Happy October!
It would have made much more sense to post this before I posted my reading list for fall, but I got eager to look ahead!
My "third quarter" reading this year was surprisingly good. Though I must admit, some of it was unplanned. I did read a few gems I'd been planning to read, but I also stumbled onto some excellent books I hadn't even heard about.
Here's the list. Where appropriate, links are to my longer reviews on Epinions.
~~Betsy-Tacy in Deep Valley by Caroline Frisch ~~
A tiny book with more pictures than words, more a scrap-book of photos from Maud Hart Lovelace's life than anything else. I also read "at" a number of other essays and books about Lovelace this summer, most of them courtesy of ILL. I still harbor hopes of being able to write a companion book based on the Betsy-Tacy series someday.
~~Planet Narnia by Michael Ward~~
The most elegant book of literary criticism and engagement I have perhaps ever read. Just brilliant.
~~ A Visit to Highbury (Another View of Emma ~~ by Joan Austen-Leigh
What summer would be complete with a good dose of Austen sequel-izing? I took this one to the beach, and found (much to my delight) that it was one of the best such things I've ever read. A very plausible take-off on Emma, from a completely minor point of view. A pleasure. I'm pretty sure it's out of print...
~~Out of the Wild~~ by Sarah Beth Durst
A mostly satisfying sequel to the original, though I struggled with some of the underlying story choices.
~~Heidi by Johanna Spyri~~
How wonderful to finally read a classic and discover it deserves to be one!
~~Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe edited by Michael Ward and Ben Quash~~
Very fine collection of essays on orthodoxy and heresy. Like any such collection, a bit uneven in places, but the first four essays on Christological heresies in the early church are especially solid...I'd like to use them sometime in a theology class. Great epilogue by Ward.
~~March by Geraldine Brooks~~
This one blew me away. Not for the fainthearted. But Little Women fans should rejoice over the intelligence of this novel. I blogged about it in September.
~~Water My Soul~~ by Luci Shaw
A lovely devotional book from one of my favorite poets. She spends most of the time unpacking the metaphor of gardening/growing things as she looks out our spiritual lives and growth.
~~ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Fiery Shaffer and Annie Barrows~~
What a delight, just an utter delight. I needed to find this novel right when I did. I'm reading it again, aloud to my husband. Always a mark of a book I love.
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