Every year I make a list of reading goals for the following year. And every year I fail to meet them. But I still like doing it!
Looking back on this year with homeschooling the three kids, a chronic illness rearing up it’s ugly head after a few years in remission, the stress of selling our home, getting rid of half our stuff, major financial and job changes as Daniel began a 13 month long farming internship, moving across the country, almost seven weeks on the road with three kids, and starting a new business venture (with Young Living Essential Oils)….I really don’t feel too guilty about not completing all the reads I wanted to. (Wow! 2015 was a doozy!)
But in addition to ahem, not a lot of uninterrupted reading time, I’m also notorious for adding books to my list on a whim so that I don’t finish plenty of the ones I planned to read. And this year, apparently, I needed lots of re-reads of fiction and lighter books because my brain. was. full.
I also read lots of non-fiction ebooks on health issues, but didn’t include them here because that’s a different kind of reading for me.
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January
- ✓ Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- ✓ Mothering from Scratch by Melinda Means and Kathy Helgemo
- ✓ Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
- ✓ The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
- ✓ The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit
- ✓ Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting by Laura Kelly Fanucci
Well, I clearly started off strong! Too bad I didn’t keep up the momentum all year.
I gave myself several months to finish Les Mis (as you can see as the list continues) but I didn’t finish it until halfway through December because……whew. It’s good, but since I’ve read abridged versions before, I knew what was coming. And I really just am not interested in the history of the Parisian sewer system and other extensive and painful chapters of historical detail. So that’s why it’s taken me almost three years to finally finish the unabridged version!
February:
- ✓ Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- ✓A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (re-read)
- ✓ The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (re-read)
- ✓ In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden
- ✓ Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching by Anthony Esolen
- ✓ Hard Core Poor: A Book on Extreme Thrift by Kelly Sangree
- Mary: The Church at the Source by Hans Urs von Balthasar and Pope Benedict XVI
If you read one book this year, let it be In This House of Brede. Seriously, so good. My brain was NOT ready to tackle von Balthasar and Papa Benny the same month our house went on the market!
March:
- ✓ Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- ✓Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (re-read)
- ✓Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers
- ✓A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot
I definitely will be adding some more Sayers mysteries to my 2016 list. And I liked A Mother’s Rule of Life okay…..I mean, I appreciated it but I don’t think that kind of rigid daily schedule jives with my personality or mothering/homeschooling style. And I’m ok with that.
April:
- ✓ Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- ✓ The Penderwicks in Spring by Jeanne Birdsall
- Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies by David Bentley Hart
- Seeds of the Word: Finding God in Culture by Fr. Robert Barron
Currently reading Athiest Delusions and it’s really good! The Penderwicks in Spring was wonderful, like all the Penderwicks books but this one was sad, folks!
May:
- ✓ Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- Kid Cooperation by Elizabeth Pantley
- Sex, Style, and Substance by Hallie Lord
Clearly, May was not a reading success. But we did accept an offer on our house that month!
June:
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory by Alasdair MacIntyre
- ✓ The Mystery of Harry Potter: A Catholic Family Guide by Nancy C. Brown
- ✓ Possession by A.S. Byatt
We moved out of our house! And so I read another novel and a book about Harry Potter and none of the books on my original list. Oh well!
July:
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum: A Guide to Catholic Home Education by Laura M. Berquist
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
- ✓ Discovering God Together by Greg and Lisa Popcak
All our books were boxed up, but I read a digital version of the Popcak’s book and really loved it!
August:
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- On Writing Well by William Zinsser
- ✓ Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery (re-read)
During our almost 7 week long road trip around the country I did NOT get a lot of reading done.
September:
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Spirit of the Liturgy by Pope Benedict XVI
- ✓ Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery (re-read)
We moved to Texas! And I re-read some Anne and ignored the rest of my list, naturally.
October:
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brian Pitre
- ✓ Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery (re-read)
Same story.
November:
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Home by Marilynne Robinson
- ✓ Persuasion by Jane Austen (re-read)
And the comfort re-reads continue!
December:
- ✓ Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
- ✓ Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (re-read)
And finally a novel that isn’t by Austen or L.M. Montgomery!
So 24 books in all, which isn’t terrible, but isn’t as good as I’d hoped. We won’t be selling a house in 2016, but we may be moving again so….better luck in 2016?
I didn’t even try to start The Brothers Karamazov while still reading Les Mis, so I’m starting that one January 1st!
What was your favorite book you read this year?
I spent all summer reading C.S.Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Mind blowing. Then needed some brain candy and reread Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Peru and all the corollary tales. Then school started and if it’s not what I’m teaching I don’t have time for it. Notably, I read Nancy Farmer’s The Ear, the Eye and the Arm prior to teaching it in my students’ first novel study, after some lovely classic poetry.
“The Elephant Company” by Vicki Croke. It was great!
Oh, Ann-Marie, I never mentioned to you, but after you blogged about it, I eventually ended up reading it! I thought the book was super fascinating, and I learned a whole lot about elephants, which was really cool.
Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather. It was the first book we read in my Catholic mom’s reading group and I LOVED it. You know when you love a book so much that you wish you could just crawl inside and stay there forever? Maybe I’m a big weirdo? Either way…fantastic novel and definitely on my re-read list.
Pretty much all of Cather’s books are excellent! Song of the Lark another good one,many Death Comes for the Archbishop too.
So fun to hear that others reread for comfort during major life changes, too!
I haven’t completely decided what my favorite book was this year, but I think it will be The Wednesday Wars. I really liked Okay for Now and Shadows on the Rock, too. I love that you reread Anne for comfort! 🙂
I’ve had kind of a down year for reading. No new favorites. I did like The Martian, and that is probably my favorite for the year. I also read Unbroken and enjoyed that quite a bit.
This fall, I read “Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart” by Fr. Jacques Philippe. A.Mazing. 110 pages of wonderful-ness… I took about 10 pages of notes. And I don’t usually take notes unless it’s for my bible study, but it was a book I borrowed from the Archdiocese Media Center, so it’s not like I could asterisk things in the margin. 🙂 I highly recommend it for anyone!
If you haven’t already read it (or if it’s not your style) I highly recommend Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. She’s got several degrees, including one in research, and so the historical detail of her novels is absolutely fantastic and spot on. The love story is wonderful, too, but you’ll also appreciate that she and both her main characters are Catholic.
Another one you might find interesting, and an emotional read, is called Room. I don’t recall the author. It’s based on a mother and her young son who have been held captive, told from his point of view, in a single room for his entire life. It’s an amazing glimpse into the emotional ties a child has with their immediate environment and the people in it.
Happy Reading!
Outlander is probably up there in my favorites read this year! So far the two sequels I’ve read aren’t too bad either!
I finally read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Brilliant. So much beautiful writing that I was tempted to turn it into wallpaper so I could stare at it all the time. The parallels to Cain and Abel were so fun to draw out while reading!
Only one? Tsk. How about I give you my top two fiction and my top two non-fiction? 😉 My top two in fiction were Dodger and Nation, both by Terry Pratchett. I did not have much exposure to him prior to this (Guards! Guards! and the co-authored Good Omens), and I have to say, I will be reading more.
In non-fiction, I would say David Perlmutter’s Brain Maker was the most eye-opening for me, and Healing Without Hurting, a book on naturally treating ADHD, autism, and other childhood disorders, came in at a close second. Being active in the biomed community, I was familiar with much of what she had to say, but there was still plenty for me to learn, and I would highly recommend it to anyone as an entry into the options available for improving your child’s health and quality of life.
This summer I read the unabridged “Les Miserables,” and I absolutely loved it!!! I had never read the abridged version, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Wow, that book is good. I also read “Kristin Lavransdatter” shortly after Les Mis, and I liked that one as well, though Kristin made me mad sometimes-I just felt really bad for Erlend a lot of the time. Ooh, and I read “Dracula,” by Bram Stoker, and I HIGHLY recommend it!!!!! “French Women Don’t Get Fat” was another book that I really enjoyed a lot! I also read tons of lighter reading, especially murder mysteries and crime novels, mixed in with some random romance books.
Love this! Les Miserables is on my list, but I can’t decide if I should choose an abridged or unabridged version. -_- I’m in the middle of Pride and Prejudice but it’s a struggle for me (the writing, not the story – just taking me sooo long to read). It’ll be my first read from Jane Austen.
Easily the best book I’ve read this year is The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra. I was a little put off by the title (techno) and the cover (pretty, but an image of a cassette tape) because those don’t seem like things I’d be into, but nope. It was amazing. It’s a bunch of stories that link together and take us through time, and it’s a bit funny but also kinda heartbreaking. And the writing itself may be the best writing I’ve encountered from a living author, ever. It’s phenomenal. The second best book I’ve read this year was Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin – I think she’s the best author of self-help type books I’ve read so far. That particular book is about habits. Really great.
I usually don’t make it through my lists because I also end up adding books on a whim. I think this year I might make a list of one book I’d like to read each month and stick to that, which gives me plenty of room to add the books I’ll add without plan. 🙂
Kristen, Jayber Crow, and Lantern in Her Hand were my faves this year! And His Five Loves about JPII. And I got through Anna Karinena but I didn’t LOVE it. Looking so forward to the Brothers K, friend. 🙂
I found The Moviegoer by Walker Percy fascinating because it combined Catholicism, existentialism, and Southern literature in a relatively light novel. It was much easier to read than some books that explore existentialism! I also read all of Shirley Ann Grau’s books that were available on Kindle Unlimited. I especially couldn’t put down The Keepers of the House. Her style reminded me of a less Gothic Flannery O’Connor. As for a modern page turner, I just finished Faith by Jennifer Haigh. It’s a fictional account of a Boston priest during the height of the abuse scandal. It really helped me understand priests better and what they sacrifice to live their vocation. Good luck accomplishing your reading goals in 2016!
This is not a classic but was such a wonderful story–The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The name kind of turned me off because I thought it would just be a silly book but it was completely amazing.
Yes!! Loved every minute of it!
I’d like to share a few books from my recent reading. I just finished The Impact Of God. It’s a wonderful book by Fr. Iain Matthew, OCD, that reveals the beauty of St. John of the Cross in an easily understandable way. I just started Into Your Hands, Father by Wilfrid Stinissen. It is proving to be just as impressive. My ink pen is really getting a workout between the two. I can recommend Skeleton Crew, a mystery, by Beverly Connor. She is one of my favorite writers. She has two series’ staring different anthropologists and an absolutely fantastic cross over book to end the series that ties up a long running theme beautifully. Later today I’ll be starting my re-read of Little Princess which I do every winter around this time. The weather is perfect for it.
This is the first year I didn’t meet my reading goal in 4 years… and as long as I don’t think about it too much, it doesn’t bum me out too badly. 😉 Like you, I had started off strong – even pre-bought a few books for the Kindle – and then…….. it wasn’t even until around August that I realized I was waaay off track and then in October I realized it was far too late altogether to recoup. Alas. At least the books on the Kindle are still there and, Lord willing, there’s always next year! 🙂
I loved Team of Rivals!
I made a reading list this year and my fave reads were All the Light We Cannot See by Anothony Doerr and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Schaffer…Oh! and I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time and am feeling so excited that I have the whole rest of the series to enjoy! I figured it was about time since I am from Canada and have a little daughter named Anna! Thanks for sharing your books!
oh thank goodness. someone else who didn’t think MROL was the bes thing ever. like you, i appreciated it, but it just doesn’t …. fit me. or is actually that helpful lol.
my biggest thing was that her downtime stuff revolves around “mother’s day out” which just doesn’t give with a nursing baby (when one isn’t a pumper). between that and scheduling her children’s prayer, i just couldn’t get into it! but everyone seems to love it so i felt like something was wrong with ME lol
You’re not alone. If there’s something wrong with you, there’s something wrong with me, too! 😉
I am not a huge book person, but I really enjoyed Anthony Esolen’s book and highly recommend it! I think you will like it. (That sounds a little weird, but I am an avid podcast listner!)
Which one do you recommend, Lisette? I LOVED 10 Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child and I liked his book on social teaching, too. And thanks for listening!
I did 5 of those. All of the Austen. Plus, In this House of Brede and I am halfway through Hannah Coulter.
I did a number of others as well, but I made no record of it. I will have to pick my husband’s brain to figure out what else I read.
I hope you love Bros K. Dostoevsky is so insightful.
Fabiola . . . hands down, the best book I read last year. You have (had) a great list. A Mother’s Rule of Life changed our family–just what I needed 10 years ago with a toddler and teenager. Interesting how this book strikes people differently.
Great idea & great lists. You aim high! What’s on the reading list for 2016?
Here’s 2016! http://www.carrotsformichaelmas.com/2016/01/04/my-reading-list-for-2016/
Haha, I’ve done something similar for the past few years… and there’s a huge pile of books on my bedside table showing quite how badly I’ve failed ;-). This year, my goal is just to get through that heap, without adding anything else to it!