Recommended Reading: November - December

I have been dreading trying to summarize all that we have read recently.  I know that I am forgetting some of the titles, but this is a good overview.  These are mostly books that we listened to in the car while driving to Arkansas and back.   While they are all good and worth reading, my favorite is still The Goose Girl followed by The Book of a Thousand Days. That's silly to admit, since I had read both of them already and I hardly ever reread books. Shannon Hales' stories are sort of like comfort food -- substantive, warm and cozy, and happily ever after.

While I was in Arkansas my sister B introduced me to a book from the Proper Romance series.  As she predicted, I could not put Edenbrooke down and read all of it in one night. I have enjoyed reading a couple additional titles as well. They are all written in the regency period and have very clean language and plots.  

I finished The Poisonwood Bible over a month ago and have thought about it several times since then.  It is a detailed account of the life of a Baptist preacher and his family in the wilds of the Congo/Zaire over 3 generations. Their is so much that I could say about it, but the chorus of the book for me was that happiness in life all depends on your perspective, not money, not material goods, or lack of hardship, or even religious organizations per se. It made me want to go back to work helping improve health care in Africa, to look into the latest micro-lending approaches, and to be more giving, like the community of Congolese in which the Price family lived.