Looking Back; Looking Forward

Most of the time, I do one post wrapping up the last year's reading challenges and such, and another declaring my intentions for the new year.  However, a lot of my new challenges are just carrying on from last year, so I'm doing them all in one post this year.

A Literary Christmas (hosted by In The Bookshelf)

I said I wanted to read and review three Christmas books for this event, and I actually read six and reviewed five!  You can read them all here.  I'm sure I will participate in this event again next December, as it's always such fun to read and share Christmas books.

(All pictures are mine from my Bookstagram account.)

My Year with C. S. Lewis

I challenged myself to read at least five books by or about C. S. Lewis in 2020.  I read seven, though two of those were Narnia books, so they weren't new to me and I didn't review them on my blog.  You can read my five reviews here.

#TheUnreadShelfChallenge2020

I started the year with 537 unread books.  I read more than 50 of them, and yet, I ended the year with 527 books on my unread shelves.  Um, yeah.

The lockdowns did help in that I didn't go to bookstores or thrift stores or library book sales nearly so often, but I bought quite a few books online, and some of those were the fault of lockdowns because I was comfort-buying.  I did finally start to get a handle on how to resist buying so many books, at least -- I am committed now to not buying books that just "look good," but rather to buying ones I already know I want to read.  

My original goal was to read 24 of my unread books and clear off a whole shelf in my bedroom.  Well, I read more than double that many, but I didn't clear off a shelf, so this was a half-success, half-failure.  You can read all my book reviews for this challenge here.  (I did read several that I never reviewed...)

#TheUnreadShelfChallenge2021

I'm doing this challenge again this year!  You can learn more about it here at The Unread Shelf blog.  My goal this year is to read 36 books off my unread shelves AND truly clear off a whole shelf.  I have plans to move some books from my library up to my bedroom to ease my crowding problem down there, and I think that will help keep me motivated to NOT buy more books all the time.

Heidi's Lord of the Rings read-along

We are just about finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring together at Literary Adventures Along the Brandywine.  Obviously, we will be continuing this for the next few months, as we read The Two Towers and Return of the King and discuss it together there.

My Year with Harry Potter

I want to reread all 7 Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling in 2021.  I have not read any of them since the last book came out in 2007!  It's high time I revisited that magical world.

Sense and Sensibility read-along???

I am contemplating hosting a read-along of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen here this spring or summer!  It's been a couple years since a led a read-along, and I'd like to get back to it.  I'd be doing it chapter-by-chapter like before.  If that interests you, stay tuned!

Did you have any goals for last year?  Did you meet any of them?  Do you have goals for this year?  Do tell!

"A Holiday by Gaslight" by Mimi Matthews

What a fun finale to my Christmas reading this year!  I polished off this novella in about a day, and it was like a nice dessert -- satisfying, but not over-satiating.  It has a little bit of a North and South flavor to it, intentionally, with a young lady falling for a man in trade.  I'm going to be rereading Gaskell's book in February, and this nicely got me in the mood for that.

In this case, the young lady is being courted by a merchant who is stiff and formal around her, causing her to misunderstand the level of his affection for her.  She breaks off their courtship, but has second thoughts and tries to get to know him while he spends the Christmas holidays with her family.  It was fun, generally clean, and I enjoyed it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some old-fashioned swear words, mentions of a man admiring a woman's figure, and a few detailed kisses.  Tiptoes along the line of clean or not, and mostly stays on the clean side.

This was my 5th Christmas book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading link-up and my 57th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020!!!  I was really only hoping to read 24 off my shelves, and then I kept upping my goal whenever I hit my new one, and yeah... I am agog.  Now if only I hadn't bought nearly 50 books this year, this would mean I cleared off a couple of shelves!  But, there's always next year, right?

"Hercule Poirot's Christmas" by Agatha Christie

I have discovered a newfound appreciation for Hercule Poirot over the last couple years.  I entirely blame Kenneth Branagh and his 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.  

I read almost this whole book yesterday, and it was great fun!  I mean, great fun considering it's a book about a severely dysfunctional family and murder and so on.

Poirot isn't even in the first third or so of this book, which is all about this old man and his children, most of whom hate each other.  The old man gets killed, Poirot and some British policemen get called in to solve the crime, and the rest of the book is about that.

This was a fast read, and I'm happy to say I did not solve the crime before the hero did, which is the sort of mystery I like best.

Particularly Good Bits: 

"I believe the present matters -- not the past!  The past must go.  If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it.  We see it in exaggerated terms -- a false perspective" (p. 33).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for a lot of talk about a man having illegitimate children through his many love affairs, and a pretty gory murder.

This was my 4th book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading link-up hosted by In the Bookcase, my 13th for my third Classics Club list, and my 51st for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Yuletide: A Jane Austen-Inspired Collection of Stories" edited by Christina Boyd

This was a diverting collection of short Christmas stories.  They all center around Pride and Prejudice, which I didn't realize at first -- I thought there would be a mix of all of Austen's novels, but nope, all P&P.  Some of the stories retold Pride and Prejudice in a modern setting.  Others were a Christmasy sequel to the book.  Still others wrote an alternate version of the book where Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy fell in love in a different way from the original.  Many of the stories were good, a couple were great, and some were only okay.

My favorites were, in order of how they appear in the book:

"The Forfeit" by Caitlin Williams -- Mr. Darcy is stranded near Meryton at Christmas and must spend the holiday with the Bennet family while waiting for the weather to clear.  During the festivities, he and Elizabeth spend a great deal of time together, much to their mutual satisfaction.  (An alternate ending for P&P)

"By a Lady" by Lona Manning -- Elizabeth Darcy endeavors to make friends with her husband's cousin, Anne, and they discover a mutual interest in books.  (A sequel to P&P)

"The Season for Friendly Greetings" by Anngela Schroeder -- Lizzy and Jane Bennet attend a ball and get to know Col. Fitzwilliam and learn the truth about a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Wickham, thus learning to understand and appreciate another mutual acquaintance, Mr. Darcy.  (An alternate ending for P&P)

(From my Instagram)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some stories and PG-13 for others.  The modern-set ones are more PG-13 and the Regency ones are more PG.

This is my third book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Reading Link-Up hosted by In the Bookcase and my 50th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020

"A House to Let" by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Anne Proctor, and Wilkie Collins

 

Well, this was an interesting premise for a novella, anyway.  Charles Dickens and his writer friends Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Adelaide Anne Proctor all got together to write a book in several pieces that got stitched together later with a narrative framework.

It begins with "Over the Way," co-authored by Dickens and Collins, which tells of an elderly woman who moves to London and becomes fascinated by the house across the street from her new home.  It's up for rent, or "to let," and she thinks it contains a mystery, so she asks her butler and an old friend to both find out the history of the house.

Elizabeth Gaskell picks up the story with "The Manchester Marriage," which is part of the house's history, all about a widow who remarries a kind man, but inadvertently causes heartache.

Charles Dickens adds to the house's history with "Going into Society," about sideshow performers who turned the house into an attraction for a time (think The Greatest Showman).  One of them tries buying his way into society, but discovers that society only wanted to be friends with his money, not him.

Adelaide Anne Proctor continues the list of unhappy happenings with a series of narrative poems called "Three Evenings in the House" about a woman who continually gives up her own chances at happiness to help her brother.

Proctor's other contribution, "Trottle's Report," brings in the current history of the house and the mysterious goings on there.  Another tragedy is in the works, but perhaps it can be averted!

Dickens and Collins end the whole story together with "Let at Last," which does at least have a happy ending, so the whole thing ends on a good note.

Having different authors for the different bits gives them the flavor of being stories told to the characters by very different people, which worked very well for this sort of story -- better than I expected it to, in fact!  I liked "Going into Society" best, I think, because it didn't end totally sadly, but more in a realistically melancholy sort of way.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some sadness, deaths, and child abuse of the sort you commonly find in Dickens.

Several of the stories-within-the-story take place around Christmas, as does the main narrative that frames them, so this is technically a Christmas story, and thus it is my 2nd book read for the Literary Christmas reading link-up hosted by In the Bookcase.  It's also the 11th for my 3rd Classics Club list and my 49th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Christmas with Anne" (and Other Holiday Stories) by L. M. Montgomery

This is a book I hugged.  I think it may even have edged out Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas as my favorite Christmas book.

It's a collection of short Christmastime stories by L. M. Montgomery, along with the Christmas parts of two different Anne books, Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars.  Those happen to be my two favorite Anne books, and I'm starting to wonder if the inclusion of Christmas in them might be part of why they're my favorites.

Anyway, not every story in this is perfectly, incandescently wonderful... but several of them are, and the others are enjoyable too.  Several of them brought tears to my eyes, and several made me laugh aloud.  

Mine from my Instagram account

My favorites, besides the Anne chapters, were "Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket" and "The Josephs' Christmas," with "Christmas at Red Butte," "The End of the Young Family Feud," and "Ida's New Year Cake" rounding out my top five.

If you love heartwarming stories of good people sharing joy with each other, bringing comfort and cheer to others, or making peace with someone at last, then you will doubtless enjoy these as much as I did.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Clean and wholesome.

This is my 48th book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020, my 10th for my 3rd Classics Club list, and my first for this year's Literary Christmas link-up from In the Bookcase.

"Jamaica Inn" by Daphne du Maurier

What is the point of this book supposed to be?  I don't even know.  Maybe that smugglers are evil?  I can get behind that.  But man, that's about all I can get behind for this book.

It starts out when a young woman named Mary Yellan's mother dies, leaving her to the care of her aunt and uncle.  She's never met her uncle, but she remembers her aunt as a happy, carefree, lovely woman and thinks it will be nice to live with her.

Hey, guess what?  Her aunt married a foul, vile smuggler and lives in a derelict place on the Cornish moors called Jamaica Inn.  Her life is now a pit of despair.  Mary could just run away from the suffering and evil that she finds there, but she wants to rescue her aunt, which is commendable.  Only instead of rescuing her, she kind of just hangs around despising her.

Then Mary meets Jem, her uncle's younger brother.  Jem is a weird mixture of nice and nasty -- he's not a smuggler, he's a horse thief, which is obviously so much better.  And he's generally kind and decent to Mary, except when he's making fun of her.  I don't like Mary, but I really don't like Jem.

Oh, and then there's the rector in the next village, an albino named Mr. Davey.  SPOILER ALERT: He turns out to be the most evil of all of the characters.  I am so ridiculously tired of ministers turning out to be bad guys, y'all.  Maybe in 1936, this was not such a hackneyed thing, but I'm not sure.  And why are people with albinoism always ending up being villains too?  I can't think of a single good albino character in book or film, but I can think of several bad ones (especially in the movies The Princess Bride and The Da Vinci Code).  Grrr.

But the thing that bugged me the most about this book was the attitude toward being a woman that du Maurier gave Mary.  She was constantly railing internally about how people didn't take her seriously or treat her fairly because she was a woman and they viewed women as illogical and weak and passive... and then she would turn right around and do something illogical or weak or passive.  And she would deride herself for having emotional reactions to things like near-death experiences -- you're in shock, Mary!  That has nothing to do with being female or male!  I don't know, it was just weird how du Maurier seemed to be decrying the attitudes toward women in the 1800s, but she constantly reinforces the stereotypes she's supposedly angry with.  I don't get it.

So, yeah... I actively disliked this book.  I'm sorry if you really like it, cuz I know a lot of people do, but I didn't like a single character in it, and it annoyed me repeatedly.  I will say, though, that the last 75 pages or so were very gripping, and I finished the book because I just had to find out how it all ended, so that aspect of the writing, I can respect, anyway.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, passionate kisses, and descriptions of people dying in pretty horrible ways.

This is my 9th book read and reviewed for my 3rd Classics Club list and my 48th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Marsalis on Music" by Wynton Marsalis

I bought this book on Ebay on a whim while looking for something completely unrelated for my kids for school.  I've been a fan of Wynton Marsalis ever since we watched Ken Burns' documentary Jazz (2001) years and years ago.  I'm a sucker for a good trumpet player, and Marsalis is all that and more.  So I thought hey, this might be a cool book to use for my kids.  The seller said it came with the companion CD with listening cues, which sounded cool.

What the seller didn't say?  This book is autographed by Wynton Marsalis himself.  You should have heard me shriek when I got it in the mail and discovered that little fact!!!

I started to flip through this over the weekend, to see how I could use it for school, and which of my kids it would work for.  And guess what?  I ended up reading the whole thing, cover to cover.  It is fantastic!  What's more, it taught me a whole lot of things.  I've been playing the piano since I was six years old, I've played flute in a college band, I've sung in college choirs and college musicals, and I've loved music for longer than I can actually remember.  I've taken courses on it, I've taught my kids to play piano, and I consider myself a more-than-averagely musical person.  But brother, did I ever learn stuff from this book!  Like, I never knew that a sonata and a symphony are the same musical form, it's just that if an orchestra plays it, it's a symphony, but if only one or two instruments play it, it's a sonata.  Say what?  I did not know that.  Wow.

Anyway.  In this book, Marsalis explains in kid-friendly ways the concepts of rhythm and form, the history of band music in America, and tips and tricks to make practicing really work for you.  He also has biographies of notable composers whose music he describes and discusses.  This is a companion to a PBS series of the same name, and man, would I like to see that!  Unfortunately, it's kind of expensive now, so I'll have to keep my eye out for a reasonable used copy, I suppose.  Meanwhile, I will be using this book and its CD with all of my kids later this month, as a fun break from some of our more textbook-based subjects as Christmas approaches.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Meant for and suitable for kids, but good reading for adults too.

This is my 46th book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Aslan's World" by Angus Menuge

I. Loved. This. Book.

This Bible study is broken into six sections that each tackle some part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the Biblical truths that are presented fictionally by C. S. Lewis in that book.  I learned a lot from it, and I'm going to have my son use it for school later this year.  It's aimed at probably middle school on up, but younger kids could get a lot from it too, with more help from an adult or parent.  

There's a leader guide at the back with some explanations and answers, and also a list of additional resources for those looking to dig deeper.  My Christmas wish list just got longer, friends.

This was published in 2006 in book form, but it's out of print now, except as a downloadable Bible study offered by Concordia Publishing House.  However, you can find used copies other places.  I heartily recommend it for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the first Narnia book, or the Narnia world as a whole.

This has been another book read for My Year with C.S. Lewis, and also my 44th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Tales of the Black Widowers" by Isaac Asimov

My father-in-law recommended Isaac Asimov's mysteries starring the Black Widowers to me because he knows I like mysteries and he considers these some of the best.

Please note that my copy of this book had a much bigger picture of a spider on the cover and I had to cover it with a sticky note so I could read it in comfort.  Ugh.  I wish I would have had this much smaller spider picture, though I probably would have put a sticky note over it too.

Annnnnyway, this was a pretty entertaining collection of stories.  The Black Widowers are a bunch of men in and around NYC who get together once a month to have dinner in a restaurant's private room, no women allowed.  One month, one of them tells the others about a mystery they can't solve.  Their waiter, Henry, solves it.  Next month, same thing.  Every month, one of them presents a problem or puzzle or mystery, and Henry the waiter inevitably solves it.  It's a cute premise for a short story series.  And some of the mysteries were quite clever.  

But I figured out a third of them before they ended, and I'm always a bit dissatisfied if I figure out a mystery before the reveal.  It feels like I've been cheated, somehow.  You see, I don't TRY to figure it out.  But if the answer is there, jumping out at me, well, then I feel like the author could have done better, I'm afraid.

Also, I didn't really like most of the characters.  Many of them were rude or unkind to each other, and the only one I liked much was Henry.  But we never got to know Henry at all, he's always in the background, and so I couldn't connect with him, even though I would have liked to.  I can see why f-i-l likes these, as they're very cerebral little puzzles, but I need more than that from a mystery to make me like it enough to want to read more in the series.  So I'm going to see if he wants my copy of this and one of the follow-up volumes that I also had picked up at a used book store at some point.

And that means I got TWO books off my unread shelves by reading one!  This is my 43rd book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020, huzzah.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some mild curse words and mild innuendo in dialog, and for some discussions of crimes, including murder.

"A Very Bookish Thanksgiving" by Kelsey Bryant, Sarah Holman, J. Grace Pennington, Rebekah Jones, and Amanda Tero

This is a charming collection of five novellas, each revolving around a different classic book, and each centered around giving thanks for blessings, especially on Thanksgiving Day.  If you're looking for something clean and heartwarming to read as you prepare for Thanksgiving yourself, this is a great pick!  I can't think of many books that revolve around Thanksgiving, so it was really refreshing and different that way.

A Promise of Acorns by Kelsey Bryant and A Fine Day Tomorrow by Amanda Tero were definitely my favorites here, but all five stories were enjoyable.  I handed this to my 13-yr-old son when I was almost done with it, and he liked it a lot too.

A Promise of Acorns by Kelsey Bryant is about a young nanny at her first real nannying job, caring for two grandchildren of a reserved and remote art professor.  He asks her to teach his grandchildren about Thanksgiving traditions, and all of them learn many things by the end of the story.  This one is inspired by Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

As Long as I Belong by Sarah Holman is about a young woman with a less-than-ideal family life who is befriended by another family.  As she grows up, she grows closer to one of their sons while working together on the family campground/pumpkin patch, but newcomers make her feel unwelcome, and she wonders if it's time to move on with her life.  This one is inspired by Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.  This was my son's favorite.

The Windles and the Lost Boy by Rebekah Jones is about a trio of siblings who help protect a runaway boy with the help of a mysterious man with a reputation for helping lost people.  This one is inspired by Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, and was my son's other favorite.

Grand Intentions by J. Grace Pennington is about a young woman who dreams of being an author, but whose life always seems to get in the way of her having the time to write.  When her grandmother asks her to house-sit for her while she goes on a long trip, the girl believes she'll finally have time to really write.  But she learns that the lack of time is not what's holding her back.  This one is inspired by Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

A Fine Day Tomorrow by Amanda Tero is the only piece of historical fiction here.  Set during WWI and the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919, it follows four sisters as they struggle with many troubles both personal and societal.  Their father is a chaplain in the army, and one sister's fiance is also in the army.  The story focuses on that sister and her attempts to help others despite not being quite healthy and strong herself.  This novella has a lot of heartbreak, but also a lot of hope and love and joy.  And, since we're still battling our own pandemic, it's a timely read as well.  This one is inspired by Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

I loved the idea for this anthology, of not so much retelling classic books as using them to highlight similar struggles that the characters in these stories face.  Each book plays a role in the story it inspired, which was also a neat touch.  

This is a "limited edition" collection, which I assume means it will not be available forever.  It also appears that there will be more collections in the works! You can learn more from the Instagram account A Very Bookish Holiday.

(Mine from my Instagram account)

Particularly Good Bits:

What a pity I wasn't in a novel where my author fed me words woven with pen, ink, and contemplation (p. 45, A Promise of Acorns by Kelsey Bryant).

While some might find sewing the same thing over and over a boring, tedious job, Essie enjoyed the monotony. She found an odd comfort in the little, reliable things in life. A quarter-inch seam was a quarter-inch seam. Its plans wouldn't be changed (p. 365, A Fine Day Tomorrow by Amanda Tero).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good, clean, wholesome storytelling.

This is my 42nd book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject.

"Over the Moon" by Natalie Lloyd

How ridiculous of me to have this book sitting on my unread shelves for a whole year.  I kept wanting to read it and always having some other thing I "needed" to read, like a book for a book club or a buddy read, or something due at the library, or whatever.

Well, anyway, I've read it at last.  And I loved it.  I didn't love it for like the first two-thirds of the book, I just liked it a lot, but that ending!  I had tears in my eyes repeatedly during the last couple of chapters.

Twelve-year-old Mallie lives in a mining town that has lost hope.  And lost light.  They live in a gloom caused by mysterious dust that blocks out the sun.  Monsters prowl the woods, scaring children and keeping people from trying to leave.  Once, their world had magic, light, and joy, but now it is a place of creeping despair.

Until.

Until Mallie and her friends take on a dangerous mission, uncover some highly unpleasant truths, and soar above the gloom and fear that has consumed their lives.  

Also, this book has flying horses, and I LOVE FLYING HORSES.  They aren't in nearly enough books, and I'm so glad this book has them :-)

Particularly Good Bits:

I'm still learning many things about myself, but I already know this much: I'm wild and brave on the inside, a fire-popper in a glass jar (p. 7).

As sure as I know my name, I also know this much is true: I am still brave enough to dream (p. 16).

Denver takes my hand, and it's a perfect fit, a key inside a trusted lock (p. 28).

"You," I breathe, "are wonderwow" (p. 82).

"It's a pet peeve of mine, when people say girlish or boyish like it's an actual insult" (p. 163).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for danger, peril, some scary monsters, and abusive behavior toward children.

This is my 40th book read from my unread shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020!!!  And that was one of my goals for that challenge!  My other goal is to have 12 fewer unread books OVERALL in my house by the end of the year, and I'm still working on that one...

"A Man Called Peter" by Catherine Marshall

This is a loving tribute of a biography.  Catherine Marshall, famous to us today for her novel Christy, wrote the story of her husband Peter Marshall's life after he passed away, publishing it two years after he died.  It traces his growth from a Scottish boy working in a factory to his calling to become a minister in America, on through his schooling here in the US and his career as a minister that eventually led to his being the chaplain for the U.S. Senate.  

I think both Marshalls had beautiful faith, and I think I would have liked them both as people.  I really enjoyed this biography, though I'm not sure I would read it a second time.  But I'm eager to see the movie version now that I've read it, as it stars Richard Todd, an actor I'm quite fond of.  In fact, I read much of Peter Marshall's dialog in Todd's voice in my head because Todd has a delightful Scottish accent, which Marshall reportedly had also.

I must confess that I did not read the sermons and prayers included at the end of this book.  As is to be expected, since I am a Lutheran and they were Presbyterians, I did not agree with some of the theology presented in the bulk of the biography, and did not feel like wading through sermons and prayers I would undoubtedly spend a lot of time disagreeing with.

Particularly Good Bits:

"But it's no sin to be tempted," Peter loved to say.  "It isn't the fact of having temptations that should cause us shame, but what we do with them.  Temptation is an opportunity to conquer" (p. 49).

Dreams carried around in one's heart for years, if they are dreams that have God's approval, have a way suddenly of materializing (p. 68).

"Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change, and where we are right, make us easy to live with" (p. 139).

Peter was exceedingly realistic and consistently Christian in his attitude toward death.  In his mind, the soul and the body were two completely separate things.  "You and I are souls," he reiterated frequently, "living in bodies" (p. 231).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Clean and lovely.

This is my sixth book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list, and also my 39th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"A Grief Observed" by C. S. Lewis

It's been a while since I read one of CS Lewis's books, and if I'm going to make my goal of reading six of them this year, I'm going to have to get reading, as I think this is only number four.  No, wait, we just finished listening to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe audiobook -- so this would make five.

Anyway, so, this is a really hard book to read.  It's excruciatingly personal.  Lewis was devastated by his wife Joy's death, and he wrote down his feelings and thoughts and questions and fears as he moved through the grieving process.  And then he shared them with us.  I'm glad this book is short, because there's so much raw pain in its pages, and I don't think I could have handled much more of it.

I am glad that Lewis was able to work through the spiritual crisis brought on by losing his wife, and that he shows others that just because you ask God a lot of hard questions doesn't mean you have lost your faith.  And also that just because you don't like what God seems to be giving you for answers also doesn't mean you're not still a Christian.  I think those are easy traps to fall into, and it's important to help people understand them.

But I don't think I will ever brave reading this book again.  I'm glad I did read it, though.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for dealing with some really hard situations that kids aren't going to want to read about anyway.  It's clean, it's just... heavy.

This is my 5th book read and reviewed for my third ride with the Classics Club and my 38th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"To Tame a Land" by Louis L'Amour

So.  Um.  Hmm.

The thing is, I really quite liked this book until the last chapter ruined everything.  You've got a coming of age story where a guy called Rye starts out as a boy, and life is really hard because he loses both his parents young and in miserable ways, but he gets through that with the help of a nice guy named Logan who mentors him and kind of semi-adopts him until he's old enough to go out and be his own man.

And Rye does, he goes out and lives a full life on the frontier and does what he needs to survive, and he falls in love with a girl.  And he eventually gets a pretty steady job as a lawman and wants to go back and find that girl and see if she'll marry him.

All well and good.  I was 100% on board.  Good stuff.  Lovely character development.  Nice story arc.  Very episodic, but I like episodic.  Kind of ramble-y, especially for a L'Amour, but I like ramble-y.

And then, that last chapter.  

SPOILER ALERT: I am discussing the ending here and I am not going to pull punches and I am going to be crabby about it.

Yeah.  That last chapter.  When it turns out that -- surprise! -- the big crime boss that our hero has to go up against, the one that's been leading all the baddest of bad criminals in the area for a few years, and who has now kidnapped the woman Rye loves... is his old mentor, Logan.  Which, you know, that's a thing -- boy grows up and has to face the fact that the guy who raised him is not as heroic and wonderful as he remembered.  It's not a trope I generally like unless it's done just right, but it's a thing.  Oedipus and all that.  Whatever. 

Except it didn't make any sense.  Like, at all.  This mentor he had?  Logan?  Was a nice guy?  Yeah, he had to leave home back east fast after a duel, but he was clearly a good guy?  And got married to a really nice lady, and settled down, and was all set to continue being a good guy.  Only, unbeknownst to anyone until Logan tells Rye this at the end, his wife died a few years ago, in childbirth, and then, obviously, he turned to evil and became an outlaw kingpin because that completely makes sense.  Very logical.  Much natural reactionness occurring here.

WHAT THE HECKITY HECK HECK HECK?  

I mean, if his wife had died in a train wreck, and so he started robbing trains because he thought the train company had been at fault, that would make sense.  Or if his wife died during a bank robbery and the bankers cared more about the stolen money than her life, so he started robbing banks, yeah, okay.

She died in childbirth, y'all.  It happens.  Still today.  It is not a reason to go become a crime boss.

Sigh.

Yeah.  You can just see that L'Amour had this really great idea for a plot twist and he couldn't resist using it, and he tossed in the girl being wooed by both Rye and Logan to hammer the whole Oedipal thing home even harder, and... and I hate seeing the author working.  I should not be able to do that.  I should not, in the course of a book, see what the author is doing.  They must be invisible.  If I see them, they're doing it wrong.  And L'Amour is too doggone good for this kind of thing to just get shrugged off as, "Well, you know, the idea was good..."

Nope.  I'm not having it.  Sorry, folks.  I don't believe the character arc, I see the author tiptoeing around, and I am all kinds of disappointed.

The thing is, I realized after I'd finished the book that L'Amour had totally set up a different plot twist, and it would've been totally cool.  Logan had left the east after killing a guy in a duel over this rich girl Logan loved, but her family didn't want her to marry him.  And Rye's mom was a rich girl who married Rye's dad against her family's will and left them to be with him.  So... what if that was the same girl?  What if losing Logan made her determined not to let her family make her decisions for her anymore, and when she fell in love with another guy and her parents pulled that same stunt again, she just left?  And what if Rye looked enough like his mom that Logan was reminded of her, and so on?  I mean, Rye carries his mom's picture around with him forever, and Logan could even have seen it and known this was the son he almost had, and that's why he takes him in and everything, but he doesn't want to tell him until he's older, whatever.

But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

(Happily, I read another L'Amour book right away and liked it heaps, so don't worry, I'm not going to quit reading him just because of one unsatisfactory ending.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for western violence and peril to women and stuff like that.  And some low-level cussing.

This is my 37th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Roverandom" by J.R.R. Tolkien

I hadn't even heard of this charming little book until earlier this year.  So if you hadn't heard of it before either, don't fret!  It was first published in 1998, though Tolkien had actually hoped to publish it after The Hobbit.  But his publishers didn't want more funny and whimsical fantasy stories for kids in general, they wanted more of The Hobbit in particular.  So Tolkien shelved Roverandom even though he had revised it repeatedly and made lovely illustrations for it, and wrote The Lord of the Rings instead.

This story began, like The Hobbit, as something Tolkien made up for his children.  His second son, Michael, lost a little toy dog that he loved dearly while they were at the beach, and Tolkien made up a whole series of adventures for the dog to help his son process the loss.  His sons all enjoyed them so very much, he told them over and over, and expanded on them, and eventually wrote them down.

I learned all of that in the extensive introduction in the hardcover volume I have, as pictured here.  The introduction and end notes make up about half of the book, as Roverandom only has 5 chapters.  In it, a real dog falls afoul of a wizard, gets turned into a toy dog, is bought for a little boy who then loses him on the beach, is rescued by another enchanter and sent to the moon to have adventures, then has more adventures under the sea before everything winding up very happily.

A lot of this book reminded me of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  That same exuberant make-believe feel about fantastical realms coexisting with our own, you know?  But it lacks the melancholy of The Little Prince, which suits me just fine.  I like dog books that end happily, and I'm very glad this one did.

(From my Instagram)

Particularly Good Bits:

"You never know what will happen next, when once you get mixed up with wizards and their friends" (p. 67).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Nothing potentially objectionable here whatsoever.

This is my third book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list and my 36th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.  And it is also a contribution to this year's Tolkien Blog Party :-)

"In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway

 

Not my new favorite Hemingway, despite the presence of some of my favorite short stories of his.

In Our Time is a collection of vignettes about war and bullfighting that intersperse a lot of short stories, many of them featuring Hemingway's alter ego, Nick Adams.  The vignettes focus on gory, unpleasant, depressing events, and the short stories are similarly about death, loss, leaving, and things ending badly, all except the last two, which are "Big Two-Hearted River" parts 1 and 2. 

Only in those last two stories to we finally start to see someone finding peace and healing.  Until them, the focus seems to be on the elusiveness of happiness.  I think Hemingway is saying that you can't find happiness or healing when you're with other people, even your friends.  Only by going away from the rest of humanity can you find the peace and healing you need.  So bleak.  Oh, Hemingway, you make me so sad for you.

I think that young people today, the ones who are angry and railing against everything, should read Hemingway.  Especially this.  I think it would help them see that disaffection, disillusionment, and feeling lost and alone are not at all new.  They're present whenever people turn their backs on God and each other.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for some bad language, violence, gore, oblique sexual references, and general depressingness.

This is my 2nd book read and reviewed for my third go-'round with the Classics Club and my 35th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Mr. Bliss" by J. R. R. Tolkien

This is the most adorable little picture book!  Tolkien wrote it for his kids, somewhat inspired by his own distaste for automobiles.  In it, an eccentric man named Mr. Bliss, owner of a giant girabbit (half giraffe, half rabbit) and wearer of a very tall hat, decides to buy a snazzy yellow car and proceeds to have a series of comical, absurd adventures as a result.  Those include talking bears, missing garden produce, and the girabbit.  I loved it.

Tolkien's distaste for complicated machinery and love of open countryside definitely is on display here!  I wish I'd had this book when my kids were younger because it would have been such fun to read to them while they snuggled on my lap.

This is my 34th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020 

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.

"The Reluctant Godfather" by Allison Tebo

This book made me chuckle repeatedly :-)  AND it surprised me at the end -- it has a little twist that I wasn't quite expecting, though I started to suspect it partway through the book, which was fun.

In this Cinderella retelling, Cinderella has a fairy godfather named Burndee who does NOT want to be a godfather at all.  He wants to concentrate on his baking and cake decorating and leave stupid humans to their own devices.  But such slipshod godfathering is not allowed, and so he cooks up a scheme to get both his godchildren to fall in love so he won't have to deal with them anymore.

This is quite a short novella, so if you're in the mood for a funny fairy tale retelling but are short on reading time, it would be a great choice!

Particularly Good Bits:

"Burndee, you can't make people happy; no one can do that. Fairy godparents aren't required to make their wards happy; they're just supposed to help them" (p. 106).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Clean, wholesome family fare.

This is my 34th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020 :-)

"Just Mercy: Adapted for Young Adults" by Bryan Stevenson

Did you know there was a version of Bryan Stevenson's bestseller Just Mercy that was adapted for younger readers?  I didn't realize that until this arrived in the mail -- I must not have been paying good attention the day I ordered it.  Oops!  I got it to read with the book club hosted by Musings of Jamie this month, and I tried to get the adult version from the library once I realized my mistake, but too many people were in line ahead of me. So I read the copy I had.  

And I'm glad I did. Even this toned-down, older-teen-friendly version had me in tears multiple times. I had to put it down for a couple days because parts of it hurt so much. My heart cried out in sympathy to children tried, convicted, and incarcerated as if they were adults. To mentally challenged people tried with no regard for their abilities or lack thereof. To people disregarded, silenced, and thrown away as if they were disposable face masks, not people created in the image of God. 

This is a memoir about Stevenson's work as a lawyer advocating for people either wrongly convicted, punished too harshly, or being mistreated within the prison system.  He starts out talking about when he was an idealistic young law student doing an internship in Alabama, and traces his career over about three decades as he helped start the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).  A lot of the book focuses on EJI's efforts to free a man on death row in Alabama that they discovered had been falsely accused and wrongly convicted.  If you've seen the 2019 movie Just Mercy, that's the case that the film focuses in on.  

But Stevenson also talks about many other cases.  About children, about women, about criminals, about innocent people.  Some of the cases were very distressing to me personally.  And some parts were very upbeat and hopeful.  I think I cried the most over a prison guard who gradually went from being a despicable bully to a pretty understanding guy.

My biggest takeaway from this book is that if we look to humans to fix a broken system, to fix their broken selves, to fix the broken society we've created -- that's is like asking my teacup with the broken handle to fix itself. It can't. We can't. Try as we might, spout wisdom or good thoughts or kindness all we want, but we can't become better under our own power. 

However, we CAN change for the better when we rely on God's power. God can fix this mess. But he's not a genie in a bottle who'll grant a wish or two or three. There's no *poof* of magic to change this brokenness from without. It will only come from hearts changed by his love, by faith in him instead of in ourselves or other people. 

 Anyway. I did not agree with every conclusion or statement that Stevenson made, but he stated his beliefs compellingly and gave me a lot to think about.  If you think this book sounds too heavy, try the YA version. It's tough. But it's important.

I really appreciated that the book includes references in the back for many of the statistics and other things referred to in the book.  That was really important to me, as it showed that Stevenson and the publishers valued credibility and spreading awareness, not sensationalism.

(From my Instagram account)

Particularly Good Bits: 

We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.  An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, an entire nation.  Fear and anger can make us cruel and abusive.  We all suffer from the absence of mercy and we harm ourselves as much as we victimize others (p. 18).

Walter's case taught me that fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can infect a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous (p. 260).

If This was a movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-16, at least.  It talks about children being abused physically, mentally, and sexually, though not in a graphic way.  It also talks about miscegenation laws, people committing adultery, some slightly graphic discussions of death by electric chair, and other violent subjects.  Much too intense for most younger teens, imho.

This was my 33rd book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.