In a previous post, I wrote about what each rating (out of five stars) means for me. Five stars indicate an amazing book… not just a book that I liked, but one that I loved. One star books are books I hated. In all likelihood, I didn’t even finish a book that was that bad. […]
I never saw the Lord of the Rings movies when I was growing up. I wasn’t allowed to watch them or read the books either. My parents (fundamental Christians) saw all fictional magic as evil. The Bible says that witches, magic, and sorcery are evil, therefore, my parents felt that magic should not be a […]
Book ratings seem pretty straightforward. Assign a number of stars to a book to indicate how much you liked it. Nothing very complicated there. But I’ve discovered that everybody means something different by those stars. Some people will only give five stars to a very select few books–the true, timeless classics, or the books that […]
Deborah Galiley’s novel Yohana is a beautiful historical drama that tells the timeless, incredible story of Jesus Christ but from a brand new perspective. Yohana (also known as Joanna) is one of the women mentioned in the Gospel of Luke as having followed Jesus and supported his ministry, but little else about her is known. […]
In the town of Medallion, Ohio in 1919, there is a place called the Bottom. It is actually up in the hills, but this place and its inhabitants are all at the bottom…the bottom life, of the world, of hope. Pain is the only thing they never seem to plumb the depths of. The people […]
The Color Purple seems to be one of those books that most everyone read in high school. If they didn’t, they saw the movie adaptation with Whoopie Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, I was homeschooled in a very conservative home, so I wasn’t exposed to many popular books, especially not books as controversial as Alice […]
I feel funny about reviewing classic literature. For one thing, it’s a classic, meaning a consensus has already been reached by “the collective, inimitable them” (Elizabethtown, 2005) that it is indeed a good book. My affirmation of its greatness is not necessary, and my denial of it would be meaningless. For another thing, seeing as […]
I’m woefully behind on my book reviews, and I’m kind of ok with it, because it’s summer fun that has set me back so far. We’ve been having a lot of kiddie-pool play dates and lemonade lake days and sweaty, sun-kissed hours at the park. In the midst of all that, I’ve managed to keep […]
The book The Argument-Free Marriage, ironically enough, resulted in an argument between my husband and me. As was the case with the book Think, Learn, Succeed, Jared read a book which he loved, and he recommended it to me. However, I was underwhelmed by Fawn Weaver’s book, and when Jared and I tried to persuade […]
Trevor Noah is best known as the host of the Daily Show and as a stand-up comedian. The South African comic has two hour-long specials available on Netflix that are truly worth watching. His humor is smart, heavily sarcastic, and refreshingly free of the crude sexual humor that most comedians seem to depend on. His […]