Welcome to my weekly Book-ish post where I share what I’ve been reading and watching recently. If you missed it, you can see my Reading Goals for 2018 and 44 Books I Plan to Read This Year.
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I didn’t get a chance to post a book post last week because were in India, but I’m excited to tell you about these two books I finished the past two weeks.
The first book was Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. If you’ve gone to India, lived in India, or plan to visit India, I think this will be a very insightful and interesting book.
Honestly, it gave me such helpful perspective as I prepared to head to India for the second time. It was sad, intriguing, and yet it gave me hope, too.
I think it’s so easy for those of us who live in the Western world to feel like we have better answers to how to help or fix poverty. But as this book clearly shows, we don’t really understand at all what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Because I had experienced some of what this book talks about and been to some of the areas the book refers to, it made the story come alive in a really vibrant way. It’s hard for me to put into words how it impacted me, but it’s one of those books I’ll be mulling on for a long time to come.
Note: There is a lot of crass language and mature topics discussed in this book. It’s real and raw and doesn’t sugar-coat anything. The author went to great lengths to present the story as accurately as possible and, there wasn’t anything she said that was refuted by people I met in India.
A big thank you to Leigh Kramer for telling me about this book and highly encouraging me to read it.
I’m a big fan of Katie Ganshert and have been wanting to read Wildflowers from Winter for awhile. I think it was her first book and I feel like the depth of her writing and character development has improved quite a bit in her subsequent books, but I still enjoyed this novel and definitely wanted to keep reading it even when I really needed to put it down and go do other things.
When I Find Time to Read
People are always asking me how I find time to read. Honestly, it’s because I love to read, because I’ve chosen to prioritize it, because I don’t have a lot of other hobbies, and because I can’t not read. Also, when you love something, you usually can find ways to get creative to find time to fit it in — even if it’s in the little nooks and crannies of life.
I wrote a post on 3 ways to find more time to read — even when life is busy. And here are 7 more ways to find time to read.
I would suggest adding Secret Daughter to your future reading list keeping with the India theme.
Thanks so much for the suggestion!
I just finished “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” too. I actually almost emailed you to recommend it and then this post popped up in my feed.
So fun to hear that!
I finished reading the 3rd Secret Zoo to my kids and started Travels with Gannon and Wyatt, Botswana. My son is loving it!
I finished Just Open the Door, and am so glad I read it.
Now I’m reading Why Motherhood Matters.
Just Open The Door = you know I love that one! 🙂
I read Behind the Beautiful Forevers a few years ago. So powerful. It was part of the “One Book, One UIS (University of Illinois Springfield)” reading project, and they brought in the author to speak. The event was so popular that some of us ended up in an overflow room watching on closed circuit TV because we didn’t get there early enough.
That is so cool you got to go to an event with the author. I have so many questions I’d love to ask her!
I am finishing “Light Between the Oceans” and liked it but not loved it because the ending was not as I would have wanted. I really enjoyed the author’s description of life as a lightkeeper on an island 100 miles from the mainland.
Also, I found “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” at the library friends sale for $1 and loved it! It’s on the PBS Great American Read List- so many books in this list that I want to read. I also liked watching the show because people from all walks of life talk about why they like their favorite books.
My husband and I watched “The Meg” from the Redbox and it was good, not as scary as Jaws because it didn’t have that infamous music. We know a real life engineer who has built and manned those mini-subs that are in the movie.
Thank you so much for those great book recommendations!