Mid Winter Reads

As every reader knows, one of life's great pleasures is getting a book recommendation from a friend, and having it be just the right book at just the right time, especially when it's something you never would've chosen for yourself.  I've had some books recommended in the last few months that fit this bill.  One of these is a faith based book, and the others are speculative fiction, but they all fit the description of mind expanding.  During the post-holiday, still in the thick of pandemic, cold and grey winter months,  I think books that get your focus away from yourself and expand your imagination beyond the here and now are perfect.

The first of these is a faith based book called "None Like Him:  10 Ways God Is Different From Us (And Why That's A Good Thing)" by Jen Wilkin.  It describes ten ways that God is not like us - for example:  how He is eternal, how He is everywhere, how He knows everything, how He does not change.  Much of it is hard to wrap my mind around, but it's exciting to think about the possibilities of a God that exists outside the limits of time and space and our scope of understanding.  The concepts are huge, but the writing is very  accessible and relatable.  I would recommend this highly if you're looking for a Christian living book that helps you expand your thinking about the vastness (in every sense of the word) of God.

And speaking of expanded imagination, the second category of books I'm enjoying lately is short story speculative fiction (specifically, "The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories" by Ken Liu and "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang).  I haven't done a lot of fantasy or sci-fi reading or viewing, and I have a few friends who might be falling out of their chair if they see me now *recommending* it, but it's been a good pairing with the above book ("None Like Him").  I'm a very concrete thinker, so it's hard for me to picture how anything might work outside of time and space as I can observe it - but if it's told in a story, it's a little easier to think about all the many ways things could work differently.  These books have time travel and parallel universe theory and aliens and futuristic technology - all told in captivating stories.

These books can provide a boost of imagination & wonder (as we see the possibilities), and humility (as we see our own limits of understanding & experience) - and man, could I use more of all those things!!

What are you enjoying reading and watching in these late winter months?   

My list of 40

I turned 40 last week!   I feel fine about hitting this milestone marker of middle age, but it does make me realize that the years won't keep rolling on forever, and it's worth pausing to think about what things I would like to see and do with the years that are left.  So I decided to make a list of 40 things that would be really fun to visit, experience, or learn - some are very doable, others are much more of a stretch.  

Before I get to my list, I want to emphasize that this is *not* a bucket list, or a YOLO manifesto.  I think real meaning and real joy come from where you direct your time, energy, and love day in and day out.  I hope at the end of my life that this looks more and more like loving God and loving people.  That's the goal that's far and away the most important to me.  These other things are more like fun extras, as opportunities come up.  

It's also worth noting that I didn't include anything career related, because this list doesn't feel like the place to muse about that.  Other than to say that if we're going to do any gallivanting around the globe, which is much of what populates this list, it would help if I start pitching in some income :).  

Here's the list!

1.  Visit Dollywood (this is a new idea, thanks to the podcast "Dolly Parton's America")

2.  Visit Tokyo

3.  Visit Columbian salt mines

4.  Run a sub 2 hour half marathon

5.  Compete in a triathlon

6.  Visit Glacier National Park

7.  Take a cruise around Alaska

8.  Visit Santorini and Athens

9.  Learn to play chess

10.  Visit the Belvedere Museum in Vienna to see many of Gustav Klimmt's paintings

11.  Go hiking in New Zealand

12.  Visit Israel and see the famous biblical landmarks

13.  Visit Rome

14.  In New York City:  walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, attend a live comedy show and/or taping of Saturday Night Live, eat a great slice of pizza.

15.  Visit South Africa

16.  Read a broader selection of genres (currently, I'm trying to read more speculative fiction and more mysteries)

17.  Climb Mt. St. Helens.

18.  Acquire some sheet music and start playing the piano again.  If that goes well, maybe learn the basics of how to play the ukulele.  

19.  See the Great Wall of China.  Bonus points if this is from a space shuttle.  

20.  Soak in hot springs in Costa Rica

21.  Visit Iceland

22.  Visit Mammoth Lakes

23.  Get basic proficiency in one or more of the following winter sports:  X-country skiing, downhill skiing, snowboarding, ice skating

24.  Visit Patagonia

25.  Visit Banff National Park

26.  Successfully camp with the kids.  This can be in our backyard.

27.  Attend the summer Olympics.

28.  Keep the blog going or find other ways to continue writing.

29.  Conquer an escape room

30.  Go to a presidential inauguration.  

31.  Climb Mt. Rose

32.  Learn to cook improvisationally without relying so heavily on recipes

33.  Hike Tahoe Rim Trail

34.  Hike the Inca Trail

35.  Take an art history class on Coursera and learn about impressionism

36.  See Counting Crows in concert

37.  Hike Bumpass Hell Trail in Lassen National Park

38.  Learn to cook an amazing holiday meal.

39.  See live music in New Orleans

40.  Go to a March Madness game, preferably with Duke playing.  

If you've done any of these, give me your best tips!  And let me know in the comments what you would put on a list like this.

Books I Read in 2020

 It's the annual book blog!  Here's a visual graphic of the books I read in 2020 (thanks Goodreads!).  Scroll down to read my favorites.  

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First, a few thoughts on this particular year in reading --

How my reading life was different in 2020

The first thing that was different for me was that I got caught up on a lot of backlist titles.  In a normal year, the vast majority of my reading is new releases.  I rely heavily on the library for this content, and then, thanks to library due dates, I fail to get to titles that we own.  This year, due to the pandemic, our local library did not loan out physical books for about half the year, so it "forced" me to get to many of these backlist titles that I sincerely wanted to read, but had been gathering dust on the nightstand table.  So there was less fiction, more heavy stuff, and less new releases in all genres.  (It felt really good to get through much of the backlist, but I am SUPER looking forward to the library opening back up.  I currently have 86 titles on hold, and if the pandemic spike lasts much longer, I'm going to have to rent a U-Haul to pick up all the waiting books :)

The second thing that was different was that there was a LOT of time at home with the kids, so many of the books on this list are middle grade.  With travel and activities all canceled, and with school looking different (particularly in the spring), we had a lot more home based family togetherness than usual.  One of the ways we used this time was to read several middle grade chapter books together.  I read a book a few years ago called "The Read Aloud Family:  Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with your Kids" by Sarah Mackenzie (highly recommend!), and she shifted my mind frame about when and how to read to kids.  Instead of trying to herd them all in when they're happily playing something else, it works really well to read at times when they are already having to sit still.  So we do a lot of read alouds during meals / snacks, and during bath.  Again, this is aided by pandemic life - if dinner was our only time together, we would just use that time to catch up - but when you're eating together six times a day and conversation topics include things like "what's your 4th favorite color", it's nice to sometimes have something else to fill the time.  As life returns to normal, it will be harder to do this as much - but it can still work well on breaks and vacations.  It had never occurred to me to combine eating and read aloud - I hope this tip works well for others! 

Without further ado, here are my favorite reads of the past year:

Favorite Fiction (in random order)

1.  "Jack" by Marilynne Robinson

2.  "Rodham" by Curtis Sittenfeld

3 & 4.   "Plainsong" and "Eventide" by Kent Haruf

5.  "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu

6.  "Such a Fun Age" by Kiley Reid

7.  "Long Bright River" by Liz Moore

8. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling

9.  "The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennet

10.  "The Brutal Telling"  by Louise Penny

Favorite Other

Memoir - "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah

Christian Living - "New Morning Mercies:  A Daily Gospel Devotional" by Paul David Tripp

Poetry - "Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver

Humor - "Wow, No Thank You" by Samantha Irby

Other Non-fiction - "Hidden Valley Road" by Robert Kolker

My favorite thing about this particular annual blog is the conversation it produces, so I would love to hear from you!!:

1.  How was your reading life different this year?

2.  What was your favorite book (or books) you read this year?

3.  If you read any of these same books, what did you think?