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Today
I am continuing to share some of the books I read over the summer - the following books helped me get out of my reading slump!
The Love Haters by Katherine Center
A friend got me hooked on Katherine Center a couple years ago. Every book I’ve read from her is like an early 2000s rom-com movie in book form! This one is about a documentary filmmaker, who must produce a promo for the National Coast Guard. The only problem is that she can’t swim, and can’t stand to see herself in a bathing suit…but somehow still ends up thrown together with a handsome coast guard rescue swimmer.
A large theme of this book was about body positivity and learning to appreciate your body - which was a bit heavy-handed, but didn’t keep me from enjoying the story. I also liked how all the characters had a nice ending in this book - Katherine Center always gives her books a happy ending, but even the unlikable characters end up with something good in this one.
Occasionally Center’s books can have a bit of content that I don’t appreciate, but this book had less of a need for content notes than some of her others (see below). Overall, this was probably one of my favorites from her!
Content Notes: Some cursing (including a few uses of the f-word), we find out two side characters slept together, mentions of characters living together in the past, etc.
Bottom Line: Pick it up if you enjoy old-school rom-coms.
In The Company Of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith
This is book six in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which is basically my before-bed, comfort-read series. In this one, Mma Makutsi starts taking dancing lessons and meets an awkward man to whom she feels obligated to be kind - but she ends up being surprised by him in the end. One of the apprentice mechanics quits the shop, and Mma Ramotswe’s former husband shows up threatening to cause trouble for her.
Smith does a wonderful job of weaving all these story elements together throughout the book. What I like most about these books is that most of the problems are serious but not life-ruining, and the characters admire and respect each other as they figure out solutions. There is a fondness among all of the characters that is just comforting to read. This book was more of what I enjoy about this series. Highly recommend for a night-time read.
Content Notes: Infidelity of some of the villains/side characters.
Bottom Line: If you need a calm-down book before going to sleep, this series might be it.
Wear It Well: Reclaim Your Closet and Rediscover the Joy of Getting Dressed by Allison Bornstein
At the beginning of the year I shared some of the reading challenges in which I’m participating, and I decided to shift one of my 5x5 categories to include books about clothes and style. I’ve been wanting to make better use of the clothes I have and learn to appreciate my closet instead of adding new things constantly, and Wear It Well has been a great inspiration book for that.
This book opens with encouragement for cleaning out your closet, and then learning to edit your closet according to three words that you must choose to describe your style. Bornstein also gives us her nine closet staples, but the way she gives recommendations leaves so much room for you to interpret those pieces in a way that fits with your own style.
I really love the idea of trying to sum up one’s style in three words, and using those words to help you narrow the choices when cleaning out your closet or shopping for new clothes. It’s something I’ve been keeping in mind as the stores roll out their fall offerings, appreciating a garment while being able to say “it’s not for me”.
Bornstein gets a little “woo woo” in certain parts of the book - for example, near the end she recommends setting up a style “altar”, which is just bizarre and New Age-y. No, thank you. However, aside from religious/philosophical differences, I found this book really helpful and encouraging for defining my own style and figuring out ways to use all my clothes in a way that is unique to me. I’d recommend it, just keep in mind you might need to gloss over a couple weird elements.
Content Notes: Weird religious elements here and there (see above).
Bottom Line: If you enjoy fashion and are trying to hone your style, this would be a good place to start.
This summer has been odd when it comes to reading. I haven’t read nearly as much as I usually do, and the books in this post might be partially why. My summer reading rhythm was thrown off by two books with endings that left me severely annoyed and maybe I just lost my confidence in what to pick next.
I’m just now getting back on track, so come back next week for better recommendations. Read on if you want to see which books irritated me so much.
Old-Fashioned On Purpose by Jill Winger
I picked this book up on a whim, and ended up finishing it on audio. It’s written by a homesteading blogger, and I enjoyed reading how she runs her farm, home life, and businesses with an old-fashioned perspective (or at least as old-fashioned as you can be when your business is largely online). I especially enjoyed her thoughts on cooking and developing in-person community, and I gained an excellent recipe for homemade all-purpose cleaner! If you would like inspiration or direction on developing old-fashioned skills, this is the book to read.
Content Notes: Nothing significant.
Bottom Line: Interesting read if you are into modern homesteading and old-timey things.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Okay, this is going to be a longer one, because I have to explain why I didn’t like this book. I have been enjoying some of Connie Willis’s books in the past year, and thought I would try this time travel series. In this book, set sometime in the future, historians don’t just study historical texts - they travel back in time and observe history first hand (intriguing, right?). Many dangerous centuries have been closed to time travel, but the 1300’s just opened, and Kivrin, a young historian, travels back to 1320…except something goes wrong. Meanwhile her friends back at home are dealing with an epidemic and other catastrophes that are preventing them from getting Kivrin back from the Middle Ages.
Alot of this plot revolves around The Black Death, and when people start dying of the plague, alot of existential questions are raised about the existence of God, suffering, etc. Kivrin doesn’t believe in God’s existence and thinks some blasphemous things about God, while some in the Middle Ages have their faith strengthened by her presence there.
As her friend (Mr. Dunworthy) is trying to get her back, he starts thinking in analogies of God sending Jesus, and the people on earth crucifying Him. In Dunworthy’s version of God, God watches helplessly and can’t do anything about it, and Jesus, who just wanted to help the people, dies for no reason. So Dunworthy reflects a “god” who is impotent, Kirvin reflects a “Jesus” who helps people by caring for them but can’t heal their suffering in any way, and the town priest who believes Kivrin is a saint that has come to ease their way to Heaven is misguided.
I was hoping for more clarification or depth in the ending, but Willis leaves these questions and distorted views of God unresolved by the end of the book. The meaning in the end seems to be since God doesn’t exist or can’t stop bad things from happening, all we can do is take care of each other in bad times.
There is one comment from a young boy in the story that attempts to give some meaning to all this tragedy. Kivrin is relating how the town priest believed she was a saint that God sent from Heaven to help them in the plague, and the boy comments that is what she did - because she was there, no one had to die alone or be left unburied. The comment feels like a bone thrown to readers of faith, but in the end the people are all still dead, aren’t they? And that seems to be the point of the book. This book was a tragedy with no real comfort or answers, and the blasphemy and distortions of God’s character made the message of this book neither good nor true. So this was not one I’d recommend.
Additional Content Notes: A character comes across a couple fornicating in the Middle Ages timeline, lots of death.
Bottom Line: Would not recommend, unless you don’t care about my problems outlined above and want an interesting way to be depressed.
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
Ah, another book I can’t recommend.
I decided to listen to this book after hearing a homeschool influencer speaking about it. The synopsis sounded intriguing, and she was saying that this book had a really realistic portrayal of marriage - particularly how two people can kind of drift apart, but also how that drift can be reversed. In her defense, she was only partway through the book when it was mentioned, and a lot of the problems I’m going to talk about happened in the last quarter of the book.
As the story opens, our main character has started to treat her unemployed husband in a patronizing way, sometimes embarrassed of him. They move to a modern, minimalist community deep in the Washington woods that relies heavily on modern technology. When a volcano erupts nearby, their technology-run community is cut off from the rest of the world, and the residents learn that Bigfoot may not actually be a myth.
I did indeed find the initial portrayal of the apathy that can develop in marriage pretty realistic. The wife clearly loved her husband but struggled with looking down on him. I was interested to see how their relationship dynamic might change as they started facing this crisis, and that’s what ultimately kept me reading.
Spoiler ahead.
There were hints of the wife seeing her husband in a new light as he takes initiative to help the other residents, but unfortunately it was never fully fleshed out. In the end (spoiler), the husband lays down his life to save his wife and another resident. The grief that such an event would bring was not explored very much, and she doesn’t ever consciously recognize that she lost a good man that was very worthy of all her respect. Instead, the wife pushes her grief aside and becomes a vicious killer who leaves the community, presumably to hunt down the remaining creatures who killed her husband. We are left with the implication that she has left some of her humanity and become her own kind of monster.
I found myself so disappointed, and very annoyed, with this ending. There could have been such a beautiful underlying message about marriage, and it would have made the book into something more than just a gratuitous Bigfoot horror story. Instead the marriage aspect of the story is lost completely and we’re left with a post-modern, evolutionary worldview dragging the ending down. I just can’t tell you how bummed I was. It could have been so good.
Additional Content Notes: Evolution assumed, homosexual couple, lots of cussing, VERY gruesome descriptions of deaths (in the last quarter of the book).
Bottom Line: Overall, would not recommend, unless you want to dwell on the brutality of nature and gruesome death.
I went back to my old standby genres after these books made me regret branching out, so I’ll share a few winners soon! Expect several book posts in the next couple weeks.
What is the best book you’ve read this summer?
My husband looked at me last week and told me he thought I should seriously consider taking another week of summer before starting our homeschool year. He said he’s never seen me this stressed out going into a school year, and he thought I should take just one more week to do nothing, except whatever would feel inspiring or restful.
Of course I had objections…but then we will have to go another week into May! What if we struggle to get into a homeschool routine before our fall trip to visit friends in a couple weeks? What if we get behind?!
But there was a part of me that knows he knows me best out of anyone. So if he sees that I am a little unhinged right now, he’s probably right. I’d be wise to take his advice.
Instead of breaking out the schedule and books this morning, I slept in, finished reading a book I’ve had in progress for a while, and sat down to write something. You can thank my husband for the existence of this post.
On The Page {Anything I’ve Read}
I’ve been struggling to finish several books this summer, so first on my relaxation to-do list this week is reading those! I just completed this book about personal style, this book on Chernobyl, and I have plans to wrap up this book in the next day or two. For blogs, I’m enjoying old-school posts, and also one with encouragement for homeschooling high school and one warning homeschoolers about vouchers - all linked below.
They Won’t Ban Homeschooling - They’ll Control It Instead
A 2025 Pioneer Woman Writes In Her Diary About July
August’s Letters From The Hearth
I have also been working on having reading time with each of my kids individually, which is no small feat when there are five of them! The consistency is never as good as I want, but it’s a habit I will work on establishing. We’re reading The Hobbit, Little Women, The Swamp Robber, Winnie The Pooh, and The Complete Brambly Hedge.
In My Armchair {Projects I’m Working On}
So many of my personal projects have fallen by the wayside, as we have been running from one activity to another and somehow keeping the house decent and the kids fed in between. However, I did make these adorable beaded fish with my kids this month. They are double-sided, and so much more satisfying to hold than they look.
In The Kitchen {Things We’ve Made}
This has been the summer of me trying to keep my kitchen stocked with fresh fruit - some of which has gone bad because we tried to save it too long, but most of which has been gobbled up almost immediately.
I haven’t done a ton of baking, but my kids have. My daughter has started making chocolate chip cookies (hers are somehow better than mine, though we are using the same recipe). My son has perfected baked oatmeal, and has been preparing breakfast for his siblings every day this week. It’s such a blessing to eat something warm from the oven that I didn’t have to make myself!
I did, however, make pumpkin muffins with fresh-milled grains, and the bags are stored and waiting to be pulled out of the freezer on a busy morning. We also had a “shark week”, and shark cupcakes were in order.
On My Person {Things I’ve Worn}
My heart is starting to turn toward fall fashion, but it’s far too hot outside still. It’s good for me to look through my photos of outfits I enjoyed this summer, since I’ll probably be wearing them for a little while yet!
Despite the temperature, I can’t help eyeing my fall fashion inspiration board. I just finished reading Wear It Well, which talks about picking three words to describe and hone your style - I am analyzing the outfits I’ve pinned and mulling over what my three words should be.
In The Accounts {Money We’ve Saved}
After a July weekend trip, our car started having electrical problems. We took it to the dealership for diagnostic tests, thinking they would have more precise equipment to find the issue. A day later, they gave us a list of fixes that would cost more than we paid for the car! After a little bit of panic, we kept our heads, and took it back to our own mechanic. He replaced one wire, and we replaced the battery, and that seemed to fix the problem. So we “saved” several thousand dollars by not taking the dealership recommendations!
Other than that, I have been saving money by just…not buying things. Instead of doing fall clothes shopping, as I’m always tempted to do in the late summer, I pinned outfits I intend to recreate with my own clothes. I also took my girls window shopping so we could see what the styles are this year, but I didn’t buy anything and thought instead about how I could get the same vibe with clothes I already own.
Out My Window {Beauty I’ve Noticed}
Late summer is such a beautiful time in the mountains. I’m sitting on the porch typing this, and birds are singing all around and hummingbirds keep whizzing past my chair. The sun is shining on the grass, making it turn gold, and puffy clouds float past in a bright blue sky.
I’m especially noticing and appreciating how healthy and full our pine trees look. I’ve noticed alot of beetle kill popping up in surrounding neighborhoods, and I’m so anxious about the health of our trees. We will be keeping a close eye for signs of those nasty pine beetles, but right now our trees look glorious and I’m praying they stay that way.
Out And About {Places We Went}
Yellowstone - We did a camping trip near Yellowstone National Park over the 4th of July! It was a wonderful place to spend the 4th and make memories as a family. There is something special about waking up in a tent.
My grandparent’s cabin - We try to visit my grandparents each summer at their cabin, and it’s always so restful. We just play cards and enjoy their company.
Lots of swimming - The pools have finally closed, but we squeezed in so many swimming days this summer, I feel we really made the most of it!
State Fair - My boys qualified for the shooting competition at the State Fair, and my girls had projects that also qualified. We didn’t go to the actual fair, but we traveled for the competition.
On My Mind {Thoughts To Share}
I sat here for a few minutes trying to decide what to say here. This year has been a difficult one for us, in ways I don’t feel comfortable sharing, and has underscored for us how important the body of Christ is. Nothing we’ve been going through has been worthy of a meal train or more serious help, but we have found encouragement from other believers, in our extended family and our church family. The past few months have also affirmed to us how we ourselves are important in encouraging our local body of believers and building them up. This verse has been a theme this year:
“…that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Colossians 2:2-3
Paul is expressing his hope for the church at Laodicea, but these verses have become a refrain for our relationships, both within our house and in our local church family. We want to be “knit together in love” with one another, as our hearts are encouraged in pursuing the wisdom and knowledge of Christ, together. That should be the theme of our attitudes and words toward others - love and encouragement to pursue the knowledge of Christ. So I’ve been mulling over how to do that better in the midst of a stressful season.
In My Heart {Things I’m Treasuring}
-Laughter coming from the playhouse, where my little girls claim they are taking a nap.
-A Joe Diffy song (think old-school country) playing on our record player while my big kids work on crafts.
-The way my flowers perk up after a little watering.
-Thunder in the distance, the promise of rain.
-Lighting a cinnamon candle my husband bought for me on a whim.
-Warm laundry straight out of the dryer.
-Trees swaying in the wind.
-The feeling of turning the last page of a satisfying book.
-My oldest quietly settling next to me on a porch chair, cup of tea and Bible in hand.
I have been deep in the homeschool world for the vast majority of my life, to the point where I sometimes forget how not-normal homeschooling must seem to the average mom. My mom started homeschooling me when I entered the 4th grade, and my own kids have only ever known being homeschooled. I’ve been going to homeschool conferences ever since my oldest was in kindergarten, and I’ve read more books about homeschooling than I can remember off the top of my head.
But sometimes I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who has just started to become curious about homeschooling. Maybe they have seen beautiful portrayals of a homeschool lifestyle on social media and they find it appealing. Maybe they’ve recently listened to a podcast or video with ideas that intrigued them. Maybe they know a homeschool family and would just like to understand them better.
If a friend told me they were curious about homeschooling, these are the books that I would pull off the shelves and hand to them.
For someone who just wants to know how it all works:
Answers For Homeschooling: Top 25 Questions Critics Ask by Israel Wayne
Whether you are mystified about the whole idea of homeschooling, or you want to be able to explain your interest in homeschooling to friends and family, this book will be a help to you. Wayne covers questions from critics and also addresses many practical homeschooling concerns.
For someone who wants to homeschool but is worried about socialization:
The Well-Adjusted Child by Rachel Gathercole
Gathercole addresses every concern about socialization you could think of in this book. She defines what good socialization is, then discusses issue such as family relationships, citizenship, peer-to-peer friendships, conversations between kids and adults, bullying, and being “cool”. If you need reassurance that your child won’t be missing out by being homeschooled, this is the book you should read.
If something doesn’t feel quite right about public education, but you can’t quite put your finger on it:
Weapons Of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
This book has been around for. along time, and though it’s not explicitly about homeschooling, it does paint a picture of what we could do differently (and hopefully better) than the current school system. Gatto was an award-winning public school teacher who quit teaching after thirty years and started speaking about the problems he saw with education in America. He weaves in information about the history of the public school system, and his insights are fascinating. Also see Dumbing Us Down by Gatto (shorter, also very good).
If you want to broaden your ideas about what education really is (hint: it’s not about reading textbooks and taking tests):
For The Children’s Sake: Foundations Of Education For Home And School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
This book was my first introduction to the idea of “living books”. As someone who has always loved to read, I was inspired to think of education in terms of connections and ideas, instead of merely remembering things until it is time to take a test. Macaulay gives an accessible introduction to the educational philosophy developed by Charlotte Mason, but whether you choose that style of homeschooling or not, there are so many sound principles in this book that are worth considering.
If you want to work on developing a truly Christian view of education:
Education: Does God Have An Opinion? by Israel Wayne
I always put a disclaimer when recommending this book to someone that the title sounds more provocative than the book actually is (at least in my opinion). Wayne gives a thorough argument for Christian education, and the chapters in the second half of the book address how to approach every educational area from a Christian worldview. These last chapters are where the book really shines! I’ve had certain children read the math chapter when they repeatedly asked “why do we have to learn math anyway” - and I can report that attitudes improved significantly.
If you want reassurance and help for a rigorous academic outcome from homeschooling:
The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Bauer
First I want to say, don’t pick this one up if you are overwhelmed or are already dealing with learning struggles. This book is not for everyone - I myself picked it up when my oldest was in kindergarten and was immediately discouraged because I couldn’t picture doing everything this book suggests. I tried it again closer to middle school, and have found it alot more helpful. However, if you are an academic person yourself, and you want a guide for providing rigorous academics for your kids, this book is it.
If you think you are ready, and you just need a push to dive in:
The Call Of The Wild And Free by Ainsley Arment
The author of this book is alot more “wild and free” than me, but even though our styles are different, I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up this book. The joy of a homeschool lifestyle bubbles off these pages, and I found myself remembering everything I love about homeschooling while reading. Arment paints a vivid picture of just how beautiful homeschooling can be, and I think it’s great for inspiring hesitant moms to jump in.
I hope if you are curious about homeschooling, you’ll find something to encourage you in this booklist - this doesn’t even scratch the surface of the amount of homeschool books out there, but it’s a good place to start!
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