Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

The boys and I finished this book in May and loved it. Loved it. My appreciation for these books keeps going up as I read them aloud, and I appreciate all of the story-building she did. Just amazing. 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

The boys and I finally finished reading The Goblet of Fire and of course loved it. I was worried about reading this one to them and had planned on not reading it until we'd taken a little bit of a break, because it's a lot more intense than the other three, especially the graveyard scene at the end. I knew that Dane would take it hard when Cedric was killed, especially. But they begged so much and so hard to get started that I finally caved--although I said no way on watching the movie yet since it is PG-13. And I'm glad we did--gotta get our HP fix in now while they're young and still like reading aloud together. It was so fun and they were immediately ready to jump into number 5. 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Of course, while I was reading all of the lesser rewrites and fan fictions of Pride and Prejudice, I had to read the real thing too. The thing that always stands out when I read P&P is that it doesn't feel all that romantic to me. It feels so comedic. People think of it as purely a romance, because of all the love for Mr. Darcy, but when you actually read it, there is so many funny one-liners and side-eyes at the characters and so many hilarious observations about what they are doing and what they are like. I absolutely love that about this book. Every time I read this, I wish I could be as witty and wry and wise as Jane Austen and write something this hilarious in a modern-day style. Not a rewrite of P&P, but a social commentary in such a funny way. I know that many people do that these days, but nobody gets it like Jane. 

Unequal Affections by Lara S. Ormiston

You know me... I'm a sucker for any and every Jane Austen retelling. They are usually a 50/50 spread of enjoyable and disappointing. But this one really holds up. I read it a few years ago and thought it was so good that I bought a copy to keep, because I knew I'd re-read it. It's the story of what would have happened to Lizzy and Darcy if Elizabeth had accepted his original proposal. How could they have still changed enough as characters to accept each other and realized how wrong they had both been originally so that they could have been happy at the end? Ormiston does a great job of really sticking to the characters and showing their development as the novel goes on, and I really loved that. Definitely a comfort read. I might be about to head off on another Regency binge, if I can find ANY time to read the next few weeks with virtual learning, etc...

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Graham absolutely LOVES these Little House books, and it makes me so happy that he loves them. He was constantly begging me to read another chapter. I finally started using Audible so that I could buy the audiobook versions of the Little House books, and I am so glad that I did! We were able to listen to quite a lot of this book while driving around--every day while we go pick up Dane we were listening to a chapter, and we got through four or five chapters last night while stuck in traffic coming back from the boys' choir. But I HAD to read the chapter where Mr. Edwards meets Santa Claus to them myself, because that is one of my favorite chapters in the whole series. Graham is a huge fan, and we are going to read On the Banks of Plum Creek next. (I love Farmer Boy, but I don't want to lose the momentum of the Ingalls' story, so we'll come back there when we want to.)

We had a lot of really good conversations about Native Americans vs. Indians and why the white settlers were taking the Native Americans' land, and why that wasn't fair, and all sorts of things while reading this book. Although it's a little hard to read some of the less appealing stuff that Wilder wrote about the Native Americans in today's day and age, I would never have had these conversations with my kids without reading this. I think all in all it was positive, so I was able to tell them about how people have treated Native Americans since white settlers first came to America, and how we don't think that's right any more. That was something Meghan Cox Gurdon talked about in her book The Enchanted Hour, and I couldn't agree more.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

I know I have read these books countless times before. But I couldn't travel to England without reading them one more time. (And, of course, this won't be the last. Now I can't read these without thinking about when would be a good age for me to start reading these with the boys. I think we need to wait another year or two for Graham. I want them to be REALLY ready for them.) I really love this first Harry Potter book, though. It's so simple and sweet, once you know the whole story--the magic of Harry discovering he's a wizard and learning about the whole wizarding world and seeing Diagon Alley and Hogwarts and playing Quidditch for the first time never gets old. I will forever remember how much this story gripped me the first time I read it. I remember my heart beating so fast as I read the climactic chapter, and being terrified when Quirrel unwraps his turban and we find out what's underneath. Now it's almost impossible to remember that fear that I felt, but it was real, and that is the magic of these books.

This book truly deserves the adjective of "classic."

Happy Times in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren

I read this book with Dane when he was three or four, and I just finished reading it separately with Graham. We've been reading another book together with both boys and it is taking us for-e-ver, but this one we got through pretty quickly (although we don't read super regularly just me and Graham). I absolutely love these two Noisy Village books, and would love to read them with each of my kids (and hope that they will re-read them on their own too). I love that Graham's favorite chapters--the ones that he reacted to the most and which he clearly loved--were the ones about baby Kirsten and her cute little antics. I love the chapter about the cherry company where they try to sell their cherries--it seems like such a perfect childhood thing to do.

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

I've read these books at least five times, but I keep coming back to them every few years because they are so addictive, and at this point, they're so easy and mindless for me to read that I can enjoy them without having to work too hard. I read the first one on Thursday night after having a rough day with the kids, because I needed to just relax my brain, and I just finished the third one tonight, so I really powered through them. I don't have anything interesting or profound to say about them except that they were exactly what I needed to read right now. They hit the spot in my reading life this week, after I've been struggling through some slower, more intellectual books lately, and I just needed something fun and fluffy. Soon it'll be Harry Potter...

The Children of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren

After reading Pippi Longstocking last month, I wanted to revisit this amazing book by Astrid Lindgren with Graham. I read this with Dane before Graham was old enough to listen along to our chapter books, and I wanted him to hear these books too, because they are so cute and sweet and just perfect. I absolutely love these books. It reminds me of Betsy-Tacy and All-of-a-Kind Family and Five Little Peppers and so many perfect classic children's novels; each chapter is a fun little episode where the children explore something, play a game, go somewhere new, and each little story is told so well that the kids listening or reading are just enthralled. This book is different from the rest because it's set in Sweden, so it has the added charm of having traditions and activities that are different and unfamiliar for my kids, but are so fun to read about. Dane and Graham both love this book. I think my favorite chapters in this book might be the Christmas chapters about how they celebrated it there, and the magic of Christmas for all the children in Noisy Village.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

I re-read this book in just a few blazing hours for book club yesterday and I remembered how much I loved it. It was THE BEST. I can't believe how funny it is and how touching at the same time. It was kind of funny talking about it at book club last night because some of them didn't love it as much, and I just can't believe how anyone couldn't appreciate the humor and the sweetness of this book. I cried like 5 times while reading it even this second time around. So amazing.

Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin

I read this book three years ago, right after it came out, and I remembered it being good. Good enough that I decided to use it as our inaugural book club book for the book club I'm starting in our ward here! I am so excited about it and so hopeful that people will want to join. And I think this was a great choice for a book club pick. I have three pages of quotes and notes and questions of things I want to discuss with the group after reading it through again. You definitely don't need to read the whole thing to get a lot of the benefit of it, but I thought it was really motivating. I don't actually have a lot of habits I want to change right now (off the top of my head), but she gives specific techniques and strategies that we can use to make new habits a part of our lives. I love thinking about how we have control over our habits. I wrote this on my document for discussion in our book club, because I think this is the main point I get out of this book: "Sometimes we talk about habits as though they’re things that we can’t stop or control. Especially bad habits. But I love the perspective in this book that we absolutely can control them. We can deliberately look at our values and our goals and what we want to become, and decide what things we need or want to do each day that will reflect those values or future selves. Richard G. Scott said, “We become who we want to be by consistently being who we want to become each day.” At a very basic level, our daily habits are who we are. It doesn’t mean that it’s easy, but there are specific strategies that we can use to incorporate those specific habits we’ve chosen into our everyday routines. This is the main message of hope that I get out of this book: we get to choose who we are and what we do every day."

I can't wait to get our group together to discuss it. I am crossing my fingers we will get a good showing!

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

I just love these books. It's amazing that they are each over 1000 pages and yet they are still so engaging and such page-turners. I normally get tired of books that are so long (although I usually try to push through once I've read a few hundred pages) but never with these. Brandon Sanderson is a master. I can't wait to read the third one for the first time soon. I don't have the time to write a full on review right now, plus this is a re-read.
Things I love in this book:
-Shallan and Kaladin meeting and getting to know each other.
-More background about Shallan. Her story is horrifying and depressing and amazing at the same time.
-Kaladin's struggle to make the right choice and his eventual ability to do so.
-The whole discovery of Urithiru and the dramatic climax at the end.

Yep, Lucy just dumped water all over everything. Got to go.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

I love, love this book. Just like I love everything Jane Austen. I love Anne Elliot's sensibility. I think I was (am?) much more like Anne Elliot than I am Elizabeth Bennet. I was never very capable of talking to boys I liked (Anne is always embarrassed and unsure of what to say), and I spent a lot of time wondering and worrying if I was doing the right thing or saying the wrong thing. I am definitely not as patient with my annoying relatives as Anne is--every one of her family members are the worst and drive me nuts. But I love the way this book resolves and how it ends--although I could definitely wish for more detail in how they confess their love for each other. I think it's so funny how Jane Austen never really writes what they say when it comes to the proposal--she just writes around it. People would never go for that today!

I don't have much time right now, and I don't have much to say about this book that I haven't already said in the past. But I just thoroughly enjoyed it and I am so happy to re-read it.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

After reading Unequal Affection last week, it got me on a natural Pride and Prejudice kick and I watched both the Keira Knightley version and Jennifer Ehle version, and then I watched Death Comes to Pemberley on Netflix, and then I needed to re-read the book. There are few books that bring me as much joy as this one. I told Tommy that I think I could be happy re-reading a collection of books every year or so--Jane Austen, Harry Potter, Betsy and Tacy--with a few other books thrown in. There is just so much here to love. Every time people watch the movies, they focus so much on the romance between Elizabeth and Darcy, and the hilarity and ironies of the book become so much less of a focus. But it's impossible not to love that about this book when you read it. I laughed out loud many times while reading this, and I even knew almost every line what to expect. Jane Austen was such a genius that even two hundred years later we can still understand and accept her humor about her characters and their follies, even as we don't understand all of the rules of their society and manners. I think I am going to read Persuasion next and maybe, maybe a few other favorite P&P rewrites.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I read this book several years ago and loved it. Loved it so much that I bought a copy of it and the second in the series, even though each are around 1000 pages and there are at least eight more books promised in the series. I feel like I would be happy re-reading this book any number of times over the next few decades each time he comes out with a book in the series. And I have recommended this book to any number of people--anyone who is remotely friendly to reading fantasy would be way interested in this book (although there are always those people who won't even try).

And I just re-read it, since I am just reading books that make me happy this year, and I loved it even more again. Maybe even more than the first time because I knew what was coming up and I couldn't wait to get to it. And even more because I understood the world and the story from the very beginning, instead of having to figure things out as I went. I still think that Sanderson is one of the best world-builders I have ever read, and his character development is amazing. How does he do it? He is one of the most prolific writers ever, and he still does such a good job. I just love all of the main characters in this book--Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar--and they are all so distinctive, in their own ways. The whole storyline of Kaladin and the bridgemen is one of the best stories on its own that I've ever read, but there's so much more to the book. I keep thinking that I wish there could be a movie made of this, but there's no way that could ever happen because it's too massive. Re-reading this has made me even more excited to read the second and third ones now, because it was even better this second time around. This is definitely a solid five-star read.

Book #127: Frederica by Georgette Heyer

I read Frederica four years ago, and haven't read much Georgette Heyer since that time when I first discovered her. So I grabbed it to bring with me on our trip to Ecuador because I knew I wanted to revisit it--I had fond feelings towards this book, as being one of my favorites of hers, but I didn't remember a single thing about the story. So it was like reading it for the first time again and I totally loved it. The book is about the heroine, Frederica, who is the oldest of five orphaned children (although she's not a child, she's twenty-four) and who is determined to give them all the best chance they can in life despite having been orphaned and almost broke once their father died. She is a strong, smart, capable woman, and has plans to marry off her younger, beautiful sister to the best catch she can find, and then to live with her younger brothers and get them educated. She sees herself as a confirmed "old maid" and isn't bothered by it at all. All of these qualities lead to the enchanting romantic conflict in this story, when she asks the Marquis of Alverstoke for his help launching she and her sister into society for the season, and he agrees only because he finds their family slightly amusing. But this confirmed bachelor and rake eventually finds himself becoming more and more interested in these siblings, and falling more and more in love with the totally unaware Frederica, and there lies the interest in this story--will she or won't she eventually figure it out? I love that this story isn't just about the romance between the two of them--it's a very satisfying ending, but it's not the main point of the whole story. There is an interesting cast of other characters as well, including all of Frederica's siblings (especially her two youngest brothers, who play a big role in forcing the Marquis out of his selfish shell through their escapades), and a lot of interesting action, like the hot air balloon launch where things go awry. Definitely a fun book and definitely one of my favorites! I need to find some more of hers to read.

Book #115: 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam

I read this book a few years ago and enjoyed it enough that I bought a copy so that I could revisit it. And I've talked about it enough and mentioned it to enough people that when our book club ended up scrambling for a last-minute book replacement my friend thought this one could be a great one. Ironically, though, I didn't get around to reading it until last minute, so I only read about 2/3 of it and skimmed the rest. Since the message of the book is basically "you have time for anything you want to do, if you choose to make time for it," I was determined not to completely miss reading this, but I didn't get all the way through it.

I love the overall message of this book, and the way she sorts through the number of hours in a week to show that really, you can make time for things if you choose to, really helped to open my mind. However, I was glad we were able to talk about it at book club last night because there were lots of things I didn't love about it. She seems to think you should outsource any chores or jobs around the house you don't love (aka, all of them?) and she also doesn't seem to take into account how long it takes to get ready or personal care in all her accounts of how long it takes to do things. Also, it's easy to make a chart of what you're going to do with your time every day, but when you have kids, there's no way to predict how long some things will take (for example, I'm typing this with Lucy on my lap and being interrupted by Dane every 5 seconds, so it's taken way longer than it should have). But one thing she says in the book totally changed my worldview--she says, it's not that we don't have time to do most things, it's that it's not a priority. I could manage to spend more time getting ready every day and wear make-up and do my hair if I wanted it--but it's just not a priority. But I do manage to read for a chunk of every day, because it's something that rejuvenates me and makes me happier. But I would love to find another goal that I could also make a priority and use some more time in that way too.

Book #107: I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

Okay, I'm obviously on some sort of Sophie Kinsella streak lately because this is the third one I've read in the last week or two, haha. It's just so easy because I can read one in two or three hours, it doesn't take much concentration, and they're always fun and work out pretty well in the end. I read this one before and enjoyed it enough to re-read it this week. Poppy, the main character in this book, loses her engagement ring and her phone in the same night, and she finds a replacement phone in the trash can at the hotel where she was and uses it. She manages to fall in love with the guy whose phone it is while discovering that her fiance is kind of a jerk so she gets to break it off with him at the altar and stay with her true love. Haha.

I liked that Poppy was a normal, not-super-ditzy girl (like some of Kinsella's heroines are, in Shopaholic and Can You Keep a Secret?). I laughed out loud a few times in the scenes where she was feeling really dumb with her fiance's super smart academic family. She did still end up getting into some ridiculous situations, which seem kind of inexplicable and unrealistic--but I guess that's part of the genre. All in all, it was a fun read and worth it if it only takes a few hours to get through.

Book #99: Where I Was From by Joan Didion

I read this book in 2011, before I started keeping this blog. And I got the idea for a "family book club" (from a friend who does it with her sisters), and this ended up being the first one we picked for our family discussion. Although only a few of us ended up reading it, I'm glad to have revisited it again--it reminded me of what a great writer Joan Didion is, and how I feel like her ideas are so much deeper and more thought-provoking than my thoughts usually tend to run. This book is basically different essays dissecting Didion's relationship to and understanding of California, her home of her childhood. She writes about the many contradictions of California as a whole, as the supposedly picture-perfect place but with many issues hidden beneath the surface that I think surprised her as she grew up and became aware of them. She writes a lot about different ways the federal government has supported and then pulled out of California, such as the railroad and the aerospace industry, and about the growth of the prison system, and the Lakewood Spur Posse gang issues of the 1990s. I really enjoyed her discussions of the pioneers who first came to California in the 1800s, and thinking about the difference between her pioneer ancestors/heritage vs. our Mormon understanding of ours.

All in all, it wasn't probably the best book club choice for our first book. But it was still fun to try and discuss with my mom and Camille, and I'm excited about the next one we chose. I think this is a fun experiment. We'll see how it continues.

Book #50: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Well, I am cruising to a new low of books read this year with only 50 when hitting November. Oh well! This was another book club read--one that I've already read, but I was looking forward to re-reading. This book is one of the best at pointing out the flaws held by general humanity. Its format is so startling and different from our normal viewpoint (from the perspective of a devil trying to tempt a man) that it makes you think more and become more aware of how you have been tempted and worked on.

I was in charge of the discussion at book club last night and basically I just wanted to read half of the chapters out loud. But these quotes were my favorite parts.

This part was my absolute favorite. It is absolutely terrifying to read, because of how applicable it is to us today--particularly with social media. How many people spend the majority of their time doing exactly what Screwtape is talking about here--scrolling aimlessly looking for nothing to entertain them? And it's so important to remember what he is saying about how this habit isn't just neutral--it is actively bringing us away from God and closer to Satan:
"You will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, "I now see that I spent most of my life doing neither what I ought nor what I liked." The Christians describe the Enemy as one "without whom Nothing is strong." And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
    You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters , you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters in the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." (pages 59-61)

This following part also stuck out to me because of how much it applies to me (yikes!):

“Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury…. Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright... The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift… He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even one day he would not refuse." (page 110-111)

“The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart—an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship… Just as we pick out and exaggerate the pleasure of eating to produce gluttony, so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty" (page 135).

“But, if only he can be kept alive, you have time itself for your ally. The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere” (page 155).

Lewis had just such a sense of human nature. It's amazing to me how much of his work strikes a chord--and particularly how much of it seems to relate to LDS doctrine. That must be because it is filled with truth.