5 Books I Read Last Week + What I Hope to Read This Week

We’re seven days into January and I’ve finished seven books so far. That’s a pretty good pace, eh?

I don’t think I’ll be able to keep reading at the pace of one book per day, but it’s been fun to have more time for reading these past two weeks!

Books Read This Week

Here’s what I read this past week:

What Alice Forgot — I really enjoyed this book. While it wasn’t written from a Christian perspective and had some swear words in it, the book was well-written and really caused me to step back and examine my own marriage and relationships to see if I’m making small choices that would, over time, have devastating consequences.

Steal Like An Artist — This is such a quick read, but it’s packed with inspirational ideas. I didn’t agree with all of the ideas and thought some of them could be overwhelming — especially if you felt like you needed to add a bunch of them to your life in order to be a better writer or more creative person — but overall, I thought it was solid and helpful advice.

I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) — I’ve loved all three of Brene’s books. This one is her first book and, while it was very thought-provoking, I’d say it was my least favorite. If you only read one of hers, I would highly recommend Daring Greatly. Caveat: All of Brene’s books have some crass language in them and aren’t written to a Christian audience.

5-Minute Morning Boosters — This was another quick read, but it had some interesting ideas in it for starting your day well. Some of them were quite weird, but there were enough good ideas to outweigh the few weird ones. 🙂

Dashing Dish: 100 Simple & Delicious Recipes for Clean Eating — This book just showed up at my doorstep one day and it looked interesting, so I read through it last week. And to my surprise, I thought many of the recipes looked really good. In fact, I dog-eared so many pages that I feel like I practically dog-eared every other page! Many of the recipes were unique but still simple and delicious-looking. I passed the cookbook on to Jesse to look through since he’s been doing a lot of cooking these days, too.

Books I Plan to Read Next Week

James and the Giant Peach — This is our current read aloud. We’re enjoying it, though I have to say that some of the language and attitudes has surprised me for a children’s book. I’ve edited it a bit and used other parts as opportunities to have discussions on how our words can be hurtful and shameful to others.

The Anxiety Cure — As someone who struggles with anxiety during different seasons of life, I’m on a mission to learn more about it and what I can do to help prevent or minimize it. I read Sleep: It Does a Family Good by Archibald Hart two years ago and learned so much from it that I picked up this title to check it out, too.

Glimpses of Grace — So many people have told me I must read this book. I’m about a 1/2 of the way through it and am finding it thought-provoking it.

The One Thing — I keep seeing this one mentioned over and over again, so I thought it’d be a great read to start the year out with.

Long Walk to Freedom & Kaffir Boy — I’m reading these in preparation for my trip to South Africa next week.

Against All Grain — Multiple friends have mentioned this book to me and suggested I read it.

From This Day Forward — I saw an article about this book on Ann Voskamp’s site and was intrigued so I picked up a copy.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie — My friend, Ginger, recommended this book to me.

What did you read this week? Any must-read book recommendations?