2016 Reading Challenge - March Update

We have finished another month of the reading challenge. We are a quarter of the way through the year, and have read 22/104 books. That means we are 4 books behind where we should be. April may be our chance to catch up. Luke will be traveling for 3 weeks, meaning he will have a lot of plane and car time. I will be in India by myself (well me and the kids), meaning I will have a lot of alone time (when they go to bed) and no one to watch old episodes of Shark Tank with. Now, confession, most of my book choices were made this month simply because of what was available to me for free. But I wasn't disappointed. Here is our update!!

Julie
True Beauty by Carolyn Mahaney (book by a pastor's wife) - I liked the book and appreciated the fact that it was applicable to women at any stage of life. I reviewed it on my friend’s blog here.
Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (Novel longer than 400 pages) - This was an engaging story, and honest confession, I couldn’t sleep one night because I kept thinking through the clues and wondering whodunnit. Although the answer wasn’t that surprising, because at some point or another I had suspected pretty much every body.
Joni by Joni Eareckson Tada (A biography) - I assumed I knew Joni Earickson Tada’s story. I’ve heard snippets of it all my life. But I was really impacted by reading the book first hand. I devoured it in a couple of days. She was so honest about her suffering and her times of rebellion against God. It encouraged me as I think of my life, and the lives of my kids, that God really is powerful enough to sustain us through the darkest times of life.
You Can't Make this Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Non-fiction by Lee Gutkind (A Book about Writing) - Since starting this blog and enjoying the writing process quite a bit, I was excited to read a book about writing! Frankly, I picked this one because my friend had a copy and I didn't know what other book to choose. I loved it! I didn't complete any of the exercises he assigned, but maybe in the future I will.  I mostly enjoyed learning about the genre through all of the cream-of-the-crop excerpts that he included in the book. And it gave me a host of good options for the "Memoirs" category of the reading challenge.

Luke

​Hamlet by William Shakespeare (A play by Shakespeare) - I appreciated reading a play, which I am not accustomed to, because you have to really imagine the scenes. You only get the dialogues, not beautifully created scenes as in a novel. And it being a tragedy, it was good to consider Shakespeare's views on life and death, and therefore, my own.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickins (A book by or about Charles Dickins) - This is a classic story of redemption and sacrifice. I appreciated it as a historian, because it brings to light a lot from the French Revolution. Usually studying history, you get the big picture. But this brings you up close and personal with how it affected the common man.