Recently Read…February 2016

As I previously mentioned, my #blizzard2016 snow day was a lovely reading day. According to Goodreads, I’m ahead of schedule on my 2016 reading challenge – I’ve been making an effort to end each day with at least 15-20 minutes of reading before turning out the light.

Plenty of books at the ready for a snowy Saturday…

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning -This is an “NPR Read” that was under the tree. One day in December 2014 as I pulled out of my apartment complex for my short commute to work I first heard this author discuss this book – when she mentioned the popularity of the book “Chicken Every Sunday” among WWII soldiers I definitely was interested in learning more. “Chicken” was on the bookshelves at Grandma’s house when I was a kid and I read and enjoyed it many times. I was unaware of this book program that put so many books in the hands (& pockets) of our soldiers around the world during WWII. So many amazing nuggets of WWII history contained in here – among the most impactful moments were the telling of how the flood of GI students in schools after the war can partially be attributed to the books and reading during the war and also the story of how books were returned to Europe after the war through a variation of this program provided more books to the citizens than the vast quantities of books that had been destroyed by the Nazis.

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan – A sweet tale of a woman who is facing bankruptcy and end of a relationship and business venture who leaves it all to retreat to a small town on the water and determine her next steps. There, she rediscovers her love of baking, experiences community, redefines herself and ultimately opens a bakery.

The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected by Nik Ripken – Wow! Part memoir of the time Nik and his wife spent on the mission field in Africa and part compilation of modern stories of persecuted Christians around the world. Nik and his wife have devoted their lives to missions – initially, years in Southern and Eastern Africa and now they have been around the world gathering these stories of house churches and persecution and martyrdom.  I had the privilege of hearing Nik speak early in the month.

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabar & Anna Waterhouse – A fun “origin story” tale of Sherlock’s older brother decades before “Sherlock became Sherlock” – an adventure that would shape Mycroft into the character we know from other Sherlock tales. And, who knew that Kareem was a writer and a Holmesian?

The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon – A clever fictionalized story of what “really” happened in the disappearance of Judge Joseph Crater in August 1930. As the title indicates, the story of the disappearance is told from the perspective of “the” 3 women in the judge’s life. I wasn’t aware of this page from history prior to reading the book – once finished, I read up a bit on it online.

The book stack on my nightstand is tall with a variety of books in “active read” – a new daily reading for Lent, a business book, some fiction, the new Marie Kondo and more…

Linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy for QuickLit. What are you reading these days?