Velvet Elvis

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell is my June book for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge. I loved it! I agreed with so much of, if not everything, he wrote. I like his philosophy on what a Christian is and does and what the church is. A Christian follows the teachings of Jesus! Duh, sounds obvious, but I don't think that is emphasized enough. I really want to do an in-depth study of the Gospels and apply more of what Jesus taught to my life. I am still studying misc. verses/chapters using the methods in Rick Warren's Bible Study Methods book. I'm only on the third method and using the "assignments" he gives for what to study. I think I'm going to change that to just studying the Gospels using the different methods.

I am not a great book reviewer but I will share some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Somebody recently told me, "As long as you teach the Bible, I have no problem with you." Think about that for a moment. What that person was really saying is, "As long as you teach my version of the Bible, I'll have no problem with you." And the more people insist that they are just taking the Bible for what it says, the more skeptical I get."

"I have heard people say their church is growing because they "just teach the Bible". As if other churches don't."

"We have to embrace the Bible as the wild, uncensored, passionate account of people experiencing the living God."

"Jesus is the arrangement. Jesus is the design. Jesus is the intelligence. For a Christian, Jesus' teachings aren't to be followed because they are a nice way to live a moral life. They are to be followed because they are the best possible insight into how the world really works. They teach us how things are."

"Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn't really love, is it? It's something else. We have to rediscover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agendas."

Those are just a few of my favorite quotes, there were many more. Rob Bell also has a series of short videos where he talks about many of the things he wrote about in this book. We are watching them at our small group Bible study. They are excellent. They are called Nooma videos.

Note to the 2 or 3 people who read this blog: My mom was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and we don't have much time left with her. So I probably won't be posting much this summer. Please check in once in awhile anyway! I will check in with your blogs when I can.

I don't usually quit at this point....

I was reading the book All the Numbers by Judy Merrill Larsen. I wasn't loving it but I liked it well enough. But I got about halfway through (HALFWAY!) and I realized I really didn't care what happened to anyone in the book anymore. Sounds horrible since the book is about an 11 year old boy who gets killed by a jet ski that got too close to shore, and the family dealing with their loss. (That's not a spoiler, it says as much on the back cover) So I feel bad in a weird way, that I don't care, but I just lost interest. So it's on to the next book....This Heavy Silence by Nicole Mazzarella. Wonder if I'll finish that one...:-)

(One of these days I will post a list of all the books I've started but not finished this year, there are quite a few. I am not one who will finish a book no matter what.)

May Reads

FICTION

-Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, 3.5
-Perfecting Kate by Tamara Leigh, 3.75
-The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart, 4.0
-The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler, 4.25
-Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker, 4.25
-Black Ice by Linda Hall, 4.5 **
-Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard, 4.25

NON-FICTION

-A World of Love by Maggie Conroy, 3.0
-Winterdance by Gary Paulsen, 3.0

**Favorite book of the month

(Ratings on a scale of 1-5)

Winter Wheat

Last week I read a wonderful book, Winter Wheat, by Mildred Walker. The cover was not appealing, the look of the text inside was not appealing, and after reading a few pages I almost decided not to read it. But as with many other books where I felt this way at the beginning, I'm so glad I kept reading. The book is about 18 year old Ellen Webb in 1940. She lives with her parents in a rural Montana community on a wheat farm. Sounds exciting, huh? :-) It's just a really wholesome book with great characterization and wonderful descriptions of wheat farming and the landscape around them.

I love this quote about Ellen's parents: "They had love that was deep-rooted and stronger than love that grows easily. It gave me faith for my own life."

I highly recommend this book!

Rating: 4.25 / 5

Winterdance

Yesterday I finished Winterdance by Gary Paulsen, my first book for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge. The book was about the author's experience training for and running the Iditarod.

I didn't like it as much as I expected I would. The book never really captured my attention. I never felt like I was inside the author's head. I didn't get a real sense of his relationship with his dogs. I don't have a really good mental picture of what the actual race is like. I don't know how to explain it, the book just didn't interest me all that much. The first half of the book was all about the events leading up to the race - how he got involved with dogs and preparations made for the race. The second half talked about his running the race. I may have liked the book better if more of it was devoted to the race itself.

I did enjoy some parts of the book. But I think I really just wanted to finish it and get back to Winter Wheat! I stopped halfway through that book so I could read Winterdance and write about it before I leave on Thursday. I am really enjoying Winter Wheat! I haven't seen it mentioned on any blogs. I got the recommendation from this site. It's a list of books recommended by author Roxanne Henke (she wrote the Brewster series including the first book, After Anne). I've gotten several great book ideas from her list including The Kindness of Strangers and The Amateur Marriage.

I rate Winterdance 3/5.

I LOVE THE LIBRARY!!!!!!!

I went to the library tonight to return Lindsey's videos which were due and to pick up 2 holds (one for me, one for the girls). Even though I have 5 library books at home already in my TBR pile, I HAD to get more! Once in awhile I just have to return things and don't have time to get any more books and it just kills me to leave the library with nothing. LOL I just love, love, love checking for available books online before I leave home, making a list, then going to the library and browsing the new books besides looking at the ones on my list. My book bag is usually quite heavy when I'm done. I always think to myself how I, once again, got more books that I can possibly read in a month's time (or more). I have a ritual of what I do with the books when I get home, that's for another post. :-)

So besides the books already in my pile, I now also have 6 or 7 more books, including:

The Birth House by Ami McKay

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

The Berenstain Bears and the week at grandma's (oops, that one's Lindsey's!)

I also picked up from on hold, Winterdance by Gary Paulsen (my first book for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge). I'll read that one as soon as I finish my current read, Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker (good so far!). I read about 100 pages of Sassy Cinderella that I wrote about in my last post but it never really grabbed me so I quit.

Next week Thursday-Sunday I'm going to North Carolina to visit a friend and attend the state's homeschool conference with her. I can't wait! I'm going alone, never done that before! The book I plan to bring along for the plane is Black Ice by Linda Hall. I love her books! I hope one book is enough. :-)

Happy reading!

The Amateur Marriage

I just finished (like 5 minutes ago!) The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler. I loved it! I really enjoyed the last book I read, The Myth of You and Me (thanks for the rec, BeckyB!) and I really wanted to read another book right away that I could just lose myself in. At first I thought The Amateur Marriage wasn't going to be that book. It was a little slow moving at first, and in a way the whole novel was slow moving. I guess it was even depressing in a way, but for some reason I just loved it. I loved how each chapter started a whole new time in the life of the characters (like years later). I loved the images I got in my mind of life in the 40's and 50's (the book goes all the way into the year 2001). I really feel like I got to know the characters well.

I think I tried another of Anne Tyler's books at one time but couldn't get into it. I wonder if I just didn't give it enough of a chance or if she's not one of those authors where you tend to like every book they write. I can't even remember which book I tried before. I definitely want to go back now and try a few more of her novels. Which Anne Tyler books have you read and did you enjoy them?

The one thing I hate about finishing a book I loved, is I'm always afraid the next book I read just isn't going to measure up. Sometimes I will find another good one right away, sometimes it takes awhile, but I guess I've read enough awesome books that I'm sure there are more out there! My next book on the stack is Sassy Cinderella and The Valiant Vigilante by Sharon Dunn. It's a sequel to Romance Rustlers and Thunderbird Thieves which I read over a year ago with my book club. I remember I liked that book but don't think I loved it. After this I'll be reading Winterdance by Gary Paulsen for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge. I wanted to read Velvet Elvis first, since it's first on my list, but I have a hold on it at the library and 2 people have it on hold ahead of me. I won't even get it in the month of May I don't think.

Happy Reading!