I’m behind on sharing some of my favorites from each month, so while I know today I should be sharing my favorites from October, I’m going back one more month and catching up with September first. I read a couple great books, and wanted to share my top three (although one favorite is an author and I read not just one by her in September, but a couple).
I loved taking the time to read Saints, The Standard of Truth this fall. I felt it was really well done and was eye opening to many parts of our church history. I was skeptical at first and wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to reading such a large book that was nonfiction/history, but the narrative format really was nice and made this book easy to follow and flowed well. I thought I knew a lot about this time period and the history of the church, but there were many new things that I learned on while reading Saints. I felt that this book was honest and pretty transparent, which the church has been accused of not being in the past. I also felt that reading this really made me appreciate that I live in the present day – where the church is currently. We have our struggles and obstacles, but many things have been paved for us. Reading this book has prompted me to add reading the Doctrine in Covenants again in addition to my daily Book of Mormon reading. We can learn so much from church history! I encouraged my older kids that they could read and learn form this book too – because of school work, activities and the size of the book they probably won’t get through it near as fast as I did, but they were interested! And although I know exactly what happens next in the church history, I ended reading this book with a longing to read more! I can’t wait to read the next installment. I will probably be rereading this first installment before then as well!
I read The Lost Castle, by Kristy Cambron, late in the summer and really enjoyed her so in September I read through two more of her books. They aren’t necessarily a series, but can be read in order if you find them that way. I really loved the first one, The Butterfly and the Violin, the second book, A Sparrow in Terezin I enjoyed but I would probably give it half a star less or so than the first one. Cambron has a new one coming out early next year that I am looking forward too. These are great historical books with a little romance and a little mystery. In both The Butterfly and the Violin and A Sparrow in Tererzin we bounce back between WWII time and present day. I am usually a big sucker for books that do that. I am not sure if her books are categorized as christian fiction, but there are some strong christian undertones in her writing as well. Not so much that it gets overdone, but it is there. I am looking forward to reading a few more of her books in the next couple months!
Long Journey Home was Sarah M. Eden’s newest release this fall and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it! I love the Longing For Home series and reading this one made me want to go back and re-read them all from the beginning. These are different than Eden’s regency era books, these are set in the American West and follow an Irish family, the O’Connors. I have loved how each book weaves the families together and introduces new characters as well. This book brought in some characters from the family that we hadn’t heard of in a long time and I enjoyed that aspect. I also love reading these books because some of my favorite Eden characters – Tavish, Joseph and Katie, for example, always make reappearances! Eden is brilliant how she can keep track of all her characters and series and I hope to see more from this family of hers in the future!
Did you read any books that you enjoyed lately? Have you read any of these? I would love to hear what you think, leave me a comment and share your ideas!
