unfortunately, Bark didn't do it for me. I find that many of the stories that impact me the most are those that give thought to both light and dark, tragedy and joy. This collection of stories just left me feeling bleak. 

Review: The Lost Sisterhood

The Lost Sisterhood

By Anne Fortier

Ballantine Books March 2014

608 pages

Read via Netgalley

Diana Morgan is trying to deal with the usual craziness of life - guest lecturing at Oxford, flirting with a handsome professor, and figuring out if her grandmother was actually crazy. One day, a stranger approaches her on the street. He knows who she is and knows that her specialty is researching and teaching about the Amazons, the mythical tribe of women warriors. The stranger offers to pay her to examine some newly excavated writing that could hold the key to the history and fate of the Amazons. Before she can take official leave from Oxford, Diana is off on a whirlwind international adventure that will reveal long held secrets about the fall of Troy and the story of the Amazons. 

The Lost Sisterhood is told in dual storylines. In the first, Diana is looking for answers about the Amazons, why she was chosen for this expedition, and how her family history ties into it all. In the second story, we meet two sisters named Myrina and Lilli. After their family is killed, they set out to find protection from the Moon Goddess. When their temple is attacked, Myrina is able to use her skills as a hunter to teach the priestesses to defend themselves and to seek vengeance. Their quest takes them all over the Hellenic world and introduces them to some of ancient history's most infamous characters including Paris, Helen, and King Priam.

Fortier walks a fine line with this story. There are two issues that are woven throughout - the role of curator in preserving artifacts and women in general as Amazons. As someone who works with ancient languages, Diana is often confronted with questions about who owns which pieces of history. While this book does deal with the some of the shady underworld of ancient artifacts and Diana does come down firmly on one side of the question, these issues serve the story instead of beating the reader into submission. From the beginning of the story, Diana wonder if perhaps Amazons still walk among us. While I won't give away the answer to that one, suffice it to say it would be easy for Fortier to blatantly make this  about women's empowerment. While the author obviously feels this is important, she does it by creating strong characters instead of just recording a viewpoint. 

There are reviewers who seem to find Diana somewhat lacking as a character and to some extent, it's understandable. She makes many questionable decisions and seems completely out of her element for most of the story. But she is someone who studies languages and notes at one point that she doesn't have the connections or money to go on digs like this one. She mostly sits in libraries and studies dead languages. And if she was a character who made rational decisions and just went home, then we wouldn't have this book to read. 

The Lost Sisterhood is a delightful adventure. It is, perhaps, a bit long. I wish some of the characters were better developed. But this is the sort of book that you sit down and read in a few glorious binges. The adventure races right along in both timelines and readers will be on the edge of their seats as we find out what happened to Diana and Myrina. I will be happy to tag along on any adventure through historic places and exotic lands that Anne Fortier wants to create. 

10/52

A picture of each of the kids, once a week, every week in 2014. 

Becca Grace - "Uh, Mom? Can I get out of here now?"

David - He's too cool for school. Too bad we are already at the bus stop...

It's Monday and life is moving right along...

Hi there friends. How are you doing? I hope you had a wonderful week with lots of great books.

We had fun this week at David's school for Literacy Night. All of the kids came to school in their pajamas and heard a story, did an activity, and then had some cookies and juice. The best part was that each child brought a book to swap so David went home with a new Star Wars book (of course). I'm so glad that his school is working overtime to foster a love of reading in their students.


Read This Week:


The Lost Sisterhood
By Anne Fortier


Bark
By Lorrie Moore


Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Top Ten Tuesday: Spring Books I'm Excited To Read
Wednesdays with David: Young Cam Jansen and the Dinosaur Game
Review of Careless People


Reading Now:

Found: A Story of Questions, Grace and Everyday Prayer
By Micha Boyett


Up Next:

The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress
By Ariel Lawhon


What are you reading this week?

9/52

A picture of each of the kids, once a week, every week in 2014.

 

  

Becca Grace - I guess I don't have to make the grocery list this week!

David - Lots of big thoughts when you are six, it seems...

Review: Careless People

Careless People: Murder. Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby

By Sarah Churchwell

Penguin January 2014

366 pages

From the library

The Great Gatsby is revered as one of the cornerstones of American literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald's seemingly effortless prose as his characters experience the joy and the tragic demise of the American dream is required reading for most students. Many book lovers cite this slim novel as one of their favorites and it has been analyzed by literary scholars for decades. Are there really any new discoveries to make in West Egg?

It turns out that Sarah Churchwell's insightful and nuanced research does reveal new discoveries. The title is, of course, lifted directly from The Great Gatsby when Nick refers to Tom and Daisy Buchanan as careless people. The construction of Careless People is incredibly meticulous. Each chapter of the book is informed by the matching chapter in The Great Gatsby while also moving chronologically through Fitzgerald's life during the writing and publication of the novel. Churchwell strives to bring to light the sources behind the novel, which Fitzgerald somewhat ambiguously noted with just first names or "that day in New York," for example.

A good portion of the book looks at the possible inspiration of a real life murder mystery. In 1922, a rector named Edward Hall and his mistress Eleanor Mills were brutally murdered and the case was never solved. The case became somewhat of a media sensation and while we know that Fitzgerald was aware of it, it is difficult to tell just how much it informed his novel. While the complete bungling of the case by the police will make you very appreciative of modern crime solving techniques, Churchwell spends a great deal of time on this perhaps incidental event.

When writing literary criticism, it is easy to fall into one of two camps. Either the writer is convinced that everything is related or nothing is related and everything is a coincidence. I admired Churchwell's moderate approach to this tricky issue of history. She writes that “the creative process pushes the murders of Hall and Mills into the background: the story has been set free to fly into fiction, transposed into a different key, but audible in echoes and harmonic shifts, transfigured from the wretched to the beautiful. Fiction is not a reassembling of concrete facts, a jigsaw puzzle to solve. It is a palimpsest country of inklings and hunches, echoes and traces. Impressions that Fitzgerald registered, with the seismic sensitivity to life’s vibrations that he attributes to Jay Gatsby, ripple through the story, shading it with waves of dark life.”

At the time of publication, The Great Gatsby was trashed as just being a snapshot of one moment and actually compared to the newspaper. Of course, over time, we have seen just how timeless Fitzgerald's slim novel was and continues to be. Ms. Churchwell brings it back into its own time period, examining the cultural nuances that informed the beloved tale. At times, the writing in Careless People is just as soulful and lyrical as the author whose story it tells. Churchwell finds a good balance between fact and speculation as we dive once again into the Roaring 20s and the tumultuous lives of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Careless People is a must read for any fan of Fitzgerald and perhaps most telling, the book inspired this admirer to go back to visit Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby again. 

Wednesdays with David: Young Cam Jansen and the Dinosaur Game

Young Cam Jansen and the Dinosaur Game

By David A. Adler

Penguin Young Readers July 1998

32 pages

From the school library

The story: Cam Jansen is invited to a birthday party. At the party, the kids are invited to guess how many dinosaurs are in a jar. The one whose guess is closest gets a prize. When one of the guests comes up with the exact number, Cam is suspicious. Using math skills and her photographic memory, Cam is able to crack the case.

Mama opines: I like Cam Jansen. She is smart and her adventures seem much more accessible to young readers than traveling in a magic tree house or fighting an intergalactic battle. One of the greatest things about this character is that she isn't limited to one reading level. Her stories begin with young reader books, like this one, which are aimed at beginning readers. The books get longer and some of her more recent books are chapter books that are appropriate for readers in 2nd - 4th grade. It's nice to have a heroine who can grow along with your reader.

Thoughts from David: Well, here we go - another Cam Jansen. You know, we've been reading a lot of these this year. Well, readers, I've got to say something about this Cam Jansen. The thing about this Cam Jansen is that I don't usually read Young Cam Jansen books. You know, this isn't my book. It's from my school library.

Hey, all readers, here's a joke for you. What do you call an egg with no egg in it?An eggless eggster!

Ok, ok, ok. Let's just get to the things I like. This book is one of a kind because Cam Jansen books are usually mysteries. I like it because there is a dinosaur game in it.

Happy Reading!

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books on my Spring TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the fantastic ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish. Make sure to visit them and read about the spring releases that other bloggers are anxiously awaiting.

All links go to Goodreads. 

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi (March)

Mr. Fox was incredible. I am in the queue for this one at the library. 

Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line By Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham (March)

I love Veronica Mars. I loved the show. I loved the movie. I will read the books. That is all. 

The Empathy Exams (April)

This collection of essays explores the ways in which we relate to each other. How should we react to other people's pain? 

Love and Treasure (April)

My hubby would say that this book was right up my alley. It's about the Hungarian Gold Train, which transported valuables confiscated from Hungarian Jews during WWII. I've read another book by Waldman and I can't wait to see what she does with historical fiction.


Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer by Micha Boyett (April)

I am an avid reader of Micha's blog. She is down to earth as she documents her life with her husband and two little boys, but her graceful prose will make you rethink the way you approach love and faith. 

The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham (May)

The novel The Hours is one of my all time favorites. I'm excited to read his newest book and see how or if it connects to the fairy tale. 

Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn (May)

Edward St. Aubyn is a writer of great acclaim. I wasn't sure which of his books to start with, but this story about the writers vying for The Elysian Prize for Literature sounds wonderful. 

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman (May)

Tom Rachman's debut The Imperfectionists was stunning. I can't wait to see what he can do with his second book. 

The Angel of Losses (July)

When a book is billed as The Tiger's Wife meets The History of Love, you know I am in! 

Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (July)

Nick Harkaway is a genius and his stories are incredibly fun. I loved Angelmaker and just bought The Gone Away World, which I'm really excited to read. 

What books are you excited to read this spring? 

It's Monday, what are you reading this week?

Hello, you beautiful reading people. How are things?

It's been a good week around here. We took Becca Grace to the doctor this week and she is back up to a healthy weight after being sick in January/February. My best friend and her boyfriend spent the weekend here before heading off to travel the world (or at least one country...). We of course watched the new Veronica Mars movie while she was here and it was great. How was your week?

I really loved reading your thoughts about religious books and sharing more of our lives online. You can read it here if you missed it. As far as reading goes, I seem to be falling a bit behind my usual two books a week. But I know that reading ebbs and flows so maybe I will get up to reading three books in a few weeks...


Read This Week:

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and The Invention of The Great Gatsby
By Sarah Churchwell


Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Review of The Stranger You Know
Wednesdays with David: Twister Trouble
The Real Blogger


Reading Now:

The Lost Sisterhood
By Anne Fortier


Up Next:

Bark
By Lorrie Moore

What are you reading this week?

The Real Blogger

A few weeks ago, I looked at my upcoming reviews and I got a little nervous. Almost back to back, I was going to be reviewing Bread and Wine and City of God. One book is about inviting people into your home and the ways that food can evoke memories. The other was about living in a city of diversity and finding the shared humanity that exists there.

Both are memoirs and both are about faith.

Christianity plays a big part in my life. I am the daughter of a pastor and my husband is a pastor. I have previously been part of the staff at two different churches and I currently lead the praise and worship team at our church. The ways in which we relate to God and to each other are things that are consistently on my mind.

But when it comes time to blog about those parts of my life or review books about them, I hesitate. I wonder if you want to read about those things. I wonder if I drive away readers by posting books about Ash Wednesday or God's ability to solve all of our problems. I know that not everyone who visits this blog shares my beliefs.

Faith is a part of my life and so it will inevitably be a part of my reading and writing. There are many blogs that I visit and not every post on every blog is interesting to me or applicable to my life. That's ok. But I am being disingenuous if I don't share those parts of my life. If I don't write about a great devotional or spiritual memoir, I lose the opportunity to record my thoughts and the chance to share it with readers who might enjoy it.

So I'm making the decision to share all the parts of my life that I want to share and to review all of the books that I want to write about. Not everyone will read every post or get something out of every post and that is just the way the internet works. But I promise to show you a true version of myself, music rehearsals and church services and all. I will review all of the books that I loved and hated, whether they are spiritual biographies, historical fiction, or quirky mysteries. Thanks for coming along for the ride.


How do you balance writing about all of the facets of your life? Are there topics or certain books that you hesitate to write about?

8/52

A picture of each of the kids, once a week, every week in 2014.

Becca Grace - The baby step aerobic class is starting right now!

David - His school is celebrating Read Across America this week and asked them to dress up as a favorite character from a book. David is doing his best impression of Jack from the Magic Treehouse series.

Wednesdays with David: Twister Trouble

The Magic School Bus

Twister Trouble

By Ann Schreiber

Illustrated by John Speirs

Scholastic March 2001

76 pages

From our shelves

The story: Ms. Frizzle's class is studying weather and so they head off to the Weatherama Amusement Park. When they accidentally fly into a tornado, they may learn more about weather than they expected!

Mama opines: What's not to love about The Magic School Bus? This series of books have easy to read chapters that are broken up with lots of pictures and mini-reports from the students. I love books that are entertaining for David and will spark interest in something else. I know it's a good book when he finishes it and then wants to head to the library to find books about tornadoes or Abraham Lincoln. What books for kids sparked an interest in another topic for your son or daughter?

Thoughts from David: All blog readers, all blog readers! Report to David. And you guys pretty much know that that is a joke. Anyway, let's just get to the story. The Magic School Bus is really creative. I wonder how they made it that way...

Oh! I forgot and I was just staring into space. I like the book because at the end, there are two fan mail letters. I like all of these characters because there are a lot of them and they are all very good like Tim and Dorothy Ann. Well, bye for now!

And here's a joke for you: Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Hehe haha. I tricked ya. Well bye! See you next time!

Happy Reading! 

Review: The Stranger You Know

The Stranger You Know

Forensic Instincts #3

By Andrea Kane

Harlequin MIRA September 2013

368 pages

From my shelves

Casey Woods and her investigative team Forensic Instincts excel at solving crimes. When college aged girls with red hair begin turning up dead, it strikes close to home for Casey. As a college student, one of her friends was murdered and the killer was never found. The case becomes even more personal when the murderer starts targeting girls with connections to Casey and calling her to taunt her after the fact. Can Forensic Instincts crack the case or will Casey be the last victim? 

This was a good mystery. The villain has a vendetta against Casey and carries it out in a very brutal and personal way. While the end game is revealed early on, finding out how he will get there is enough to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. The story flows well and as you read, you feel like you are hurtling towards a dangerous finale. 

My main disappointment with this story was in the characters. I'm not sure how much of this was due to picking up the third book in a series. But I had a hard time caring for the characters or in some cases, even telling them apart. Casey has three male colleagues at Forensic Instincts - Marc, Ryan, and Patrick. Marc is the former SEAL and Ryan is the tech guy. But Marc doesn't seem to be clueless about technology and Ryan can hold his own. As for Patrick, I never figured out exactly what set him apart from the other guys. Claire, Casey's only female colleague, is a sort of empath who spends most of the book completely overwhelmed by what she senses. Claire and Ryan are dating in a low-commitment sort of way. Whenever they speak about their relationship, they talk about how they can't stop fighting but I don't remember them bickering in the book.

I don't read a lot of mysteries because I'm one of those readers who needs both a gripping plot and characters I really care about. I never connected with the characters and felt that Ms. Kane told us about them without showing us their motivations or the ways they related to each other. Although a lot of readers seem to adore this series and this author, I don't think that I will be reading any more of these books. 

It's Monday and spring is not far away!

Hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful week. I am in love with this weather. All of the windows are open and we are walking to the library and playing outside again. If you want to tell me about snow coming this way or that we still have a few weeks of winter left, I am going to cover my ears and sing. Thanks anyway.

Bookwise, this wasn't my best week but my reading always slow down a bit when I am reading non-fiction. Am I the only one?

Read This Week:

The Stranger You Know

By Andrea Kane

Posts from this Past Week:

It's Monday

Wednesdays with David: The Enemy Within

February Wrap-Up

Reviews of City of God and I Shall Be Near To You

Reading Now:

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby

By Sarah Churchwell

Up Next:

The Lost Sisterhood
By Anne Fortier 

What are you reading this week? 

Review: I Shall Be Near To You

I Shall Be Near To You

By Erin Lindsay McCabe

Crown January 2014

304 pages

From the library

Rosetta and Jeremiah adore each other. They have great dreams of living a long happy life on a farm that they tend together. Jeremiah thinks that the only way to buy their farm is to enlist. The Civil War isn't supposed to last for very long, anyway. But Rosetta finds life without him unbearable. She is away from her family and her new in-laws don't like her at all. The only way to be with her beloved is to disguise herself as a boy and enlist alongside him. 

This book is a hidden gem and I can't figure out why it's not getting more attention. I'm not sure where I first heard of it, but I am so glad I read it. Rosetta and Jeremiah will steal your heart from the first few pages. Their love is very deep, but so realistic. They bicker all the time, but only because they truly care for each other. They are perhaps the only people in their lives who truly understand the other. After reading partway through the book, I actually set it aside for a few days. Jeremiah and Rosetta were about to march into battle and I cared for the characters so much that I didn't want to read if anything happened to either one of them. 

As in any good historical novel, the research is important. Ms. McCabe perfectly brings the time period to life, but without stopping the story to teach a history lesson. She drew from the letters and accounts of the 200 women that we know of who enlisted during the Civil War. I also appreciated that this author didn't fall into the trap of a lot of historical writers. Rosetta is headstrong and stubborn, but she is also a woman of the 1800s, not a modern woman set into another time. Rosetta understands her limits as a woman in her time and place, but she also is willing to fight anyone and anything to be with her husband.

The Civil War is a time period that is not covered too frequently in historical fiction. But this is a book you don't want to miss. You will be immersed in both the everyday life of a small town and the noise and violence of the battlefield. Best of all, this is a really perfect love story - a love that is committed even in the hardest of times, a love that is strengthened by time spent together and hardships overcome, and a love that is put to the test both by the horrors of war and by the strong personalities of Rosetta and Jeremiah. 

February Wrap-Up

What happened in February? I'm not sure exactly. There were a lot of good books and I was happy that David decided to do some book reviews again. Life-wise, things were busy but thankfully uneventful. We spent a lot of time waiting for the bus and reading on the sofa, cleaning up babies covered in food and prepping music to play in church. Sometimes uneventful is good, right? 

Books reviewed in February: 11
Pages Read: 3,731
Fiction/Non-fiction: 8/3
Female authors/male authors: 6/5
My books/library books: 5/6
Most-read review: The Rosie Project
Favorite book read in February: Bread and Wine 


Books reviewed by David: 2
Favorite book in February: Bink and Gollie

We only take the classiest of bus stop selfies.

What was your favorite book in February? 

Wednesdays with David: Star Wars - The Enemy Within

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The Enemy Within

Script by Jeremy Barlow

Art by Brian Koschak

Dark Horse Books 2012

From the library 

The story: This comic takes place during The Clone Wars. A platoon of Clone troopers are sent on a mission where everything seems to go wrong. They are stranded on the wrong side of battle lines and have no choice but to try to complete their mission. Can they make it out or is a trusted ally working against them?

Mama opines: David is a fan of comic books these days, although I think we had a sort of backwards trajectory. I know that comic books are often used for reluctant readers. But for quite a while, David wanted to read his chapter books and wanted nothing to do with comic books. I forget which book finally changed his mind, but I think it's fun that he is now just as likely to grab a comic book as he is a chapter book. Any suggestions for age appropriate comic books?

Thoughts from David: This story is really good! I've got to say, it is a Clone Wars story about clones. Well, maybe not...it does have a few more things than just clones like these green, kinda creature thingamabobs. And droids!
I've got to say that when you're shot down, you're shot down! Sometimes nothing can happen that you really wanted to happen. Well, clonesy bye! Just kidding.

Happy Reading!

Review: City of God

City of God: Faith in the Streets

By Sara Miles

Jericho Books February 2014

224 pages

Read via Netgalley

Sara Miles is observing Ash Wednesday in a new way. In addition to the two services that she is leading at her Episcopal church, she is taking ashes out into the streets. She hopes to really see her neighbors as she blesses them and reminds them that each of us come from dust and will return there someday. City of God brings the city of San Francisco to vivid life, while reminding us of our shared humanity and search for a Savior. 

This is both Sara's story and the story of faith in community. Sara is completely open about stumbling into belief and the way she still struggles with being seen as "other," as someone more holy than the normal person. But she delves into more than just her story - she tells the stories of the people around her. She spends time with her neighbors and parishioners, hearing what is happening in their lives, taking them to the hospital, and praying with them. Many of these encounters are inconvenient and frustrating but Miles realizes that there are lessons to be learned and that God can be found in unexpected places.

Reading this book humbled and challenged me. As I read, I was furiously copying passages because Miles made me think about faith in new ways. She is literally taking her faith outside of her church building. God is not confined within walls and our faith does not have to be, either. This book reminds us that while faith is about connecting with God, it is also about connecting with the people around us. We are called to open our eyes and really see the people around us, to listen to their stories, and to love them just like Jesus did.

This is a perfect book to read during Lent. As we reflect on Jesus' death and resurrection, reading City of God helps us to keep Ash Wednesday in the front of our minds and to remember that our life here on this earth is fleeting, as each of us will return to dust. 

It's Monday...watcha reading this week?

It's been a long week. The reading part has been good, but the life part has been pretty crazy! I'm starting to work on an upcoming concert for charity in addition to choosing and prepping church music for Lent. David had his first sleepover that was not at a relative's house and had a blast. The hubby and I actually got to go out on a date without kids in tow! Life is never boring around here. 

Read This Week:

City of God: Faith in the Streets

By Sara Miles

I Shall Be Near To You

By Erin Lindsay McCabe

Posts from the Past Week:

It's Monday

Wednesdays with David: Tonight on the Titanic

Reviews of Coincidence, Bread and Wine, and Dept. of Speculation

Reading Now:

The Stranger You Know
By Andrea Kane


Up Next:

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby
By Sarah Churchwell

What are you reading this week?