Thanks to my cousin Angie for this excellent recommendation! I LOVE this book and plan to re-read it or at least pray through the prayers again. The author is straight to the point with excellent Biblical wisdom and advice for wives, and she has 30 days worth of incredible prayers to pray for your husband. (Or fiance, so what if I'm a bit ahead of myself here, ha.) Guided prayers are great for when I feel like my own prayers are getting repetitive or unfocused. Prayer is powerful, no doubt about it.
After reading Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath for school and very much disliking them, I guess the only reason I decided to give Steinbeck a try again was because so many people list East of Eden in their all time favorite books. And I am now adding it to my list of all-time favorite books! Don't let the excessive number of pages intimidate you. East of Eden is everything that good storytelling should be. I loved all of the allegories and the way Steinbeck tied so many stories together. Some of the detailed descriptions of the Salinas Valley were a bit dull, but overall it was completely captivating. I underlined so many favorite parts because Steinbeck's use of language is so beautiful and brilliant.
Mitch Albom is one of my favorite writers. He can even make sports columns interesting, and for a girl like me who does not give a rip about professional sports, that's saying something. Tuesdays With Morrie was great and so was this book. It's a quick read and really touching. I like the way he explains how we are all connected, and why certain things tug at everyone's heart. I wish it was a true story, ha, because I would love to know which five people I would meet in heaven and to see all of the connecting threads.
You won't be able to put this book down! I love people's stories and Auntie Anne's is incredible. She has been through so much and has a number of AMAZING testimonies. The fact that she is from my hometown and most of the book is set there probably also helps to make it interesting. I love the way that it hops back and forth from one thing to another that happened at different points in her life, because there is a constant suspense. (Suspense in a story about a lady known for making soft pretzels?! Trust me, it's good!) The commitment she made to always give such a large percentage of what she earned really stuck out to me, along with the overriding theme of the book: the power of forgiveness.
I absolutely loved Jeannette Walls first book, The Glass Castle. Maybe I waited so long to read her second book because I loved the first one so much I was afraid I'd be disappointed with her second. Nope, loved it! Half Broke Horses is a "true to life" story, meaning that Walls wrote the story of her grandmother's life based on the stories from her grandmother and mother.
Her spunky grandmother grew up in the western United States when it was still being settled and tamed so there are jaw dropping stories about floods, farming, growing up, and raising a family in the wild west. Walls has such a natural storytelling voice that you feel like you're right there for each adventure. Definitely a great read.
I heard a lot of good things about this book and since I'm devouring marriage books while I'm engaged I was eager to read it. The premise of the book is definitely good: marriage is not necessarily designed to make you happy but to make you holy. (Not that it can't make you happy or shouldn't, but too many people skip out when the happiness doesn't come easy and work has to be done, etc.) He details the way that God so perfectly designed marriage to refine us. I gleaned a lot of wisdom, but he kind of drones on and on. He quotes other authors extensively, and a lot of those excerpts are good but at the same time I tend to get bored when authors do that too much.
This is a good beach read, if you will, that you can just coast through because the storyline is easy and fun to follow. The book details a family's life when the father, who is a senator, has an affair that is overly publicized by the media. It follows the reactions of his wife and two adult daughters, and their lives in the months that follow the news of the affair.
I've never read anything else by Jennifer Weiner, but she wrote In Her Shoes which was turned into a movie I love. I like her writing style and it was very timely to be reading this book when the news came out about Senator Brubaker's 21-year-old son dying of an overdose. Everyone always has a story, and there are still so many lifestyles that are completely foreign to me - like the lives of politicians and their families. But that's the beauty of books, you get a glimpse into something you may otherwise never know or experience.
Have you read any of these? Loved or hated them? What are you reading right now? I'm always looking for recommendations, even though I have a long list of books-to-read already.
1 comment:
I read Fly Away Home and liked it well enough. The most recent book that I read and absolutely LOVED was The American Heiress. I am a Downton Abbey fan and this book was a lot like the tv show. I read countless marriage books while I was engaged and found some of them to be helpful. The Five Love Languages has always been the most helpful relationship book I've ever read.
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