The summer reading challenge is done

Wendell Berry:
Andy Catlett
A World Lost
Nathan Coulter
The Memory of Old Jack

I loved each and every one of these books. There is something of love and loss and the importance of daily life in them that made them the perfect accompaniment for my many days of hospital bedside waiting.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table Mollie Wizenberg
Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine and Love in Italy Michael Tucker
The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater

These books all made me hungry for real food, food that still has bits of the earth from which it was yanked, fresh, colorful, delicious food. I have frozen a whole boatload of entrees for our busy week-night meals, but I intend to do some fresh, fun cooking on the weekends. I also loved that these writers were not afraid to throw themselves into their writing and their cooking and their eating. There is a fullness of life ambiance in all three books that I adore.

Christ in the Psalms by Patrick Henry Reardon

This has become an almost-daily devotional; it takes time to percolate, and I won't be finished with it for a long time.

Father Arseny: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father
The Journals of Alexander Schmemann
The lives of two remarkable men. Inspiring.

The Idiot F. Dostoevsky was cancelled in favor of The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky
I think I need to take a course on the short story genre. I finished this confused (which is probably not a commentary on the book, if you know what I mean.)


The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs Alexander McCall Smith
Portuguese Irregular Verbs Alexander McCall Smith

Good laughs.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir Bill Bryson

Not my cuppa.

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
Meet the Austins

Two re-reads and a new series. Love L'Engle. Love her.

I am collecting my pile for an autumnal reading challenge - a stack of new Wendell Berry titles, some rather heady stuff from a friend's reading list, and a funny book about animals. I shall list them soon.