This week in books: Weeks 13, 14, 15, and 16
After a rather long and unplanned sabbatical from much reading, I'm finally able to post another This Week in Books feature. Here's what I read the last few weeks:
The Growing Homeschool: Integrating Babies and Toddlers into Your Already Busy Schedule While the layout and organization of this book could use some improvement, there were many helpful and encouraging thoughts and ideas shared. If you are a mom who is trying to juggle homeschooling with toddlers, you'll especially find this book insightful.
The Strenuous Life - As some of you know, Teddy Roosevelt is a man I greatly admire. At the homeschool conference, my husband found this little reprinted book of a speech Roosevelt gave when he was still alive. Jesse quickly snatched it up for me knowing I would be thoroughly excited. And I certainly was!
Since then, read it once and then he read it aloud to me as well. What an inspiring man and message! Here's the closing paragraph:
Bible Reading:
Finished 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and am working my way through 2 Kings; I need to pick up the pace as I've been moving rather slowly through this recently and only getting in 1-3 chapters per day as opposed to my goal of four chapters.
What have you been reading recently? Any terrific book recommendations for me? (Not that I need to add to my already-huge stack of books waiting to be read, but I'd still love to hear!)
The Growing Homeschool: Integrating Babies and Toddlers into Your Already Busy Schedule While the layout and organization of this book could use some improvement, there were many helpful and encouraging thoughts and ideas shared. If you are a mom who is trying to juggle homeschooling with toddlers, you'll especially find this book insightful.
The Strenuous Life - As some of you know, Teddy Roosevelt is a man I greatly admire. At the homeschool conference, my husband found this little reprinted book of a speech Roosevelt gave when he was still alive. Jesse quickly snatched it up for me knowing I would be thoroughly excited. And I certainly was!
Since then, read it once and then he read it aloud to me as well. What an inspiring man and message! Here's the closing paragraph:
"I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.That's it for the book reviews today. Hopefully, I'll be able to carve out more time for reading over the next few months so that I can be more faithful about posting this weekly feature. And maybe it will even go back to being a weekly feature!
Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness."
You can read the full speech in its entirety here.
Bible Reading:
Finished 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and am working my way through 2 Kings; I need to pick up the pace as I've been moving rather slowly through this recently and only getting in 1-3 chapters per day as opposed to my goal of four chapters.
What have you been reading recently? Any terrific book recommendations for me? (Not that I need to add to my already-huge stack of books waiting to be read, but I'd still love to hear!)
Labels: Reviews
posted by Crystal Paine at 2:51 PM
14 Comments:
My current read is Salt, A World History by Mark Kurlansky. It is an easy read, though long-ish. He covers wide swaths of world history with great ease. I would recommend it to all the ladies interested in Nourishing Traditions type cooking.
~Anna
Teddy Roosevelt spoke at a homeschool conference or your husband did?
I have not had much time to read either or keep up with email or much else...but I have read a few books recently. They were mostly fiction though so not something you would be interested in!
one was Her Father's Daughter by G.S. Porter
I really like her as an author, this one is not one of my favorites, but I did enjoy all the nature stuff in it, learning about eating things in the wild. You can tell when it was written with some racial slurs that I did not appreciate, but I did not notice that in any of the other ones.
I enjoyed also reading books by Euell Gibbons too on eating wild foods!
I have been reading How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty by Janet Chadwick and The Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing, both are about the "back to the land" and "homesteading" movement.
I also have been bogging through Numbers in the Bible, I am having trouble getting much out of it even with study guides though. I am thisclose to moving on and coming back to it later.
"What's So Great About Christianity?" by Dinesh D'Souza. I can't put this one down! If anyone is interested in how important Christianity was in building the Western civilization as we know it, check this book out! If you have any atheist friends and you need some ammo when you debate them, get this book. :-)
If you are a fan of The Princess Bride movie, I would recommend reading the book, originally by S. Morgenstern, "the good parts" abridged by William Goldman. I really really enjoyed reading it, and I have seen the movie probably two dozen times :-) It is a fun, relaxing read...
denaye
Crystal, just wanted you to know I have a blogging award for you at my Timothy Moms blog! Come and get it if you'd like, and have a wonderful Mother's Day!
Sheila
I am re-reading Israel My Beloved by Kay Arthur. I love how it reminds me of God's faithfulness, and helps me to remember how we are His bride! I highly recommend this one, as well as Kay Arthur's writing in general.
I just finished reading Queen of the Castle. I found it funny and really encouraging. It was meant to be read one chapter a week, but I just read it straight through. ;)
http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Castle-Encouragement-Uninspired-Domestically/dp/1591454743/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210297384&sr=8-1
Right now I'm reading through So Much More by Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin... it's really challenged my thinking with how I want to approach issues with my daughters, even at their young ages! And also, When You Rise Up: A Covenental Approach to Homeschooling by R.C. Sproul Jr. My sister had started it and highly recommended it... I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far!
I just finished "Bad Girls From the Bible" and have now started "Really Bad Girls From the Bible". It's such balm to my soul......great great stuff for a woman who wasn't always Godfearing :-)
Right now, I'm reading with the children Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Choice Stories for Children (collection of short stories from older out-of-print books, which illustrate virtues.
Just finished John Adams by David McCullough. Long, but very good and well-written. I learned a lot since my knowledge of American history is weak. I'm planning on acquiring his book 1776, because I expect it to be well worth reading. Having just finished this monstrous book, I'm not sure what I'm going to read next.
Also recently read myself (pre-reading before deciding to keep the book) Dust of the Earth by Donna Lynn Hess (or Donnalynn Hess). Published by BJU. It's a fictionalized account of the life of JT Pace, the son of a black sharecropper who grew up in the 1930s, and it follows him into adulthood as he struggles with illiteracy. Really good; I have a review of it at Amazon. I plan to get some of her other books.
And another one recently was Man of the Family by Ralph Moody, 2nd in the Little Britches. Very good look at life in early 1900s. Hard working young man at 11, who becomes the man of the family when his father dies. But there is the use of the word h*** and d*** by cowboys about a dozen times throughout, and I believe the Lord's name was used casually a couple times as well. I'd be fine taking a black marker to those instances, but others may not be. If it weren't for that langauge, I'd probably get the rest of the series, but as is, we'll probably stick with this one and maybe one other.
There is a set of books on Frugality available thru the Olathe libraries that I enjoyed some time ago...they are titled "Frugal Luxuries" and "Frugal Luxuries for All Seasons." This author is great at finding ways to be creatively frugal, and her books are also (very simply) written "prettily." Very charming!
Our current reads:
Dune Boy--Edwin Way Teale
Homeschooling At The Speed of Life--Marilyn Rockett
**I highly recommend both of these books! Dune Boy is a "living" book, published in 1949 and about life in the northern Indiana Dune country around the turn of the centry. Mr. Teale had written many nature books, and we're just discovering them.
(BTW, Crystal, I do have a Blogger/Google account so that I would not have to submit comments anonymously, but something's gone awry and I have to jump through many hoops to get things to work. It's just much easier this way!)
Mrs. Krista Mc
I am reading through Parenting in the Pew and have found it so far to be a great, easy read that encourages me in ways to lead my children in worship at church, even though they are about the same ages as your two.
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