Recent Reads

So... I've been slacking on my blog posts. May was a bummer month for me in terms of reading and so I chose to not do a wrap-up. As always, I keep a running list of what I read so if you are curious as to what titles I completed during May, feel free to check out the page at the top of my blog. 
Instead of doing individual reviews for the books I've read since I last blogged, I thought I would do a kind of conglomerate post summing them up and any thoughts I had. 

Matilda by Roald Dahl was my last read in May. This was a re-read for me; Goodreads says I've read it twice, but I know I read it over and over again as a child. Dahl is one of my favorite children's authors; the way he incorporates measures of fantasy and whimsy into his stories is uncanny. He has such a special place in my heart that I wrote a lesson plan around his novel, The BFG, for my summer course. 

Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot was my first read of June. I purchased this book for myself nearly a year ago, read the first few chapters, and then set it aside. The Lord led me back to it and I managed to finish the remaining chapters within a few days. My finishing this is really an example of the mysterious ways in which the Lord works; there are truths contained in the pages that I would not have been receptive to a year ago and sunk in differently at this moment in my life. The cover (and subtitle) plug this as a dating and romance book, which to a certain extent it is. Elliot writes about her and her first husband Jim's love story, but I would say that the main theme of this book is waiting on the Lord. I was encouraged to view waiting in a different light: not simply waiting on the Lord, but resting in the Lord. Elliot deals with hard truths in a way that comforts and her quiet devotion Christ is inspiring, to say the least. 

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is my most recent read and boy, was it a doozy. There are two mysteries (two stories, really) contained in this novel. As I've said before, whodunnit style mysteries are my favorites, which is why I was drawn to Magpie Murders. It's difficult to explain the content of this story without giving away spoilers, but if you love Agatha Christie and British mystery fiction, I think you'd like this one too. I ended up giving it 3 stars on Goodreads, for two reasons: it was long, which I usually enjoy, but there were large portions of it where I struggled to keep reading because it dragged. Second, while the novel was free from lewd content and mostly free of foul language, there was a brief conversation regarding a subject that made me uncomfortable, coupled with a character's lifestyle choices, and it was enough to knock it down a star, for me at least. 

I'm currently reading a Nancy Drew mystery; I was in the mood for something classic. After that, I've got a Mary Stewart, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, and Elizabeth von Arnim to get to next. Happy Sunday!

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