"A Wreath of Snow" by Liz Curtis Higgs

Jamie at Books and Beverages recommended this to me earlier this month, and I'm so happy she did!  Thanks, Jamie!  This was a much meatier story than I'd anticipated, with characters facing up to past sins and misdeeds, reaching out to right wrongs, and learning that the truth can set you free.  It's also got a bit of romance, but really just the beginning of one, which is a neat change from what I rather expected -- usually Romantic Christian Historical Fiction takes us all the way to engagement or wedding, but as this takes place over only a few days, that would have felt unrealistic, and I like that Higgs didn't go that route.

Margaret Campbell returns home to Stirling, Scotland, to share Christmas with her family and crippled brother.  Along the way, she meets a handsome stranger, who turns out to be Gordon Shaw, the man who accidentally crippled her brother many years ago.  There's a violent snowstorm, stopped trains, surprise revelations, and lots of great details about life in Victorian Scotland.  I hope to read more by Higgs, as I really liked her style.

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

This is my fourth and final book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Challenge.  Thanks so much for hosting it, Tarissa!  I hope to participate again next year, if you hold this again :-)

"Where Treetops Glisten" by Tricia Goyer, Cara Putman, and Sarah Sundin

This is a trio of novellas telling intertwined stories.  The three Turner siblings each find love at Christmastime during World War Two, on three successive Christmases.  

In "White Christmas" by Cara Putman, it's 1942 when college student Abigail Turner meets factory worker Jackson Lucas accidentally.  She offers her father's lawyering services to help save the Lucas farm, and as she and Jackson meet up over and over, they become friends, then fall in love.

In "I'll be Home for Christmas" by Sarah Sundin, it's 1943, and Air Force ace Pete Turner is home on furlough in time for Christmas.  He gets reacquainted with widow Grace Kessler when her little daughter Linnie decides he's the answer to her prayer asking God for a new daddy.  

In "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Tricia Goyer, it's 1944, and Meredith "Merry" Turner is working as a nurse in a field hospital in the newly liberated Netherlands when she encounters the man she had loved years previously, but had suspected of being a Nazi spy.

All three stories are sweet and fun, and they were the perfect sort of light reading I like during the busy end of December.  Each one had a nice message of trusting God, with characters growing and learning in believable ways.  If you're a fan of Christian fiction, holiday stories, clean romance stories, or simply the WWII setting, you'll probably get a kick out of these.  I read it as an e-book with my Kindle app, but I wouldn't mind owning a paperback copy.

Particularly Good Bits:

"I guarantee no woman has ever fallen in love with me after one kiss.  It takes at least twenty.  I happen to be quite resistible."  (from "I'll be Home for Christmas")

"The thing about love," Nancy said, more serious now, "is that it's slow to fade.  It's not a bad thing.  Love is meant to last."  (from "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas")

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for war-related things like talk about concentration camps, hiding Jewish people to protect them, people being killed, and some surgical and medical situations in the final story especially.  The romances do involve kissing, but nothing more.

This is my third book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Challenge hosted by In the Bookcase.

My Ten Favorite Books of 2016

For the past two years, I've one a list of my ten favorite reads for the year -- you can read 2014's list here, and 2015's list here.  This time, I'm linking up with Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and the Bookish, since their topic today is Top Ten Best Books of 2016.

I read and reviewed 48 books this year (plus a handful I read but never reviewed, and a couple I'm reading right now but haven't finished yet), which seems to be about my usual number.  Like before, I'm breaking these down into new-to-me books and re-reads.

New To Me

A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay -- I read all four of Reay's books this year, and this one I loved so much I had to buy my own copy as soon as I'd finished it.  It's a heartfelt look at the meaning of family, love, and belonging.

Greenwillow by B. J. Chute -- Cute and charming and funny and sweet.

I, Claudia by Charity Bishop -- A brilliantly imagined look at what life as Pontius Pilate's wife might have been like.

Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart -- Second in a series based on the real experiences of one of the first woman police officers in the United States.  Much funnier and more rambunctious than it sounds.

Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien -- A beautiful labor of love from a highly creative father for his four children.

And Now Tomorrow by Rachel Field -- A moving, rich exploration of a woman's search for meaning and identity.

Re-Reads

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë -- Simply my favorite book of all time, that's all.

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton -- I consider this the ultimate coming-of-age story.

Shane by Jack Schaefer -- A beautiful picture of how one person can impact the lives of others.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery -- Another example of how a person can impact others.


How about you?  What were the best books you read this year?

2017 Reading Plans

You know I usually have some kind of reading goal for the year.  For 2016, it was My Year with Anne, where I wanted to read all the Anne of Green Gables books.  Went pretty fabulously.  In 2015, it was My Year with Robin Hood.  Kinda crashed and burned.  It happens.  

I've been tossing around a few ideas for 2017, and nothing really felt right until I found that one of my newer blogging acquaintances, Risa, is planning a very relaxed re-read of The Lord of the Rings.  I haven't reread that since I led my very first read-along, which was three years ago.  Gack!  I need to read it again!  So I'm doing that with her.  Calling it My Year in Middle Earth, as I hope to read a couple other things set there as well, like those short stories I've never read yet (such as "Farmer Giles of Ham").  Never know, I might even try some of the History of Middle Earth books or reread The Hobbit as well.

And also, my TBR shelves are scary right now.  So I'm going to do the Mount TBR Challenge (hosted by My Reader's Block) again in 2017.  I did it back in 2014 and really liked how it helped me get through some of the books I already owned, so I'm signing up again!  I'm aiming for Pike's Peak, which means reading 12 books already on my TBR shelves before January 1, 2017.  Not making a list for this, just reading as the book vibes move me, as usual.  Who knows -- I might get ambitious and aim for Mount Blanc and 24 books instead!  We shall see.

I think that's enough reading challenges and plans for me for 2017.  Besides my Classics Club list, of course.  Do you have any goals in mind already?  Or are you not a fan of challenges and so on?

This might be my last post before Christmas, so just in case it is... Merry Christmas!

"Letters from Father Christmas" by J. R. R. Tolkien

Awwwwwwww.  This is a beautiful labor of love from a father for his children.  In fact, what I loved most about this book was imagining Tolkien working on these amazing letters and pictures in secret, laboring on these for hours, sometimes probably days.  

The letters start out fairly simply, just a nice message to Tolkien's three-year-old son, John, who had asked Tolkien about Father Christmas and where he lived.  The letter came with a full-color drawing of Father Christmas himself, and of his home near the North Pole.  It seems John was delighted, because for more than twenty years, Tolkien continued the tradition, until his youngest child was in her teens.  In a way, he became Father Christmas himself, don't you think?

At first the letters are fairly simple, but as the children got older, Tolkien created a whole mythology around Father Christmas and his helpers -- can't you imagine him doing that?  The creator of Middle Earth would not be content with just one old guy in a red suit and some elves.  He gives Father Christmas a helper named North Polar Bear, then an elf secretary named Ilbereth, a gardener named the Snow Man, nephews for North Polar Bear, and so on.  He introduces goblins that keep messing up Father Christmas' storehouses of toys and books and fireworks, and there are whole battles between them.  North Polar Bear gets into lots of mischief, and also likes to add little notes to the letters in the margins.

Overall, this is the most delightful book imaginable, and I will treasure my copy always.  Here are a few of the illustrations (which I totally found on the internet and didn't scan in myself because I didn't want to break the binding on my book to lay it flat):

The first letter, 1920

North Polar Bear causing problems, 1928

Goblin attack!  1933

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good for everyone of all ages.

This is my second book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas Reading Challenge hosted at In the Bookcase, and my fifty-fifth for the Classics Club.

Top Ten Tuesday: Santa, Please Pause Here!

This week's Top Ten Tuesday subject from The Broke and the Bookish is "Ten Book-Related Items I'd Like Santa to Bring Me".  Here we go!

This t-shirt that mashes Hamlet and Holmes together
from Etsy shop SillyTees

A Fantastic Beasts bookmark
from Etsy shop Bookmarky

A print of this gorgeous painting of Boromir
from Etsy shop MattStewart

This Harry Potter quotation on a tote bag
from Etsy shop OnePunkyMama

My favorite Jane Eyre quotation on a shirt
from Etsy shop Boredwalk

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy cookie cutters
from Etsy shop Printmeneer

Four mugs with hand-painted LOTR quotations
from Etsy shop TheRingandtheLion

This Hamlet scarf with the "To be or not to be" soliloquy on it
from Etsy shop LiteratiClub

An Austenite tote bag (love the yellow!)
from Redbubble artist BookishWonder

This Robin Hood mug
from Redbubble artist Mandie Monzano
(Hush, now!  Robin Hood is in books too.)

There you have it, ten book-related things in not particular order at all that I would love to get for Christmas.  Or my birthday.  Or for no reason at all.  

"True Grit" by Charles Portis

The only good thing about having a bad cold is it gives me an excuse to just sit down and read.  I've polished off five books in five days, which is really making me feel so much more sane about my reading load heading into Christmas :-)

I've read this once before, back around the time the new movie version came out, so like five years ago.  I love so many things about it -- the flavor, Mattie herself, the way it's basically a classic myth set in the Old West.  Mattie Ross is such a determined, intelligent, and yet believable fourteen-year-old, and I love her.  She sets out to capture her father's murderer, enlisting the meanest Federal Marshal she can find, Rooster Cogburn.  She doesn't want Texas Ranger LaBeouf to come along, but can't prevent him, and by the end of the adventure, she's glad he was there.  There's a lot of danger and excitement here, and just a little tragedy.

When I think of this book, though, what I usually think of first is the unique flavor, especially of the narration.  Portis gives Mattie a very blunt, yet old-fashioned voice that somehow manages not to be stilted even though it is rather formal at times.  The other characters speak similarly as well.  There aren't a lot of contractions.  And it amuses me to no end.  I laugh a lot during this book, both over the delightful style and the odd things that happen.  There are a few examples below.

Particularly Good Bits:

If Papa had a failing it was his kindly disposition.  People would use him.  I did not get my mean streak from him (p. 13).

At the city police station we found two officers but they were having a fist fight and were not available for inquiries (p. 21).

Mattie... you are a pearl of great price to me, but there are times when you are an almighty trial to those who love you (p. 87).

"I was born game, sis, and hope to die in that condition" (p. 94).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for some bad language, scary situations, violence, and gore.

Although this book is only 48 years old right now, I am counting it for my Classics Club challenge anyway because it is otherwise very classic, and I am sure people will be valuing it for generations to come.  So this is my 54th book read and reviewed for the Classics Club.