B is for Books read in September and October & the Bible/ reading plan

***I’m going to try to post something every day in the month of November. I definitely may not- it’s just a goal and I’m not going to be upset about missing it! Hopefully in my spare time, I can come up with a post per day. My prompts are going to be the letters of the alphabet. I will write about something that starts with the day’s letter- think Sesame Street meets the blogsphere. Of course there are more days in the month of November than there are letters in the alphabet. I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it!***

After You by Jojo Moyes- This book is the sequel to Me Before You. I didn’t care for that book too much but was curious to see how Louisa fared after that book ended. I thought it was all right. A bit predictable with non complex characters. Louisa inherited money from her boyfriend’s will and bought a flat in London with the money. She is floundering in life but manages to meet a litany of people who make life interesting/ a new chance at love, etc.

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova- I liked this book quite a bit! It read more like a memoir than fiction. It was about a busy, working mom named Sarah who gets in a car accident and upon waking up from a coma has a condition called left neglect. It’s  where the body does not know or rejects everything on the left side of the body. Very interesting/ fascinating/ horrifying to read about and think about happening to you! In this book everything turns out pretty well for the main character. 

The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick- too implausible to be enjoyable, really. A woman who loves to read ends up becoming a housekeeper who works for a famous author who ends up ghost writing for the famous author. Oh, there’s a bit of a twist that anyone can identify from a mile away. 

The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke- Dale- I enjoyed this tale of three ballerinas from the Paris Opera Ballet School. It was primarily about one ballerina, Delphine, whose mom had been one of the most famous ballerinas in the world. Delphine left Paris for fourteen years while she pursued dancing and choreography in Russia. Upon returning to Paris, Delphine realizes nothing has stayed the same and her relationships with her former best friends are complex. While it was fiction, the author had clearly done a lot of research into the ballet world and I loved reading about the lives of the ballerinas and the complicated relationships they had as they forged their career in the highly competitive world of professional ballet.

All That is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landy- Really, really liked this one! The author wrote Defending Jacob which I loved and two others that I read but didn’t like as much as Defending Jacob so I truly felt like anything was possible with this book... There’s a mystery to solve- a mom of three goes missing in the 1970’s. The book is told in four POV’s, one of them being the missing woman. The writing is better than the mystery if that makes sense. 

Gilded Mountain by Kate Manning- This was set in Colorado in the early 1900’s and chronicles the struggle of marble mining workers as they faced brutal work conditions and very low pay. The main character is named Sylvie and she is the daughter of a worker who’s trying to start a union for the miners. I liked this book all right. It was very rich-bad, working men- good which is too simplistic for my liking but it was hard to not sympathize with the plight of the workers. I felt cold constantly when winter in Colorado was described. Cannot imagine living without heat in the cold...

The Prisoner by BA Paris- I’ve liked all of the books I’ve read by her and this one was no exception. The main character and her husband get abducted which sounds really bad. It ended up being a good thing as we learn (though being in a completely dark room for an extended period of time was not a fun way to spend the time!). The book shifts in time from the past to the present. It was a quick read.

Hester by Laurie Lico Albenese- This book was based around the character Hester in National Hawthorne’s classic, The Scarlet Letter, but that’s pretty much where the comparisons end. In this book, Nathaniel himself is a character in the book. He’s also a writer. He’s also a bit of a cad. Isobel is a married woman whose husband is out to sea for most of the book. She is a skilled embroider and she sees colors when she hears sounds. She has to hide that because it was a trait that caused her ancestors in Scotland to be dubbed witches. The book was well written but I took umbrage at how she portrayed National Hawthorne. I love NH’s works and don’t like the fictionalized account of his life, especially since it was not good. 

Swimming at Night by Lucy Clarke-This is my least favorite book of hers so far- mainly because the subject matter was sad. The main character, Katie, is shocked and heartbroken to learn that her sister Mia has died, apparently by suicide in a country she never should have been in. Katie decides to trace the travel route that her sister Mia traveled to try to find out what happened and why. The writing was good and I felt so bad for Katie due to her sister’s death.

The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley- I really, really liked this book!I have read other books by Lucy Foley which I liked but not as much as this one. It is the first book the author wrote which surprised me. It seems much more literary than her subsequent books. It centers mainly around two women, two generations apart. The main character, Kate, reeling from her mother’s death, discovers that she may have a long lost grandmother. The book then goes back and forth between the 1930-40’s to the mid 1980’s. Great character development and well written- this was had to put down and I read it fairly quickly even though it was a long book.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson- this was OK. It was about a very wealthy family living in Brooklyn, specifically on Pineapple Street. The Rich Do Have Problems is a bit of a tired trope for me. The main character married into the family and its money. No one is evil in this book, which is kind of nice as The Rich Are Evil is another tired trope so at least there wasn’t that.

Next up is my Bible reading plan. I’m reading the Bible in two years. I’ve read the Bible in a year before but I felt like I often times rushed through the reading sections. The goal shouldn’t be to rush through it and I am embarrassed to admit that I did. When our church offered a two year plan at the beginning of this year, I picked up a copy of it and have been doing that ever since. I know that I am reading each passage more carefully and getting more out of the reading each day.

Speaking of the Bible, I was shocked to learn fairly recently that a number of people who identify as Christian don’t believe in the Bible. I mean, they don’t literally believe everything. I guess they believe in Jesus and salvation? Otherwise they wouldn’t be Christians? But they don’t believe the Biblical account of creation or Noah’s Ark or any number of events that are recorded in the Bible as fact. They see parts of the Bible as allegorical. 

I believe that the Bible was written by God, through men, and everything in it is true. I believe every account, story, and claim in the Bible. I can’t imagine believing it not to be true! I am thankful for God’s Word, His promises, salvation and the hope of heaven. 

Here is a picture of part of one page of the Bible reading plan. Every day, you read from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and a few verses each from the book of Psalm and Proverbs.