February Reading Challenge and List

The reading list for February was pretty easy to choose this month.  There was enough going on during the month to give me quite a few choices.

Without further a do, here is the reading challenge list:

• Animal in Storyline: Groundhog day is February 2nd.  I decided to go with a story that includes an animal in it.
• Love in the Title:  With Valentine’s Day being the biggest holiday of the month, I couldn’t pass that up.  So find a book with the word “love” in the title.
• Athlete or Sport:  Superbowl Sunday is also this month.  Find yourself a book on your favorite athlete or team and read up on them!
• Feast, Party, or Religious Celebration:  Since we are celebrating Jewish holidays this year, I included this one in the list.  Purim is this month, which is the recognition of Esther and her sacrifice for her people.
• Heart on the Cover:  To keep up with the Valentine’s Day theme, I decided to go with hearts on the cover.

Here is the list that I plan on reading for this month:

1. The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice
2. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
3. The Way of Karate by George E. Mattson
4. Hanukkah by Frank Ra
5. Cold Night Warm Belly by Paul Allen

Now you may notice that my choice for #5 is a recipe book.  I don’t care what type of book it is that you read, as long as you read it.  With recipe books, I don’t read ingredients and directions word for word.  But I do read all of the informative pages and other info, along with skim all of the recipes.  So to me, that is reading a book.  It counts on my list!

If you would like to join me this month you can leave a comment below!  Feel free to leave your blog link also if you feel like reading along with the challenges!

 

Book Review: The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketcham

The Life of Abraham Lincoln was a book that I chose to read for my January Book Challenge.  When I choose something to read for a challenge, it really bugs me not to finish the books.  I feel like I fail the challenge then.   Plus, I ordinarily hate to stop a book unless it really offends me.

This book started out well enough.  It was slow going, but I think it’s due to the time when it was written.  But then it started talking all politics and things that I don’t understand.  I tried to follow through.  I really did.  I got 58% of the way through.  I really hate to stop when I’m that far.  But when I am making myself read something like it’s a chore, then it’s no fun.  So I am better off just stopping.

Book Review – Dreams & Relationships by Nicholas Heyneman

This book I suffered through because I had it in my TBR pile and I put it on my 2013 Reading Challenge.  I did not enjoy it.  It made no sense for the most part.  Using imagery to control your dreams is what it referred to a lot.  That seems silly to me.

I don’t put much stock into these sorts of things anyways.  But I was a curious about what it said.  And it didn’t say much.  The majority of the book made reference to you and a lover.  I wasn’t interested in learning about my lover’s dreams and how they go along with mine.

Anyhow, it is now finished and I can move onto the next book that I am going to read.  I’m reading The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketcham on my Kindle Fire right now.  But I also need a book that I can read that’s not electronic, so I will be starting The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice.  I just love Anne Rice and her books.  I’ve never read one of her books and not liked it.  Most of them I’ve read twice!  So this oughta be good!

Here is an updated list of my Reading Challenge for 2013 list:

D – Dreams and Relationships by Nicholas Heyneman   1/3/13 – 1/10/13

A – The Americas by Daniel J. Boorstin

N – Natural Flea Control

I – The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

E – Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

L – The Littles go to School by John Peterson

L – Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

E – Edible History by Cassandra Cookson

D – Declutter by Ava Connor

E – Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas Ph.D.

C – Contend Earnestly for the Faith: A Survey of Christian Apologetics by Phil Ferndandes Ph.D.

K – Kill the Clutter by Heather Lane

E – An Elementary Study of Islam by Mirza Tahir Ahmad

R – The Rising by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins

 

Book Review – Proverbs of the New Testament: A Relevant Study of the New Testament by Lara Velez

Last night I started reading Proverbs of the New Testament: A Relevant Study of the New Testament by Lara Velez.  I really enjoyed this study of the book of James in the Bible.  I read this as part of my January 2013 Reading Challenge List.  I chose this to read because it had the word New in it.  As noted here in the list that I chose.

This study was interesting and convicting.  The author broke down the verses and chapters within the book and explained about them.  All of it was easy to understand.  I enjoyed it.  As I said, there was some convicting material in it.  I believe that there will be something convicting in it for everyone.  Only because none of us are perfect, and these chapters seem to touch on most of the sins that we would commit.

It was written in such a way that it is easy to read in bits to really get the information.  Ms. Velez sounds very knowledgeable, and is a fellow homeschooling mom such as myself.  I believe that I have a couple other books written by her on my Kindle with this one.  If you’d like to order this book on Amazon, click here.

My updated reading list for January is as follows:

• Celebrate President’s Day – The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketcham
• Birthday Book – A Collection of Stories by Jack London 1/4/13 – 1/7/13
• Who’s Got the Blues? – The Blue Hill Farms Guide to Basic Chicken Keeping by Kim Hamilton
• Bringing in the New Year – Proverbs of the New Testament: A Relevant Study of the Book of James by Lara Velez, Founder of Moms of Faith  1/7/13 – 1/8/13
• Snowy Days – Working in the Northwest Woods by Dennis Willard

Book Review – A Collection of Stories by Jack London

For my reading challenge for January I started with reading A Collection of Stories by Jack London.  This was to fulfill my challenge to read a book by an author that has a birthday in January.

If you’d like to see the original post where the list is go here.  If you would like to see my list that I plan to read for the challenge, go here.  I chose to read a book written by Jack London.  I have read The Call of the Wild and White Fang and I enjoyed them.  In fact, I believe that I have read them both two or three times.\

I got the book A Collection of Stories on Amazon for my Kindle Fire.  Inside this book, the short stories that are included are The Human Drift, Small-Boat Sailing, Four Horses and a Sailor, Nothing that Ever Came to Anything, That Dead Men Rise up Never, A Classic of the Sea, A Wicked Woman (Curtain Raiser) and The Birth Mark (Sketch).  The first six stories are tellings of experiences that Jack London himself experienced.

The Human Drift appeared to be a basic essay on the expansion of humans.

Small Boat-Sailing told of the days that London learned to sail and the excitement of it.

Four Horses and a Sailor was a story that he told of how he learned how to drive a team of four horses and toured the neighboring counties near his home in California.

A very strange store about Jack touring a town in Ecuador called Nothing That Ever Came to Anything tells an odd tale of him trying to buy leopard skins.  There wasn’t much of a point to this story.

More tales of his sailing days, this time on a ship, was told in That Dead Men Rise up Never.  Interesting story of the ghost sighting that London saw.

A Classic of the Sea had me lost.  I had no idea what this was talking about or who it was really referring to.  It says it is an “introduction to Two Years Before the Mast“.  I have no idea really.

A comical little skit called A Wicked Woman is included in this book.  It tells of a young lady who wants to marry one certain one man.  But she is being pestered by another young man whom she does not want to marry.  This was really not something that I pictured Jack London writing.

The last story included in this book is called The Birth Mark.  Another comical sketch written for Robert and Julia Fitzsimmons.  This is a little skit written about a woman in disguise and getting caught.  Once again, not sure of the point of the story, but cute none-the-less.

All in all, this was an ok book.  I wouldn’t read it again, there wasn’t much story and action.  But it wasn’t so boring that I wanted to pick my eyeballs out.

UPDATED LIST:

• Celebrate President’s Day – The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketcham
• Birthday Book – A Collection of Stories by Jack London 1/4/13 – 1/7/13
• Who’s Got the Blues? – The Blue Hill Farms Guide to Basic Chicken Keeping by Kim Hamilton
• Bringing in the New Year – Proverbs of the New Testament: A Relevant Study of the Book of James by Lara Velez, Founder of Moms of Faith
• Snowy Days – Working in the Northwest Woods by Dennis Willard

Dreams. What’s Your Take?

Have you ever wondered what a dream means?  Or why you have some of the dreams that you have?  I have wondered those things.  Do our dreams really represent real life?  Should we pay more attention to them?

Those are questions that I think about.  I think about the Bible story about Joseph.  The dreams that he interpreted for the baker, the chef and the pharoah represented real life.  And God gave Joseph the knowledge to know what those dreams meant.

I suppose that maybe there is a chance that our dreams mean something.  Should we be praying to God for the meanings of our dreams?

I started reading a book yesterday.  It is a book about dreams that is written from a secular perspective.  I usually don’t read books on these sorts of subjects written secularly.  But for some reason, this book is on my TBR (To Be Read) shelf and I am a little curious as to what it says.  The book is called Dreams & Relationships by Nicholas Heyneman.  I’m only on page 26 so far, and the book seems pretty far-fetched to me.

But there was one thing that got me to thinking.  Doesn’t it bug you that you can’t always remember your dreams?  It said that our civilization today doesn’t remember their dreams because we don’t place any importance on them.  In civilizations that rely on dreams for their survival and/or religious areas, they remember so much about their dreams because it’s so important to them.  Some dreams tell tribes of people where to hunt, so they rely on those dreams.  I do see how that is true.  The book has suggestions on how you can try to remember your dreams better.

So that brings me to wonder.  Should I be really trying to remember my dreams, and then pray about them?

The book also says to pay attention to the feelings that the dream inspires.  The feeling that you get is very important to the meanings.  I wonder how  much meaning there is to that?

Feel free to leave comments on your thoughts.  But please, no bashing or rude talking.  Those comments will not get published, but deleted.

I have only started reading this book.  I’m on page 26 and there is 139 total.  I am reading this book for two reasons:

1. It was on my TBR shelf
2. It is a book for my Reading Challenge for 2013

 

Danielle’s 2013 Reading Challenge

This year, instead of running through the alphabet, which by the way, I’ve never made it through all of the way, I thought it would be fun to go through the letters of my name.

What I plan to read is listed below.  I will be updating this list as I read the books so you know when I’ve read them.

D – Dreams and Relationships by Nicholas Heyneman

A – The Americas by Daniel J. Boorstin

N – Natural Flea Control

I – The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

E – Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

L – The Littles go to School by John Peterson

L – Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

E – Edible History by Cassandra Cookson

D – Declutter by Ava Connor

E – Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas Ph.D.

C – Contend Earnestly for the Faith: A Survey of Christian Apologetics by Phil Ferndandes Ph.D.

K – Kill the Clutter by Heather Lane

E – An Elementary Study of Islam by Mirza Tahir Ahmad

R – The Rising by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins

January 2013 Reading Challenges & Link Up List

I love a challenge every now and then.  Don’t you?!  I also love to mix a challenge with my hobbies.  Reading challenges are a great way for me to be able to do that.  I’ve been searching for a good challenge to do, but didn’t really find any ones that I was really excited about.  I thought it would be more fun to make up my own and maybe have some people join me.

The rules are very simple.  You can read any book to fill the list.  It doesn’t matter what genre or how it is printed.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve read it before, as long as you DO read it again.  Books read for the January challenges must be started in January, not something that you were previously reading.  You can read a book that falls into more than one category and get it counted for that.  You may also use books that you are using for different challenges.

Don’t feel pressured to do them all!  Choose what you feel is right for you.  What sounds like fun?  What do you think you can accomplish?  Are you challenging yourself?

After you’ve checked out the list, you can link up with us and share what you will be reading.  At the end of the month, I will post a post for us to share our progress.

So what are you waiting for?  Get those lists ready and link up with me!  Don’t leave me doing this journey alone!

• Celebrate President’s Day – Read any book that has anything to do with a President of the US.  It can be about a president, a president’s name can be used in the title or the same as the author’s name or the setting of the book in Washington DC.
• Birthday Book – Find an author that was born in January and read a book written by that them.  Here are a couple links to help you out: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/january-author-birthdays        http://lookingglassreview.com/books/authors-illustrators/birthdays
• Who’s Got the Blues? – Find a book with the word BLUE in the title.
• Bringing in the New Year – Read any book that talks about New Years, making resolutions or has the word NEW in the title.
• Snowy Days – Snow or anything to do with snow on the front cover.  Ex. snowman, skis, snowflake, etc.

Please leave your link to your reading list in the comment section so I can follow your blog and reading journey!