Summer Reading Celebration

Isla loves how this book is full of photographs that match up to each different section, so she can learn simple ballet while going through the book.

I really liked the CLSC lecture and I really liked this. Very Temperance Brennan and the 300s.

When I have a task of drudgery to do, I make light work of it by simultaneously listening to an audiobook. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning audiobook filled that need well as I tackled some kitchen cupboards. Author Margareta Magnusson makes quick work of explaining the blunt, practical premise of “death cleaning” then devotes most of the book to describing how to implement it as a gentle art. Death cleaning is simply weeding out and organizing your personal stuff in such a way that it won’t pose an undue burden to someone after your death. Very pragmatic! The gentle art is what makes it a pleasure: admittedly, most death cleaners are older people and sometimes their friends and relations are dwindling. One can build new ties in the gentle ways they pass along possessions such as photo collections, hand tools, and all manner of things. The gentle art may include giving away curated collections of photos at family gatherings, or passing along furniture to young people just starting out. Through her chapters readers also catch glimpses of the aged author’s well lived life. It was not a long book, and I highly recommend it.

As someone who has experience with dealing with people in toxic relationships, this book hit a tad harder than I expected. Freddy's situation is all too familiar. It was refreshing to see her get out of it. Relationships where the people keep breaking up and getting back together are, in my opinion, romanticized far too much, so the author treating it as a bad thing was nice to see.

I relistened to this book this summer. "People are starving for the awe of God." is one of the basic premises of the book. The book is divided into two parts (although you won't find a formal division in it.) The first part is all about the awe of God. Dyke uses vivid illustration to help the reader grasp God's great ess and what we are missing by allowing ourselves to to accept a shallow, domesticated version of a powerfully grand God. The second half deals with what theology calls the eminence of God. That means that he allows us to relate to him and is close to us. There are some beautiful quotes in this book, but the following sums up Dyke's message: "Our souls find satisfaction only in the God that is grand enough to worship and close enough to love. We need both, but the church today has by in large focused too much on the closeness if God and forfeited His grandness. "The tiger has been tamed. We aren't moved by God's greatness and splendor." If you want to get some of that reverence back, I recommend this book.

Quick, cute, interesting to a fault.

Mr Popper’s Penguins by Florence and Richard Atwater was a fun one to read to my children. The kids loved the absurdity of keeping a penguin in a refrigerator, and later loved comparing and contrasting it to the film.

It was a great book and one of the first to actually surprise me!

I picked this series up after viewing a recommendation video Katee Roberts put on IG. So far, it’s packed with romance and magic, and is yet to disappoint.

4.5 stars. I loved this book! Emerson and Maverick have my heart! Can’t wait for Hudson’s book.