Book Review #2: Edition apparently tomorrow means 6 days from now

So I've been inspired by my friend, Rachel.  She and her husband, Seth, are like goal setting power houses.   When we first met these young whippersnappers we felt like we hadn't done anything in the world.  You see, we had all recently moved to Edinburgh (read: been there for 4 days) and they had already been to multiple new student gatherings, enjoyed a ceildh (read: Scottish square dance), done a tour of the highlands, and written the first thesis chapter (Seth not Rachel).  OK, maybe not all of that, but they are go-getters I tell you.  Inspiring!  And then we remember that we have a kid and this is why at 4 days in all we had seen in Edinburgh was the inside of IKEA.

Bummer.

(about IKEA not about having a kid!:))

I have to say that since then, we have attended a ceildh or five and took a jaunt through the highlands and a family holiday to the Outer Hebrides.

Amazing.

Back in January SIL, Susannah, and I committed to what we dubbed "The Year of Discipline;" we made a few realistic goals that we were going to hold each other accountable for  (I've been planning on writing a blog post on this for months but never got around to it - so yeah, you can guess how well that is going for me.)  At the same time I was setting goals, Rachel was too, but she is actually following through.  One of her goals was to read a book each week this whole year.  I feel in love with this idea when I first heard about it and then it was back to reality when I looked back at all of the books I had read since Seth was born (read: 2), and realized this was a goal for the year I have an empty nest (read: at least 17 years from now).

So I may not be reading a book a week, but I have finished another one: Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden and I absolutely loved it.

{via}

 It followed great book criteria for me:

1. Fiction
2. Set in Britain (though it's partly set in Australia too)
3. Mystery (and it's a generational one which is a plus)
4. Epic (spans almost 100 years)

I had picked this book up at the recommendation of a book shop owner (old habits die hard) right after Seth was born, but didn't start reading it till a few weeks ago. I truly couldn't put it down - Taylor will attest to the sadly neglected bathroom that missed a scrubbing or two.

The characters are believable - you want to be their friends and are sad to see them go when the book is over.  The language was beautiful.  She has a great balance of inner dialogue, setting description, and interaction among characters.  And the storyline is intriguing.  I love trying to solve the mystery before it is fully revealed.

Here is a description from her website of the novel.

Morton's first novel, The House at Riverton is now next on my list - hopefully I can find it in the library!

Happy Reading!

Book Review #1: Edition what was supposed to be on The Forgotten Garden is actually on Moo, Baa, La La La

I just read a whole book.

This may seem like a small achievement to most, but barely having tucked my first year of motherhood in my belt, this is an accomplishment indeed.

Usually I am an avid reader.  It is probably the reason I became a teacher.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are gleaning new titles from book shop owners after running out of books to read at my own house and school library (wow - nerd alert!).  And now, for the first time in my life, I am finding that I have stacks of un-read books on my bedside table.

To be fair, I have read some of all of them.  That is except for The Dawkins Delusion - shocking, I know.  Apparently I go for young adult (YA) fiction over academia.  Now we see why I'm not getting my PhD too though most of you didn't need evidence.

For fun, I snapped a photo of Taylor's bedtime reading.  He loves to be reading a million books at once, so it has one thing in common with my side.

Further evidence of why he is getting his PhD and not me.
(The one  YA novel is purely due to my influence - we are reading it aloud together and are on about page 5. because I can't tear him away from his 5th reading of The Lord of the Rings.)

I am pleased to find that after passing the year mark, I'm finding time to read something longer than a blog post here and there (though I am super thankful for the invention of the blog so that my reading material goes beyond Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See and Goodnight Moon - not that I don't love reading with Seth; it is one of my favorite things to do!)  Recently, after an animated lesson on "Books: A Survey on Your Feelings about Reading" for the conversational English class I teach, some Chinese students asked me when I first started reading to Seth.  I had learned from our conversation that it isn't common in China to read aloud in families.  When I told them I had started reading to Seth immediately after he was born, they were amazed.

Seth is the baby on the left and cousin Caroline is on the right.

Seth's love for reading makes this former lit teacher's heart so happy.  He would rather look at books than play with toys!  He has recently started interrupting my housework by holding out a book to me with a look of such earnestness that of course I comply.  I mean seriously housework or reading to this guy?  Easy choice.

And I get this face if I don't comply immediately.

He has actually paused the writing of this post about twenty times so that I can read Things That Move or Peepo.  We actually read Peepo so many times in the past 48 hours that he now has part of it memorized.

His favorite book though is Moo, Baa, La La La and I have to commend his choice as it may be the only book that I can actually get through the sentence on the page before he is turning to the next one.  That Sandra Boynton is a genius!  He has also memorized sections of this book too.  My favorite part is when he starts wagging his finger while adamantly saying, "No, no!'  when we get to the page where the pigs are said to say "oink" instead of "la la la." Can you guess what Little Man hears a lot these days?

Pause my music before clicking play on the video if you want to see Seth "read."

So this was going to be a book review on Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, but I think I will save it for it's very own post tomorrow.

Read to your kids (no matter what age)!!

American readers, go and visit Elizabeth's blog to enter her giveaway - it closes July 31st!

A Holy Experience

Since Seth and Taylor are in bed already (record for Taylor Ince!), I've been stumbling around the blogs I follow but only Angie has written, and it's short.  She leads me to a new site (in)courage and oh, am I in trouble.  She has relocated her book club, Bloom, that she does with Jess over there, so I went to check it out.  The problem?  Lots of good writers with links to their personal blogs all found in one place.  I had to come up with some sort of arbitrary limitation for myself to avoid breaking my new year's resolution to be in bed by 10 (it's 9:51). Because those of you who follow blogs regularly know when you find a new one you like, how hard it is to stop pushing "older posts." Crack.  That is what it's like non-blog addicted people. (No I don't do drugs, just love to read is all, and as a mom of a busy 7 month old, all I have time to read is blogs and my Bible. So I narrowed my search by only looking at the blogs of those who have abnormal amounts of children.  Read: 5 or more.

Don't misunderstand me; I don't mean this in a rude way. I am totally fascinated with large families.  We would love to be blessed with one ourselves eventually.  Taylor jokes that it's because I am obsessed with names.  Kaitlyn would wholeheartedly agree with this as well - she was subjected to many late nights when we were kids to playing the name game.  So what if I have our next 5 children named already?  It's the only part of my life that I have actually planned ahead for.  Only thing is each time I get pregnant, the Lord gives me a new name (sidenote: isn't that a glorious Truth?) - Seth was to be Jack; Tristan was to be Jack.  Think He is trying to teach me something?  Maybe some day I will have a Jack though it's been demoted recently for more Scottish sounding names.  No, I am not pregnant.

I digress.  Back to the reason I wrote this post.

Ann Voskamp.

She made the cut because:

a. She has 6 kids
b. She's actually the author of the next Bloom book club book, One Thousand Gifts
c. She went on a Compassion International Blogging trip with two of my old school (not old school - you know what I mean!) friends that I kind of sort of keep up with, so we basically know each other already (Ann, not my old school friends)
d. When in college, my T Bar M women's director had the same last name

Men, if you haven't figured it out yet, it's all about the personal connection.  No matter how far removed it may seem.  Am I right girls?

Anyway, amazing choice, because as her blog is named, it was truly A Holy Experience.  Check it out and be blessed.  Susannah, I think that you would especially love it.


Also, go read an excerpt of her book and dare to tell me you are not going to join the book club tomorrow.

It also doesn't hurt that her book cover adds another hint to my new blog design/name...

{Image from http://www.aholyexperience.com/}

See!  We're practically best friends already.

Ahh! 10:01 - no time for editing.  This blog post is undoubtedly another confirmation that I need to get in bed by 10.  Please forgive if it makes absolutely no sense.

Here is a pick of Seth to appease:

(What I should be doing)

Night, y'all.

Anne of Green Psycho

You're probably thinking right now, isn't it called Anne of Green Gables? And you'd be right. But this is what Taylor named me last night. I can't help it, I LOVE Anne Shirley. And Gilbert Blythe is perfect. I told Taylor not to be jealous.


Let me back up. This all started with a post by Beth Moore on her LPM blog. She, being a fellow book nerd (is it ok to call Beth Moore that? it seems wrong, but I'm going to go with it), asked her blog followers to comment on her post leaving the title of their favorite book so that we could share our "must reads". I was salivating when I stumbled upon this post a few days after she published it. To my dismay it had already been blocked from any more comments due to the volume of replies received (over 1500!), but who wants to read for the 1, 021st time that Redeeming Love was some one's favorite book anyway?



Side note: what is it with that book? Seriously, it was the winner by far - most people didn't follow my lead (or what would have been my lead had I gotten to actually leave a comment) of choosing your next favorite book because we get the picture, Redeeming Love is a great book! I had Taylor guess which was the most popular book listed, and he did - easily, I might add. So really, what is it about Christian women that makes this our favorite book? It bothers me that we are so predictable, but maybe that is indicative of why so many chose that book in the first place...



But, I digress.



Anne of Green Gables happened to be another big favorite among LPM blog commenters. Being a lover of free books, it quickly dawned on me that I had AoGG in my personal classroom library. My mom had gotten me the boxed set (all 6!) after I fell in love with the movie as a little girl. I just finished Anne of Windy Poplars (book 4) last night when I was labeled "Anne of Green Psycho" because did I mention that I LOVE it? I may have told Taylor that too.



Anne, "with an e" don't you forget, is just so lovable. At first she annoyed me with her "scope for imagination" business and being so bright-eyed and naive (kind of like the girl on Enchanted), but her zest for life is so refreshing. So I have been devouring this series in all of my spare time. I am in that place where I don't want to finish them, but I can't stop reading; you know, how books become like good friends, but then you know you'll have to put them back on the shelf when the story's over? Wow, nerd alert.



This has all led to my wanting to rent the movie again, but Blockbuster does not have it! Can you believe this? Actually I can, it is too clean and pure for them to grace their inventory with I suppose. After asking the Blockbuster guy to look it up and finding it wasn't in stock anymore, he promptly told me to buy it on Amazon and suckered us into buying a six-pack of coke and two boxes of candy. We left with a documentary called My Date with Drew which was actually quite good. Sorry Blockbuster for maligning you.




What is this world coming to when you can't even rent Anne of Green Gables? Tragical is what it is.