Remember how I said I wouldn’t overload my Winter DIY Woman’s Degree?! 😂🤷🏻♀️🤪🙄♥️❄️☃️ Never mind that! Here’s some of my reading ideas. I tried to categorize them here so it is easier for you to go to one that may interest you. I’m going to try crossing off/checking these off as I go. Some of these are planned possibilities and I also have my mood reading genres that I’m interested in currently. Quite a few of these are rereads, which I absolutely love doing. I realize this is excessive nerd overkill 🤓 and very detailed but I find it fun! It’s something to aim at and look forward too with the cold. I hold it super loosely and that’s why I call these ‘possibilities’. I didn’t include my Bible reading, Christian devotionals, or poetry because those three are always on the go.
Dec ‘24 – Jan ‘25 – Feb ‘25 Reading List:
Buddy Reads:
December 2024
Christmas Mummers by Charlotte Mary Yonge, online buddy read ✔️
Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope
(online group buddy read) short story✔️
Last Christmas in Paris by Webb & Gaynor ✔️
(online buddy read with Elizabeth B.)
January 2025
So Big by Edna Ferber ✔️
(online group buddy read)
The Man They Called Thursday by Chesterton
(preread with local friend for our HS Lit Class in our Charlotte Mason co op)
Books I’d Love to Read to my Kids this Winter:
Finish By the Shores of Silver Lake ✔️and begin The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Continue/Finish The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Read Story Girl and The Golden Road by LM Montgomery
Start the Narnia Series by CLS
Read The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery
Continuing listening to Penderwicks when we can get audiobooks from library ✔️✔️
Personal Study Challenge:
Start The Illiad (journal through it) Long introduction and 24 parts, I think? One a week over 3 months? Seems doable?
Possible joining of a few BookLoveJenna’s 2025 online book club – I’m interested in Praying with Jane Eyre, The Love Letters, and Letters of a Portuguese Nun in the winter selections. I’m very slow with nonfiction, so this group may help me finish? This is a very big maybe. I did too many buddy reads/challenges this year andI’m not going to put as much pressure on myself.
Till We Have Faces and Miracles by CS Lewis
Read a memoir: Merry Hall by Beverly Nichols and Isle of Dreams by Susan Branch
Fantasy:
I’d love to continue reading ‘The Stormlight Archives’ by Brandon Sanderson- I’m in the middle of Words of Radiance. My older kids are so excited for our preordered 5th book in this cycle. I think technically there’s some short stories/lore to be read inbetween the 5 massive books out. I enjoy his work, but they are a bit more intricate and political than I usually like so these are a loose goal mostly to be reading something with my young adults.
Reread The Fellowship of the Ring by JRRT
Ember Blade by Chris Wooding
Continue Dune Series with Dune Messiah
Reread Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Reread The Night Circus
Continue Byzantium by Stephan Lawhead
Victorian Things/Cozy Reads & Rereads:
Finish Nicholas Nickelby ✔️
Finish Woman in White
Finish Deerbrooke ✔️
Reread Anne Series
Reread Emily Series
Finish Moominvalley in November
The Enchanted Sonata by Dixon ✔️
Skating Shoes by Streitfeild
Start Elizabeth Goudge Reread/Complete 2 Yr Project with Pilgrim’s Inn, Gentian Hill, and Towers in the Mist
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
Start Romola by George Eliot
Current Reading Moods:
Classic/cozy mystery/spy
Cozy domestic & holiday
Dips into creativity/writing nonfiction shelf
Cozy fantasy
Deep middle grade/children’s literature, classic or with classic feel
Victorian Lit
This above is a CRAZY unrealistic🤪, but fun “bucket” list for this winter! Haha! 😆 What are some things on your list? I haven’t made many home keeping, home educating, or health goals yet. I’m still thinking on that. I think I have my focus phrase for the coming year, so maybe I’ll share that eventually. I’d like to update here on the blog as a fun way of checking in and narrating/processing what I’m learning or enjoying. We’ll see. Holding it all loosely, remember, Amy?! 🤣
How about you? Do you plan things out a bit? Or fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants? I really love making seasonal lists! Chat with me in comments, please! I’d love to hear your thoughts! ❄️🌲♥️❄️🌲♥️
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 
Goodness gracious me! 😍
Your winter reading bucket list looks like two years worth to me. It takes me ages to get through a book. 🤓
But, yes I make seasonal bucket lists too. We’re doing Gather Round Old Fashioned Christmas with some friends so that my top reading priority: the family under the bridge, the Christmas miracle of Jonathan Toomey, and IN excerpts from Little House in the big Woods, my side of the mountain, and little women. Personally, I’d love to finish up The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and Honey for a Teens Heart. I’m committed to doing Little Women as a read-aloud probably after Christmas. I’d also love to do The Fellowship of the Ring as a Read Aloud. I just finished wrapping the kiddos advent book calendar yesterday! 😅 There’s lots of fun “new to us” Christmas books to explore together! Oh and we always read aloud “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” its tradition. 😁
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Heehee! 🤪😂😉 It looks like TWO years to me, too! Ha! I am a fast reader, which isn’t always a good thing. Aww. 🥰 I love the books you’ve chosen. So much richness! I need to reread The Best Christmas Pageant ever to my younger kids! 😂 I love Jonathan Toomey.
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I’m here for all the “excessive nerd overkill”, I love seeing all the resources, books, and ideas you’ve got listed. I’m with you on the list making. One thing I rarely do is make seasonal bucket lists and your winter list is inspiring me to make one as well.
Love the lists of books, many are favorites of mine or are also on upcoming TBRs. If you can even get to 1/4 of the stuff on your lists I think it will be a great winter!
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Yay! 😀 I was so inspired by the winter list Katelyn?! made over CleoPatrick! All the kids and I watched and we each made one. I should have been more open ended. I was very specific! 🤣
Very true! Aim high and be blessed by the Lord. ♥️🌿 Thanks for chatting with me!
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It really is a sort of wild exhale to get all of our desires listed out, freed from the mind’s forgetfulness, even if it takes us forever to get to them all. 😌😁
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You have so many good books and I love the winter bucket list! Go for it. My favorite, The Iliad. When I tried it last after a lifetime of failure, it was delightful and not nearly as hard as I expected. Hopefully your own reading life has prepared you for it as well. Let me know. After a bit, I got the rhythm of it and wasn’t lost in the main story plot. It’s so special to read so old books.
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Thank you, Silvia, for your encouragement! I’m definitely excited about tackling it. ♥️🌿😁
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