This week, I have several books to discuss, one of them from our banned books project and the others just several good ones I haven’t gotten a chance to share.

First, for this week’s banned book – my plan was to read Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, but, in the chaos of my plague and doctors appointments and surgery scheduling, I managed to miss that the library due date had crept up on me – and it could not be renewed as it has a wait list. Oh, did I feel like a genius. Still, return it I did – and I promptly placed another hold so that I might check it out again. #goodgrief #wordnerdproblems 😉

In the meantime, I read Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, a reread from my RHS days, from our list. As most of you who have read it will recall, it isn’t exactly light or joyful reading – but, like The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck captures the lives and sufferings of migrant workers in the Depression Era unflinchingly. It is a piece that stays with the reader.

(This upcoming week’s Banned Book Project reading has started already also with Golding’s Lord of the Flies, yet another heavy but important work.)

For now, though, I wanted to share a few regular reads from the past few weeks that have been really good finds.

First, as I am preparing to write more extensively about my own chronic illness experience, I have been researching the work of other chronic illness sufferers and have come across several excellent books.

There are two that I want to be sure to pass along here: Hilary Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost and Tessa Miller’s What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons from a Body in Revolt.

First, Hilary Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost. It is difficult to find adequate words for just how beautiful and also how painfully real this book felt, both as a chronic illness sufferer and as a fellow writer. Mantel’s ability to say the unsayable and do it in a stunningly poetic way just held me spellbound, truly one of the best memoirs I’ve read this year.

The second book I want to share related to chronic illnesses is Tessa Miller’s What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons from a Body in Revolt. This memoir is also incredibly well-written, a full sharing of Miller’s falling deathly ill with inflammatory bowel disease, later found to be Crohn’s – complicated by a couple of near-fatal bouts of C-Diff, all as a woman in her early twenties. She writes with clarity and great insight into the complexities of dealing with the American healthcare system as a patient facing life-threatening chronic illnesses – and how that system can sometimes make getting proper treatment even more difficult.

Both of these books resonated with me deeply and I recommend them highly.

My two other suggestions are books on a different topic – faith ❤ – by two ladies I tend to think of often together, Nadia Bolz-Weber and Rachel Held Evans.

First, I had read Rachel Held Evan’s Searching for Sunday several years ago, before she passed away – and I loved it then – but I am revisiting her books now for a project in the works. This time, I decided to listen to it – and hearing her read it, now that she is no longer with us, was especially moving.

In this book, she writes about many things we have in common, like the evangelical elementary school she and I both actually attended, as well as places here in my state that I love to visit – like Ave Maria Grotto (that I have written about here). She even writes of her beloved Crimson Tide, bless. ❤

So much of this book is familiar and dear to me, with her honestly about church and faith and belief, and I loved revisiting it and encourage you all to read it as well.

The second book on faith I want to suggest is Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People. I love Nadia – my Al, Bug, and I were even blessed to hear her speak in Atlanta a few years ago ❤ – and I read this a few days ago as my sweet Cheryl had left it as a surprise in my mailbox.

Nadia has a way with words and a gift for people and I love seeing the world through her eyes in this book. It is a wonderful read and it will do your heart good to pick it up. ❤

There are several more books I want to share – hopefully another report later this week as I’ve gotten behind – as well as a few other planned posts on other topics this weekend.

Wishing you all a wonderful Saturday and happy reading. ❤

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence

Animal Farm – George Orwell

1984 – George Orwell

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

A Separate Peace – John Knowles

Lolita – Vladmir Nabokov

A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

LOTR – The Fellowship of The Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Song of Soloman – Toni Morrison

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck