november and december bookshelf.

I did almost no reading in October because we were busy settling into our house, and November is a little fuzzy, but I’ll share what I remember from the last two months, and since this list is long, I’ll try to keep my remarks short-winded (which you know is no small task for me).

[Note: I purposely don’t want to give more than a sentence describing the contents of the books I read because I feel like there are plenty of online reviews that do that well; instead I want to use this space to give my personal opinion of the book and whether I’d recommend it.]

School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister 
This is a very sweet, short novel about a restaurant owner and a few of the lives she touches.  I love books about food and this one has the added bonus of complex, endearing characters. It’s perfect for vacation or a cozy winter weekend. Bauermeister’s more recent novel, Joy For Beginners, is on my to-read list.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake, Sloane Crosley
This fall I started working my way through Jen Hatmaker’s Must-Read blog posts (I’d already read Tina Fey’s book and, believe me, have never laughed so hard in my life).  I love Jen Hatmaker as a writer (she wrote 7), and I’m happy to try anything she recommends.  Sloane Crosley is a New Yorker, a journalist for several big-name magazines, and this book is her first memoir.  She’s a good writer and funny but her style wasn’t my favorite.  I found the book a little self-absorbed.

The Middle Place, Kelly Corrigan
A memoir of a young mom who is diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time her father is diagnosed with cancer.  She processes these events in her life as well as relives memories from her childhood. I loved it!  Kelly Corrigan is honest, funny, and someone you feel like you’d be friends with.  I really appreciated the fact that she wrote about her very normal, non-dysfunctional family with both candor and appreciation.  I laughed and cried the whole way through.

Lift, Kelly Corrigan
I loved The Middle Place so much that I immediately got this book from the library.  It’s very short, written as a letter to her daughters.  I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as her memoir, but definitely worth the read.

Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Faye Greene
This was one of my favorite’s of 2012. It’s Melissa Faye Greene’s first book, a non-fiction account of a specific civil rights event that occurred in the 1970’s in small-town Georgia. This book did more to help me understand racial issues in the American south than any I’ve read, and gave me far greater respect for the deep complexity of the situation–both then and now.  The book can be slow at times, but Greene is a spectacular writer and it’s worth sticking with until the end. I’m not much of a history buff, but I am when she writes it.

The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey
A novel set in Alaska that I couldn’t put down over Thanksgiving weekend.  It’s part fiction, part fantasy, but the characters and their struggles and joys are so very real. I enjoyed it and will look for future books from this author (plus, how cool is it to have a name like “Eowyn Ivey”??).

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Another book from Jen Hatmaker’s list, and one I also thoroughly enjoyed.  The story is set in Nazi Germany, has a very creative point of view, and is unique in that it’s the account of a German, non-Jewish family. You will fall in love with the characters.  This is one I will read again and again, and would be a great book club choice in my opinion.

The Food Matters Cookbook, Mark Bittman
I’ll talk more about this cookbook in a future food blog post, but I just want to say I love it so far. I was getting in a rut with our plant-based cooking (again, more on that later), and this cookbook seems like a great balance for our family. Plenty of Bittman’s recipes include meat and dairy, but in small proportions which is better for our family’s budget and eating goals. I’ve tried several recipes and plan to try one new recipe from him each week.

The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
I’ve been on the library waiting list for this one for awhile, and I finally got it (thanks for the recommendation, Pat!).  I really, really liked it.  I have to warn you that it’s difficult to read because the writer recounts her childhood in a very dysfunctional, poverty-stricken family.  There were times I just had to set it down because I was so sad. But Walls has a gift of describing her parents–one of whom was an alcoholic and one who suffered from mental illness–in such humane ways.  I deeply respect writers who can show the complexity of people–how we all have both goodness and badness in us, how someone who truly does love his children can reach the point of utter self-destruction.  I was alternately infuriated and sympathetic, and was especially amazed by the strength of Walls and her siblings.

Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands, Gary Thomas
There are two books about marriage I now recommend to everyone.  The first is The Meaning of Marriage, by Tim and Kathy Keller, which hasn’t shown up yet in a blog post because David and I are still reading it.  The second is this book, which is written for women.  It’s fantastic; I highly, highly recommend it, no matter how long you have been married (or even if you aren’t married). Practical, biblical, truly life-giving.  What makes the book especially unique and helpful in my mind is that it’s written by a man who both speaks compassionately to women, and also explains the way men’s minds work and the differences God created between men and women.  I’ll definitely reread this book, hopefully regularly.

The Dry Grass of August, Anna Jean Mayhew
This book was recommended for people who enjoyed The Help, of whom I’m one, and it got great reviews, but I just couldn’t get into it. I never got attached to the characters and as a result just found the subject matter depressing.  I read half of it then returned it to library; I may try again in the future.

The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling
I guess this month is ending on a low point, because I also found this novel disappointing.  I’ve read the Harry Potter books in their entirety, think Rowling is a fantastic writer, and was excited to read something different from her (apparently so were a lot of other people, because at one point I was 154th on the library waiting list!).  I did not look for the book to be anything like Harry Potter, nor do I consider myself a person who only appreciates “feel good” books; on the contrary, I love writing that depicts real life and real people (as mentioned above).  But I put this book down because it was just too dark for me.  I understand that all people have flaws and no family is perfect, but every character in Rowling’s book is just plain cruel–or deeply disturbed.  There was no one I sympathized with or remotely liked.  If this is what it looks like to write about “real life,” then I’m depressed.  However, Rowling’s writing is as incredible as ever, and she has great insight into the human mind–I just wished her insight was more redemptive.