The Cast of 2015

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This is a moment I always enjoy: the moment at the end of the year when I get to look back, sometimes happily, sometimes with a bit of annoyance, at what I've read over the past twelve months.  It's a fun tradition that requires little brain power and no originality, and as Jenny reminded me of it by posting her 2015 book list, I decided to follow her lead in topic and style and roll out the (eclectic) literary cast of 2015.  Hope you don't get bored by the histories.

2015 book list

january

The Moon Spinners [Mary Stewart] - My first read of the year, this one had gorgeous prose on the one hand and a not-so-compelling story-line and romance on the other.  Light, inspiring when it came to description, but ultimately a bit frustrating.

To Change the World [James Davison Hunter] - A compelling, thought-provoking, dense work, one which probably needs to be read more than once to be "gotten."  Hunter's call for "faithful presence" and a Christian challenge to the world via "a bursting out of new creation from within it" is worth reading, considering, and realizing.

february

The First Crusade [T. Asbridge] - Read for a course on the Crusades I took in the spring.  Light and accessible, but heavy on the adjectives and adverbs (history can be interesting without reliance on these grammatical tools! really! it can!) and lacking, in my opinion, a good balance of historical empathy and moral discernment.

They Found Him Dead [G. Heyer] - I don't think I'll be reading any more of Heyer's mysteries - or if I do, it will only be when I really need something light, quick, and mindless.  Characters, prose, and resolution here were all pretty unremarkable; Agatha Christie has more challenging, satisfying mysteries, however cliche that opinion may be.

march

Much Obliged, Jeeves [P.G. Wodehouse] - Needs no commentary.  And honestly, I can never remember what happened in a given Jeeves & Wooster novel; they're all much alike, but make for fun occasional reading.

The Fourth Crusade [D. Queller & T. Madden] - Also for the Crusades course!  This one was at the opposite extreme from The First Crusade: good on analysis, a bit weak on drama.  Seriously, the crusaders breach the walls and all the authors say is that we know these particular people died.  Really? Where's the blood and gore, people?

april

Around the World in Eight Days [J. Verne] - Where is the hot air balloon?  I specifically signed on for a hot air balloon.

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes [A. Maalouf] - For some reason I didn't put this on my Goodreads account; I think I must not have wanted to rate it.  At any rate, while I do think it is excellent to have works that portray the Crusades from the perspective of the Arabs (the Frankish perspective gets most of the limelight), I remember finding this attempt problematic - to say the least.

may

The Great Plague [Moote & Moote] - Doesn't Moote & Moote sound like a law-firm out a Dickens novel?  Anyway, this was the assigned reading in the three-week course I took this past May on "Plague! In the 1660s," and it was excellent.  Cheerful?  No.  Surprisingly compelling and even inspiring?  Yes.

june

Jamaica Inn [D. du Maurier] - du Maurier, why did you let me down?  Your prose was beautiful as always, your depiction of Cornwall haunting and bleak - and then I got to the end and wanted to bean the characters with my life science book.  Go. To. Your. Rooms.

The Perfect Prince [A. Wroe] - I don't even know what to do with this one.  It began so intriguingly, with such attention to detail - even the detail of a signature or an illustration; aaaaand then there I was in a bog of information and names and I was alternately confused, bored, and guilty (maybe I should care how much the pews in the church cost? But I don't?).  I don't think I'm building a summer home here.

july

Sir Nigel [A. Conan Doyle] - This book seemed to alternate between romanticism and realism, and I liked the realism better.  Conan Doyle has some compelling descriptions and interesting side characters, but Sir Nigel himself was too ideal for me.

august

American Lion [J. Meacham] - Totally arbitrary read - I don't do much American history - that unfortunately didn't turn out to be a gem.  In fact I complained about the style and the use of sources all the way through.  I think my family wanted me to stop reading.

Faith and Treason [A. Fraser] - Among the top two or three books I read this year (which isn't saying much, because this year saw a lot of 2 star books).  I was going to say it blew me away, but that's kind of a bad pun for a book dealing with the 1605 Gunpowder Plot...  Drama, empathy, argument, a grasp of the sources: it has it all.  Except it was so good that when the conspirators were caught, I was disappointed.  That might not be a good thing.

september

She-Wolves [H. Castor] - Mini-bios of some of England's ruling ladies since the Empress Maud (who, by the way, is the coolest.  Just pointing that out).  Some were more interesting than others, but the prose is burdened (again) with melodrama.

october

The Ghost Map [S. Johnson] - Congratulations!  You win Worst Book of the Year!  The arrogance of it took my breath away, while the commitment to urbanization and the almost callous treatment of individuals left me angry.  

The Prince [Machiavelli] - Read for a course on political thought, this classic work was alternately funny and perplexing.  On the one hand, it seems refreshing after you've been reading Plato, because Machiavelli deals with things as they are in real life; on the other hand, he doesn't concern himself at all with larger moral truths or with how things should be.  Also, I love how he keeps saying Cesare Borgia was the very model of a modern major general...and yet Borgia got sick and failed at everything.  Score one for "Fortune."

For All the Tea in China [S. Rose] - Pretty sure this is the only book my list shares with Jenny's.  A slim read and good for any tea-drinker, if rather in need of some polishing and FOOTNOTES.  Or at least endnotes.  Please.  Please?  No?  Okay, fine.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [R. L. Stevenson] - I'd been wanting to read this for a while, but despite its atmosphere, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.  "I consider morals to be an admirable trait of character in a book, but they can be overdone."

november

The Great Influenza [J. Barry] -  Like The Ghost Map, this was read for a course on the history of Western medicine I took this past semester.  Better than The Ghost Map in that it has a far better handle on the sources and a much more nuanced reading of them, it nonetheless could have done with some slimming down.  

december

Great Expectations [C. Dickens] - Finished this one before Christmas.  It wasn't actually my favorite Dickens of the ones I've read thus far; the ending was...too happy.  I would have liked some more bitter in that "bittersweet."  Oops.

In Defense of History [R. Evans] - My advisor got me this for my birthday back in January, while I was taking a course on historiography, and I just finished it yesterday (no, I haven't been reading it all year).  It's both solid on its philosophy of history and funny in its treatment of other historians or historical controversies.  A gem with which to finish out the year.

what did you read this year?  was it a good year by the numbers, or did you find some new favorites?  neither? both?

A [Literary] Year in Review

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It's been so long since I last posted here at Scribbles, it seems strange to come back.  In fact I've pulled up Blogger several times since finishing my last exam a couple weeks ago, trying to write some kind of update.  The updates, however, can really be boiled down to a few highlights.

five months of schoolwork

four courses finished

three final exams

two new nieces

and a partridge in a pear tree

On this the last day of 2014 it would be appropriate to say something about the year gone by and the year to come, but the year gone by has been insane and the year to come is anyone's guess, so instead I will follow Elizabeth Rose's lead with a 2014 book-list.  It hasn't been a very "big" year, comparatively speaking; Goodreads says I only read about 20 books, and although that isn't counting a few I read for classes but didn't add to my account, it still leaves me far behind 2013 (37 books) and out of sight of 2012 (56 books).  Nor did I have many "discoveries," at least not in terms of books-likely-to-become-favorites.  Still, the year had its literary moments.

I read a number of large books, so my pages read was not much so very low compared to last year.  I began by finishing The Man in the Iron Mask, though I read most of it in December 2013.  It was my second Dumas, and I didn't find it as well-crafted a story as The Count of Monte Cristo: the characters were not as compelling to me, and the plot was somewhat iffy.  Mostly the plot was D'Artagnan, I think.  "How to Be Awesome and Talk Sass to the King [Without Getting One's Head Chopped Off] - A Guide in 800 Pages." 

The more I look back, the more I think it must have somehow been a French year. I followed up The Man in the Iron Mask with Mary Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting, a mystery whose charm for me lay more in its masterful, beautiful prose than in its characters or plot; Daphne du Maurier's The Glass-Blowers, a depressing and honest, though fictional, tale of the author's French ancestors; and The Black Count, a biography of the novelist Alexandre Dumas' father.  That's a surprising amount of French-ness for me.  I didn't really mean to: it just happened.  It might explain a lot about 2014, actually...

After having it sit on my shelf for quite a while and be recommended to me by a friend, I finally took up Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (I persist in saying "Nor-ELL" as opposed to "NOR-ul," even though I suspect the English, who don't like to pronounce any syllables if they can help it, would go with the latter).  I was right in my suspicion: it is dark.  I was troubled, less by the magic or any particular scene of violence than by the overall atmosphere: everything felt grey, as though covered in fog.  Without in any way meaning to imply that Susanna Clarke was trying to write like Dickens (Dickensian as the plot structure and huge cast are, it would be demeaning to Clarke's marked skill, and just plain wrong, to accuse her of imitation) - without implying that, the novel felt to me like many of the darker scenes in a Dickens adaptation.  Little Dorrit springs to mind.  It weighed me down and disturbed me viscerally and I don't think I will be rereading it any time soon.  On the other hand, it is the only novel of 2014 I could give five stars to.  It's unique, masterful, clever, subtle, funny, even brilliant.  In fact I think it would be unfair to not give it five stars. 

perhaps you should just try it yourself

To keep myself sane, I read more fluffy books than I probably should have: Georgette Heyer's Regency Buck made a nice companion to Jonathan Strange, and a couple Wodehouse collections lightened the atmosphere while I was reading other, longer, more serious books for school.  I also read Miss Buncle's Book, which was cute, but not quite as winsome as I had hoped: I was turned off by a few of the characters...and I admit, I do get tired of the writer-stereotypes.  Even when they're being perpetuated by another writer.  I'm sorry, Elisabeth!

I got in a few other classics or semi-classics, including Rabble in Arms by Kenneth Roberts (does that recommendation make up for my ambiguous opinion of Miss Buncle's Book, Elisabeth?); The Moonstone by that Victorian melodramatic, Carolyn Keene Wilkie Collins; and the sentimental horror story Frankenstein.  It's really a wonder that the Romantics ever got anything accomplished in the midst of all their traveling and finding themselves and ill-timed swooning.  ...Possibly I'm not taking this seriously enough.

History was my single largest genre in 2014, though that isn't really saying much.  Most were for classes, but I did not sell them back to the bookstore at the end of their respective semesters!  Of those, I think I most enjoyed Divided By Faith (an examination of conflict, toleration, and the religious dynamics of post-Reformation Europe) and The Grand Strategy of Philip II (even if Philip is judging you overtly from the cover.  Seriously.  Take a look.  It's freaky.).  Just last week I finally finished plugging through Robert Massie's Dreadnought: hurray!  Even taking its size into consideration, five months is an absurd amount of time - and those are five months of actually reading it, not merely having it sit on my bedside table pretending to be read.  Don't judge it by that, though.  Massie is a first-class writer.  He reminds me - if I needed the reminder - that history is fascinating and funny, too.

I read my first Virginia Woolf this year (To the Lighthouse, which hasn't yet made it onto Goodreads).  I also had to start a new shelf just for "Other" books so that I would have somewhere to put the graphic novel Watchmen and the crazy literary/experimental/contemporary/post-post-modern Cloud Atlas.  This is what happens when you take a literature course, apparently. 

you have to read strange things

and learn to get something out of them.

books of 2014

4% : 5 stars  //  22% : 2 stars or less  //  22% : history  //  55% : new authors

 what have you folks been reading?

The Books of 2013

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The dreamy comfort of the books and tea and sofa-ness in this photo has essentially not been my life for the past five months.  Early this year I purposed not to move through books at such a whirlwind pace, feeling that, while I did manage to read quite a bit during 2012, the list was oddly unsatisfying.  It was all very nice to have found five five-star books in a  year, but by December 2012 I felt out of breath and annoyed, and decided I would go into 2013 with a little more vision and purpose and All That.

Well, I don't suppose I really needed to purpose any such thing: college pretty much took care of the problem.  Oh, I toddled along well enough up until July - but after that the newness of the first semester at college swooped down on me and my fun-reading suffered accordingly.  However, I read what I read and that is better than nothing.

Goodreads says I've read thirty-seven books this year, but that doesn't count a few I was dragged through for the sake of a good grade.  Don't get me started on Writing Women's Worlds, for instance, which begins with terrible alliteration and goes on down from there.  However, I did find The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down a tolerable venture into the world of biomedical culture.  It is, in essence, the story of a Hmong refugee family, their epileptic daughter, and the clash between their culture and that of the California medical community - not a light bouncy sort of read, but somewhat like a medical thriller all the same.  (I sold it back to the bookstore all the same.)

History, as I mentioned in an earlier post, has had me racing between eras and nations and topics and not properly finishing much of anything.  Four chapters in Nicole Howard's The Book, a brief overview of book-making technology; five or so in The Ottoman Age of Exploration, an interesting look at the Ottomans' Indian Ocean venture of the 16th Century (if somewhat burdened by the author's propensity for qualifying all his remarks); bits and pieces of The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, a collection of primary sources; and C.V. Wedgwood's A Coffin for King Charles/A King Condemned/The Trial and Execution of King Charles I - the only one I have actually been able to FINISH, and a pretty fair sketch of events (for a Royalist).  Possibly something else, too, but my head is so full of studying-for-the-exam that I can no longer think straight enough to be sure.

I have been able to relax with a few histories not directly related to the early modern period.  My first book of the year was Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat, the fuller, more accurate history of the espionage venture from the film "The Man Who Never Was" - which is splendid because of its creepiness and because it has Stephen Boyd as an Irish agent.  Barbara Tuchman's The First Salute was another far-flung, not very well reasoned foray on my part; I remember little of its main point, and looking at my review, I find I wasn't actually sure of its main point when I finished reading it.  Oh well, Tuchman and all...

After that I confess I indulged my interest in Richard III for a while, picking up The Wars of the Roses, The Last Plantagenets, Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III (fun stuff, that), and, less historically, The Daughter of Time.  The latter was a kind of history lesson wrapped up in a pseudo-mystery, very influential in both genres and, I thought, not very enjoyable as a book.  The writing style was too insistent, the author too bent on bludgeoning.  I like Richard as much as the next sentimental gal, but goodness! no need to tie yourself in knots over it!

I was more successful with a few other mysteries.  I finally sat down and read The Woman in White: rather melodramatic, but oddly enjoyable in its melodrama.  I especially liked the rotation of narrators and the way it is set up like a court case, with each witness delivering his or her testimony in turn.  And then, similar only in being a classic mystery and full of Gothic flavor, there was Rebecca.  Disturbing, emotional, dark and incomplete - and fantastic.  Oh, I guessed the Big Plot Twist, but I don't mind that - it wasn't the point.  Rebecca was brilliant in its breathless, intimate, closed stream-of-consciousness style (and in having a completely nameless protagonist).  It turns mystery tropes on their heads and made me lose sleep.  I cannot for the life of me understand why writers are attempting to reinvent it or "pay homage" to it, for it isn't the sort of book that can very well be improved.

Death Comes to Pemberley was somewhat less rewarding, but that's partially my fault: I should have known better than to relax my strict views on classic adaptations.  However, I knew that P.D. James is an acknowledged mystery writer with a great deal of experience - not some young twerp with an over-inflated ego.  So I gave it a shot.  And, well, it was nothing to write to Longbourn about.  The thing about books that borrow characters is that no one will ever write those characters as well as the original author.

Over in the realm of classics, I feel I made some worthwhile progress.  I ventured into the world of Mr. Bertram Wooster and his man Jeeves, finally read To Kill a Mockingbird (and liked it), finished off the Bounty trilogy with Pitcairn's Island, and crawled through The Arabian Nights.  I don't think that was meant to be read in one chunk.  I did a little more work with Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew (!), The Comedy of Errors, and Henry VIII Which Was Long And Tedious.  I read The Black Arrow, which, alas, is not my favorite Stevenson, and which could really be classed with my Richard III binge.  Also, I finally read David Copperfield!  Hurrah hurrah!  Steerforth is no Carton, but I'll admit to getting a little sniffily over that part.

Encouraged in no uncertain terms by Mirriam, Jenny and I picked up The Grand Sophy over the summer and were soon in stitches.  I recently read Heyer's Why Shoot a Butler?, too, but I suspect I'm going to be fonder of her romances than of her mysteries.  We'll see after They Found Him Dead.  I'd like to get one of Heyer's historical novels and give it a whirl - sample some of each, as it were.

I didn't find many five-star books this year, but one I did "discover" was J.I. Packer's Knowing God.  Yes, I know, I should have read it before, and I intend to read it again.  Packer combines a no-nonsense air - typical, I think, of British practical theologians - with compassion for those struggling with realities of sin and justification and assurance.  His emphasis on the role of adoption in the life of the believer helped give me a new perspective on it, and renewed appreciation for the work of the Holy Spirit.  Rather harder to read but even more provocative was Lesslie Newbigin's Signs Amid the Rubble, a collection of lectures on the Kingdom of God and God's purposes playing out in human history.  What was it I said?  "I said something rather brilliant this morning before tea."

Sometimes I wondered if he wasn't pushing the edges of orthodoxy, and certainly I wouldn't recommend this book for a new believer; but taken as a whole, and not in fragments, I found him thoroughly solid. Besides, it is good to read writers who jar you and push at your foundations and pull you outside of your box and comfort zone. Newbigin was such a man, and his "Signs Amid the Rubble" is a book worth returning to. 

what made it into your "read" pile this year?

Ink from Other Pens

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Of course the year is not quite over yet (shopping and Christmas have to come first!), and before the New Year I hope to finish Bleak House; but it's near enough for me to scribble up a "yearly reads" post for 2012.

I find it interesting to go back to last year's post and look over the books I read during 2011.  Sherlock Holmes; Mutiny on the Bounty; Beowulf; Rosemary Sutcliff.  I read my first Tale of Goldstone Wood.  Robert Louis Stevenson introduced himself to me via The Master of Ballantrae.  I reveled in Howl's Moving Castle and waded through The Count of Monte Cristo, and read The Christian Mind and The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.  I dabbled in G.K. Chesterton and Eiluned Lewis' Dew on the Grass.  I researched for the Sea Fever books.  And all in all, not counting re-reads, Goodreads informs me that I read 39 books in 2011.

I read more this year, and though not all were particularly lengthy, I loved a good number of them.  The very first book I finished in January was Rosemary Sutcliff's Simon, and later in the year I also read The Shield Ring (gah, so sad!) and The Lantern Bearers (gah, so sad!).  I only have two unread Sutcliff novels on my shelf now, those being The Shining Company, which I hear is even more sad, and The Mark of the Horse Lord.  Her books tend to wring me of all possible emotions and leave me rather limp, so I'm proud of myself having managed three in a year.  Pardon me while I pat myself on the back.

I took a semi-self-directed course (figure that out) in the history of science during last school year, so I read several books for that, with more or less success: I enjoyed Eureka Man, but The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was a struggle indeed.  And then of course there were Custance's Noah's Three Sons and Genesis and Early Man, both highly recommended.  I also read At the Evening Hour, a little devotional by E.D. Warfield, which would be highly recommended if it weren't practically impossible to find; and Bunyan's All Loves Excelling, among others.

I continued falling in love with R. L. Stevenson's novels, devouring Treasure Island, Kidnapped (now an adored favorite), and its sequel David Balfour.  I read that last at the beach, and I think it will always remind me of sunshine and ocean and lounge chairs on a balcony.  I got a lot of reading done that week, actually...  Good times.  The Black Arrow waits on my shelf - at least it did, but I think Jenny made off with it - because after all, I couldn't read all of Stevenson in one year.

Fans of Margaret Mitchell will be happy to hear that I finally read Gone with the Wind; I think maybe the only reason I did was because the title is so gorgeous, and perhaps because I wanted to compare it to the movie.  Or the movie to it.  Or something.  I read Peter Pan about the same time: an odd book, but I loved the bitter-sweetness of the ending.  I Capture the Castle, recommended by our very own Mirriam, was very different from my usual fare; it made me think, and puzzled me a bit.  It might have been the time period; I'm not used to that setting.

I read a number of books that I had been meaning to get to for a while: Alexander Hamilton, Cooper's The Deerslayer, Blamires' New Town, Forester's Mr. Midshipman Hornblower.  I read several that I hadn't been planning to read, and had never heard of before: A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, and McKillip's The Riddle-Master of Hed, and A Hanging Offense.  I read Anne Elisabeth Stengl's two novels that released this year, Moonblood and Starflower (hurrah!).  I managed Les Miserables in full, unabridged glory (exactly one page longer than last year's The Count of Monte Cristo.  Were the novels as long in the original French...?) and sobbed over A Tale of Two Cities.  And I absolutely gobbled up Sayers' The Mind of the Maker - which everyone should read, no exceptions.

This year's literature course has been entirely Shakespeare, so I've read more of his plays this year, I think, than all the previous years combined.  Which isn't exactly saying much.  I read As You Like It, Cymbeline, and Antony and Cleopatra without much enthusiasm; quibbled with Richard III ("HE'SPLANTAGENETHE'SEVILCURSEHIMCURSEHIM!"), Julius Caesar (who almost deserved what he got), and King Lear (ohmywordsodepressing!); but thoroughly enjoyed The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing, and Twelfth Night. 

Reading was, unfortunately, terribly slow in November and has not been much better this month, although I am making fairly rapid progress through Bleak House.  Goodreads (a most knowledgeable place) informs me that I've read over fifty books this year, but I think that's a bit unfair, seeing as at least nine of those are Shakespeare plays.  Still, it wasn't a bad year.  I found new favorites in Kidnapped, The Mind of the Maker, and A Tale of Two Cities.  I ventured into Custance, braved my sorrow over Uncas and read another Leatherstocking Tale, and finally worked up the gumption to read Alexander Hamilton.  I read a number of varied and disconnected histories, ranging in subject from Rome to the English Civil War to the French and Indian War.  I soldiered through Les Miserables.  And despite my complaints and mocking, I really have enjoyed this foray into the world of Shakespeare.

Actually, I think "varied" is a pretty good adjective to describe this year's reading list.  Varied, and fast-paced; it was not as regular as 2011.  Probably next year I will keep to a more staid regimen, lest I give myself indigestion.  Too many books in a short span of time is almost as bad as too few!

what have you read this year?

Dust from the Pages

As Jenny observed over at The Penslayer, we're halfway through December already. December of 2011. Whoda thunk? On the one hand it feels like this year has whipped by in a crazy blur, but at the same time, 2010 seems very far away. Lord willing, before you know it 2012 will be here (and The Hobbit will be coming out!).

In 2010, The Soldier's Cross was published and I upped my - what do you call it? - "online presence." Part of that involved actually using the splendid site Goodreads instead of just having an account, so 2011 has been one of the few years in which I've kept track of the books I have read. I didn't set a goal, liking to go through books at my own speed or lack thereof, and so the quantity wasn't as great as some of you, but I did wander into the worlds of some excellent books. I read some classics; some brilliant fantasies; a heap of rereads that didn't make it on the Goodreads list (Jane Austen, mostly); and some histories and other nonfiction. I didn't enjoy everything, but it was a nice, eclectic year. Here's a taste.

Away back in January I commenced my education proper in Sherlock Holmes. He makes for easy reading, so I have now read all the novels and most of the short stories (having already seen the Jeremy Brett TV-series, I knew how those ones ended and only read the ones I hadn't watched). I read Mutiny on the Bounty at last and just this month read the second in the trilogy, Men Against the Sea; I also added to my collection of sea novels such books as The Line upon a Wind (lift with your legs!), the 1950s novel The Tall Ships, and about the first hundred pages of Master and Commander...until I determined that it is most distinctly a man's novel. I met Jack Easy some time last year, and Hornblower awaits me after I've completed my own novel.

I took a huge bound out of my comfort zone and read The Killer Angels, perhaps the most not-me book in 2011's collection, and yet one that I enjoyed nonetheless. I read a new novel (gasp!), Liz Patterson's charming debut, The Mark of the Star. Just a couple months ago I also got Anne Elisabeth Stengl's newest novel, Veiled Rose, read it and promptly backtracked to read Heartless as well. They're some of my favorites from this year. (Yes! Abigail does read modern novels! ...Sometimes. Rarely. Alright, moving on.) I succeeded in finishing the Puritan Paperback The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (take a bite, chew ten times, swallow, digest, repeat); grudgingly picked up The Odyssey (even Athena recognized that Odysseus was an idiot!); and dabbled in some light reading with James Herriot. I had to read something light, you see, because at the same time I was reading Little Dorrit (you can't just come in saying you want to KNOW, you know).

In June I read my first G.K. Chesterton work, Four Faultless Felons. I can't decide what I think of Chesterton. I'll get back with you at a later date. Then there was...Team of Rivals. (May I remind you about lifting with your legs?) It involved some trudging, but it was very interesting. Then, Jenny having been on to me to read Beowulf, I picked that up (I like Wiglaf better than Beowulf). I read Rosemary Sutcliff's novel Frontier Wolf, which was like having my heart wrung a couple times (but wait, it's Sutcliff, so we expect that). The Forgotten Spurgeon, by Iain Murray, earned one of my rare five star ratings. It was good, accessible, encouraging, convicting, and did I mention that it was good?

For some light reading and inspiration for Sunshine and Gossamer I picked up the little book Dew on the Grass, a sweet read with some inside-out theology. I reread a couple Agatha Christie novels, Towards Zero (a favourite) and Murder at the Vicarage (not so much). I ventured a little dubiously into my first Robert Louis Stevenson novel, the odd Master of Ballantrae. Last week I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, complete and unabridged in its 1400-page glory. I'm not sure if I would read it again; it had its high points and its low points. Last night I (finally) reached the last page of Harry Blamire's The Christian Mind. I believe the crowning jewel of the year, however, was Howl's Moving Castle. This little book was clever, light and serious at once, and absolutely hilarious; after finishing it I loaned it out to various family members, and have yet to get it back.

The year is not quite finished; I hope to complete Thomas Costain's The Magnificent Century before January rolls around. But I am pleased with the books I've read and I enjoyed just about all of them. Unlike Jenny, many of my books had little (or little that I can pinpoint) to do with The White Sail's Shaking, and yet so many of them were beneficial in expanding my horizons. I read my first Dumas, my first Stevenson, and my first Chesterton this year. I found some new writers whose works I can watch for. I ventured into some very different eras, including the Civil War and the Age of Sail. And then of course there were those wonderful rereads.

what have you read this year?