The Holy Spirit has descended on this old world of ours, and there’s a Psalm 29 powwow in Elmo (Montana) every day of the year: a grace-revealing gesture, a fresh snowfall, a friend’s forgiveness, the first migrating yellow warbler, a miracle conversion, a truth-telling poem, a pasqueflower in bloom, the good death of a parent, resurrection – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-all the endless permutations of life. The beauty of holiness. And we have ringside seats. Henry James once said that a writer is a person on whom nothing is ever lost. That sounds like a focused Christian identity to me: the men and women on whom nothing, at least nothing that has to do with life-and virtually everything does-is lost. “Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”
Amen.
~Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire , note mine in parenthesis
Hello 👋 Friends ~ a few of you expressed interest in my 50 books off of my owned shelf that I’m trying to read by the time I’m 50! A few stipulations. Two of these are on my Kindle owned shelf, as they hard to find physically. I also reserved the right to use any form to read these as long as I own a physical copy. For example, I own Moby Dick, but if I want to check out the audiobook version from the library, that is fine. I also gave myself two switch outs. If for some reason, I really can’t read a book, I’m allowed to switch it out from my shelves. I started this project in mid-2025?, so I have till June 2030 😅😳 to complete it. The huge nonfiction are the ones I’m mostly concerned about! 😂 I tried to balance a few lighter things, while still challenging myself. I kept most? if not all of these books out of the great book pack-away for our remodeling. ♥️📚🥰
50×50 List ~
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Dante: Poet, Political Thinker, The Man by Barbara Reynolds
Biography of A Cathedral by Robert Gordon Anderson
Mistress Pat by L.M. Montgomery ☑️
Any of my Victor Hugo
A Dark Night’s Work by Elizabeth Gaskell (Kindle) ☑️
Tempest Tost by Robertson Davies
Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories by Jenny Uglow
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott ☑️
Dr. Wortle’s School by Anthony Trollope
Vicar of Bullhampton by Anthony Trollope
The Shadow Casket by Chris Wooding
Any of my unread Ray Bradbury
The Virginian by Owen Wister
A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
Thoreau and the Language of Trees by Richard Higgins
Any of my Elie Wiesel
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas ☑️
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Revelation by C.J. Sansom
Jane Austen Bookshelfby Rebecca Romney☑️
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles ☑️
Van Loon’s Lives by Hendrik Willem van Loon
A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond
Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond
Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson
A Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge (Kindle)
Any of my Edgar Allan Poe
Any of my Nathanial Hawthorne
Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
You are A Tree by Joy Marie Clarkson
The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein
Any of my unread C.S.Lewis nonfiction
One of my folklore collections
The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
The Divine Comedy by Dante ☑️
Any of my unread Russian authors
A Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
Any of my unread L.M. Montgomery short story collections
Make Believe by Elizabeth Goudge
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
What do you think of my list ? Have you read any of these authors or these specific titles? Do you have a list of books you want to read in the near future? Chat books with me below! 👇 🥰📚♥️
I happen to notice that I was listening to ‘Swim’ by BTS while reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Serendipity! 😅💦💧🌊 I picked up this narrative poem for Jane Austen July because I believe Coleridge was a contemporary of Austen’s. I think 🤔 it sounds familiar, I may have read it before! The albatross! 😳😂
~watching~ ♥️🌿I did end up watching the 2020 ‘Emma’ film with my daughter and meh. 🫤 It was ok. I liked parts of it. It struck me as sort of goofy. 😂 A n*ked backside right in the beginning was weirdo, too. Oh, well. I liked the actors that played Mr. Knightly and Miss Bates. I’m allowing myself one Booktube video a day in July and it makes me be very choosy. I really enjoyed Chantel’s yesterday.
~reading~♥️🌿 I have massive piles physically and on my kindle, 😂📚 but I’m mostly finishing up The Opt-Out Family and working on Moby Dick. I also just barely dipped into Jane Austen’s Bookshelf of which I enjoyed the first few pages immensely. I haven’t borrowed anything new from public library (July challenge), just reading from my stacks and Kindle!
~noticing~ ♥️🌿
My hollyhocks are wonderful! 😁 I may have mentioned before that they are biannual and these self-seeded, so I forgot about them! 🥰😻😍What happiness!
What are you listening to, watching, reading, and noticing? ♥️🌿📚 Chat below, friends! ~
When someone is doing something to hurt you, don’t turn inward, turn toward that person. He is hurting himself. Learn to forgive, knowing that we all need forgiveness. If you want to be true to God, learn from Jesus to be meek, humble, and pure. Learn to forgive.
What says the USA’s 250th birthday holiday week more than Haiku? 😂😅♥️😍🌿✨ Look for photos and haiku this week! I wanted to try something different. I am also planning a no public library borrowing for the month of July. This doesn’t include what I have already on my pile or on hold. 😂😅 Just no new. I’m planning on reading what I have! ♥️🥰🌿✨📚 Any exciting July plans or goals? Creatively? Personally?
I’m loosely participating in five? July specific Booktube Readathons! I really enjoy just marking off prompts! 📚✅
I decorated some of my July pages ahead in my to-do pocket Moleskine because there’s some travel and family stuff going on. I usually decorate this one the day of use because it’s so small, but I don’t pack all my journaling supplies when going on trips! I especially love the Jane Austen stickers I saved for the start of Jane Austen July! 😍♥️🌸
Deck-a-TBR-a-Thon! Summerween! Private Eye July! Jane Austen July! Zoom in for Prompts, if interested! 😅📚📚📚
These are some summer long prompts! I made a great dent in them in June!
Two June Read-a-Thons that I had a lot of fun with! I just read what I’m in the mood for and make them fit mostly, but I do tailor a few of my choices depending on topic. Read a couple American Revolution type books with my kids etc.
June Reading Journal pages almost full!
I purchased coffee stickers and cute yellow bakery type washi so my July theme is Yellow Coffee & Flower Shop! 🤪😅😍💛🤎💛🤎💛
VERY ambitious health/mental/spiritual/relational goals for July! 🙃😱😂
What are you creating lately? I so enjoy working in my journals.
Click in to read a little boy’s thoughts on jam! 😂♥️🥰😍
Happiest First Day of Summer and Father’s Day! I’m over here at Hearth Ridge enjoying family, sunshine, flowers, and an Anne of Avonlea reread. Church and feasting, too! God is good! ✨
I could stare at our skies forever around here.Getting out some different coffee mugs for summer!See you next spring! Eclectic birthday gifts! 🥰♥️Kids were so happy!Smells heavenly!
Better is a dry crust eaten in peace than a house filled with feasting-and conflict.
Proverbs 17:1~
Simplicity makes room for relationship. ♥️🌿 Relationships with God, others, and everything real around us. It’s ok to love home, slow routines, and regular boring rhythms. I’ve been thinking about how on an extended social media break I start to slow down, revel in my mundane tasks, realize I don’t have to keep up with anything other than getting meals on the table and washing laundry occasionally. I can have long times with my coffee steaming into the early morn, Bible flipped open, hummingbirds approaching. I can listen and chat and make Rice Krispies treats with my little boys. I can read or not read, wear my favorite comfy flannel from a thrift store with no need for more. I can walk with my music and the wind. It’s so refreshing. It doesn’t need to become more than it is, some-holier-than-thou move, but lets me step out of the stream of a vague unease of missing out, the guilt and fear of not keeping up. ‘They’ want you to feel that way. So that you need them or whatever it is they’re selling. It’s unbelievably freeing to step back and let it swirl by. It makes me want to pray more about how I use social media and maybe stepping away from forms of it that aren’t bringing me joy and enhancing this quieter, contemplative pace.
Happy Tuesday! I’m here to wrap up this Booktuber reading challenge. You can still participate by picking and choosing what books you are reading fulfill the prompts! I don’t follow the monthly delineation because I’m a mood reader, mostly. Small confession: {whispers} Only 3 of these titles were actually on my physical/Kindle shelf! The rest were library check-outs. So I ‘failed’ on the reading my shelf. Oh well! All in good fun!😂🤓
The first half of this story was so dark and depressing. Our main female character gets caught up in covering up a crime. The guilt, fear, and shame are palpable as she barely moves through life. The last 1/4th of the book was better, a bit more hope, but wow, not my favorite from my favorite Victorian author.
Three or More Objects (on cover) ~
The Labors of Hercules Beale by Gary D. Schmidt ~
This was a lovely story of two brothers working through their grief due to the loss of their parents. They are navigating their new relationship and trying to keep the family greenhouse afloat. Hercules transfers to a new school and a strict new teacher challenges him in ways that truly help him grow! Schmidt’s books are fantastic in a rip-your-heart-out-and -put-it-back together way! I also love Wednesday Wars by this author.
Weapon on Cover ~
Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw ~ A beautiful classic quest fantasy with an underdog main character! Aedan and his new found family he gathers truly grow in character and love! This was so amazing! Satisfying ending even though sequel never was released due to the authors health.
Title Includes a Conjunction ~
For Whom the Book Tolls by Laura Gail Black ~ Gal inherits her uncles antique bookshop in this cozy mystery. Unfortunately, a terrible secret awaits her as she wakes up the first morning! Suspicion is aimed at her surrounding a past false accusation. This had an old mansion, treasure, and an old diary as part of the story!
Includes a Place~
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine ~ Space-punk pirate ships between England and colonized Mars. I loved the main characters and this zany adventure. The crab-like Martians cracked me up! Pure fun! 🤩
Title with Five or More Words~
Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry ~ a beautiful memoir about life & death, philosophy, small town Wisconsin. This was written so well and so true to relationships and culture in the Midwest. Highly recommend with the caveat of some sad explicit emergency situations and descriptions.
Has a Map ~
The Will of the Many by James Islington ~ Roman-like world, epic fantasy with deep themes of love and sacrifice for a son who is driven by revenge for a beloved father. Highly recommend!
Water ~
Dead in the Water by Denise Swanson ~
I thought this was a cozy, but it turned out a bit grittier and with adult themes. I really loved the husband/wife duo in the Chief of Police, Wally and his wife Skye, psychologist. They are expecting their first child and a tornado disaster causes havoc to their small town. A murder, family issues, and the town rebuilding/clean up bring them together.
Animal ~
Cloaked in Beauty by Karen Witemeyer ~
This was a deeper Red Riding Hood retelling. I loved the kindness and love the main female character lived and the Grandmother was awesome! A bit heavier on romance, but wonderful characters and an unique take on this story! I loved the wolf dog sidekick, too!
Bookish~
Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine ~ This is such a unique premise! The Library of Alexandria is the center of all knowledge and special librarians are trained to care for it and guard the knowledge. The new batch of trainees are a mixed bag and full of secrets including Jess our main character. The students uncover corruption at the highest levels. I loved this story and the characters. Unfortunately, a bit of a sneering attitude towards traditional morality, so be aware. Nothing explicit except fantasy violence, so far. I hope to continue with the 3rd in the series soon!
Transportation ~
Hearse and Buggy by Laura Bradford ~
Cozy mystery set in Amish community. I love the bed & breakfast and main characters aunt! This was a little slow and repetitive, but I may return if I want a gentle, quiet mystery. I loved the ex-Amish police detective!
True or False ~
The Secret of Honeycake by Kimberly Newton Fusco ~ if anything, read this story for the exquisite writing. Hurricane is our main character and she finds her life in upheaval when she is sent to live with her aunt and employee. This books deals with grief, chronic illness, loneliness, found family, traditions, carving a life for oneself out of a whole new experience. The Great Depression, class, and PTSD touch Hurricane and her new friends lives in a big way. I loved the ‘butler’ character in this story! This is very slow but so sweet and poignant.
How ‘bout you? Do you have any recent reads in these categories? Do you participate in bingo boards or reading challenges? We love them here! 😍✨🤩Happy Reading! 📚♥️🌿
Is it possible to live forgiven and not carry great loads of guilt, to participate in the salvation of the world? Is it possible to love and grow into a relationship with another person in which we are enriched and enhanced and built up? Is it possible to bless and be blessed? To give others the best that is in us and not the worst? To receive from others their best and not their worst? Yes. It is. As everyday realities, these births are wonders, whether as a new baby in the world or as a new creature in Christ. We are launched by acts of love and promise into ways of seeing and being. Our first birth thrusts us kicking and squalling into the light of day. Our second birth places us laughing and worshiping in the light of God. Like Issac. Laughter. Amen.
Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, p. 27 ~
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 