Reading List Update: 2012 Review!

Larissa's bookshelf: read-2012



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I have had a great year of reading! I have almost covered 20,000 pages of reading and discovered much literature I had never encountered! I was pleasantly surprised by the Hobbit (which we ALL as a family enjoyed!), learned more about Julia Child in "My Life In France", Discovered a new favorite book "Exodus" by Uris, saw more deeply the grotesque nature of the Cross in "crucifixion", was inspired by homesteading in "Letters of Woman Homesteader", was amazed once again by Austen and her insight into her understanding of human nature in "Lady Susan", and enjoyed re-reading a couple potter books and "The Hiding Place". I was also able to fit into the mix some fantasy reads and some Heyer...all around a good reading year.

What's On Larissa's Kindle--June

1. Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail

2. The Return of Sherlock Holmes

3. The Coffin Quilt: Feud Between the Hatfields and MacCoys

4. I shall Live

5. The Island of the Aunts--Not on Kindle

God forgive us! God Arouse! Shame us out of our callousness!

The tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:

That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step...it trod into air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over!

May Reading Plan...

Things As they Are: Amy Carmichael
                 An honest depiction of how ministry in 1905 in India really was, no sugar coating.

Magyk: Angie Sage
                Fantasy story for med age kids, preteens. But as we all know I love childrens fiction!

Treasure Island: Robert Louis Stevenson
               The quintessential pirate book, young boys would love it. When I am done I plan to read it to my fellas.

Grace Abounding: Bunyan
              A little neurotic, but still Bunyan!

Letters and Papers from Prison: Bonhoeffer
              If you know me even just a little, you know that Bonhoeffer is my hero!

Reading Update

I have been reading along these last two and a half months which has let me into a new world of books more recently. I have also re-read a few books I enjoyed severla years ago and started some sequels that I think will add to other books I have enjoyed. I LOVE to read and I love to have my mind expand. Right now I am enjoying a walk through "following Jesus" with NT Wright (He's not the boogie man many conservatives make him out to be), a new fantasy "Circle of Magic", a history of stories of the civil war, a tale of the french resistence of the 2nd WW, a variation of mysteries in the "Memiors of Sherlock holmes", the spiritual journey of John Bunyan in "Grace Abounding", and a couple classic fiction including "My Man Jeeves" and "A Tale of Two Cities". So my book shelf is full, how does yours look?

Larissa's bookshelf: read-2012




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What Era I Read The Most

Larissa's wwii book montage

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I read a ton and one of my favorite things to read about is history. I read alot about history and certain historical eras. While I enjoy learning more about the civil war, English/Scottish history, Medieval History and American Native History (which often coincides with Pioneer history), my most commonly explored era is the WWII era. I have read a lot on this time and wanted to add a few of my favorites for you to read if you are interested in WWII history like I am.

A few reasons why I like this era so much are first that it was a perfect example of why unbiblical ideology was a gigantic fail. Atheism gone to its ultimate end becomes the reality of Europe during the German occupation. Many countries and peoples have records of great heroism because of this great evil that arose out of a hatred for life while they acted bravely to safe those lives. Second, there are still people from this era living and the many facts and ideas that can be found are linked to living human beings. This reality brings history to life in an amazing way. Third, this is the first time in modern history when an entire world was affected and almost every continent touched. The world became truly smaller in active thought. From the invasion of china by the Japanese empire, to the conquest of the African North, to the bombing of the American Pacific Islands, to the post war development of the Communist Eastern Europe and the Nation of Israel. Even to the modern day trials and deportations of war criminals, 70 years from the war.

So here are some books, novels, and children stories where I learned a lot about our world's History by reading about an era.

Gladys Alward: The Little Woman - Depicting a missionary life in the late twenties and into the thirties. Covers the invasion of china by the Japanese. Sad and educational, we often forget how many fronts there were!

The 23rd Psalm - The second most powerful holocaust memoir I have ever read! Evil of man and also the unexplained heroism of others. This young man endured five lifetimes before his 16th birthday!

Citizen Soldiers - The European theater from the American perspective.

Clara's War - can you imagine sitting down for more than two years? Surviving murder only because the town outcast and drunk had pity on you?

Band Of Brothers - If You haven't read this, you must! Intimate relationships amongst men in the most straining of times! Brilliant because of the love these men exhibited toward one another.

With the Old Breed - Dark, bloody, violent. The experiences of a very young man in the Pacific theater. Wildly emotional and heart rending.

The Pianist - Highly logical and human account of survival against all odds. From Life in Warsaw before the start of WWII to the Ghetto uprising and also the liberation by the Soviets. The voice in this account reflects its being written in 1946.

The Hiding Place -As ten Boom herself describes her incarceration "I went to prison for loving Jewish people."

The longest Day - A deeply detailed account of D-Day.

Schindler's List - The Path of a life which should have ended in prison for war crimes, but instead became a champion for Human lives.

Alicia - Powerful first Person account of a Jewish girls life in Poland during WWII outside of the Concentration camps.

My Top 100 Books: 51 - 85

51. Macbeth by Shakespeare
52. Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer
53. The Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy by Trenton Stewart
54. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
55. Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss
56. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentiss
57. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
58. Gigi by Colette
59. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper
60. The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
61. Alicia by Alicia Appleman-Jurman
62. Polly Anna
63. The Betsy Tacy treasury by Maud Hart Lovelace (all 10 books)
64. Citizen Soldiers by Ambrose
65. Orthodoxy by Chesterton
66. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
67. Battle Cry by Leon Uris
68. Bells On Their Toes by Gilbreth
69. Five English Reformers by JC Ryle
70. The 23rd Psalm by George Salton
71. Beauty by Robin Mckinnley
72. My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt
73.
74. Brave New World by Huxley
75. Schindler's List by Keneally
76. Owls in the Family Farley Mowat
77. Treatise on Good Works by martin Luther
78. Valley of Vision Puritan Devotionals
79. Holiness by RC Sproul
80. Things as they are Amy Carmichael
81. Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
82. Children of the New Forrest by Frederick Marryat
83. Lady Windemere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
84. The Home at Greylock by Prentiss
85. With the Old Breed at Pelelui and Okinawa by Sledge
86. Ox Team Days on the Oregon Trail by Meeker
87. Rena's Promise by Rena Gelissen

While I completely anticipate Updating this Eventually, I can honestly say that these last several

lines have not been read at this time! I have read many books, but only want to list the ones I

consider the best. So the future holds much hope for more great reading!

Top Five Ever

A few weeks ago my husband asked me what my top five books were of all the books I have ever read and I was stumped. First many of the books I love, like Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice have been read numerous times, while still not being reads that stick in my head and have me thinking and pondering and (dare I say it?) growing! I really thought about the top five books I could read over and over and still come away from them changed in some way. I chose ones which feel like they have drilled into my brain and settled in my mind and never can leave. Ones that connect to thoughts I have yet to think and ones I think over and over again. I am forced to choose books which really seem to live. I can see and hear the human being on the other end of these books and they are haunting in their grasp and vision of life and this world. My heart connects to these books, responds to the words, and is evoked into a wide range of emotions. So here they are my top five of all time...just remember I am 30 so my experience and reading is limited, I hope to have 30 more years to enjoy the human gift of writing! I have not placed the bible in this list, because it goes without saying.

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My Top 100 Books: 1 - 50

Although I enjoy and have read many other books here are my top 100 books (1-50) I have read....so far at least!

I Have Only Conquered 30...

Where do you fall in the list? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here.


Look at the list and put an * after those you have read.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien *

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling *

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *

6 The Bible (The entire thing!) *

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwel*

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total: 6



11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott *

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller*

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier*

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien*

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

Total so far: 9



21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck *

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll *

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame *

Total so far: 12



31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis *

34 Emma-Jane Austen *

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen *

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis *

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne *

Total so far: 17



41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery*

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood*

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding *

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Total so far: 20



51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley*

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total so far: 22



61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck *

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding *

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Total so far: 24



71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett *

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante *

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

Total so far: 26



81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens *

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White *

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Total so far: 29



91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad *

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Eupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute*

97 The Three Musketeers - Aleandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare *

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl *

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Total: 33

.I hope that if you decide to take the challenge of answering this please link here so I can read your progress along BBC's list (I say that like it really was a standard of excellence, which it's not--but it's interesting!).

I will say this for a totally secular and in some ways irrelevant list! Some of my most favorite books are found here:

Harry Potter Series
Anne of Green Gables
Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion
Narnia
The Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
A Christmas Carol
Sherlock Holmes
The Secret Garden
The Bible...obviously!

And some I wish I had never come into contact with:
Heart of Darkness
Rebecca
Lord of the Flies

So even though many of the books I will never read:
His dark Materials
Atonement
The Davinci Code
The five People You meet in Heaven

I am still looking forward to reading many on this list:
The three Musketeers
Crime and Punishment
Catcher in the Rye
Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
Gone with The Wind
Watership Down

But as much as I would love the bragging rights (more proof of the distance I have before I am sanctified) I am not going to read a book on this list unless it suits my fancy. And maybe that will turn out good or it may bomb...either way I will have read some great creative works from God's creatures and will probably learn even more about human nature and depravity and the need for the gospel...because Like it or not most of these authors have impacted the culture and when we meet people and befriend them and start sharing our lives, I want to know this world I live in and why I follow Christ alone.

 I truly believe we must live fully in this world in a redemptive sense if we are honestly to convey the amazing truths of the gospel to our neighbors--we cannot do this if we hold ourselves and our heart apart. If we are becoming the image of Christ then we are becoming what He was, what creation was meant to be before the fall. In our redemption from sin God is working many miracles, one of which is making us to look like what He intended us to be at creation, through our redemption and our daily sanctification into the image of Christ. Just some thoughts that really affect the way I read today. I am not one of those people who only reads "christian" books,  but I do read them some. I want to be widely read and more familiar with the realities of redemption because of that reading. So Why not make some reading goals and enjoy a look at humanity which you may not have had before and then see what happens to your heart as it expands with a burden for your own nation and the lost who reside within her boarders.

New Goals In Reading

It wouldn't be the beginning of the school year if I was starting on a new reading list that is what I want to read this year. Obviously this isn't all I will read, I tend to read about 5 books at a time and though it is tempting to track that, I am not going to even attempt it. So these are the planned ones, but who knows what might interupt me?! I usually tend to make about 1/3 of my list and change up my list a ton! But this year I have a theme....Mostly Christian themed classic fiction and also christian classic inspired (like pilgrims progress). So here's the new goal, we shall see in a year how I do!

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Reading Challenge

I have set a goal for myself of 30 books this year. These aren't all the books I read, but the ones that I really sink my teeth into! Join and have some fun seeing if you can make your goal!

2011 Reading Challenge

Larissa has


read 13 books toward her goal of 30 books.

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13 of 30 (43%)

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August Reading Update: The Year in Review

Read And Enjoyed:
Phantasties by MacDonald
With the Old Breed by EB Sledge
Alicia: My Story


Disliked and Couldn't Finish:
Wizard's First Rule by Goodkind
a Girl of Limberlost


Still Working Through:
The Letters of Samuel Rutherford
Rise to Rebellion by Sharra
Covered Wagon Women by Holmes


Didn't Get To:
The Priest by Francine Rivers
Her Mother's Hope by Rivers
The Scottish Chiefs by Porter
Out of the Depths
I capture the Castle
Pollyanna grows up
Helmet for My Pillow by Leckie
A lifting Up for the Downcast
Galatians commentary by Martin Luther


What Interupted My Best Intentions:
A Short History Of France
The Mysterious Benedict Society Book #3
The Sign Of Four
Clara's War
I Have Lived a Thousand Years
How The Irish Saved Civilization
The Adventure of Shelock Holmes
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
A Study in Scarlet
Pygmallion
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Rebecca
The Red Badge of Courage
The Pot Luck Club
It Happens Every Spring

There are others that I have read that wither didn't make this list or are on my kindle archived content and I haven't updated my online list. I am also a closet children's book addict and many of those books don't make it on here, since they are quicky reads and although I enjoy them I am pretty certain many above the age of 12 don't. :)

Reading List Update

Larissa's bookshelf: read-2010-11




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Number read to date: 35
Number left to read: 19