Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for June, 2015…

The Anchoress, by Robin Cadwallader – Seventeen-year-old Sarah is an anchoress, a holy woman enclosed inside a sealed cell attached to a medieval church.  She became an anchoress in order to escape a harsh world – a world where her mother and sister both died in childbirth, and where the local lord’s cruel son is relentlessly pursuing Sarah’s hand in marriage.  But even shutting herself away can’t keep the world out of Sarah’s cell.  This was a stirring and fascinating novel.  I’d never heard of anchorites and anchoresses before, and I was enthralled (and also sort of horrified) by the idea.  I had some concern that a novel taking place almost entirely within a tiny enclosed room would be slow or dull, but it wasn’t.  The writing elevated this, and I couldn’t put it down.  Highly recommended.

It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways, by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig – Meh.  I’m a Whole30 enthusiast, as longtime readers may know, and I just recently finished my third time through the program.  I grabbed this book from the holds shelf to read during my most recent Whole30, thinking it would give me the motivation to finish strong, but to be honest, I wasn’t really convinced.  I found the folksy tone irritating and distracting, and the science unconvincing.  It’s odd, because I know that the Whole30 works well for me, so you’d think I would have had a more positive reaction to the book.  I’m glad I got it from the library instead of buying it.

The Five Love Languages of Children, by Gary Chapman – Hubby and I read the original The Five Love Languages years ago and really liked it.  We found it helpful to identify our love languages and apply them to our daily interactions, and we still talk about the love languages even eight years after reading the book.  So I had high hopes for some really good insight into applying the love languages to kids.  There was a bit of kid-specific insight, but I also found that there was a lot of repetition.  The most important takeaways I found were: (1) if your child is under 8 or so, you probably won’t be able to identify her love language, so you need to make the effort to speak all five; and (2) the reverse of your child’s love language is also very important – i.e. if your kid is a “words of affirmation” person, praise will be particularly meaningful to her, but harsh words will be particularly damaging, so watch your mouth!

Naptime is the New Happy Hour, and Other Ways Toddlers Turn Your Life Upside Down, by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor – I grabbed this from the library because Wilder-Taylor has a new toddler essay book out and I wanted to see what her writing was all about before I went to a big effort to get the newest.  This was mildly amusing, but nothing amazing.  I liked how Wilder-Taylor lampooned perfectionist moms, and I chuckled appreciatively a few times, but I could have skipped it and been just fine.

The Inner Circle (Culper Ring #1), by Brad Meltzer – Great literature it is not, but I found The Inner Circle to be decently fun.  I was a bit confused by some of the plot points (and I still don’t understand the cancer plot, that part just made no logical sense) but I liked the glimpse inside the Archives, and it was fun to make a fictional foray inside the Beltway.  I’ll probably continue with the series.

The Jesus Cow, by Michael Perry – On Christmas Eve, a calf is born inside Harley Jackson’s barn.  The calf has a perfect image of Jesus Christ on its flank, and Harley’s first reaction is to say, “Well, that’s trouble.”  Harley attempts to hide the calf, but word (of course) gets out and soon he has a Hollywood agent, a spiritual theme park, and hordes of pilgrims on his farm.  Hijinks follow, naturally, along with a good deal of cleverly buried philosophy.  This was a slim novel, but provided plenty of thought material wrapped up in a really clever premise.  Recommended.

Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume – I really enjoyed the first book in the summer of #BlumeAlong, hosted by Kerry of Entomology of a Bookworm.  Margaret Simon does a lot of growing up in this iconic novel of bras, periods, and spiritual seeking.  Somehow I managed to get through young adulthood without reading this classic, so I’m glad I’ve rectified the omission.  For my full review, see here.

Love the Home You Have, by Melissa Michaels – Michaels, creator of the Inspired Room blog, presents a slim but encouraging volume about cultivating contentment and learning to love your current home, even if it’s not your forever home.  There was nothing particularly novel or earth-shattering about her advice, but it was a lot of what I need to hear right now.  I’m still homesick for Northern Virginia every day, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by how much I have to do to update our current house.  More on this to come, maybe.  I appreciated Michaels’ gentle motivation, I’m trying to take her lessons to heart, and I think I may actually have a lot to say about this topic.  Stay tuned for possible future posts.

In the Unlikely Event, by Judy Blume – Two Blume novels in one month!  I must be on some kind of kick.  In the Unlikely Event is Blume’s first novel for adults in some seventeen years, focusing on real events that occurred in the winter of 1952 in Blume’s hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey.  Blume was a teenager there when three planes plummeted from the sky in the span of just 58 days, leaving the entire community rocked and reeling.  Here, Blume revisits the tragedies through fictional Miri Ammerman, her family, and her friends, whose lives are all changed in big and small ways by the disasters.  I found the novel utterly riveting and more than a little bit distressing.  It was complex (lots of characters!), beautifully written, and I think it will be a popular book club choice.  Highly recommended!

Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, by Gretchen Rubin – I think I’m on something of a Gretchen Rubin kick.  In the past two months I’ve read her bestselling The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, and now her latest.  I liked this one, and found that there was definitely some good thought material here, but I wasn’t as big of a fan as I was of the happiness books.  While she seemed funny and sweet (if a bit neurotic) in the happiness books, here Rubin comes across as a bit of a killjoy, and more than a little bit judgmental.  (I did enjoy the fact that her sister called her out on it, and props to Rubin for including that conversation in the book.)  Still, I did find myself making note of a few concepts that I want to explore more, so look for a blog post on that next week.  Recommended for Gretchen Rubin fans, but don’t expect this to be quite as inspiring as the happiness books.

What a month!  Nugget’s continuing preference for napping in my arms has meant that I’ve gotten quite a bit of reading done, and I’m not complaining about that AT ALL.  I cherish the hours we spend relaxing in his upholstered rocker while he snoozes and I lose myself between pages.  I’ll miss this when I head back to the office at the end of the summer, so I’m going to enjoy every moment now.  It was a pretty good month, content-wise, too.  The Jesus Cow and In the Unlikely Event were definitely the highlights.  I was a little underwhelmed by some of my other selections – and I actually abandoned another book, Disclaimer, some 120 pages in, which I NEVER do.  But overall it’s been a good month, and I’m looking forward to another good month to come… including some BEACH reading!  Can’t wait.