Meagan's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 28 Feb 2025 08:13:38 -0800 60 Meagan's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Amalfi Curse 218674082 “Sarah Penner transported me to the sea-swept cliffs of Positano and introduced me to characters I’ll never forget. A magical read!�
â€�Emilia Hart,ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author of The Sirens

Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse�

Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?

As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman’s quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art ofĚýstregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano’s latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed foreverâ€�

Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.
Ěý±Ő±Ő> 336 Sarah Penner 0778308006 Meagan 0 to-read 4.25 2025 The Amalfi Curse
author: Sarah Penner
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Where the Wildflowers Grow: A Novel]]> 222476093 From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption, asking readers to question what it means to stop surviving and start living.

Leigh is the last of the Wildes.

She knows this because her father told her so.

She knows this because all the other Wildes are dead.

Surviving is nothing new to Leigh. So, when the transport bus taking her to prison runs off the road, killing everyone onboard except her, she does what's in her nature. Leigh survives and starts walking.

Quick to realize nobody is looking for her, Leigh takes her chance, stumbling upon a remote flower farm in Alabama. The farm, run by Jackson, a local do-gooder with big dreams of his own, seems the perfect place to hide. What Leigh doesn't expect is to also heal. As time passes, Leigh finds herself at peace with the slow life and small trials of the farm, taking solace among the flowers and the family Jackson has built.

But the past isn't so easily buried, and soon enough Leigh is faced with a devastating Can she leave her transgressions and enjoy the life she has built, or is the truth of who she is her only path to redemption?]]> 450 Terah Shelton Harris 1464229228 Meagan 0 to-read 5.00 Where the Wildflowers Grow: A Novel
author: Terah Shelton Harris
name: Meagan
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Star of Camp Greene 216052752 Sometimes heroism is found in dreams deferred.

Charlotte, NC. 1918. Broadway darling Calla Connolly had it a rising career on the stage and a loving fiancé, a fellow stage actor. But after his tragic death early in the war, Calla is touring the American training camps, hoping to convince General Pershing to let her tour the French front to cheer the men and honor her fiancé's memory. But her hopes are dashed when she contracts Spanish flu while performing at Camp Greene.

While convalescing, Calla inadvertently overhears a sensitive Army secret and is ordered to remain at Camp Greene for the duration of the war while her former mentor and rival steals her tour out from under her. Having no choice but to stay at the camp, she becomes the resident performer and forms attachments to several musician soldiers.

When she falls in love with the man responsible for trapping her at camp, the mission she's sworn to keep secret threatens the men she's come to care for. Calla is forced to decide what her dreams are worth--and if the future she never expected might only be possible if she lets those dreams go.]]> 368 Joy Callaway 1400244331 Meagan 0 to-read 4.28 2025 The Star of Camp Greene
author: Joy Callaway
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sing Me Home to Carolina 218697650 A small town girl turned big city businesswoman returns home to help her parents, only to find her heart being tugged between her old flame and the town’s mysterious new guy.

This witty and effervescent novel is perfect for readers of Viola Shipman and fans of Sweet Magnolias and Hart of Dixie.

Event planner Hattie Norwood only came back home to Mountain View, South Carolina to support her parents as they receive word that the family peanut farm is infertile. This news doesn’t come as a surprise to Hattie, and she plans to return to Charlotte at the weekend’s end.Ěý

But then the town councilwoman begs Hattie to use her event planning prowess to help Mountain View put on a musical benefit to stop the construction of the new Carolina Panthers stadium—a project Hattie is actually in favor of, much to the dismay of the locals—and she finds herself agreeing to stay until the town’s Founder’s Day celebration a week later, just as her old flame, former MLB standout Lee Lockhardt, materializes in town after a career-ending injury.

When the hunky and mysterious new owner of Fox’s Hardware, Fox Ryan, suggests the Founder’s Day celebration be moved to the Norwoodsâ€� barn in an attempt to reinvent the failing farm as a music and event venue, Hattie agrees, unaware this move will thrust the town, her love life, and the brewing tension over the stadium into a very public spotlight.Ěý

Fans of small-town romance and quirky casts of characters will be rooting for Team Lee or Team Fox as Hattie decides if love, like most music, is meant to fade or last forever.]]> 336 Joy Callaway Meagan 0 to-read 3.87 Sing Me Home to Carolina
author: Joy Callaway
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Learning to Walk in the Dark 18085419 An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark provides a way to find spirituality in those times when we don’t have all the answers.

Taylor has become increasingly uncomfortable with our tendency to associate all that is good with lightness and all that is evil and dangerous with darkness. Doesn’t God work in the nighttime as well? In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us “in the dark.� She argues that we need to move away from our “solar spirituality� and ease our way into appreciating “lunar spirituality� (since, like the moon, our experience of the light waxes and wanes). Through darkness we find courage, we understand the world in new ways, and we feel God’s presence around us, guiding us through things seen and unseen. Often, it is while we are in the dark that we grow the most.

With her characteristic charm and literary wisdom, Taylor is our guide through a spirituality of the nighttime, teaching us how to find our footing in times of uncertainty and giving us strength and hope to face all of life’s challenging moments.]]> 187 Barbara Brown Taylor 0062024353 Meagan 0 currently-reading 3.99 2014 Learning to Walk in the Dark
author: Barbara Brown Taylor
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Snow Flower and the Secret Fan]]> 40873273
As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.]]> 288 Lisa See Meagan 0 to-read 4.23 2005 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
author: Lisa See
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Meagan 5 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/18
date added: 2023/12/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Long After We Are Gone 193544841
"Don't let the white man take the house."

These are the last words King Solomon says to his son before he dies. Now all four Solomon siblings must return to North Carolina to save the Kingdom, their ancestral home and 200 acres of land, from a development company, who has their sights set on turning the valuable waterfront property into a luxury resort.

While fighting to save the Kingdom, the siblings must also save themselves from the secrets they've been holding onto. Junior, the oldest son and married to his wife for 11 years, is secretly in love with another man. Second son, Mance, can't control his temper, which has landed him in prison more than once. CeCe, the oldest daughter and a lawyer in New York City, has embezzled thousands of dollars from her firm's clients. Youngest daughter, Tokey, wonders why she doesn't seem to fit into this family, which has left an aching hole in her heart that she tries to fill in harmful ways. As the Solomons come together to fight for the Kingdom, each of their façades begins to crumble and collide in unexpected ways.

Told in alternating viewpoints, Long After We Are Gone is a searing portrait on the power of family and letting go of things that no longer serve you, exploring the burden of familial expectations, the detriment of miscommunication, and the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children.]]> 432 Terah Shelton Harris 1728265770 Meagan 5 Long After We Are Gone explores the effects of generational trauma and the struggle for identity in the midst of expectations. With meticulous pacing, Terah Shelton Harris expertly maneuvers multiple perspectives, immersing the reader in the flawed, yet nuanced lives of the four Solomon siblings. A masterful sophomore novel, Harris has created another engrossing story that will leave readers talking.]]> 3.82 2024 Long After We Are Gone
author: Terah Shelton Harris
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves:
review:
Powerful and absorbing, Long After We Are Gone explores the effects of generational trauma and the struggle for identity in the midst of expectations. With meticulous pacing, Terah Shelton Harris expertly maneuvers multiple perspectives, immersing the reader in the flawed, yet nuanced lives of the four Solomon siblings. A masterful sophomore novel, Harris has created another engrossing story that will leave readers talking.
]]> The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Meagan 0 to-read 4.59 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta]]> 8599176 250 Ina May Gaskin 1583229272 Meagan 5 4.33 Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta
author: Ina May Gaskin
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2011/08/01
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
review:
Full of great info on labor and delivery, as well as women's health in general. Besides just info, Gaskin gives steps as to how to get involved to change the system. I appreciate that it's not just a reporting of facts, but also a call to action.
]]> The Girls We Sent Away 157020056 “[A]n important and vital story. With exquisite writing, Church exposes a murky little pocket of history, and a reprehensible practice that surely had a generational impact on families.� —Donna Everhart, USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Saints of Swallow Hill

A searing book club read for fans of Ellen Marie Wiseman and The Girls with No Names set in the Baby Scoop Era of 1960s and the women of a certain condition swept up in a dark history.

It's the 1960s and Lorraine Delford has it all â€� an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, and a white picket fence home in North Carolina. Yet every time she looks through her father's telescope, she dreams of the stars. It's ambitious, but Lorraine has always been exceptional.Ěý

But when this darling girl-next-door gets pregnant, she's forced to learn firsthand the realities that keep women grounded.Ěý To hide their daughter's secret shame, the Delfords send Lorraine to a maternity home for wayward girls. But this is no safe haven â€� it's a house with dark secrets and suffocating rules. And as Lorraine begins to piece together a new vision for her life, she must decide if she can fight against the powers that aim to take her child or submit to the rules of a society she once admired.

Powerful and affecting, The Girls We Sent Away is a timely novel that explores autonomy, belonging, and a quest for agency when the illusions of life-as-you-know-it fall away.]]> 352 Meagan Church 1728257182 Meagan 0 to-read 3.91 2024 The Girls We Sent Away
author: Meagan Church
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> One Summer in Savannah 63327797
It's been eight years since Sara Lancaster left her home in Savannah, Georgia. Eight years since her daughter, Alana, came into this world, following a terrifying sexual assault that left deep emotional wounds Sara would do anything to forget. But when Sara's father falls ill, she's forced to return home and face the ghosts of her past.

While caring for her father and running his bookstore, Sara is desperate to protect her curious, outgoing, genius daughter from the Wylers, the family of the man who assaulted her. Sara thinks she can succeed—her attacker is in prison, his identical twin brother, Jacob, left town years ago, and their mother are all unaware Alana exists. But she soon learns that Jacob has also just returned to Savannah to piece together the fragments of his once-great family. And when their two worlds collide—with the type of force Sara explores in her poetry and Jacob in his astrophysics—they are drawn together in unexpected ways.]]> 464 Terah Shelton Harris 1728265746 Meagan 5
Terah delves into the nuance of the situation—when a horrible violation results in something so beautiful—immersing the reader into the hearts and minds of her characters. A creative cast of characters, Sara’s father speaks in poetry, adding a richness to the text. And sweet, smart, spirited Alana stole my heart. She’s a girl who stands apart from time, literally, as every wristwatch she attempts to wear stops working.

Add this to your TBR list immediately and keep an eye out for Terah’s next novel. I can’t wait to see what story she brings us next!]]> 4.08 2023 One Summer in Savannah
author: Terah Shelton Harris
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:
A beautifully written and engaging story of time, transformation, and the complicated business of reconciling painful pasts. Told from alternating POV, Sara is the mother of 8-year-old, Alana, who was conceived after a violent assault, while Jacob is the twin brother of the attacker. They are two main characters who are faced with complicated histories and relationships. When circumstances force Sara and Jacob to confront one another and this past, how will they respond? Can they move forward?

Terah delves into the nuance of the situation—when a horrible violation results in something so beautiful—immersing the reader into the hearts and minds of her characters. A creative cast of characters, Sara’s father speaks in poetry, adding a richness to the text. And sweet, smart, spirited Alana stole my heart. She’s a girl who stands apart from time, literally, as every wristwatch she attempts to wear stops working.

Add this to your TBR list immediately and keep an eye out for Terah’s next novel. I can’t wait to see what story she brings us next!
]]> Banyan Moon 62800971
Back in Florida, Huơng is simultaneously mourning her mother and resenting her for having the relationship with Ann that she never did. Then Ann and Huơng learn that Minh has left them both the Banyan House, the crumbling old manor that was Ann’s childhood home, in all its strange, Gothic glory. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past and their uncertain futures, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.

Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life for her children. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life—and beyond.

Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.]]> 336 Thao Thai 0063267101 Meagan 5 “There was no safety in the ocean, or in love.�

BANYAN MOON by Thao Thai is a multigenerational story of mothers and daughters, long-held secrets, and the complexity of grief. Told from the perspective of three women (grandmother, mother and daughter), in two locations (Vietnam and Florida), and over decades of love and loss, this is a story of complicated relationships, the complexity of legacy, and the strength to survive.

A sweeping family saga, I savored the rich prose and in-depth character studies, not able to quickly read through this story. The narrative demanded my time and attention, immersing me in the lives of of these women and the setting of the banyan house.

A stunning debut novel, I look forward to Thai’s next book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mariner Books and Thao Thai for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.]]> 3.86 2023 Banyan Moon
author: Thao Thai
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/23
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves:
review:
“There was no safety in the ocean, or in love.�

BANYAN MOON by Thao Thai is a multigenerational story of mothers and daughters, long-held secrets, and the complexity of grief. Told from the perspective of three women (grandmother, mother and daughter), in two locations (Vietnam and Florida), and over decades of love and loss, this is a story of complicated relationships, the complexity of legacy, and the strength to survive.

A sweeping family saga, I savored the rich prose and in-depth character studies, not able to quickly read through this story. The narrative demanded my time and attention, immersing me in the lives of of these women and the setting of the banyan house.

A stunning debut novel, I look forward to Thai’s next book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mariner Books and Thao Thai for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
]]> Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4) 60657583
Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.]]> 291 Elizabeth Strout 0593446062 Meagan 5 3.80 2022 Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)]]> 25893709 193 Elizabeth Strout 1400067693 Meagan 5 3.56 2016 My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Oh William! (Amgash, #3) 56294820
So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has called Elizabeth Strout’s “perfect attunement to the human condition.� There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart.

At the heart of this story is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. “This is the way of life,� Lucy says: “the many things we do not know until it is too late.”]]> 240 Elizabeth Strout 0812989430 Meagan 5 3.79 2021 Oh William! (Amgash, #3)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> The Secret Life of Bees 37435 The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.]]> 302 Sue Monk Kidd 0142001740 Meagan 5 4.10 2001 The Secret Life of Bees
author: Sue Monk Kidd
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2013/08/14
date added: 2023/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Rules for Visiting 41880608 A beautifully observed and deeply funny novel of May Attaway, a university gardener who sets out on an odyssey to reconnect with four old friends over the course of a year.

At forty, May Attaway is more at home with plants than people. Over the years, she's turned inward, finding pleasure in language, her work as a gardener, and keeping her neighbors at arm's length while keenly observing them. But when she is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, May is inspired to reconnect with four once close friends. She knows they will never have a proper reunion, so she goes, one-by-one, to each of them. A student of the classics, May considers her journey a female Odyssey. What might the world have had if, instead of waiting, Penelope had set out on an adventure of her own?

RULES FOR VISITING is a woman's exploration of friendship in the digital age. Deeply alert to the nobility and the ridiculousness of ordinary people, May savors the pleasures along the way--afternoon ice cream with a long-lost friend, surprise postcards from an unexpected crush, and a moving encounter with ancient beauty. Though she gets a taste of viral online fame, May chooses to bypass her friends' perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them in their messy analog ones.

Ultimately, May learns that a best friend is someone who knows your story--and she inspires us all to master the art of visiting.]]> 290 Jessica Francis Kane 0525559221 Meagan 5
This is a quiet, contemplative, coming-of-age for the middle age. It’s a journey of a woman trying to figure out relationships: friends, family, neighbors, community in general. It’s a modern-day odyssey with humor and poignancy. And I cannot express how wonderfully patient Kane is with this story, holding onto information until the exact right time to reveal it. This is not high drama; it’s intricately simple.

I loved this book so much that I changed my book club’s next scheduled read to this one because I want to discuss this with someone. ASAP.

This is one I will continue to re-read through the years, along with another novel on friendship: CROSSING TO SAFETY by Wallace Stegner.]]> 3.68 2019 Rules for Visiting
author: Jessica Francis Kane
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/02/08
shelves:
review:
I finished this last week and I’ve had to sit with it before posting about it. I picked this up on a whim when I was visiting a bookstore. It’s one of the best impulse purchases I have ever made.

This is a quiet, contemplative, coming-of-age for the middle age. It’s a journey of a woman trying to figure out relationships: friends, family, neighbors, community in general. It’s a modern-day odyssey with humor and poignancy. And I cannot express how wonderfully patient Kane is with this story, holding onto information until the exact right time to reveal it. This is not high drama; it’s intricately simple.

I loved this book so much that I changed my book club’s next scheduled read to this one because I want to discuss this with someone. ASAP.

This is one I will continue to re-read through the years, along with another novel on friendship: CROSSING TO SAFETY by Wallace Stegner.
]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Meagan 5 4.13 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Meagan 5 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Odder 59251239
Nobody has her moves.
She doesn't just swim to the bottom,
she dive-bombs.
She doesn't just somersault,
she triple-doughnuts.
She doesn't just ride the waves,
she makes them.

Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she's known. She's a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself—and about the humans who hope to save her.

Inspired by the true story of a Monterey Bay Aquarium program that pairs orphaned otter pups with surrogate mothers.]]> 274 Katherine Applegate 1250147425 Meagan 5 4.21 2022 Odder
author: Katherine Applegate
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> The Last Carolina Girl 61169865 "Unforgettable, this a powerful debut to savor." � Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author ofThe Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

A searing book club novel for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and The Girls in the Stilt House following one girl fighting for her family, her body, and her right to create a future all her own

Some folks will do anything to control the wild spirit of a Carolina girl...

For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is as simple as it is free. Devoted to her lumberjack father and running through the wilds where the forest meets the shore, Leah’s country life is as natural as the Loblolly pines that rise to greet the Southern sky.

When an accident takes her father’s life, Leah is wrenched from her small community and cast into a family of strangers with a terrible secret. Separated from her only home, Leah is kept apart from the family and forced to act as a helpmate for the well-to-do household. When a moment of violence and prejudice thrusts Leah into the center of the state’s shameful darkness, she must fight for her own future against a world that doesn’t always value the wild spirit of a Carolina girl.

Set in 1935 against the very real backdrop of a recently formed state eugenics board, The Last Carolina Girl is a powerful and heart-wrenching story of fierce strength, forgotten history, autonomy, and the places and people we ultimately call home.]]> 304 Meagan Church 1728257158 Meagan 0 to-read 3.91 2023 The Last Carolina Girl
author: Meagan Church
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Meagan 5 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/11/07
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]]> In the Wild Light 44287012
But when Delaney manages to secure both of them full rides to an elite prep school in Connecticut, Cash will have to grapple with his need to protect and love Delaney, and his love for the grandparents who saved him and the town he would have to leave behind.

From the award-winning author of The Serpent King comes a beautiful examination of grief, found family, and young love.]]> 432 Jeff Zentner 1524720240 Meagan 0 to-read 4.44 2021 In the Wild Light
author: Jeff Zentner
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> One Two Three 42346406 In a town where nothing ever changes, suddenly everything does...

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

For a few weeks seventeen years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive. Because it's hard to let go of the past when the past won't let go of you.

Three unforgettable narrators join together here to tell a spellbinding story with wit, wonder, and deep affection. As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loud-on-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone and how when days are darkest, it’s our daughters who will save us all.]]> 416 Laurie Frankel 1250236770 Meagan 0 to-read 3.85 2021 One Two Three
author: Laurie Frankel
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/28
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]]> Wish You Were Here 57701764 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.

Jodi Picoult once again proves she is the master of wading through the darkness to find the light. Wish You Were Here is a powerfully evocative story of resilience and the triumph of the human spirit.
--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising

Synopsis
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galapagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.

Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

In the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.]]> 310 Jodi Picoult 1984818414 Meagan 0 to-read 3.86 2021 Wish You Were Here
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Push 52476830 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.]]> 307 Ashley Audrain 1984881663 Meagan 0 to-read 4.03 2021 The Push
author: Ashley Audrain
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/16
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]]> The Girls in the Stilt House 54762315 Set in 1920s Mississippi, this debut Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder—perfect for readers of Where the Crawdads Sing and If the Creek Don't Rise.

Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.

Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she's holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see in Ohio.

As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.]]> 384 Kelly Mustian 1728217717 Meagan 5 3.99 2021 The Girls in the Stilt House
author: Kelly Mustian
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald]]> 16002030 What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Each place they go becomes a playground—New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.
Everything seems new and possible, but not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.]]> 375 Therese Anne Fowler 1250028655 Meagan 5 3.76 2013 Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
author: Therese Anne Fowler
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2013/12/04
date added: 2022/07/21
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While I'm not always a fan of fictionalized accounts of real-life people, there was something about this book that drew me in. The first-person narrative made me feel as though I was hearing Zelda's story straight from her. I was drawn in to her mania and the tragedy of her life. The more I read, the more Zelda seemed tangible and the more I hoped it would end differently for her.
]]> Wholehearted Faith 56304363 A new collection of original writings by Rachel Held Evans, whose reflections on faith and life continue to encourage, challenge, and influence.Ěý

Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith.

At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world.

This book is for the doubter and the dreamer, the seeker and the sojourner, those who long for a sense of spiritual wholeness as well as those who have been hurt by the Church but can’t seem to let go of the story of Jesus. Through theological reflection and personal recollection, Rachel wrestles with God’s grace and love, looks unsparingly at what the Church is and does, and explores universal human questions about becoming and belonging. An unforgettable, moving, and intimate book.]]> 196 Rachel Held Evans 0062894471 Meagan 5 4.40 2021 Wholehearted Faith
author: Rachel Held Evans
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/01/27
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Absolutely beautiful, inspiring, important. I didn't know what to expect, not sure of how much of the book she had completed before her passing. It was a joy to get lost in her words, thoughts and encouragement. But as it ended, it made me long for even more words from her. The book is beautifully framed by the words and voices of her husband and a few of her dear friends. Their tributes to her are deeply moving and tear inducing...to say the least. What a gift this woman of valor was and will continue to be thanks to her books that we will be able to return to whenever we miss her voice.
]]> <![CDATA[A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message]]> 50548361
“In the time of a generation-wide breakdown in trust with leaders in every sphere of society, Eugene’s quiet life of deep integrity and gospel purpose is a bright light against a dark backdrop.”—John Mark Comer, author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

“This hunger for something radical—something so true that it burned in his bones—was a constant in Eugene’s life. His longing for God ignited a ferocity in his soul.â€� Ěý

Encounter the multifaceted life of one of the most influential and creative pastors of the past half century with unforgettable stories ofĚýEugene’s lifelong devotion to his craft and love of language, the influences and experiences that shaped his unquenchable faith,Ěýthe inspiration for his decision to translate The Message, andĚýhis success and struggles as a pastor, husband, and father. Ěý

Author Winn Collier was given exclusive access to Eugene and his materials for the production of this landmark work. Drawing from his friendship and expansive view of Peterson’s life, Collier offers an intimate, beautiful, and earthy look into a remarkable life.
Ěý
For Eugene, the gifts of life were the glint of fading light over the lake; a kiss from his wife, Jan; a good joke; a bowl of butter pecan ice cream. As you enter into his story, you’ll find yourself doing the same—noticing how the most ordinary things shimmer with a new and unexpected beauty.]]> 368 Winn Collier 0735291624 Meagan 5 4.63 A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message
author: Winn Collier
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.63
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/01/26
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An engaging story of a life beautifully, quietly and humbly lived. A refreshing look at a truly pastoral life in a time when narcism runs rampant in platformed pastors.
]]> <![CDATA[Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World]]> 13497505 New York Times Bestseller!

As a college student he spent 16 days in the Pacific Ocean with five guys and a crate of canned meat. As a father he took his kids on a world tour to eat ice cream with heads of state. He made friends in Uganda, and they liked him so much he became the Ugandan consul. He pursued his wife for three years before she agreed to date him. His grades weren't good enough to get into law school, so he sat on a bench outside the Dean's office for seven days until they finally let him enroll.

Bob Goff has become something of a legend, and his friends consider him the world's best-kept secret. Those same friends have long insisted he write a book. What follows are paradigm shifts, musings, and stories from one of the world's most delightfully engaging and winsome people. What fuels his impact? Love. But it's not the kind of love that stops at thoughts and feelings. Bob's love takes action. Bob believes Love Does.

When Love Does, life gets interesting. Each day turns into a hilarious, whimsical, meaningful chance that makes faith simple and real. Each chapter is a story that forms a book, a life. And this is one life you don't want to miss.

Light and fun, unique and profound, the lessons drawn from Bob's life and attitude just might inspire you to be secretly incredible, too.]]> 224 Bob Goff 1400203759 Meagan 4 4.31 2012 Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
author: Bob Goff
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/12/04
date added: 2022/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World]]> 210235 272 Richard J. Foster 0060759712 Meagan 5 4.21 1981 Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World
author: Richard J. Foster
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1981
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth]]> 54233271
This book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history--ancient, medieval, and modern--to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church. Barr's historical insights provide context for contemporary teachings about women's roles in the church and help move the conversation forward.

Interweaving her story as a Baptist pastor's wife, Barr sheds light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical world, helping readers understand why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ.]]> 245 Beth Allison Barr 1587434709 Meagan 5 4.38 2021 The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth
author: Beth Allison Barr
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism]]> 38915761
King's call to action, first issued over fifty years ago, is relevant for the church in America today.ĚýChurches remain racially segregated and are largely ineffective in addressing complex racial challenges. In The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby takes us back to the root of this injustice in the American church, highlighting the cultural and institutional tables we have to flip in order to bring about progress between black and white people.

Tisby provides a unique survey of American Christianity's racial past, revealing the concrete and chilling ways people of faith have worked against racial justice. Understanding our racial history sets the stage for solutions, but until we understand the depth of the malady we won't fully embrace the aggressive treatment it requires.ĚýGiven the centuries of Christian compromise with bigotry, believers today must be prepared to tear down old structures and build up new ones. This book provides an in-depth diagnosis for a racially divided American church and suggests ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among God's people.]]> 256 Jemar Tisby 0310597269 Meagan 5 4.49 2019 The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism
author: Jemar Tisby
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2019
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right]]> 27177624 Can you imagine it?
Ěý
A Vision of Hope for a Broken World
Ěý
Shalom is what God declared. Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like.
Shalom is when all people have enough.
It’s when families are healed.
It’s when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity.
Shalom is when the image of God is recognized in every single human.
Shalom is our calling as followers of Jesus’s gospel. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every relationship.
Ěý
Ěý
What can we do to bring shalom to our nations, our communities, and our souls? Through a careful exploration of biblical text, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis, Lisa Sharon Harper shows us what “very good� can look like today, even after the Fall.
Ěý
Because despite our anxious minds, despite division and threats of violence, God’s vision Wholeness for a hurting world. Peace for a fearful soul. Shalom.]]> 240 Lisa Sharon Harper 160142857X Meagan 5 4.24 2016 The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right
author: Lisa Sharon Harper
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/02/24
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]]> The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice 49247290 A young girl is commissioned to build an assassin for a dark-hearted tyrant.

Impressed by the work of the puppetmaster and his apprentice, Tavia’s ruler, The Margrave, has ordered dozens of life-size marionette soldiers to be sent to Wolfspire Hall. When the orders for more soldiers come in with increasingly urgent deadlines, the puppetmaster’s health suffers and Pirouette, his daughter and protégé, is left to build in his stead. But there is something far more twisted brewing at Wolfspire—the Margrave’s son wants Pirouette to create an assassin. And he wants her to give it life.

With Tavia teetering on the brink of war and her father dying in the dungeons, Pirouette has no choice but to accept. Racing against the rise of the next blue moon—the magic that will bring her creations to life—she can't help but wonder, is she making a masterpiece...or a monster?]]> 352 Lisa DeSelm 1645670805 Meagan 5 3.90 2020 The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice
author: Lisa DeSelm
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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date added: 2021/01/30
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Lisa’s writing is both magical and enchanting. In this fairytale retelling of Pinocchio (but with a female lead!), the description pulls the reader into the story, making us feel as though we are in the world alongside the characters. Beautiful. Magical. Mystical. Can’t wait for her next book!
]]> <![CDATA[Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life]]> 30010106 184 Tish Harrison Warren 0830846239 Meagan 5
A year ago, as I sat in a women’s conference that I had organized, and I listened to my dear friend speak truth and love to the women who had gathered that day, I felt the weight of homesickness settle on me. It wasn’t homesickness for the hometown I had moved away from five years ago. It was instead a deep sense of longing for Holy experiences and practices that I hadn’t realized I was missing.

The past year has been one of reexamination and deconstruction in many ways, but one thing has not wavered: my belief and faith in God. Instead, that belief only amplified the urgency I felt to seek Him more fully. And while 2020 (and still 2021) had plenty of uncomfortable and painful and frustrating moments, it also freed me to experience God in tangible, intentional and authentic ways, and disciple my kids along the way.

This book has met me in the moment when I needed it, as a reminder that, “Christian worship, centered on Word and sacrament, reminds me that my core identity is not that of a consumer: I am a worshiper and an image-bearer, created to know, enjoy, and glorify God and to know and love those around me.� (page 71)]]> 4.31 2016 Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life
author: Tish Harrison Warren
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/12
date added: 2021/01/12
shelves:
review:
You know those perfectly timed books that you pick up and devour at the exact moment you needed it? That’s what “Liturgy of the Ordinary� by Tish Harrison Warren has been for me. In the foreword, Andy Crouch says, “Tish dismantles that most stubborn of Christian heresies: the idea that there is any part of our lives that is secular, untouched by and disconnected from the real sacred work of worship and prayer.�

A year ago, as I sat in a women’s conference that I had organized, and I listened to my dear friend speak truth and love to the women who had gathered that day, I felt the weight of homesickness settle on me. It wasn’t homesickness for the hometown I had moved away from five years ago. It was instead a deep sense of longing for Holy experiences and practices that I hadn’t realized I was missing.

The past year has been one of reexamination and deconstruction in many ways, but one thing has not wavered: my belief and faith in God. Instead, that belief only amplified the urgency I felt to seek Him more fully. And while 2020 (and still 2021) had plenty of uncomfortable and painful and frustrating moments, it also freed me to experience God in tangible, intentional and authentic ways, and disciple my kids along the way.

This book has met me in the moment when I needed it, as a reminder that, “Christian worship, centered on Word and sacrament, reminds me that my core identity is not that of a consumer: I am a worshiper and an image-bearer, created to know, enjoy, and glorify God and to know and love those around me.� (page 71)
]]> <![CDATA[Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope]]> 48994895 Growing up in the American South, Esau McCaulley knew firsthand the ongoing struggle between despair and hope that marks the lives of some in the African American context. A key element in the fight for hope, he discovered, has long been the practice of Bible reading and interpretation that comes out of traditional Black churches. This ecclesial tradition is often disregarded or viewed with suspicion by much of the wider church and academy, but it has something vital to say. Reading While Black is a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation. At a time in which some within the African American community are questioning the place of the Christian faith in the struggle for justice, New Testament scholar McCaulley argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times. He advocates for a model of interpretation that involves an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, in which the particular questions coming out of Black communities are given pride of place and the Bible is given space to respond by affirming, challenging, and, at times, reshaping Black concerns. McCaulley demonstrates this model with studies on how Scripture speaks to topics often overlooked by white interpreters, such as ethnicity, political protest, policing, and slavery. Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location as well as the cultures of others. Reading While Black moves the conversation forward.]]> 200 Esau McCaulley Meagan 5 4.43 2020 Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
author: Esau McCaulley
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/01/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church]]> 22574709
Centered around seven sacraments, Evans' quest takes readers through a liturgical year with stories about baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, vocation, and death that are funny, heartbreaking, and sharply honest.

A memoir about making do and taking risks, about the messiness of community and the power of grace, Searching for SundayĚýis about overcoming cynicism to find hope and, somewhere in between, Church.]]> 268 Rachel Held Evans 0718022122 Meagan 4 4.20 2015 Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
author: Rachel Held Evans
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/12/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art]]> 136814 256 Madeleine L'Engle 087788918X Meagan 5 4.22 1980 Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/12/23
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]]> The Great Alone 34912895 Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.
For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents� passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights� lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.]]> 435 Kristin Hannah Meagan 5 4.44 2018 The Great Alone
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/12/23
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]]> Valentine 52377380
Mercy is hard in a place like this . . .
It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow.

In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.

Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader’s heart, this fierce, unflinching, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women’s strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.]]> 320 Elizabeth Wetmore 0062913263 Meagan 5 3.73 2020 Valentine
author: Elizabeth Wetmore
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/12/23
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]]> Simply Christian 69094 256 N.T. Wright 0060507152 Meagan 5 4.03 2006 Simply Christian
author: N.T. Wright
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/12/23
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation]]> 53121662 A scholar of American Christianity presents a seventy-five-year history of evangelicalism that identifies the forces that have turned Donald Trump into a hero of the Religious Right.

How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate’s staunchest supporters? These are among the questions acclaimed historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez asks in Jesus and John Wayne, which delves beyond facile headlines to explain how white evangelicals have brought us to our fractured political moment. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority� backed Donald Trump for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Donald Trump in fact represents the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals� most deeply held values.

Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism, or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.� As Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the role of culture in modern American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals may not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical popular culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.� Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.

Trump, in other words, is hardly the first flashy celebrity to capture evangelicals� hearts and minds, nor is he the first strongman to promise evangelicals protection and power. Indeed, the values and viewpoints at the heart of white evangelicalism today—patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community—are likely to persist long after Trump leaves office.

A much-needed reexamination, Jesus and John Wayne explains why evangelicals have rallied behind the least-Christian president in American history and how they have transformed their faith in the process, with enduring consequences for all of us.]]> 356 Kristin Kobes Du Mez 1631495739 Meagan 5 4.27 2020 Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/09/25
shelves:
review:
I’m pretty sure that after listening to the audio version of this book while walking the dog over several days and miles, some of my neighbors may be concerned for me. This book made me gasp, exhale in disbelief and say “WHAT?!� to no one other than my dog and my Creator. I guess you could say that I found this book eye opening, though at other times it was just a recounting of what I already knew. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a mainline tradition in the North and then I moved into the Bible Belt of the South that I’ve had so many moments of, “uh, what now?� in trying to figure out the political union of some evangelicals to the Republican Party. This book gave background and historical context to put things into perspective.
]]> <![CDATA[Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived]]> 40721873 In Love Wins, bestselling author, international teacher, and speaker Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis, Drops Like Stars) addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—hell and the afterlife—arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever?

Rob Bell is an electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,� with millions viewing his NOOMA videos.

With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial with a hopeful message—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.]]> 243 Rob Bell 0062049631 Meagan 5 3.84 2011 Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
author: Rob Bell
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Save the Cat! Writes a Novel 32805475
Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:

Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block�
Fixing a “broken� novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs�
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers

But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!]]> 320 Jessica Brody Meagan 4 4.49 2018 Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
author: Jessica Brody
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/24
date added: 2020/07/24
shelves:
review:
A helpful book for those who fall between the plotter and pantser ends of the writing spectrum. The beat sheet gives general guidelines to help focus plotting, while not locking the writer into extensive outlining. The book is very conversational in tone. I’m sure I’ll return to this for inspiration again in the future, along with John Truby’s “The Anatomy of a Story,� Lisa Cron’s “Story Genius� and Stephen King’s “On Writing.� In other words, this book is helpful, but I will apply some of it’s methods and inspiration in conjunction with others� advice.
]]> <![CDATA[Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement]]> 51458186 Have you ever felt too progressive for conservatives, but too conservative for progressives?

Too often, political questions are framed in impossible ways for the faithful Christian: we're forced to choose between social justice and biblical values, between supporting women and opposing abortion. As a result, it's easy for Christians to grow disillusioned with civic engagement or fall back into tribal extremes. This state of affairs has damaged Christian public witness and divided the church.

The authors of this book represent the AND Campaign, which exists to educate and organize Christians for faithful civic and cultural engagement. They insist that not only are we called to love our neighbors through the political process but also that doing so requires us to transcend the binary way the debates are usually framed. In simple, understandable language, they lay out the biblical case for political engagement and help Christians navigate the complex world of politics with integrity, from political messaging and the politics of race to protests, advocacy, and more. The book includes a study guide for classroom use and group discussion.

When we understand our civic engagement as a way to obey Christ's call to love our neighbor, we see that it is possible to engage the political process with both love and truth--compassion and conviction.]]> 147 Justin Giboney 083084810X Meagan 5 4.31 2020 Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement
author: Justin Giboney
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/24
date added: 2020/07/24
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A short, but impactful book for Christians who are looking to engage politics from a biblical view rather than through the lens of a particular political party’s platform and influence. A refreshing read for those who are frustrated with the current political/religious climate.
]]> <![CDATA[On Teaching and Writing Fiction]]> 296890 144 Wallace Stegner 0142001473 Meagan 4 4.13 2002 On Teaching and Writing Fiction
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/24
date added: 2020/07/24
shelves:
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A short collection of essays and interviews that Stegner gave on writing, this book does inspire, but knowing that this was never written by Stegner to be a "how-to" book on writing helps put the reader's expectations into perspective.
]]> <![CDATA[North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail]]> 34219858
Scott Jurek is one of the world's best known and most beloved ultrarunners. Renowned for his remarkable endurance and speed, accomplished on a vegan diet, he's finished first in nearly all of ultrarunning's elite events over the course of his career. But after two decades of racing, training, speaking, and touring, Jurek felt an urgent need to discover something new about himself. He embarked on a wholly unique challenge, one that would force him to grow as a person and as an breaking the speed record for the Appalachian Trail.

North is the story of the 2,189-mile journey that nearly shattered him. When he set out in the spring of 2015, Jurek anticipated punishing terrain, forbidding weather, and inevitable injuries. He would have to run nearly 50 miles a day, every day, for almost seven weeks. He knew he would be pushing himself to the limit, that comfort and rest would be in short supply -- but he couldn't have imagined the physical and emotional toll the trip would exact, nor the rewards it would offer.

With his wife, Jenny, friends, and the kindness of strangers supporting him, Jurek ran, hiked, and stumbled his way north, one white blaze at a time. A stunning narrative of perseverance and personal transformation, North is a portrait of a man stripped bare on the most demanding and transcendent effort of his life. It will inspire runners and non-runners alike to keep striving for their personal best.]]> 292 Scott Jurek 0316433799 Meagan 5 4.19 2018 North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail
author: Scott Jurek
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/24
date added: 2020/07/24
shelves:
review:
An engaging story told from two perspectives: Scott's as he attempted to clock the Fastest Known Time running the Appalachian Trial and his wife's as she crewed for him. The agony of the effort really displayed how much a physical accomplishment is actually mental.
]]> <![CDATA[American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country]]> 52852738 From one of the country's most respected religion reporters, a paradigm-shifting discussion of how the Religious Left is actually the moral compass that has long steered America’s political debates, including today.

Since the ascendancy of the Religious Right in the 1970s, common wisdom holds that it is a coalition of fundamentalist powerbrokers who are the "moral majority," setting the standard for conservative Christian values and working to preserve the status quo.

But, as national religion reporter Jack Jenkins contends, the country is also driven by a vibrant, long-standing moral force from the left. Constituting an amorphous group of interfaith activists that goes by many names and takes many forms, this coalition has operated since America's founding � praying, protesting, and marching for common goals that have moved society forward. Throughout our history, the Religious Left has embodied and championed the progressive values at the heart of American democracy � abolition, labor reform, civil rights, environmental preservation.

Drawing on his years of reporting, Jenkins examines the re-emergence of progressive faith-based activism, detailing its origins and contrasting its goals with those of the Religious Right. Today's rapidly expanding interfaith coalition� � which includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and other faiths� �  has become a force within the larger "resistance" movement. Jenkins profiles Washington political insiders � including former White House staffers and faith outreach directors for the campaigns of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton � as well as a new generation of progressive faith leaders at the forefront today, including:

Rev. William Barber II, leader of North Carolina's Moral Mondays and co-chair of the nationwide Poor People's campaign
Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the Women's March
Rev. Traci Blackmon, a pastor near Ferguson, Missouri who works to lift up black liberation efforts across the country
Sister Simone Campbell, head of the Catholic social justice lobby and the "Nuns on the Bus" tour organizer
Native American "water protectors" who demonstrated against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock
Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop
An exciting reevaluation of America's moral center and an inspiring portrait of progressive faith-in-action, American Prophets will change the way we think about the intersection of politics and religion.]]> 352 Jack Jenkins 0062935984 Meagan 5 4.24 2020 American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country
author: Jack Jenkins
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/24
date added: 2020/07/24
shelves:
review:
An interesting look at the efforts of the Religious Left through a series of vignettes that take an in-depth look at leaders who have been working within the movement for years. A refreshing read for those frustrated with the predominant coverage of the Religious Right when it comes to the intersection of faith and politics.
]]> In the Unlikely Event 28503833 Summer Sisters—Judy Blume takes us back to the 1950s and introduces us to the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she herself grew up. Here she imagines and weaves together a vivid portrait of three generations of families, friends, and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed during one winter. At the center of an extraordinary cast of characters are fifteen-year-old Miri Ammerman and her spirited single mother, Rusty. Their warm and resonant stories are set against the backdrop of a real-life tragedy that struck the town when a series of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving the community reeling. Gripping, authentic, and unforgettable, In the Unlikely Event has all the hallmarks of this renowned author’s deft narrative magic.

Ěý
Ěý
Ěý]]> 498 Judy Blume 1101873981 Meagan 4 3.61 2015 In the Unlikely Event
author: Judy Blume
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2017/09/25
date added: 2020/07/22
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This is the first Judy Blume book I've read. Yes, I made it through adolescence without cracking open a single Blume book. So I didn't have nostalgia to set expectations of what this book would be. It did take me a while to get into the book, especially given the plethora of character POVs to sift through and manage. But I did finally get drawn into the story during the first plane crash. While the details and anticipation of those "unlikely events" kept me turning pages, I did finally settle into the characters, and began to appreciate the detail of the time and setting. By the end, I was impressed by how epic a scale Blume told the story of not just when the plane crashes occurred, but how they affected people directly and indirectly for years to come.
]]> <![CDATA[The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption]]> 13587133
Adoption has long been enmeshed in the politics of reproductive rights, pitched as a “win-win� compromise in the never-ending abortion debate. But as Kathryn Joyce makes clear in The Child Catchers, adoption has lately become even more entangled in the conservative Christian agenda.

To tens of millions of evangelicals, adoption is a new front in the culture wars: a test of “pro-life� bona fides, a way for born again Christians to reinvent compassionate conservatism on the global stage, and a means to fulfill the “Great Commission� mandate to evangelize the nations. Influential leaders fervently promote a new “orphan theology,� urging followers to adopt en masse, with little thought for the families these “orphans� may already have.
Conservative evangelicals control much of that industry through an infrastructure of adoption agencies, ministries, political lobbying groups, and publicly-supported “crisis pregnancy centers,� which convince women not just to “choose life,� but to choose adoption. Overseas, conservative Christians preside over a spiraling boom-bust adoption market in countries where people are poor and regulations weak, and where hefty adoption fees provide lots of incentive to increase the “supply� of adoptable children, recruiting “orphans� from intact but vulnerable families.

The Child Catchers is a shocking exposé of what the adoption industry has become and how it got there, told through deep investigative reporting and the heartbreaking stories of individuals who became collateral damage in a market driven by profit and, now, pulpit command.

Anyone who seeks to adopt—of whatever faith or no faith, and however well-meaning—is affected by the evangelical adoption movement, whether they know it or not. The movement has shaped the way we think about adoption, the language we use to discuss it, the places we seek to adopt from, and the policies and laws that govern the process. In The Child Catchers, Kathryn Joyce reveals with great sensitivity and empathy why, if we truly care for children, we need to see more clearly. Ěý

]]> 332 Kathryn Joyce 1586489429 Meagan 5 4.14 2013 The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
author: Kathryn Joyce
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2020/05/31
date added: 2020/05/31
shelves:
review:
Challenging, eye-opening, intense and important, this book explores and lays bare the non-warm-fuzzy side of adoption. A must-read, especially for those considering adopting. Quoted from the last page of the book, “Well-meaning people can enable tragedy with their good intentions or their lack of understanding of what an adopted child needs.�
]]> The Spectator Bird 11045
Joe Allston is a cantankerous, retired literary agent who is, in his own words, "just killing time until time gets around to killing me". His parents and his only son are long dead, leaving him with neither ancestors nor descendants, tradition nor ties. His job, trafficking the talent of others, has not been his choice. He has passed through life as a spectator, before retreating to the woods of California in the 1970s with only his wife, Ruth, by his side.

When an unexpected postcard from a long-lost friend arrives, Allston returns to the journals of a trip he has taken years before, a journey to his mother's birthplace where he once sought a link with his past. Uncovering this history floods Allston with memories, both grotesque and poignant, and finally vindicates him of his past and lays bare that Joe Allston has never been quite spectator enough.]]> 214 Wallace Stegner 0140139400 Meagan 4 3.98 1976 The Spectator Bird
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1976
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2020/05/17
shelves:
review:
In typical Stegner style, the book is introspective and subtle, yet complex. While I once again got lost in his description, this book is not my favorite of his. The storyline with the countess and the reveal concerning her life took a dramatic turn that seemed too sensational for Stegner.
]]> All the Little Live Things 10805 345 Wallace Stegner 0140154418 Meagan 5 4.13 1967 All the Little Live Things
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/05/03
shelves:
review:
Another Stegner book that did not disappoint. He crafts a subtle story so beautifully that the prose carries you into the heart of the characters. The story isn’t built on drama and suspense, but rather the pain and beauty of relationships. Unlike with many other writers, his description never feels laborious to read. It is a pleasure and it pulls you into the world, the relationships, the characters. Again, I stand in awe of his writing.
]]> <![CDATA[The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women]]> 34394482 The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive - until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives...]]> 476 Kate Moore 1492649368 Meagan 5 4.28 2016 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
author: Kate Moore
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/12/11
shelves:
review:
This story captured me from the first pages and kept me reading and engaged. Great telling of such an important story that has been lost over time.
]]> <![CDATA[A Circle of Quiet (Crosswicks Journals, #1)]]> 2819 246 Madeleine L'Engle 0062545035 Meagan 4 4.21 1971 A Circle of Quiet (Crosswicks Journals, #1)
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/08/25
shelves:
review:
An interesting peek inside the mind of a great author. The subject matter wandered, yet I found it sweet, as if having a conversation with a good friend.
]]> <![CDATA[Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home]]> 180731
Coming to prayer is like coming home, Foster says. "Nothing feels more right, more like what we are created to be and to do. Yet at the same time we are confronted with great mysteries. Who hasn't struggled with the puzzle of unanswered prayer? Who hasn't wondered how a finite person can commune with the infinite Creator of the universe? Who hasn't questioned whether prayer isn't merely psychological manipulation after all? We do our best, of course, to answer these knotty questions but when all is said and done, there is a sense in which these mysteries remain unanswered and unanswerable . . . At such times we must learn to become comfortable with the mystery."

Foster shows how prayer can move us inward into personal transformation, upward toward intimacy with God, and outward to minister to others. He leads us beyond questions to a deeper understanding and practice of prayer, bringing us closer to God, to ourselves, and to our community.]]> 275 Richard J. Foster 0060628464 Meagan 5 4.14 1992 Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home
author: Richard J. Foster
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/08/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future]]> 35356384
Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die--and how ours can be saved.]]> 320 Steven Levitsky 1524762938 Meagan 5 4.16 2018 How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future
author: Steven Levitsky
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/08/25
date added: 2018/08/25
shelves:
review:
Found this to be a fascinating perspective on democracies around the world in both current and historical contexts.
]]> When Breath Becomes Air 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naĂŻve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 Meagan 4 4.41 2016 When Breath Becomes Air
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2018/07/17
date added: 2018/07/17
shelves:
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While I found most of this book to be an interesting read, I did feel something was lacking at the end though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what. Of course the author had only so much time in which to write this book, so perhaps areas weren’t as developed as they might have been without such an urgent deadline
]]> <![CDATA[What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism]]> 34519483 AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“I find myself thinking deeply about what it means to love America, as I surely do.� —Dan Rather

At a moment of crisis over our national identity, venerated journalist Dan Rather has emerged as a voice of reason and integrity, reflecting on—and writing passionately about—what it means to be an American. Now, with this collection of original essays, he reminds us of the principles upon which the United States was founded. Looking at the freedoms that define us, from the vote to the press; the values that have transformed us, from empathy to inclusion to service; the institutions that sustain us, such as public education; and the traits that helped form our young country, such as the audacity to take on daunting challenges in science and medicine, Rather brings to bear his decades of experience on the frontlines of the world’s biggest stories. As a living witness to historical change, he offers up an intimate view of history, tracing where we have been in order to help us chart a way forward and heal our bitter divisions.

With a fundamental sense of hope, What Unites Us is the book to inspire conversation and listening, and to remind us all how we are, finally, one.]]> 288 Dan Rather Meagan 5 4.28 2017 What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism
author: Dan Rather
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/03
date added: 2018/07/03
shelves:
review:
A voice of hope (when I needed it) and a reminder to stay steady in turbulent times. I always appreciate Rather's ability to look over our nation's history of the last 80 years and apply lessons from the past to what we are experiencing today. I heard him speak a few months ago and reading this book was a great follow-up, as if he was continuing the conversation and speaking directly to me.
]]> Work: A Story of Experience 385211 Alcott's concerns about social justice, women's work, domesticity, and community lie at the heart of this provocative novel.

In this story of a woman's search for a meaningful life, Alcott moves outside the family setting of her best known works. Originally published in 1872, Work is both an exploration of Alcott's personal conflicts and a social critique, examining women's independence, the moral significance of labor, and the goals to which a woman can aspire. Influenced by Transcendentalism and by the women's rights movement, it affirms the possibility of a feminized utopian society.

]]> 344 Louisa May Alcott 014039091X Meagan 4 3.71 1873 Work: A Story of Experience
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1873
rating: 4
read at: 2017/02/03
date added: 2018/07/03
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People]]> 36289256 New York Times Bestseller!

What happensĚýwhen we give away love like we're made of it?

In his entertaining and inspiring follow-up to the New York Times bestselling phenomenon Love Does, Bob Goff takes readers on a journey into the secret of living without fear, constraint, or worry. The path toward the liberated existence we all long for is found in a truth as simple to say as it is hard to do: love people, even the difficult ones, without distinction and without limits.

Driven by Bob’s trademark storytelling, Everybody, Always reveals the lessons Bob learned--often the hard way--about what it means to love without inhibition, insecurity, or restriction. From finding the right friends to discovering the upside of failure, Everybody, Always points the way to embodying love by doing the unexpected, the intimidating, the seemingly impossible. Whether losing his shoes while skydiving solo or befriending a Ugandan witch doctor, Bob steps into life with a no-limits embrace of others that is as infectious as it is extraordinarily ordinary. Everybody, Always reveals how we can do the same.]]> 240 Bob Goff 0718078136 Meagan 5 4.43 2018 Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People
author: Bob Goff
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/04/23
date added: 2018/04/23
shelves:
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In typical Bob Goff style, this book is full of love, encouragement and motivation to live like Christ. Bob cuts through the noise of religion to get to the heart of the Gospel: love everybody, always. It's a simple message, yet not always an easy one to apply. Bob's real-life examples make the message applicable...in big and little ways. It's a book that will make you laugh and cry, and often do both at the same time.
]]> <![CDATA[Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things]]> 15864595
If God designed us to experience true happiness and abundant life, why do so many Christians feel dissatisfied and purposeless?Ěý We try to make our lives better by chasing our own dreams, but that only makes the problem worse.Ěý Instead, the path to a just life that's satisfying and permeated with meaning leads us alongside the orphan, the widow, and the powerless.Ěý Using clear evangelical theology and compelling narratives drawn from two decades of global ministry and travel, Ken Wytsma, the founder of The Justice Conference, shows God's unchanging love for all His children.Ěý On the way, the author calls us back to a proper understanding of biblical justice, a redeeming glimpse into the true meaning of righteousness and the remarkable connection between our own joy, the joy of others, and the wondrous Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pursuing JusticeĚý shows that God isn't primarily concerned with personal piety but about empowering His children toĚý doĚý justly, toĚý love mercy, and toĚý walkĚý humbly with their creator. The message is as hopeful as it is when you discover anew the meaning of the Gospel and give your life away, youĚý willĚý find it...and it will be the best life you can imagine.]]> 330 Ken Wytsma 0849964660 Meagan 5 4.29 2013 Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things
author: Ken Wytsma
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/04/17
shelves:
review:
An important message for all Christians to read, understand and live out. This well-researched book explains how worship is more than the songs we sing on Sunday mornings. Worship is pursuing justice and laying down our lives for all the things God cares about...the widow, the orphan, the poor, the oppressed, His creation.... This book challenges Christians to look beyond our comfortable lives and our pursuits of consumerism to see how our actions and inactions affect others.
]]> <![CDATA[The Practice of the Presence of God]]> 498641 Alternative cover edition of ISBN 0883681056 can be found here

Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered the greatest secret of living in the kingdom of God here on earth. It is the art of “practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end.� He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our souls. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence.
As a humble cook, Brother Lawrence learned an important lesson through each daily chore: The time he spent in communion with the Lord should be the same, whether he was bustling around in the kitchen—with several people asking questions at the same time—or on his knees in prayer. He learned to cultivate the deep presence of God so thoroughly in his own heart that he was able to joyfully exclaim, “I am doing now what I will do for all eternity. I am blessing God, praising Him, adoring Him, and loving Him with all my heart.�
This unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day.]]> 95 Brother Lawrence Meagan 4 4.31 1692 The Practice of the Presence of God
author: Brother Lawrence
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1692
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/03/26
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]]> Still Alice 2153405 Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...]]> 292 Lisa Genova 0595440096 Meagan 5 4.32 2007 Still Alice
author: Lisa Genova
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2015/09/29
date added: 2018/02/22
shelves:
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I really enjoyed this book. I was immediately drawn into the main character. So much so, that during the time when I read the book, if I would forget something, I would wonder if I was becoming like Alice. The narrative quickly propelled me through the book, but it ended disappointingly. I kept turning pages, expecting (and wanting) more.
]]> The Last Treasure 27774724 It Comes in Waves and The Guest House comes a novel of three lives entangled in the secrets of the sea and the enduring bonds of love.

As students with a shared passion for shipwrecks, Liv, Sam, and Whit formed a close bond searching for the mysterious Patriot, a schooner that disappeared off the Carolina Coast in 1812 with Aaron Burr’s daughter Theodosia aboard. But as the elusive ship drew them together, love would bring them even closer—and ultimately tear them apart.

It’s been seven years since Liv left Sam to be with Whit, and the once close-knit trio went their separate ways. Liv has given up her obsession with Theodosia Burr to focus on her career as a salvage diver and her passionate but troubled marriage to the reckless and hedonistic Whit. But when a diary of Theodosia’s is discovered in a collector’s estate, she is pulled back to the world of the Patriot, this time with startling new clues to what might have really happened.

Diving back into the lost history of the Patriot could be just what Liv needs to find closure to a mystery that still haunts her. But when she and Whit reunite with Sam for one last salvage in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, buried romantic tensions begin to resurface, and once again Liv must choose between two men with very different hearts.]]> 368 Erika Marks 1101990848 Meagan 5 3.74 2016 The Last Treasure
author: Erika Marks
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/22
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review:
This book kept me turning the pages. The history, setting and characters pulled me through and made me feel like I was right alongside them on a treasure hunt.
]]> <![CDATA[Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth]]> 64023 228 Richard J. Foster 0060628391 Meagan 5 4.19 1978 Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
author: Richard J. Foster
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/14
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review:
"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people." ...and so begins the book. It may have been written about 40 years ago but it still speaks to current culture. With so much emphasis being placed on making churches attractional over the last decade+, teaching the disciplines has all but been forgotten. This book reminds us of the importance of those disciplines and shows us how to live them out. This is a book I will read over and over again.
]]> <![CDATA[Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Not Exactly a Memoir]]> 27833861 Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life returns with a literary experience that is unprecedented, unforgettable, and explosively human.

In the ten years since the publication of her beloved, groundbreaking Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, #1 New York Times bestselling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal has been quietly tinkering away. Using her distinct blend of nonlinear narrative, wistful reflections, and insightful wit, she has created a modest but mighty new work.

Why the title T​extbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal?�

� Because the book is organized into chapters with classic subject headings such as Social Studies, Music, Language Arts, Math, etc.

� Because textbook ​is an expression meaning “quintessential,� as in, Oh, that wordplay and unconventional format is so typical of her, so textbook Amy.

� Because for the first time ever, readers can further engage with a book via text messaging.

� Because if an author’s previous book has E​ncyclopedia i​n the title, following it up with a ​Textbook would be rather nice.

Not exactly a memoir, not just a collection of observations, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal is an exploration into the many ways we are connected on this planet and speaks to the awe, bewilderment, and poignancy of being alive.]]> 336 Amy Krouse Rosenthal 1101984546 Meagan 5 4.18 2016 Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Not Exactly a Memoir
author: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/07
shelves:
review:
This is a book I will read again and again. I loved the way it was interactive, making it rather poignant at times since I read it shortly after AKR's passing. I love the way she captured beauty in the most simple, ordinary things.
]]> <![CDATA[Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting]]> 48654 466 Robert McKee 0060391685 Meagan 5 4.27 1997 Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
author: Robert McKee
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/02/07
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review:
Even though written for screenwriters, the book is as applicable to any type of story teller. It breaks down the art of story telling and uses movies as examples for relatable applications. This is a book I know I will return to again and again over the years. An amazing resource and tool.
]]> <![CDATA[Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk]]> 30259182
Against all odds, the unlikely union worked, over time blossoming into the most tender of love stories. This unique biography tells the riveting story of two extraordinary people and their extraordinary relationship, offering refreshing insights into Christian history and illuminating the Luthers' profound impact on the institution of marriage, the effects of which still reverberate today. By the time they turn the last page, readers will have a deeper understanding of Luther as a husband and father and will come to love and admire Katharina, a woman who, in spite of her pivotal role, has been largely forgotten by history.

Together, this legendary couple experienced joy and grief, triumph and travail. This book brings their private lives and their love story into the spotlight and offers powerful insights into our own twenty-first-century understanding of marriage.]]> 320 Michelle DeRusha 0801019109 Meagan 5 4.10 2017 Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk
author: Michelle DeRusha
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/10/18
shelves:
review:
You know those books that you wish would never end? This was one of them. So interesting on many levels: biography, church history, women's studies, 16th century culture and marriage... A fascinating read.
]]> When We Were Worthy 31556391 A win brought them together, but loss may tear them apart.

When the sound of sirens cuts through a cool fall night, the small town of Worthy, Georgia, hurtles from triumph to tragedy. Just hours before, they’d watched the Wildcats score a winning touchdown. Now, they’re faced with the deaths of three cheerleaders—their promising lives cut short in a fatal crash. And the boy in the other car—the only one to survive—is believed to be at fault. As rumors begin to fly and accusations spin, allegiances form and long-kept secrets emerge.

At the center of the whirlwind are four women, each grappling with loss, regret, shame, and lies: Marglyn, a grieving mother; Darcy, whose son had been behind the wheel; Ava, a substitute teacher with a scandalous secret; and Leah, a cheerleader who should have been in the car with her friends, but wasn’t. If the truth comes out, will it bring redemption—or will it be their downfall?]]> 278 Marybeth Mayhew Whalen Meagan 5 3.68 2017 When We Were Worthy
author: Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2017/09/20
date added: 2017/09/25
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I am not a fast reader, but I finished this book the day after I started it. Marybeth paints a portrait of a small town...the beautiful exterior and the gritty underneath. The suspense, setting, pacing and character development kept me turning pages, eager to see the resolution. I became so immersed in the story that, by the end, I felt like Worthy was an actual town and that those characters truly exist.
]]> <![CDATA[Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 Meagan 5 4.16 2016 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
author: Cal Newport
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2017/07/27
date added: 2017/07/27
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"I'll live a focused life, because it's the best kind there is." ~ Winifred Gallagher ... This quote that ended the book sums up my thoughts on Deep Work. Such an important read for a distracted society. It not only challenged and encouraged me to reexamine my work habits, but to also place importance on teaching my kids how to focus and do deep work. It's not something that is often taught or talked about, but it will serve them well both personally and professionally as they grow. This is a book I will read again and again to remind myself to not get caught up in the distractions of an instant-gratification society.
]]> Commonwealth 28214365
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.]]> 322 Ann Patchett 0062491792 Meagan 4 3.81 2016 Commonwealth
author: Ann Patchett
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/12/14
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review:
Such patient and careful storytelling, while examining the ramifications and dynamics of divorce and blended families. The story is told with such simplicity and not over-the-top drama. It's compelling for how believable and realistic the plot and characters are...and both stick with you well after the final page.
]]> You'll Grow Out of It 27170141 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER! YOU'LL GROW OUT OF IT hilariously, and candidly, explores the journey of the twenty-first century woman.

As both a tomboy and a late bloomer, comedian Jessi Klein grew up feeling more like an outsider than a participant in the rites of modern femininity.

In YOU'LL GROW OUT OF IT, Klein offers - through an incisive collection of real-life stories - a relentlessly funny yet poignant take on a variety of topics she has experienced along her strange journey to womanhood and beyond. These include her "transformation from Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to are-you-a-lesbian-or-what tom man," attempting to find watchable porn, and identifying the difference between being called "ma'am" and "miss" ("Miss" sounds like you weigh ninety-nine pounds).

Raw, relatable, and consistently hilarious, YOU'LL GROW OUT OF IT is a one-of-a-kind book by a singular and irresistible comic voice.]]> 291 Jessi Klein 1455531189 Meagan 0 to-read 3.78 2016 You'll Grow Out of It
author: Jessi Klein
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Angle of Repose 292408
Wallace Stegner's Pultizer Prize-winning novel is a story of discovery—personal, historical, and geographical.]]> 569 Wallace Stegner 014016930X Meagan 5 4.24 1971 Angle of Repose
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2016/07/07
date added: 2016/07/07
shelves:
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As with other Stegner books, the breadth of story is impressive and enthralling. The historical aspects were especially engaging, while the more present day perspectives were not as interesting. I understand the device of showing the juxtaposition of how the grandparents' affected future generations, but what I really appreciated most were the moments that explored the grandparents.
]]> The Art of Racing in the Rain 3153910
Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't simply about going fast. On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through.

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life ... as only a dog could tell it.]]> 336 Garth Stein 1554681723 Meagan 4 4.22 2008 The Art of Racing in the Rain
author: Garth Stein
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/07/07
shelves:
review:
A friend highly recommended this to me years ago, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it. I wasn't sure that I'd think of a dog-as-narrator perspective. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. At least by the narrator. The subject matter was far more disheartening and sad than I expected. At times I wanted to walk away from the book because it was more tragic than I wanted to read. In the end, I enjoyed the narrator and perspective, but wished the plot could've been different.
]]> <![CDATA[For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards]]> 23647129
The majority of our joys, struggles, thrills, and heartbreaks relate to people, beginning first with ourselves and then the people we came from, married, birthed, live by, live for, go to church with, don't like, don't understand, fear, struggle with, compare ourselves to, and judge. People are the best and worst thing about the human life.

Jen Hatmaker knows this all too well, and so she reveals how to practice kindness, grace, truthfulness, vision, and love to ourselves and those around us. By doing this, For the Love leads our generation to reimagine Jesus' grace as a way of life, and it does it in a funny yet profound manner that Christian readers will love. Along the way, Hatmaker shows readers how to reclaim their prophetic voices and become Good News again to a hurting, polarized world.]]> 224 Jen Hatmaker 0718031822 Meagan 4 4.06 2015 For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards
author: Jen Hatmaker
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/07/07
shelves:
review:
Loved Jen's voice throughout the book, the mixture of ups and downs, theology and every day life.
]]> <![CDATA[Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less]]> 18077875 Do you simultaneously feel overworked and underutilized?
Are you often busy but not productive?
ĚýDo you feel like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas?

If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the Way of the EssentialistThe Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done.Ěý It is notĚýĚýa time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.Ěý

By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy � instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.

Essentialism is not one more thing â€� it’s a whole new way of doing everything. A must-read for any leader, manager, or individual who wants to learn how to do less, but better, in every area of their lives, Essentialism Ěýis a movement whose time has come.]]> 260 Greg McKeown 0804137382 Meagan 5 4.05 2011 Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
author: Greg McKeown
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves:
review:
I can't say there was anything groundbreaking in this book, as I have spent most of my attempting to practice Essentialism even if I didn't have a name for it. But, I very much like this book because it is a great reminder to continue to focus on what is important, set priorities and say no to all distractions. I've had so many conversations over the last few days with friends who are exhausted, whose schedules have been hijacked, and I've recommended this book to them. While the book does approach Essentialism from more of a professional standpoint, it is also very much applicable to our personal lives as well.
]]> Joy in the Morning 14889 296 Betty Smith 0060956860 Meagan 4 3.91 1963 Joy in the Morning
author: Betty Smith
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/04/02
shelves:
review:
The story was very simple without much drama or plot twist, but it still pulled me in just by telling the story of two newlyweds. I wish there had been more character development. At times the narrative summarized too much and too quickly, but the story still had charm in its simplicity.
]]> The Girl Giant 13019451 “Something good can come from even the most terrifying things. For every thing that is taken away, something else is given.� Ruth Brennan is a giant, “a rare, organic blunder pressed into a dollhouse world,� as she calls herself. Growing up in a small town, where even an ordinary person can’t simply fade into the background, there is no hiding the fact that Ruth is different: she can see it in the eyes of everyone around her, even her own parents. James and Elspeth Brennan are emotionally at sea, struggling with the devastation wrought on their lives by World War II and with their unspoken terror that the daughter they love may, like so much else, one day be taken away from them. But fate works in strange ways, and Ruth finds that for all the things that go unsaid around her, she is nonetheless able to see deeply into the secret hearts of others—their past traumas, their present fears, and the people they might become, if only they have courage enough.]]> 219 Kristen Den Hartog 1451656173 Meagan 4 3.37 2011 The Girl Giant
author: Kristen Den Hartog
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/08
date added: 2016/03/08
shelves:
review:
I'll be honest; I'm not certain of why I liked this book so much. There was no major plot twist or drama over-load. It was a simple coming-of-age story, of friendship and love, grounded in reality with just a hint of magic. The prose and characters pulled me in. Perhaps what I appreciated most was the beautiful subtlety of it all.
]]> <![CDATA[Stories I Only Tell My Friends]]> 10211494 320 Rob Lowe 080509329X Meagan 4 3.85 2011 Stories I Only Tell My Friends
author: Rob Lowe
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/15
date added: 2016/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg]]> 25422234 Only Ruth Bader Ginsburg can judge me.
The Ruth will set you free.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame—she was just trying to make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer's searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and an award-winning journalist, takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice's life and work. As America struggles with the unfinished business of gender equality and civil rights, Ginsburg stays fierce. And if you don't know, now you know.]]> 240 Irin Carmon 0062415832 Meagan 0 to-read 4.18 2015 Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
author: Irin Carmon
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World: How One Family Learned That Saying No Can Lead to Life's Biggest Yes]]> 26459929
Kristen Welch knows firsthand it’s not that easy. In fact, she’s found out that when you say yes too often, it’s not only hard on your peace of mind and your wallet―it actually puts your kids at long-term risk . In Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World , Kristen shares the ups and downs in her own family’s journey of discovering why it’s healthiest not to give their kids everything. Teaching them the difference between “want� and “need� is the first step in the right direction. With many practical tips and anecdotes, she shares how to say the ultimate yes as a family by bringing up faith-filled kids who will love God, serve others, and grow into hardworking, fulfilled, and successful adults.

It’s never too late to raise grateful kids. Get ready to cultivate a spirit of genuine appreciation and create a Jesus-centered home in which your kids don’t just say―but mean !―“thank you� for everything they have.]]> 272 Kristen Welch 1496405293 Meagan 4 4.00 2016 Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World: How One Family Learned That Saying No Can Lead to Life's Biggest Yes
author: Kristen Welch
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/05
date added: 2016/01/12
shelves:
review:
I appreciated Kristen's honesty, of not speaking from a superior parenting place, but of saying, "I've been there. I'm still there. But here's what we can do." She spoke with great wisdom and humility. These words will be an encouragement for many readers who are struggling with the entitlement beast in their own homes.
]]> <![CDATA[Ernest Hemingway: The Last Interview and Other Conversations]]> 25893772
Hemingway was not only known for his understated style, but for his public image as America’s greatest author and journalist—and for the grand, expansive, adventurous way he lived his life. The prickly wit and fierce dedication to his craft that defined Hemingway’s life and work shine through in this unprecedented collection of interviews.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 1612195229 Meagan 0 to-read 4.04 2015 Ernest Hemingway: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nora Ephron: The Last Interview and Other Conversations]]> 25893774
A hilarious and revealing look at one of America’s most beloved screenwriters. From the beginning of her career as a young journalist to her final interview—a warm, wise, heartbreaking reflection originally published in the Believer� this is a sparkling look at the life and work of a great talent.]]> 96 Nora Ephron 1612195245 Meagan 0 to-read 3.95 2015 Nora Ephron: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
author: Nora Ephron
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots]]> 13547241 New York Times bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect, in the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel and Carolyn Jessop’s Escape, featuring a new epilogue by the author.

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. It was stolen moments spent with the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott that helped her to imagine an alternative way of life. Trapped as a teenager in a sexually and emotionally dysfunctional marriage to a man she barely knew, the tension between Deborah’s desires and her responsibilities as a good Satmar girl grew more explosive until she gave birth at nineteen and realized that, for the sake of herself and her son, she had to escape.]]> 262 Deborah Feldman 1439187010 Meagan 4 3.97 2012 Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
author: Deborah Feldman
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2015/08/14
date added: 2015/08/14
shelves:
review:
I found this book fascinating and disturbing, but I felt it could've been better. Some areas were glossed over and not well explained, such as her eventual escape. I think the book could've gone deeper, but even as it stands, it is an interesting read.
]]> Go Set a Watchman 24817626 To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch�"Scout"—returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past—a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor and effortless precision—a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to an American classic.]]> 278 Harper Lee 0062409859 Meagan 2 3.28 2015 Go Set a Watchman
author: Harper Lee
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/28
date added: 2015/07/29
shelves:
review:
This book was completely underwhelming. While I appreciated that it was the same voice and tone as "To Kill a Mockingbird," the story and characters never fully developed or went much of anywhere. I re-read the last couple of chapters, thinking that maybe I missed some pivotal moment. I hadn't. While the premise of returning home and realizing all has changed (including yourself), can make for great narrative, this book fell flat. Even some of the flashbacks seemed out of character (such as the "pregnancy scare"...Scout didn't know any better? And no one realized how odd she was acting for 9 months?!). I was disappointed, not in the controversy surrounding Atticus, but in the entire plot (or lack thereof) and characters as a whole.
]]> <![CDATA[The Pearl That Broke Its Shell]]> 18505784 The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.

In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.

But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-aunt, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.

Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?]]> 452 Nadia Hashimi 0062244752 Meagan 4 4.15 2014 The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
author: Nadia Hashimi
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2015/06/03
date added: 2015/06/03
shelves:
review:
While the story was compelling and pulled me along, I found myself struggling to want to read the book because of the deep and constant tragedies that became overwhelming.
]]> <![CDATA[As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride]]> 21412202 Storm the castle once more

Standing on the stage for the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Princess Bride, I felt an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude and nostalgia. It was a remarkable night and it brought back vivid memories of being part of what appears to have become a cult classic film about pirates and princesses, giants and jesters, cliffs of insanity, and of course rodents of unusual size.

It truly was as fun to make the movie as it is to watch it, from getting to work on William Goldman's brilliant screenplay to being directed by the inimitable Rob Reiner. It is not an exaggeration to say that most days on set were exhilarating, from wrestling André the Giant, to the impossibility of playing mostly dead with Billy Crystal cracking jokes above me, to choreographing the Greatest Sword Fight in Modern Times with Mandy Patinkin, to being part of the Kiss That Left All the Others Behind with Robin Wright.

In this book I've gathered many more behind-the-scenes stories and hopefully answers to many of the questions we've all received over the years from fans. Additionally, Robin, Billy, Rob, and Mandy, as well as Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Fred Savage, Chris Sarandon, Carol Kane, Norman Lear, and William Goldman graciously share their own memories and stories from making this treasured film.

If you'd like to know a little more about the making of The Princess Bride as seen through the eyes of a young actor who got much more than he bargained for, along with the rest of this brilliant cast, then all I can say is...as you wish.]]> 259 Cary Elwes 1476764026 Meagan 5 4.16 2014 As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride
author: Cary Elwes
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2015/06/03
date added: 2015/06/03
shelves:
review:
I listened to the audio version of this book and hearing it narrated by Cary Elwes I think made the book even better. I've been a long-time fan of the movie. Hearing about the making of and some of the behind-the-scenes moments made my love of the movie even stronger.
]]> <![CDATA[Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way]]> 8872336 bittersweet is changing the way I live, unraveling and re-weaving the way I understand life. Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful, that there is a moment of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich even when it contains a splinter of sadness. It’s the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, audacious, earthy. This is what I’ve come to believe about change: it’s good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean that it’s incredibly painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God’s hand, which is where you wanted to be all long, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be. I’ve learned the hard way that change is one of God’s greatest gifts, and most useful tools. Change can push us, pull us, rebuke and remake us. It can show us who we’ve become, in the worst ways, and also in the best ways. I’ve learned that it’s not something to run away from, as though we could, and that in many cases, change is a function of God’s graciousness, not life’s cruelty.� Niequist, a keen observer of life with a lyrical voice, writes with the characteristic warmth and honesty of a dear friend: always engaging, sometimes challenging, but always with a kind heart. You will find Bittersweet savory reading, indeed. “This is the work I’m doing now, and the work I invite you into: when life is sweet, say thank you, and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you, and grow.”]]> 252 Shauna Niequist 0310598850 Meagan 4 4.22 2010 Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
author: Shauna Niequist
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/05/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art]]> 18053029 The Artisan Soul, Erwin Raphael McManus, author, thought leader, and founder of MOSAIC in Los Angeles, pens a manifesto for human creativity and the beginning of a new renaissance. McManus not only calls us to reclaim our creative essence but reveals how we can craft our lives into a work of art. There are no shortcuts to quality, and McManus celebrates the spiritual process that can help us discover our true selves.

McManus demonstrates that we all carry within us the essence of an artist. We all need to create, to be a part of a process that brings to the world something beautiful, good, and true, in order to allow our souls to come to life. It's not only the quality of the ingredients we use to build our lives that matter, but the care we bring to the process itself. Just like baking artisan bread, it's a process that's crafted over time. And God has something to say about how we craft our lives. With poignant, inspirational stories and insights from art, life, history, and scripture interspersed throughout, McManus walks readers through the process of crafting a life of beauty and wonder.]]> 208 Erwin Raphael McManus 0062270281 Meagan 5 4.06 2014 The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art
author: Erwin Raphael McManus
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2015/04/20
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves:
review:
Found this book to be very inspiring, making me look at creativity in a new way, a more all-encompassing way of life. This is a book I will return to and reread several times.
]]> <![CDATA[On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft]]> 10569 (back cover)]]> 320 Stephen King 0743455967 Meagan 5 4.33 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
author: Stephen King
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/03/30
shelves:
review:
This book begs repeated readings. From his memoir portion to his advice to writers, it is rich with story and encouragement. I love his down-to-earth, straight-forward approach to writing. And his memoir gives a peek into the mind that has created some of the most frightening stories ever told.
]]> 11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Meagan 5 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2015/03/30
date added: 2015/03/30
shelves:
review:
I should start by saying that I don't read a lot of Stephen King and I don't read many books of this length. I decided to read 11/22/63 after re-reading "On Writing" and loving it all over again. I was intimidated by the length, but I quickly found myself absorbed by the story and unable to put down this behemoth of a book. The story, characters and history of the book drew me in. Soon this book began to creep into my conversations with others and even my dreams. I was completely entranced and wanting to know what would happen. Would he take down Oswald? Would he go back to 2011? What sort of butterfly affect would his actions make? I'm actually sad that I'm done. Even after 800+ pages and a satisfying ending, I want more. And, I stand in awe of King's scope of storytelling.
]]> Love Life 18144064 Rob Lowe is back with stories he only tells his best friends.

When Rob Lowe's first book was published in 2011, he received the kind of rapturous reviews that writers dream of and rocketed to the top of the bestseller list. Now, in Love Life, he expands his scope, using stories and observations from his life in a poignant and humorous series of true tales about men and women, art and commerce, fathers and sons, addiction and recovery, and sex and love.

In Love Life, you will find stories about:

� Kissing Unexpectedly
� The secrets they don't teach you in acting school
� His great, great, great, great, great-grandfather's role in the American revolution
� Parks and Recreation, Behind the Candelabra, and Californication
� Trying to coach a kids' basketball team dominated by helicopter parents
� The hot tub at the Playboy mansion
� Starring in and producing a flop tv series
� Camping at Sea World
� Playing saxophone for president Bill Clinton
� The first journey to college with his son
� Warren Beatty
� The benefits of marriage

Throughout this entertaining book, you will find yourself in the presence of a master raconteur, a multi-talented performer whose love for life is as intriguing as his love life.]]> 259 Rob Lowe 1451685718 Meagan 4 3.65 2014 Love Life
author: Rob Lowe
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2015/02/10
date added: 2015/02/17
shelves:
review:
This book literally kept me turning pages. Not having read Lowe's first memoir, I didn't know what to expect. I found him to be an engaging story teller who could make me laugh and bring tears to my eyes in the same chapter. At times, some chapters did feel a bit like industry name dropping and privileged member of the Brat Pack. But some chapters had true heart, revealing Lowe as a person, not a Hollywood persona. Those were the chapters that brought the book to life and kept me reading. My favorites were "Matthew Applies to College" that shows true depth of heart, and "Just Do It" that had me laughing out loud about Sasquatch.
]]> Gilead (Gilead, #1) 68210 Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations, from the Civil War to the 20th century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. In the words of Kirkus, it is a novel "as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering." GILEAD tells the story of America and will break your heart.]]> 247 Marilynne Robinson 031242440X Meagan 0 to-read 3.84 2004 Gilead (Gilead, #1)
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Meagan
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mere Christianity 11138 191 C.S. Lewis 0684823780 Meagan 5 4.32 1952 Mere Christianity
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2015/02/08
date added: 2015/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> All the Light We Cannot See 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]> 544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Meagan 5 4.31 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2015/02/08
date added: 2015/02/08
shelves:
review:
This was a book that I found myself wanting to read slowly to savor it. While I have gotten tired of books switching between two narratives, in this case, it worked. Seeing two sides of the war (one in Germany and one in France) brought so much texture and depth to not just the story, but to the war itself.
]]> <![CDATA[Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes]]> 17573537 288 Shauna Niequist 0310598877 Meagan 5 4.18 2013 Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes
author: Shauna Niequist
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2015/01/20
date added: 2015/01/20
shelves:
review:
First of all, I am not a foodie. I was hesitant to read the book because, while I enjoy having friends over for dinner, I am in no way a foodie. But, after hearing Shauna speak at a recent Storyline conference and after being inspired by what she had to say, I decided to read the book. What I found is that the book is about much more than food. It's about life and love and faith and family and friends. It's about finding beauty in the every day bits of life and in the extraordinary moments. Shauna's words and illustrations moved me, engaged me and challenged me in ways that surprised me, and in ways I won't soon forget.
]]> Crossing to Safety 9820 335 Wallace Stegner 037575931X Meagan 5 4.16 1987 Crossing to Safety
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Meagan
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2014/12/11
date added: 2014/12/11
shelves:
review:
This book was brilliantly subtle. The language and description were so easy and natural, not flowery, overpowering and obtrusive. I took my time reading it, absorbing the words and characters, feeling as if I knew the people, as if I was friends with them. It wasn't full of shock and awe, or plot twists and distractions. It was a beautifully written piece of character-driven literature.
]]>