26 Books Challenge Update

So since it's been a while since my last book review for the 26 Books Challenge, I figured it was time for an update.  With the birth of my niece last fall, I put some of the reading on hold so I could complete some projects for her.

Below is the list of books from the challenge, sorted by completed/not completed and with notes as applicable.

COMPLETED (14):
(links to individual reviews in titles. Pages read: 4,339)

• Read a book that was made into a movie
• The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling
• Read a book you pick solely because of the cover
• Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel – Russell Moore
• Read a book your friend loves
• Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
• Read a book by an author you love
• The Great Divorce – C.S. Lewis
• Read a book with a lion, a witch, or a wardrobe
• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane – Katherine Howe
• Read a book with a female heroine
• Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
• Read a book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit
• The Wheel on the School – Meindert de Jong
• Read a book set in the summer
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Read a book you learned about from this challenge
• The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton
• Read a book that will make you smarter
• Breakthrough – Thea Cooper & Arthur Ainsberg
• Read a book with a great first line
• The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
• Read a book with pictures
• The Hundred Dresses – Eleanor Estes
• Read a book from the library
• All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
• Read a book you loved… read it again!
• One More Wish – Robin Jones Gunn

IN PROGRESS (2):

• Read a book you started but never finished (can you say ironic?)
• Juvenilia – Jane Austen
• Read a book “everyone” but you has read
• Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank

NOT COMPLETED (10):

• Read a book you own but haven’t read
• Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
• Read a book published this year
• Unashamed – Lecrae
• Read a book by an author you’ve never read before
• The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
• Read a book at the bottom of your “to read” pile (given the prompt, no surprise this one isn't in the "completed" list yet...)
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
• Read a book with a color in the title
• The Call of the Wild/White Fang – Jack London
• Read a book of poems
• Olney Hymns – William Cowper
• Read a book with a blue cover
• Love Does – Bob Goff
• Read a book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t
• The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Read a book that is more than 10 years old
• Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
• Read a book based on a true story
• Monuments Men – Robert M. Edsel

Stay tuned for more updates!  I have not given up on the challenge yet - after all, I am more than halfway through!

Review: One More Wish

Book: One More Wish by Robin Jones Gunn
Prompt: Read a book you loved... read it again!
Pages: 266



It's no secret that Robin Jones Gunn is one of my favorite authors.  I own nearly everything she's written, and I don't think she's ever written a book I don't love.  She even inspired the name of this blog!  (See the sidebar for more information).  Her books are endlessly quotable, and though One More Wish isn't my absolute favorite book of hers (don't get me wrong, I love it - but that honor belongs to Love Finds You at Sunset Beach, Hawaii) I still found so much wisdom in it.

In One More Wish, Gunn's longtime heroine Christy finds herself waiting on God's timing and learning what it means to be of service to others.  As John Milton is quoted as saying in the book, "They also serve who only stand and wait."  As Christy opens her home to her friends, it stretches her patience and her hospitality to the limits until she discovers that to serve others, you need to have time and space to recharge, particularly if you are an introvert.  As she wishes and hopes for a long-awaited blessing, she learns that God's timing is perfect, and that his blessings are worth waiting for.

In a discussion about wishing and hoping, Christy's friend Sierra tells her:

I think of it like this.  A wish is like the childhood stage of a dream.  It's the most innocent, elementary version of a possibility.  It's fragile, like a dandelion in a breeze... Hope is different.  Hope is a wish that goes to high school... Faith grows out of that adolescent hope, which is such a roller coaster.  And that's why I think it's a good thing to pray and keep praying.  To wish and keep wishing.  Because God answers prayers in His way and in His timing.  The worst thing we can do is to stop praying or dreaming and wishing.  We have to start there, with all our childlike, whimsical thoughts.  Because I think that every prayer of mine that God ever answered first started out as a wish that grew into a hope and graduated to become faith. (selections from p. 194 - 196)

See what I mean?! Endlessly quotable!  As someone who has done a lot of wishing and hoping and praying over the years, I find the connection between the three comforting.  When you've wished and hoped and prayed for things for years, like Hannah in 1 Samuel, who is referenced in One More Wish, it can be easy to doubt God's goodness when it doesn't happen.  But as we see in the story of Hannah, God often gives more extravagantly than we expect.  Hannah asked for one child and God gave her six!

Please don't misunderstand me - God doesn't always give us what we ask for.  But he always gives us what we need when we need it.  He doesn't delight in torturing us while we wait, but rather teaches us to recognize the beauty of waiting.  When we have to wait for something, we often value it more highly than if we are immediately given it.

That is the lesson that Christy learns in One More Wish, among others.  The beauty of Robin's novels is that they are very much novels about everyday life.  And that is what makes them relatable.  Unlike certain other authors that shall not be named (you know who you are!), they don't rely on hard-to-believe coincidences and out-of-the-ordinary plot twists.  Rather, their "ordinariness" (that's not a bad thing!) is what makes them so special, and what makes them so applicable to your life and mine.

Final Recommendation: Read it!  Read it and everything else Robin has written.  I think they'll be as much of a blessing to you and your life as they have been to me and mine.  I can't even begin to tell you how much these books have impacted my life.  They - and their author - are phenomenal.

Review: Anna Karenina

Book: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (my copy translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
Prompt: Read a book that your friend loves
Pages: 817



I'll admit - reading this book took a lot out of me.  For someone who normally enjoys reading, and who reads a lot, this book took a lot of time to read.  A lot.  As in the better part of a year.  It's 817 pages full of Russian culture, politics, and social maneuvering.

I generally prefer books that move along at a clip.  So when I had to read a chapter entirely about a horse race, or five (!) chapters about a local Russian election, it drove me up a wall.  I admit to telling a coworker that I wanted to take those five chapters on Russian politics and shove them down Tolstoy's throat until he choked on them.

But in all seriousness, Anna Karenina is the story of the eponymous bored aristocratic wife and mother and her fall from grace after she embarks on an affair with the dashing cavalry officer Count Alexei Vronsky.  Tolstoy deftly paints a thorough picture of 19th century Russia.  And, I'll admit, I could picture the characters and the setting despite knowing very little about Russia in general, much less 19th century Russia.

To be honest, I get why the book is named after Anna, but I really felt like Kitty (Anna's sister-in-law's sister) and Levin (Anna's brother's friend) were the real heroine and hero of the book.  I found much more to emulate in their characters than in Anna's or Vronsky's.  And it makes sense - Levin is modeled after Tolstoy himself, so it is natural that Tolstoy would paint himself in the most sympathetic light.  Characters like Anna, Vronsky, and Stiva (Anna's brother) are clearly characters Tolstoy encourages people not to emulate.

But even if Tolstoy rebukes Anna's actions, he still encourages the reader to have sympathy for her.  She's in kind of an impossible situation (even if it is one of her own making) and cannot get out of it.  And it doesn't help that the hypocritical society shuns her while still accepting people like Stiva, who engages in some of the same behaviors as Anna, though not to the same extent.  Granted, Stiva doesn't run away from his spouse as Anna does, but he clearly treats Dolly, his wife, just as badly - if not worse - than Anna treats Karenin, her husband.  But Stiva faces no ill consequences from society - in fact, he is rewarded for it in some ways.  Further, Vronsky is still accepted in society while Anna is not, ostensibly because he was not married before taking up with Anna.  Call it chauvinism, hypocrisy, whatever you will.  But Tolstoy makes clear that society sometimes serves as judge, jury, and executioner against people who are deserving of compassion, not ostracism.  Perhaps if Anna had been shown more compassion - by Vronsky, by her husband, by society, by so-called "friends", she wouldn't have ended up as she did.  Her actions are inexcusable.  But you can still show grace, even if you don't condone the actions.

Final recommendation: If you have the determination (and the time) to read 800 pages of 19th century Russia, do it.  It's an interesting read, despite how much I complained about it.  I wouldn't have anyone below high school read it, just because of some adult themes (nothing explicit).  They probably wouldn't have the patience to get through it anyway.

A note on translations: there have been reams of paper spent on discussing and comparing translations.  I'll try to be brief here.  I picked the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation for several reasons.  First, I believe that having a Russian and an American work together on the translation would make it stronger, having a native speaker in both languages.  Secondly, their translation of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov won the Pen/Book of the Month translation prize.  Thirdly, their translation of Anna Karenina was critically acclaimed, winning the PEN Translation Prize.  If you are interested in reading more, a quick Google search will reveal dozens of (if not more) articles, each comparing different translations and making the case for their preferred one.

Review: The Bell Jar

Book: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Prompt: Read a book set in the summer
Pages: 288



The semi-autobiographical The Bell Jar details college student Esther Greenwood's summer interning for a New York magazine, her struggle with discovering who she is and who she wants to be, and her descent into mental illness (and *SPOILER* her eventual recovery, unlike author Plath, who committed suicide in 1963).

The Bell Jar is proclaimed as a staple feminist novel, and it's easy to see why.  Esther is dissatisfied with the potential futures she sees before her: that of a housewife/mother, a stereotypically female profession such as stenography, and her current track of an English degree (which she is unable to imagine past graduation).  Indeed, Esther's search for identity drives her into her depressive episode, during which she attempts to commit suicide several times.

Finally, worrying for her safety, her mother sends her to an asylum, where she receives treatment including electroshock therapy.  For most of her time in the asylum, Esther merely exists, finding little to amuse or entertain her, save for her breakfast.  She suffers from the typical depressive symptom of finding no pleasure in her old joys.  This is despite her mother's and friends' and one-time boyfriend's attempts to get her to "snap out of it", so to speak.  The treatment of mental illness has come a long way since the 1960s in which Sylvia Plath wrote about and experienced it, and that's something that we should all be glad about.

Plath's writing style is straightforward and honest, and amusing at times.  Mostly, though, The Bell Jar is bleak and depressing.  Esther's struggle to find her identity is relatable, as most of us at one time or another have wondered what on earth we are here for.  Plath certainly conveys in a convincing fashion Esther's fears and concerns about what she is supposed to do with her life, and she gives a sympathetic and honest portrayal of Esther's struggle with mental illness.  However, I found the bad/sad to far outweigh the good/happy in this book, so I was left with a bitter impression.

Final recommendation: Read it if you want to.  I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, simply because I found it too dark to be enjoyable.  I would warn against those who have struggled with depression or thoughts of self-harm reading it, simply because I worry that it would push them closer to suicidal thoughts and actions.  Readers of The Bell Jar should know exactly what they're getting into before they start reading, and I definitely wouldn't recommend the book to anyone under 18 or so.

Review: The Metamorphosis

Book: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Prompt: Read a book with a great first line
Pages: 59



So, since we're talking about great first lines, here's the first line of The Metamorphosis: 

As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

Great first line, right?  It even made it onto my "First Lines of Literature" mug that I found at Goodwill (available at Amazon and from The Unemployed Philosopher's Guild).

The Metamorphosis tells the story of Gregor Samsa who, as the first line indicates, is transformed overnight into a giant beetle of some sort.  As the story continues, Gregor, his parents, and his sister, struggle to come to terms with his insect-ness, to varying degrees of success.  Gregor is transformed from an independent and dependable young man into a (relatively) helpless and needy insect shunned from the rest of the world.

Many of Kafka's works focus on the nature of human existence and isolationism, and The Metamorphosis is definitely one of those.  Gregor's metamorphosis exposes his status as a loner, but it also underlines the fact that, to quote the old adage, "no man is an island."  We all need each other - whether for what they can do for us and we for them, or for the companionship we find with them that we can't really replace with anything else.  As Gregor's insect-ness continues, he finds himself more and more isolated and subsequently, his grip on his human-ness begins to lessen.  In short, as Gregor becomes more and more isolated, he becomes less human.

The Metamorphosis is definitely a short story that makes you think.  Yes, it is absurdist, but it is still poignant in its portrayal of isolation and human companionship.  I'm not a huge fan of absurdist literature - I prefer more concrete and realistic literature - but I still enjoyed The Metamorphosis.  As the dust jacket on my (Barnes & Noble Classics hardcover) copy says, "Readers will find aspects of this tale that unfailingly strike home, although each will readily admit that he or she has never, exactly, been in Gregor's shoes."  And I found that to be true.  While I have never been transformed into a giant insect (who among us has, though?), I could relate to Gregor's loneliness and isolationism.

I think this is especially true of introverts.  It's easy for introverts to minimize their need for other people, especially because people are difficult for them.  But introverts like myself need to remember that we can't live our lives in isolation or we'll end up (metaphorically) like Gregor.

Final recommendation: Read it!  It's less than 100 pages, and is totally unique.  What do you have to lose?

Review: Anne of Green Gables

Book: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
Prompt: Read a book with a female heroine
Pages: 308



When my sister and I were little, we were OBSESSED with the 1980s movies Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea (also known as Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel) and the corresponding TV show Road to Avonlea.  I don't remember reading the book, however.  In any case, I had a beat up hand-me-down copy of the book on my bookshelf, so I added it to this list for nostalgic reasons.  That turned out to be a wise choice.

Anne tells the story of the charming eponymous orphan, who by mistake is sent to live with middle-aged siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert.  As we soon learn, "mistake" might very well be Anne's middle name.  The starry-eyed dreamer finds herself in numerous scrapes and mishaps, from baking a cake without flour (due to daydreaming) to nearly drowning while acting out Tennyson's "Lancelot and Elaine" (due to a leaky boat).  I literally laughed out loud numerous times while reading Anne, and that is something I rarely do, at least with books.

But Anne is as much a story about Anne's mishaps as it is her story of growing up.  I think lots of us can commiserate with Anne when she is mocked for her bright red hair, even if we were never mocked about our hair specifically.  Even if you didn't have bright red hair and freckles, or have to cling to the piles of a bridge to avoid drowning, or crack a slate over someone's head because they called you a name, we most - if not all - of us have experienced something similar.  And that is why Anne - both the character and the book - is such an enduring favorite.  She's not us - but she is us at the same time.  Anne is a novel about real life that is still relevant today, 100+ years later, and without feeling dated.  Montgomery writes about her characters with such warmth and energy that they feel like family.  Maybe it's the nostalgia talking, but I feel like I know Anne and Marilla and Gilbert and Diana and Matthew.  

I hadn't gotten halfway through Anne when I had to order the complete series.  I look forward to reading the other seven/eight books in the series. (The box set I got only has eight books, including Anne, but many people consider The Blythes Are Quoted/The Road to Yesterday as the ninth book in the series.  And then there are Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea that take place in the same universe, but feature Anne and the others mostly in the background.  In case you were wondering.)  I also found the 1980s movies again (thanks, random poster on YouTube who has probably had his account suspended already!) and had to watch them again. (On that note, skip The Continuing Story, the third movie.  It's not that great, and doesn't fit the timeline).

Recommendation: Read it, read it, read it!  Read it, and read the rest of the books, and watch the 1980s movies.  I loved it, and I think you will too!  Unless you don't have a soul.  And/or a heart.  Then you might not like it.  But I think everyone who has a heart and a soul will like it.  How could they do otherwise?

Review: The Secret Keeper

Book: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

Prompt: Read a book you learned about from this challenge

Pages: 496

I found this book when looking at tags of this challenge from Instagram.  So quite literally, I learned about this book from the 26 Books Challenge.

In any case, Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper is a tripartite story focusing primarily on three women: Laurel, Dorothy, and Vivien.  In 2011, Laurel is taking care of her dying mother, Dorothy.  Meanwhile, she is trying to find out about her mother's life during World War II and how it links to the mysterious man that her mother killed in self-defense when Laurel was 16.  The other two stories take place in the years leading up to and including the London Blitz.  It isn't easy to have a cohesive story with three different heroines (much less, switching back and forth between them), but Morton does it with ease and a much-appreciated lack of disjointedness.

I don't want to spoil any plot details, but let me just say that this book contains one whopper of a plot twist.  I didn't see it coming, and I think even the most savvy reader could easily be blinded by it as well.  I think I literally said, "What?!" when I got to that part.

But the thing about that plot twist is that it doesn't feel forced at all.  Looking back, I can see how I as the reader made assumptions about what was meant or implied by a character or narration but how something else entirely was meant.  I hate hate hate when plot twists or major plot developments feel forced or like a stunt (*cough*Divergent series*cough*).  But that's not what happened here.

Now, for something more amusing.  Kate Morton is an Aussie, and this book takes place in England, with English characters.  I never fully believed in the "two (or three) people separated by a common language" joke about American English vs. British English (and, I think, vs. Australian English) until I read this book.  Besides the numerous food and drink types and brands that I didn't recognize (Spangles, Anzac biscuits, billy tea, etc.), I had to look up words like chilblains, truncheon, kirby grips, tommies, haversack, fine fettle, het up, and silverside.  I also learned that "my shout" means "my treat" and court shoes are tennis shoes/sneakers.  But by far the funniest was when a character was described as having "a ladder in her stockings."  By the time I got past the hilarious mental image of a 12-foot ladder being in her stockings, I realized that it meant she had a run in her stockings.  In any case, I found it amusing.

Recommendation: Read it!  It is long, and the pacing is a bit slow, but it is well worth the read!  I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who isn't maybe a junior in high school or older due to some adult content.  It's not terribly mature content, but it is a little risque.

Review: Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel

Book: Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore
Prompt: Read a book you pick solely because of its cover
Pages: 224



First, the cover.  I mean, the cover is why I picked this book for the 26 Books Challenge.  You see the front cover above.  But what is really cool about this cover is the inside-dust jacket cover.  Check it out!

I love love love this quote!

I first learned of Russell Moore last year, when then-candidate Donald Trump called him “truly a terrible representative of Evangelicals and all of the good they stand for. A nasty guy with no heart!”  Needless to say, I had to find out who this evangelical leader who drew Trump's ire was.  And I loved that after the fact, Moore added "nasty guy with no heart" to his Twitter bio - that cracked me up!  (PSA: For the mental and emotional well-being of myself and everyone who might be reading this, I will refrain from discussing Trump further.)

In Onward, Moore shares what he thinks American Christians need to do to "keep Christianity strange."  The crux of his argument is that Christianity's uniqueness from secular culture is what draws people to it.  And that makes sense: why would people see the need to join a religion if the people in the religion are exactly like them?  Most American Christians would agree that the culture is rapidly moving further and further away from the values expressed in the Bible.  You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the realm of Christian thinking that disagrees with that.  But where Moore differs from many of his contemporaries is on the question as to whether we were ever really a Christian nation after all.

Sure, we were founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and many of our founders were Christians, to varying levels of devoutness.  But a "moral majority" does not equal a Christian one.  Indeed, the fact that many churches, especially in the South, refused to speak out against slavery or the resulting Jim Crow laws, or reassigned those who did.  My dad went to tech school with the Air Force in Biloxi in the 60s.  A local Methodist preacher spoke out in support of the civil rights movement and against segregation and was promptly transferred to a church in the north.  But I digress.

In several chapters, Moore exposes the conflation of Christian values (or cultural Christianity, if you will) and a political solution.  As Christians, it's fine to be engaged politically and to work for political ideas and solutions.  What is not okay is to elevate politics - or politicians - to the same level as Jesus.  For me, that is part of what was so disappointing about this last presidential cycle.  In some cases, people threw away their beliefs - or worse, their consciences - for political expediency.  But again, I digress.

Moore proclaims that "We can be Americans best if we are not Americans first."  That is, we can best serve our country if we regard Jesus as more important than the United States.  If we serve King Jesus before we serve the federal government, our country is best served.  If we carry forth those beliefs in inherent human dignity - of all people, no matter what their life circumstances - and freedom and kindness and selflessness and so much more, the country will be better for it.

Recommendation: As you may be able to tell, I loved this book.  It gave me so much to think about, especially as I've been ruminating on many related topics through the course of the last year or more with the recent presidential election.  It's well worth a read, and is, compared to other books like it, comparatively easy without being shallow.  Read it!

Review: The Wheel on the School

Book: The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong

Challenge Prompt: Read a book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit 

Setting: Shora (analog for Wierum), province of Friesland, the Netherlands

Pages: 298

You may or may not know this, but in 1897, my great-grandfather was born in Sint Annaparochie, a little town of about 4,000 people, in the Dutch province of Friesland and near the coast of the North Sea.  Due to this fact, and the fact that the vast majority of my mom's family comes from the Netherlands, "the low countries" has long been tops on my list of places to visit.

Some 30 kilometers away from Sint Annaparochie is Wierum, Meindert DeJong's birthplace and the basis for the town of Shora in his Newbery Medal-winning book The Wheel on the School.  Shora is more than just a setting in this book; the town and its environment are characters in the story, forcing plot action and development.  This particularly comes into play late in the book, but is present throughout the story.

The Wheel on the School tells the story of the six schoolchildren of Shora and their search for a wheel.  If this sounds like a random, odd search, it has a purpose.  Lina, the only girl in Shora's school, begins one day to wonder why storks never come to Shora when they come to other villages in the area.  The schoolchildren determine that they need to put a wheel on the roof of the school to give the storks a place to nest since there are no trees around.

The problem is, there are no spare wheels just lying around in Shora.  The kids have to look all over the place - even where a wheel couldn't possibly be - and get help from villagers eager to bring storks back to Shora.  At times, the story almost feels like one of those Nancy Drew adventure games, where you have to complete this task to get something you need for another task, which you need to complete to meet your main objective, and so on and so forth.  That's not a knock on the story; quite on the contrary, I enjoyed the intertwining storylines.  The kids have many intriguing adventures and meet many new people on their quest for a wheel.

As I mentioned before, Shora and its environment act as characters in the book in the same way that Wonderland acts as a character in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  Whether Lina and the others are climbing the dike, jumping ditches, getting stuck on a stranded boat as the tide comes in, or digging things out of the mud, nature plays a large role in this story.  As I chose this book because it is set in a place where I want to visit, I very much enjoyed reading about Shora - DeJong's writing was so descriptive that I felt like I was there.

Final Recommendation: Read it!  It is charming, descriptive, dramatic, and wonderful.  If you're looking for something super intellectually deep, this probably isn't it - it is, after all, a kids book.  But that isn't to say it's shallow.  It has valuable lessons for kids and adults and is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Review: The Great Divorce

Book: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Challenge Prompt: Read a book by an author you love
Pages: 146



If you know me at all, you know that I love C.S. Lewis.  Ole' Clive Staples has been one of my favorites since I read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in elementary school.  Having read the entire Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and many more, he is far and away one of my favorite thinkers.  Part of the ending of The Last Battle is perhaps my favorite piece of prose ever.  And no matter how many times I read his work, I always find something new to marvel at.

Lewis takes his turn at allegory in The Great Divorce, where he tells the story of a man who finds himself on a bus going from hell to heaven.  One by one, he sees the "visitors" from hell confronted with whatever particular hang-up is preventing them from meeting Jesus, reinforcing Lewis' idea that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.  In many cases, it is heartbreaking to read.

Admittedly, this was not my favorite Lewis book.  Maybe it's because I've never enjoyed reading about hell that much, but I found it less compelling than many of Lewis' other works.  That said, it is still compelling reading, and it made me think about what hurts and hang-ups I am holding on to.

 In The Great Divorce, Lewis says, "If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell."  We cling to things that, in the end, don't matter.  Tonight, as I watch election coverage and see how many people are basing their happiness or sadness on the results, I am reminded that in the long run, it doesn't matter.

I think as humans, we have an inherent fear of appearing weak or needy - especially as Americans.  But a crucial part of following Jesus is acknowledging our own weaknesses and acknowledging that we really can't save ourselves.  It calls to mind another quote of Lewis', this one from Mere Christianity:

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

Final Recommendation: Read it!  It will make you think and evaluate some of your choices.  Lewis is always a keeper, and this one is definitely one to add to your bookshelf - or digital library, whichever you prefer.  Just read it!

Review: The Jungle Book

Book: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Challenge Prompt: Read a book that was made into a movie

Pages: 216

The Jungle Book has been made into a number of movies, most recently the Jon Favreau-directed film from earlier this year, and most famously the 1967 Disney animated film.  Though I have not seen this year's film and I haven't seen the Disney version for some time, from what I know, there are significant differences between those versions and the original book.

First off, about half the book is not really about Mowgli.  Which is not necessarily a problem.  I particularly enjoyed "Rikki-Tiki-Tavi," about a mongoose who protects his human family from a pair of cobras.  (Side note: if you've never seen a video of a mongoose fighting a cobra, check it out.  It's crazy.)  "Rikki-Tiki-Tavi" is a popular story in its own right, having been published on its own many times.  "The White Seal," about the eponymous Kotick, was also an enjoyable story.  

Then, of course, there are the stories about Mowgli.  The "man-cub" adopted by wolves has many rip-roaring adventures of his own, not the least of which is when he is kidnapped by the Bandar-log (the monkey-people) and has to be rescued by unlikely allies Bagheera, Baloo, and Kaa.  Though Mowgli plays a minor part in the back half of the book, he is still undoubtedly the hero.

But after all, the book is entitled The Jungle Book, not The Mowgli Book.  It certainly is a story of the jungle, and as someone who grew up adoring movies and books about animals (I wanted to dress up as Nala from The Lion King for like a year when that movie came out), I very much enjoyed reading about Kipling's anthropomorphic animals.

Final recommendation: Read it!  It goes pretty quickly and the stories are interspersed with cute "songs" relating to the previous stories.  It is charming in its simplicity and its wildness (I'm not sure that's the right word, but hopefully you know what I mean).  I think you'll enjoy it - I know I did!

Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

Book: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Challenge Prompt: Read a book about a lion, a witch, or a wardrobe (a fitting coincidence, then, that I'm posting this on Halloween)
Pages: 368



The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Katherine Howe's debut novel, tells the story of Connie Goodwin, a PhD student in history at Harvard.  After passing her orals, she plans to spend the summer researching and writing her dissertation.  But inspiration is hard to find.

When her eccentric hippie mother calls and asks her to spend the summer packing up her grandmother's abandoned house in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Connie finds inspiration is closer than she thinks.  On her first day in the rickety old house without electricity or a phone and which is overgrown with all manner of plants, Connie discovers an old key with the name "Deliverance Dane" written on an attached key.  The search for Deliverance Dane's story leads Connie deeper and deeper into the world of the Salem Witch Trials and the occult.

I have always found it particularly interesting to read people's theories about why the Salem Witch Trials happened.  From fungus to actual witchcraft, many theories have been put forth.  Howe (who, by the way is related to two accused Salem witches, Elizabeth Howe and Elizabeth Proctor) bridges the gap with Deliverance's physick book.  Not quite a spell book, not quite a medicine book, Deliverance's physick book blurs the line between concrete reality and abstract possibility.

Effortlessly switching back and forth between 1991 (Connie's story) and 1692 (Deliverance's story), Howe weaves together a compelling and chilling story, as both Connie and Deliverance find themselves in more and more danger.  I found myself wanting to keep reading even late into the night on a weekday when I had to get up at 5:30 the next morning.

Howe incorporates real people like Deliverance Dane, the five or six "afflicted" girls of Salem, and accused "witches" like Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Good.  She blends facts with fiction well enough and thoroughly enough that the end product is believable and enjoyable.

Final Recommendation: Read it if you're in the mood for an occult thriller.  I wouldn't recommend that anyone under college-age read it, though, due to some adult content.  Nothing explicit or terrible, but not something I would want kids or teenagers to read.

Review: Breakthrough

Book: Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg
Challenge Prompt: Read a book that will make you smarter
Pages: 247 (not including almost 50 pages of endnotes, sources, and acknowledgements)



Some of you may know that I was diagnosed about 18 months ago with Type 1 Diabetes.  As such, I was very interested in reading about how insulin was isolated and developed for human use.  I was particularly struck by the fact that in 1922, when insulin was first used in treatment of diabetics, T1D sufferers were given a prognosis of about a year of survival, and then a coma and death.  Their only hope was to wait for a cure (that no one was really sure was coming) and perhaps try Dr. Allen's starvation treatment to buy time.  That was it.

T1Ds often talk about how insulin isn't a cure; it's just a treatment to keep you alive until they find a cure.  And I cannot tell you how often I wish that my life was "normal" - that I wouldn't have to count carbs and do finger sticks four plus times a day and jab myself with all sorts of needles and tubes.  But when I read Breakthrough, I realized how lucky I am that I have those options - that this disease that took the lives of so many is just an inconvenience and annoyance to me.  Indeed, one of the comments on the back cover of Breakthrough says (emphasis mine):

"The twentieth century witnessed many medical miracles, but perhaps none was so transformative as the discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetes.  Breakthrough is the fascinating take of Nobel Prize-winning research, of a young girl who should have died as a child but instead lived to see seven grandchildren, and of a drug that turned a death sentence into something more akin to a chronic nuisance." - Kenneth T. Jackson, Barzun Professor of History, Columbia University

 As a T1D, I literally owe my life to Dr. Frederick Banting, Charley Best, J.J.R. MacLeod, and Bert Collip (for the sake of time and space and my readers' interest, I will not go into the debate about who deserves credit for the discovery of insulin).  This doesn't even mention the countless scientists who paved the way before them.  The story was pretty ugly at times, for instance, when the team tore itself apart because of their competing egos, jealousies, and petty rivalries.  But it was still a fascinating read, between the race to extract and refine insulin to a usable level and the stories of the children waiting for a cure.

In some ways, Breakthrough was two different stories - the story of the discovery of insulin, and the story of Elizabeth Hughes.  I enjoyed reading both, but I realize there are many who thought that the book could do without one or the other.  It didn't bother me that much; I think the authors blended the two enough that it wasn't too jarring to switch from one story to the other.

Many other readers of this book also had problems with fictional conversations between historical characters.  I understand that criticism as well, but it didn't bother me.  I chose to look it as the way things could have gone, rather than the way they did go.

Final Recommendation: Yes, read it, if you're interested in reading a medical drama about a literal life-saving drug.  As someone who benefited from the discovery of insulin, I found the story fascinating and had a special appreciation for it.

Review: The Hundred Dresses

Book: The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes; Illustrated by Louis Slobodkin
Challenge Prompt: Read a book with pictures
Pages: 80



Eleanor Estes' Newbery Honor book, originally published in 1944, tells the story of three schoolgirls - Maddie, Peggy, and Wanda.  Wanda Petronski, who lives in the "low-class" area of Boggins Heights, tells her classmates that she has one hundred beautiful dresses in her closet.  Given that she wears the same faded blue dress to school every day, her classmates roundly mock and tease her for her "lie", in addition to her unusual last name.  When Wanda and her family move away, Maddie is forced to consider her treatment of Wanda and if she should have behaved differently towards her.

While this book is first and foremost a book about teaching children to be kind to each other, it also holds life lessons for adults.  Nearly half the book is devoted to Maddie's thoughts and actions after Wanda leaves; Maddie is wracked by guilt and a desire to atone for her actions, but atonement eludes her.  Finally, she concludes that "she was never going to stand by and say nothing again... she would never make anybody else so unhappy again."

Much of the time, we think that we leave behind petty insults and childish taunts in... well, childhood.  But as adults, I think we are simply more skilled at hitting the mark.  We may not mock someone else about their clothes or their last name, but we find the things that make them... them and pick on them for it.  But whether it's making fun of last names or driving a family to move because of repeated use of ethnic slurs, words hurt.

The old saying goes, "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me."  But often times, words hurt more than physical injury - or at least they last longer.  I still remember mean things that were said to me as far back as elementary school, and while I know that the things said about me were not true, it doesn't mean they didn't hurt.

But I'm starting to get off topic here.  As you may be able to tell, this book has a message that hit close to home for me.  This book is easily accessible for children, but adults who choose to read it will also find a more complex story lurking under the surface.  At 80 pages, it's a short yet satisfying read.

One final note: Caldecott Medal winner Louis Slobodkin's illustrations are phenomenal and add a lot to the story.  It's worth getting the book just to look at the illustrations.

Final Recommendation: Absolutely, you should read it!  It's worth the small investment of time required to read it, and you'll probably find yourself coming back to it time and again.  I know I will!

Review: All the Light We Cannot See

Book: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Challenge Prompt: Read a book from the library
Pages: 529



Here it is: the first book review for the 26 Books Challenge!  Having heard great things about this book, I decided to pick it up from the library and give it a try.

All the Light We Cannot See tells two concurrent (and eventually, intertwining) stories - the first about Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who flees with her father from Paris to the seaside village of Saint-Malo; the second about Werner Pfennig, a German orphan who is a prodigy with radios and technology.  As World War II winds down, Marie-Laure and Werner's stories get closer and closer until they finally intersect.

Add to that a German sergeant major searching for a legendary gemstone, a scale model of Saint-Malo, and the French Resistance, and you have All the Light We Cannot See, a compelling and thought-provoking tale.

Doerr's writing style is unique, and I personally had trouble getting into it.  I particularly had some trouble with the fact that the timeline jumps back and forth - not trouble tracking with the story's timeline, but it made the novel seem disjointed to me.  I don't say this as a knock on Doerr, just an observation.  On a positive note, I found many of the characters extremely compelling, particularly the highly intelligent and intuitive Marie-Laure.  Werner's unchallenged acceptance of Nazi propaganda had the dual effects of making me think about the nature of good and evil versus what society says is good or evil and making him a rather unsympathetic character until the end (in my eyes, at least).

But maybe that was Doerr's point - that many people, either during World War II or today, blindly follow what society tells them until they "see the light", so to speak.  Though Marie-Laure is blind, she sees and observes more than most other characters, particularly Werner.  While Marie-Laure is physically blind, Werner is socially blind.  That's an inelegant way of phrasing it, but I hope you know what I mean.

Final Recommendation: Read it if you were already interested in it.  If long (500+ pages), intellectual novels aren't your thing, you might want to skip this one.  I enjoyed it, but am not necessarily sure I would read it again.

26 Books Challenge

If you know me at all, you know I love books.  I love books as much as Jane Austen loves happy endings, as much as the Brontes love the Yorkshire moors, as much as Mark Twain loves making fun of politics and politicians.  I have a reputation at work for finding new books every other week or more.  Yes, I may need to seek professional help. :)