Summer Book Acquisitions

We have been back in the U.S. for a few months and although we've been busy with speaking, travelling and family get-togethers, I've had a few opportunities to zip into thrift stores and find a few fun books. I have been wanting to re-read the Mitford series by Jan Karon  and since I don't own any of the books, I was glad to find books 1-4 along with the Mitford Bedside Companion for a few dollars in a Kentucky Goodwill. Later, back in Michigan, I found two Miss Read books (Village Affairs and The World of Thrush Green). And an Elizabeth Goudge anthology called A Book of Comfort. I look forward to more treasure hunting in the coming months.

Today I found the first book in Miss Read's Fairacre series (Village School) for 10 cents!

Blessings,

Book Loot & Book Report

I just returned from a whirlwind visit to the U.S. to visit my mom and my sons, so no book review today. When I wasn't visiting family, I was scouring stores for book bargains for Dan and me, as well as looking for gifts and prizes for a women's retreat I'm leading next week. A good time was had by all.

Some of the titles I bought: 3 Betsy-Tacy novels, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, P.D. James' book on detective fiction, Pen of Flame (about Salvation Army poet/hymn writer, Catherine Baird, and a new Killer Sudoku book. For my husband, I brought Saving Eutychus, The Sky is Not Falling by Chuck Colson, What Works by Cal Thomas, AND the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings.

While traveling I finished Wiersbe's Be Basic (on first 11 books of Genesis). I also read Escape from Colditz, Rescuing Finley, and made it halfway through The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. (I'm not sure what I think about it since I'm reading it in Portuguese and get about 75% of what's going on.)

 I also cringed through Summer's Fury, a Christian Fiction novella that suffers from the usual ills of that genre: unlikable characters, choppy writing and a heroine who "just happened" to know how to set a horribly broken leg even though she is an absolute wimp.

Book Loot

When I travelled to the U.S. last May, I had 500 books on my "items to investigate" list. All summer long I accumulated books at yard sales, thrift stores and library sales. This was in addition to checking out 10 books a week from the two local libraries. It was embarrassing how many books I acquired. (So much for the pipe dream of having less books due to e-readers now that I know the importance of physical books for retention and understanding.)

After eight months I whittled the list down to 200. I read one to two books per week, but only loved a few of them enough to buy them. I didn't read them all. I skimmed some to see if they were worth reading. Many of those I discarded immediately.

A few of the titles I bought: Mission at Nuremberg, A Fugue in Time by Godden (because it's similar to China Court, which I loved.), Soul Keeping by Ortberg, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Butterfield, One Corpse too Many by Ellis Peters and Singing Sands by Tey

I was blessed by two friends who gave me The Shallows by Nicholas Carr and Surprised by Oxford  (only 99 cents for Kindle today.)

Now that I'm back in Brazil, I enjoy alternating between my e-reader and my "real" books. The first boxes I unpacked in our new apartment were the book bins. They made it feel like home right away.

Summer Reading Plans

Our son just arrived from the U.S., bringing me a handful of new books:

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (a devotional classic that I often give as a gift)
Radical Hospitality by Homan and Pratt

Mrs. Mike by Freedman

Doctor Thorne by Trollope (Although this is free for Kindle, I'm collecting this particular series in hardback.)
The One Year Chronological Bible NIV (I was happy to get this "free" via PaperBackSwap.)
A Cup of Tey - cozy mysteries by the wonderful Josephine Tey
On the Shoulders of Hobbits by Louis Markos


As the school year ends, I look forward to long, lazy afternoons on the couch with a good book. For starters I'll be dipping into these books - especially the Josephine Tey mysteries. I'm also due for a re-read of several Goudge titles.

Two other lists of interest: Al Mohler's summer reading includes non-fiction that sounds as enthralling as most novels. Edie at LifeinGrace has a list of 25 books everyone should read. (The list is at the end of the post.)

What are some titles/authors you hope to read this summer?

Christmas Wish List

I loved this idea from Risa at BreadCrumb Reads who listed books she would like to receive for Christmas.

My wish list at Amazon is a mile long, but it includes many items of interest that are not necessarily books I'd like to own.  In recent years my library has been drastically reduced and I've written a little about why in two posts here and here.  All this to say, physical books have a much looser hold on me than they used to.  

BUT if I had to choose a handful of books that I really wanted, these would be on the list:

 

1) Towers in the Mist by Elizabeth Goudge - because you can never have enough Goudge.
2) Handbook on the Pentateuch (2005 edition) by Victor P. Hamilton - because I love teaching the Old Testament and this was one of the men who helped to ignite my interest in it.
3) On the Shoulders of Hobbits by Markos - because I read Return of the King and The Hobbit in 2012 and fell in love with Hobbit courage.

Books that I've read (and loved) and would like to add to my library (in gorgeous hardcovers, of course!):

  

4) Trollope's Barsetshire series
5) Middlemarch by George Eliot

Merry Christmas to all my fellow book lovers!  What titles are on your wish list?

Acquisitions from PaperBackSwap

I can still hardly believe the lovely books I'm able to get through PaperBackSwap.

Sabbaths by Wendell Berry
The One Year Book of Poetry
New Living Translation of the Bible
Brave Men by Pyle
Ernie's America - by Pyle
Home Country by Pyle

Berry's titles take a long time to receive, but they are worth the wait.  I acquired the Ernie Pyle titles without being on any waiting list at all.   My favorite poetry book got lost in our last international move so I was thrilled to find it available at PBS in "like new" condition.  Almost all of these are hardbacks in great condition so I'm pleased to add them to my library.

Minimizing My Library

What if you had to reduce your library from 600 to 100 books in one week? Recently I had to make just such a choice. When we left Brazil in 2009, we left all of our earthly possessions behind. Since our return to South America continues to be delayed I went back this spring to pack things up. I decided to keep only what would fit into five suitcases. My friends were horrified that I used so much of that space for books, but, honestly, I had more affection for those than for any knick-knacks.

Some of the decisions were easy. Ten percent of the books were missing or damaged beyond repair. At least a hundred books had never been read and were easy to give up because I had no emotional attachment to them. I had over 200 hundred children’s books, but since my youngest is now fourteen, I let most of them go. (That made me wince a little because I love children’s lit.) That left about 250 to agonize over.

I found several seminary students who wanted my theology books so I was glad to give them a good home (though I kept a handful of favorites). The non-fiction was easy to let go (again, for lack of emotional attachment). I cut my WWII library way down because I knew I could get most of those books through the library here in the U.S.

Surprisingly, most classics (including my beloved Trollope) did not make the cut because I knew I could replace them easily. However, anything by Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton or Elizabeth Goudge was sacrosanct. When it came down to it, why did the Clyde Robert Bulla’s books get left and Enid Blyton’s chosen? And why were Helen Roseveare’s biographies the only ones selected from all my Christian books? My choices may have been based on impulse rather than common sense, but all I know is that now that I’m surrounded by these old friends, I feel “at home” again.

The Benefits of PaperBackSwap

I heard about PaperBackSwap from Carol, but at the time I was living in Brazil and couldn’t participate. Now that I’m in the U.S. for a year I decided to sign up. The books are “free” but the sender pays the postage, which actually comes out to $2 or $3 per credit earned. It is labor intensive at first. (I mailed five books before I received even one.) But now I’ve got “credits” and almost weekly receive a wished-for book. What a blast to get books that have been on my TBR list for many years with so little effort on my part. If you don’t want to bother mailing out books, you can even buy credits for $3.50. That’s a pretty good deal for books that are shipped right to your door. You pay no postage for books received.

Books I’ve already received:

Towers in the Mist by Goudge (You can never have enough Goudge.)

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (My first book by this author.)

Committed to Memory –John Hollander (poetry)

The King’s Swift Rider – Mollie Hunter (Historic novel of Robert the Bruce)

The Mouse and His Child – Russell Hoban (children’s lit)

The Calling – John Hershey (story of a missionary to China.)

Books that are in the mail to me:

The Top 500 Poems - Harmon

My Utmost for His Highest (leather edition!)

This Day with the Master – Kinlaw (another favorite devotional book)

Great Books by Denby (an adult goes back to college to study the “great books”.)

The Miracle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord (one of my favorite events of WWII)

O Jerusalem! (the birth of the nation of Israel)

All this because I mailed out a dozen books I no longer needed. Pretty neat!