Recent Books

I read a few good books this summer, but am showcasing only two below:  Crawdad Hole and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry.   

I found these books just by perusing the shelves at my local library (not the big branch, but the smaller local branch). Both of the titles stuck out to me so I decided to give them a try. 

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry was such a sweet book. In fact, I'm envious of anyone who gets to read it for the first time. The emotions I felt at the end were so real! It's an interesting book about a seven year old girl and her grandmother and a whole bunch of wishes and amends. It was a little slow to start, I'll be honest, and it made me question my book choice when it discussed in detail this make-believe world. Don't worry though-- the book didn't fully take place in this make-believe world, but it was referenced and described throughout various sections of the book. Overall, it's a sweet story of redemption and friendship and community. A very refreshing read in this tumultuous time that we live in. 

Crawdad Hole was intriguing to me because it was written about the county I live in! I don't live in that part of the county, but I've been to it and it was fun to read about what life was like in the 1930s. It was a quick read and chronicled a true story of events, which is always fun for me to read. It might not be available in every library or bookstore simply based on it's geographic origin, but if you can find it, I recommend enjoying the journey that is this book. 

These two are definitely keepers and I highly recommend them. I've begun to read A Well Behaved Woman about Alva Vanderbilt but I haven't finished yet and it'll probably require a few library check-outs and renewals until I am finished (it's long and a bit slow). However, I love historical fiction (bonus points for being set in New York City in the 1920s!) so I really would like to read it in its entirety. Fingers crossed. 

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

Summer Books

I've tried to do a fair amount of reading this summer as I take advantage of a time in which I am free after work (no lesson planning, etc.) and am not currently taking doctoral classes (those will start up again in August). We've made lots of trips to the library and I've also read some books of Aaron's. 

After reading one of Shay's recent posts about Nantucket, she mentioned starting with The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand if someone hasn't yet read one of Hilderbrand's numerous novels. I read this one over the course of a couple weeks. It was an interesting read and it did keep me guessing until the very end. I think I'd read a few more Hilderbrand books to see how differently of a story she can create. Sometimes authors who focus their work in only a few locations seem to run the same story lines, but I'll give it a whirl. (namethatmovie)

Aaron and I had a deal where if I would read the two Jack Carr novels that he had, then Aaron would watch the entire Downton Abbey series with me. Challenge accepted. Full disclosure, I liked the books and he liked the series. :) The other deal was if I read the third book, Savage Son, then he'd watch the two Downton movies. We misplaced the third book, but he watched the movies with me anyway. We recently found the book, so now I have something to read next week. 

I'm working my way through this set of three books right now: Whiskey in a Teacup, Have I Told You This Already?, and The Office BFFs. 

I read Lauren Graham's book Talking As Fast As I Can about her time on Gilmore Girls, and was pleased to see that the library carried Have I Told You This Already?, a book of essays about her life in general. Her novel, Someday, Someday Maybe is still one of my favorite reads and I wish I knew where I stashed my copy when we moved. 

I look forward to reading this book since it's about Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey's time on the TV show, "The Office"-- one of my and Aaron's favorite shows of all time. I read a couple pages of it as soon as I got it, and it seems like it will be filled with behind-the-scenes tidbits and pictures, etc. It should be really fun! 

I finished this sweet Southern how-to book by Reese Witherspoon and it was fun and charming. She includes lots of photos, which I always love, and there's just something inspiring and peaceful about a book that covers home decor tips, recipes, and anecdotes and this book delivers on all three. The only thing I'd take out would be the chart on how to pronounce things in a Southern way. Most of those were a little far fetched for me, someone who actually lives in the Deep South and hears people speak in this accent on the daily. Other than that, it's a really cute and beautiful book that could be used as a great coffee table book and reference point for a Southern themed dinner party. 

I'll keep you posted on how Savage Son and The Office BFFs turn out!

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

2 Festive Books

 Just in case you find yourself with a bit of free time leading up to the holidays, I've got two Christmas-y books to share with you today. 

The first one is All About Us by Tom Ellen.  This book was surprisingly fantastic! I say "surprisingly" because I knew nothing about the author or the story line before picking it out at the library. I definitely judge books by their covers, and this one was so cute! The book is written through the perspective of the main male character which is a change from traditional chick-lits. It's a modern take on a Christmas Carol and I found myself initially leaning towards the success of one character, but eventually found myself cheering for a completely different character and outcome! This book was endearing and captivating. I had a hard time putting it down at night, and found myself eager to pick it up and continue the story! It's super cute and gets you thinking about situations and decisions we make. I will probably read it again this Christmas break. 

The second book is the 12 Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayless. I read about this one on Mix and Match Mama's book review, and I was excited that my library carried it! This was a quick read and entertaining from the start. It was a little predictable, but in a good way and the author managed to keep the story line entertaining. Although I figured out what might happen, the story kept certain potential outcomes in play for the majority of the book and kept me guessing on how things would tie up in the end. It was a fun festive read, and I'll read this book again in the future as well. 

Short and sweet today, but hopefully helpful just in case you have some long wintery evenings that demand a good book. 

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

Books in the Fall

I've read a few books this fall so far and am hoping to have more time for leisure reading as the months progress.  I am currently taking a Professional Development Course for work, and although it's quite interesting, it's also quite a bit more work than I was expecting.  However, it's not unattainable and I still feel as though I'll have sufficient time for leisure reading. 

I ordered a few books to have on hand that are easy reads with no sad parts.  One of these books is a re-read-- Frontier Follies.  Previously I checked it out from the library, but enjoyed it so much that I knew I'd read it over and over again over time.  It's also a good light hearted book to lend out if one needs a good read that is self-contained in each chapter without lots of characters of which to keep track.   

The other book I purchased recently is Cosy- The British Art of Comfort.  It's a fun light read that keeps each chapter focused on something that the British do to attain coziness-- wearing fluffy socks, making tea, using lamps, etc.  It's another book that doesn't require strain to keep up with characters and plot twists.  

The next book is one from our local library and it's certainly one that I'll consider purchasing.  It's an easy read because the author writes in a manner similar to how I imagine she'd talk if she were sitting down to a conversation with a friend.  It's her amazing story of her husband's courageous acts on 09/11 when he was one of the passengers aboard United Flight 93 who helped take down the hijackers to keep them from crashing the plane into any additional U.S. landmarks or buildings on that day.  My grandmother has been to the memorial in Shanksville, PA and I am absolutely set on going one day myself.  The book, Let's Roll, is a memoir and so captivating and inspiring.  Truly a good read and I found myself tearing up quite frequently in awe of his bravery and also in remembering that day and all the details that accompany those memories. 

I'm currently reading this book, Let's Talk, which I received in the mail for free.  It centers around the power of prayer and each chapter is broken down by benefit of prayer and includes lots of scripture and personal accounts from the author on how those benefits have proved real. 

These have kept me busy, but have also kept my heart full.  It's nice to read about things that don't drag me down or involve lots of suspense or drama.  (Honorable mentions of other things I'm reading include The Magic Treehouse and Angelina Ballerina.) 

What have you been reading lately? 

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

More Books!

 I love to read-- always have.  I lost the drive to read for leisure during my pursuit of my Master's Degree but it was so freeing to get into a pattern of reading again.  Whenever I feel super stressed about upcoming lesson plans, I drop off of the reading vigor for a while because I feel as though I need to spend that free time learning more about my subject material than to read a fictional story.  Once I gain confidence in my teaching topics though, it's back to the leisure books!  

I've had a few bouts of reading success lately and was so eager for Spring Break and all of the reading time that I actually obtained and finished two books before Spring Break even began.  Therefore, towards the end of Spring Break, I was yearning again for something to read so I borrowed a book from my dad's vast collection and I'm working my way through that one now.  

One of the books I read prior to Spring Break was In Bloom by Kayla Aimee.  I found this book on super sale at lifeway.com and grabbed it while I was searching for a few more Bible story books for my kids.  The subtitle intrigued me: "Trading Restless Insecurity for Abiding Confidence." Insecurity is something most women struggle with.  Then when we add in different layers of life such as being a wife, mother, colleague, friend, etc. the insecurity can ripple outward and become overwhelming.  Women are faced with criticism on several accounts and these judgments can make us question what we know to be truths: that we're loved by God and that we're beautiful, and that we're called to the purposes that we're in.  It's not our job to shame anyone else.  We don't become "less than" when someone else experiences success.  We can truly experience joy with one another, and we can rest assured in what God thinks of us (and that His views of us are all that really matter).  I love reading books that speak these truths to women, and Kayla Aimee wrote with such honesty that I felt like we had been friends for years.  Her storytelling is captivating and the book was an easy read.  I was able to devote little pockets of time during the week leading up to Spring Break and finished this book before we set out on our little overnight trip. 

The other book I read during the first weekend of Spring Break was a library book and a new release.  The Wife Upstairs is written by Rachel Hawkins who lives in Auburn!  I read a description of the book on Erika's blog and when I got to the part about the book being set in Birmingham, I was hooked.  I don't live in Birmingham, but I know of it and travel through it and I love when books are set down here in the South.  Rachel Hawkins took a classic (Jane Eyre-- one of my favorites from high school) and re-imagined it in modern times and set it in the hills of Birmingham's elite.  It followed the Jane Eyre story pretty closely, which made me want to race back to the library and check out the original and see if I understood any new parts that were over my head in high school.  The Wife Upstairs is a suspense book, but not intensely so.  This book was so well written that it hooked me from page one and I finished it in six hours.  Granted, I was able to devote time to reading it on a Saturday when I had extra time.  (Side note: there's a lot of language in this one, so read at will.)

After finishing off these two books, I was hungry for something else to read.  I do go back to books that I already own and re-read several things, so I've been working my way back through Crazy Rich Asians over the last couple of months when I can't make it to the library as often as I'll be able to during the summer.  However, I saw a book at my parents' house when we were over there for Easter dinner and I grabbed it and have been reading it in pockets of time over the last week.  I anticipate it'll take me a while to get through it since I'm currently only on chapter three.  

The book is Think by John Piper.  It centers around the idea that thinking and feeling go hand in hand, especially when it comes to God's word and how Christians are supposed to view the world around us. It's incredibly interesting, but written very intensely and provokes a lot of thought while reading.  The chapters don't even really seem to be that long, but I'm not making swift progress and that's okay with me.  I look forward to continuing it and to applying what I learn. 

Our fourth quarter of school started last week on Thursday, and I'm looking forward the longer days of summer!  Let me know if you read any of these books!

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba 

Books in September

 Now that school has started back and I have to keep my gradebook current, I don't have tons of time to leisure read, but I knocked out two books before things got busy and I'm slowly working through a third. 

The first book this month was You've Been Volunteered: A Class Mom Novel.  It was SO GOOD!  I finished it in 24 hours.  It was a quick easy read that flowed well.  The main character, Jennifer, is the mom of a fifth grader and the book is all about her sarcastic take on being the "class mom" among other school volunteer jobs.  It was funny, quirky, and had me laughing out loud at times and connecting with the characters. 

The second book was American Dirt.  OH. MY. WORD.  This book is so fantastic.  It's raw and real and had me questioning some of my previously firm beliefs on topics like immigration and migration and the real lives that people live in countries other than our own.  This book took me a longer time to get through-- between one and two weeks.  It was really good and really intriguing and kept my interest the entire time.  It took me that long to get through it because it was packed full of details.  It was also really intense and took mental energy to get through because the author made the characters so REAL that I felt like I was right there with them in the scenarios that they travelled through and I had to give myself mental breaks from time to time and only read a few chapters at each sitting because it was so emotionally deep.  I highly highly recommend this book. 

I'm currently reading Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years by Julie Andrews.  I love love love Julie Andrews and I always have.  I'm only just barely into this book (like between page 30 and 50) and I'm trying to read it whenever I get a spare moment from grading papers and lesson planning, etc.  It's already so interesting to read about her experiences on the set of "Mary Poppins" etc.  I am excited to learn more behind-the-scenes things that went on during her career. I love that time era, and it's so neat to put together pieces of storylines of movies that I know and love. 

In the spring, I read a Christian suspense thriller called The Curse of Misty Wayfair. It's currently free for the kindle book edition, if you're looking for a little Halloween-esque story to read in this month.  It's Christian-based, so it doesn't delve deep into the paranormal, etc. (I wouldn't have ever read it if it did).  It offers enough suspense to keep you guessing which is just the level of "spooky" that some people are looking for in this time of year. 

What have you read lately?

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

Books: May and June

Our library opened up for curbside pick-up and we began participating in mid-May.  We can look at the online catalog and either email our choices or use the online system to reserve the books, then we're notified when the books are ready to be picked up.  We drive to the parking lot and call the special number with extension and they deliver the books to the back of our car.  We get to keep them for more than two weeks and aren't assessed any fines during this time.  When we return the books to the outdoor book drop, they're kept in quarantine for 4 days before being checked in.  We aren't assessed any fines during that drop-time either (just in case we turned in the books on the date they were due, but they weren't checked in til 4 days later).  The boys and I have really enjoyed perusing the online catalog and selecting fun books.  I include a book or two for Avery on my library card's order.

Both boys kind of stick to a theme when ordering books.  Noah usually looks up police officers, school buses, fire trucks, and garbage trucks.  Michael sticks to Pokemon, Super Mario, or Dog Man.

I sometimes include books that I've read before in case I'm in the mood for a sure ending to the story.  I also pick out new (to me) books and I recently found out that the library stocks cook books so that will be fun to try this summer. 

In May, I checked out The Flatshare and The Cat Who Talked Turkey.  I finished The Flatshare in a day.  It was super cute with just the right amount of intrigue to progress the story along at a quick pace, but not too much to make the story too suspenseful.  I began reading The Cat Who Talked Turkey prior to our weekend beach trip in May and brought it with me, but didn't really find time to carve out and read during that trip.  Usually, I get through books in that series quickly, but this one wasn't moving fast enough for me to want to renew it.  I checked out several other books I've read before, but with the trip and preparing for the construction crew, I didn't read the ones I'd read in the past (Summer Rental and Beach Town.)  They were both by Mary Kay Andrews-- one of my favorite authors.   

In early June, I was in the mood for historical novels and historical fiction so I checked out Dutch and English on the Hudson, a historical account of the creation of towns along Long Island.  It was fairly intriguing at first, but was slightly difficult to decipher due to the old English spelling of various words. 

I also got into a theme myself and checked out Magnolia Table Volume 1, Home Body, and Capital Gaines. It was fun to read through Joanna Gaines' family recipes and learn more about how she likes to cook for her family (they hardly ever go to restaurants, which was inspirational to me).  I also enjoyed Home Body because I had already been thinking of how I could continue to make my home an enjoyable resting place for my family, and had some ideas floating around for how to maximize space, etc.  The ideas presented in Home Body really lined up with the thoughts inside my head, so it was refreshing and fun to realize that I really have what it takes to spruce up my home without spending so much money.  Capital Gaines had interested me for a while and I wanted to see what Chip Gaines had to say about his career in real estate flips and how we should pursue our dreams without fear.  It was a fun, quick read; I finished it in a day.

While researching books by author name "Gaines," the catalog recommended a book by Ernest Gaines called A Gathering of Old Men.  The story line sounded entertaining, so I checked it out too.  It was about a shooting of a Cajun farmer in 1970 Louisiana, and about the sheriff who had to figure out who the shooter was since a women and several old men all claimed to do it.  It was a very entertaining read since page one and really captured my attention.  I finished it in a day or two.  The author told the story from the perspective of several different people in the book and it all took place over the course of one day.  It was very interesting to read about the perspectives of different people and the story line ended honorably. 

This week, I put in a request to check out some light fiction reads and a historical non-fiction about the wife of a US President in the 1840s.  Hopefully those will be ready for check-out early this week.

I plan to check out Magnolia Table Volume 2 in July and probably another Cat Who book. 

Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba

Book Review

Since completing my internship on April 25th, I have been able to do some serious leisure reading and I love it!  Of course, now I'm studying to take a statewide teacher test for a subject out of my field of expertise to prove I'm highly qualified to teach that subject, so my leisure reading is suspended until June 15th, but I made a good run while I had the time.  All of these books except for the last three which I own and chose to read again, were checked out from the library.  I got the ideas to read the first four books from Zulily when they had a book sale, but I chose to look them up at the library instead of buying them for myself.  I've read several books in "The Cat Who" series and they are always a fun read, so I randomly grabbed one during a trip to the library and followed it up by re-reading some of my own copies of the books that I already had at home. Here's what I read from April 25th through May 21st:

Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger.  I really love Lauren Weisberger's style of writing.  She's witty and current, and her books follow several characters throughout them and this keeps it interesting. Chasing Harry Winston is about three friends who all wonder about their love lives (one is engaged, one wants to settle down, and one is always known as the "good girl."  It's a tad racy at times and there's a little language throughout, but it's quite an entertaining read with a good storyline.


Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty. I've read Big Little Lies by Moriarty before and it was so suspenseful that I didn't even realize how quickly I was going through the book!  I read a caption of Truly Madly Guilty and thought it looked interesting enough to grab at the library.  I was engrossed once again in Moriarty's work.  It's almost like an inner battle in myself because the book is so suspenseful that I don't really want to keep reading it, but at the same time, I need the closure of finding out what happens at the end!  If you like suspenseful books, this is a great read.

13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do by Amy Morin. (I skimmed this one). I thought this book might help me out as I work on becoming a teacher.  I'm always eager to learn classroom management styles, and as a parent, I find many similarities between running a classroom and parenting.  I skimmed over this book, but it didn't offer enough revelations for me to commit to reading it cover to cover.

The Southerner's Handbook by Editors of Garden and Gun. (I skimmed this one). I thought this one would be a mix of design and Southern recipes.  It was almost more geared toward men though with information on hunting and bar-be-que.

The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare by Lilian Jackson Braun.

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun.

The Cat Who Saw Red by Lilian Jackson Braun.

The Cat Who Played Brahms by Lilian Jackson Braun.

I've read several of these Cat Who books.  They are all able to be picked up and read in any order (each book's storyline is completed within that book), but if you wanted to start from the beginning and try to go in order, then start with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards. "The Cat Who" series follows along with a newspaper journalist and his two Siamese cats (one who is extra-sensitive to what's going on around him).  The books are mysteries, but not gory or very suspenseful.  They are light-hearted and easy reads.



If you have time to leisure read this summer, I absolutely recommend these books!


Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba