My Favorite Books of 2018

    Here are my favorite books from 2018. Some are old friends I’ve read over and over. Some were new for me and impressed me with their exciting storyline, deep characters, incredible world building, or writing skill. Some touched my soul and changed me for the better. I hope you will enjoy them too.…

Book List for May 2018

I can't believe May is gone already. As usual, I have read a mix of new books and re-read some well-loved books. Here are my favorites: A Note Yet Unsung – Tamera Alexander – Clean romance, historical romance – a beautiful story of love, music, loss, and striving to achieve your dreams --  5 See…

Book List for April 2018

Sorry this is late! Here are my top books for April 2018.                     All these books are worth reading again, but the top four books are exceptional: The Little White Horse -- Elizabeth Goudge -- Children's, Christian fiction -- An incredible book with so many layers. I…

My Favorite 25 Books of the Year

As I looked over my Goodreads list for the past year, I realized that I have read a LOT of books (over a hundred... and that’s only the ones I recorded).  I’ve enjoyed many wonderful stories from different genres, though I tend to read mostly Young Adult.  Some books didn’t make it on the Goodreads…

Graphic Novels

As a child I enjoyed comic books as well as regular novels.  One day while at Girl Scout Brownies, while all the other kids were doing a craft, I found a comic book on a shelf, and soon I was lost in the story of Elfquest.  When Brownies was over, I still hadn't done the…

Just Do It

When you get an idea for a story, a painting or a musical piece, what do you do? If you are to be true to yourself and the vision within you, then you must act, now, immediately, with the focus and tenacity of a pit bull, for the world will throw every obstacle it can…

Birthday Wishes

I finished A Circle of Quiet today.  I cried.  As I have said before, when I read a book it’s as if I’m having a conversation with the author.  This book was even more like that because of the rambling style in which it was written, as if Madeleine and I were walking in the…

What is truth?

“A great work of the imagination is one of the highest forms of communication of truth that mankind has reached.  But a great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or to agree with it.  A great piece of literature simply is.  It is a vehicle of truth, but it…

Burning the Creative Flame

“There are educationists (as jargon has it) who think that creativity itself can be taught, and who write learned, and frequently dull, treatises on methods of teaching it.  It is rather as though they were trying to eat air, with the usual result.  The creative impulse, like love, can be killed, but it cannot be…

A Special Place

Do you have a special place?  Madeleine L’Engle’s is a spot by a brook, out past the lawn, trees, stone wall, and apple trees on her Crosswicks property.  “Ontology:  the word about the essence of things; the word about being.  I go to the brook because I get out of being, out of the essential. …