A Wildwood Story

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” -Dumbledore

Books

The Last 100 Books I’ve Read

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I love reading, discussing books, books about books, book lists, podcasts on books: all things books. Even the aged and sweet smell of paperback perfume. I save book recommendations on Instagram, look them up on my favorite blogs, add to lists on my phone, in my planner, and am generally always thinking about what to read next.

At some point I thought it would be a grand adventure to see how long it would take to read 1000 books. {Hint: a lot longer than I thought!} I began keeping a record every time I completed a book. Not long ago I reached my first milestone of 100 books read {insert 100 exclamation points}! As you’ll see, I like to read from a variety of genres.

{New friends who think I’m an innocent… please don’t be too shocked.}

You Should Know…

I faced a hard truth here: It took me seven years to read 100 books! I began this reading adventure in 2010, and finished in 2017. That’s just a little over 14 books per year. I have friends who easily read that many in one month, even 100 or more books in a year! I was honestly surprised that, as voracious a reader as I once used to be, it took me so long to reach this first milestone.

However, instead of berating myself for not reaching some non-existent standard, I decided to be grateful. Grateful because at a time in my life when I wasn’t reading as much as I had in previous years (oh to be 15 and absorbed in the work of Dickens!) and was struggling with depression and grief, I chose to start, somewhere. I picked up one book, and then another. I may not have felt capable of much, but I could read and engage my mind in life-changing literature and was changed in the process. It’s about the journey, not the time it takes to get there!*

Most of these books I read the traditional way-you know, with an actual book in hand. A few I read on my Kindle, mainly while traveling. I am just now at the cusp of the world of audio books…we’ll see where that takes me!

A couple books here are re-reads. For example, every few years I re-read The Hiding Place and the Harry Potter series. As a teen I read all of the Anne of Green Gables novels (favorite: Rilla of Ingleside) and then recently read aloud the first and well-beloved one to my children.

This list does not include the Bible, devotionals, or countless children’s books and homeschooling material (The Story of the World, Vol 1-4!) I’ve read aloud. It also doesn’t include a large stack of books I’m almost, oh-so-close to finishing. I’ve counted only the books I’ve read completely cover-to-cover, even if some are waiting for me to finish just two more pages before being added to the list.

Many of these books have become a part of me and changed or expanded my thinking in some way. A few were forgettable; others I wouldn’t recommend. One last thing-it may have taken me SEVEN FREAKING YEARS to read 100 books, but many of them were over 500 pages long! So, there’s that. #somewhatjustified #bookbrag

I’ll give you an update on my top ten favorites from these 100! For now, here is the raw list:

  1. Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
  2. The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom
  3. The Lost Horizon, James Hilton
  4. Gossamer, Lois Lowry
  5. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde 
  6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,  J. K. Rowling
  7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling
  8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
  9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
  10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
  11. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
  12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
  13. Almost French, Sarah Turnbull
  14. Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde
  15. The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
  16. Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde 
  17. Faking Grace, Tamara Leigh
  18. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
  19. Bringing Up Bebe, Pamela Druckerman
  20. Searching for Mary Poppins, Susan Davis and Gina Hyams
  21. A Stolen Life: A Memoir, Jaycee Dugard 
  22. My Life and Lesser Catastrophes: An Unflinchingly Honest Journey of Faith, Christina Schofield
  23. The Girl from Montana, Grace Livingston Hill 
  24. Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie
  25. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
  26. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Emmuska Orczy 
  27. Heaven is For Real, Todd Burpo
  28. The Golden Goblet, Eloise Jarvis McGraw
  29. Dawn of the Morning, Grace Livingston Hill
  30. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
  31. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
  32.  Mockingjay,  Suzanne Collins
  33.  In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson
  34.  The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told, Stephen Brennan 
  35. A Matter of Basic Principles, Don Veinot 
  36. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
  37. Giant’s Bread, Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
  38. Absent in the Spring, Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)  
  39.  In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  40. Finding Chandra, Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz
  41. Unto the Daughters, Karen Tintori
  42. Divergent, Veronica Roth
  43. Insurgent, Veronica Roth
  44. Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
  45. All You Need to be Impossibly French, Helena Frith Powell 
  46. The Help, Kathryn Stockett
  47.  Looking for Alaska, John Green
  48. Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth
  49. Shadows of the Workhouse, Jennifer Worth
  50. Farewell to the East End, Jennifer Worth
  51. The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
  52. Same Kind of Different As Me, Ron Hall and Denver Moore
  53. Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
  54. Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell
  55. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
  56. Son, Lois Lowry
  57. The Fault in Our Stars, John Green 
  58. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
  59. Dead Mountain, Donnie Eichar
  60. A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins
  61. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
  62. Warm Bodies, Isaac Marion
  63. The Life of Pi, Yann Martel
  64. The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger 
  65. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
  66. Animal Farm, George Orwell
  67.  The Money Saving Mom’s Budget, Crystal Paine
  68. Say Goodbye to Survival Mode, Crystal Paine
  69.  Living Well, Spending Less, Ruth Soukup
  70.  The Man in The Brown Suit, Agatha Christie
  71.  The Beautiful Daughters, Nicole Baart
  72. Austenland, Shannon Hale
  73. What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty
  74. Devil’s Knot, Mara Leveritt
  75.  Every Secret Thing, Laura Lippman
  76. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
  77. A Child Called “It”, Dave Pelzer
  78.  Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind, Sarah Wildman
  79. Pride and Prejudice,  Jane Austen
  80. Make It Happen, Lara Casey
  81. The Fringe Hours, Jessica Turner
  82. #Girlboss, Sophia Amoruso
  83.  Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson
  84.  If You Find This Letter, Hannah Brencher
  85.  What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, Laura Vanderkam
  86. Postern of Fate, Agatha Christie
  87.  I Used to Be So Organized, Glynnis Whitwer
  88. Dear Mr. Knightly, Katherine Reay
  89. 168 Hours, Laura Vanderkam
  90. Nourished: a Search for Health, Happiness, and a Full Night’s Sleep, Becky Johnson & Rachel Randolph
  91. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen
  92. Anne of Green Gables,  Lucy Maud Montgomery
  93. Columbine, Dave Cullen
  94. Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi
  95. Money Making Mom, Crystal Paine
  96. I Know How She Does It, Laura Vanderkam
  97. Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller
  98.  In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware
  99. The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert
  100. Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert

Now on to the next 100…

{Update: here’s my list of top 10 favorites!}

*I’m sure some smart and wise person already said this, but I have no idea who.

Photo credit, in order of appearance:  Kari Shea, Jessica Ruscello, and Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

 

 

Letter 29 {Snippets, BLT’s}

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Dear Candace,

It feels suspiciously like fall outside with the sky an electric blue and the temps dropping to a lovely, cool 60 degrees. It’s the fifth of August. I will only accept such weather behavior as a reprieve from the heat and not as the early onset of fall. I love fall, but in its place; it must bow to summer. It’s summer’s apology for being over. I can’t think about this right now. I need summer with all my heart.

My head is full of books and lessons and lists as we prepare for a new educational year with the kids. Classes signed up for, new math books started, it’s all underway and I am being reluctantly swept along!

I am trying to think about what happened this past week…how do summer days escape so quickly?? Our HVAC unit was replaced, so there was a lot of in-and-out related to that. We hosted a total of four nieces and nephews one day while their mama went to the doctor, I accused the deer of razing down some plants when really it was Tom trimming things up, we went to all the lessons and all the things, another sister-in-law and her girls visited, Caleb’s snake (Mango) returned home after a summer spent at a childrens’ camp, the garden started churning out tomatoes and now my counters are lined with them (BLT’s 4EVAH*), I started reading Seabiscuit, and about 40 other things.

Remember when I started the book Simply Tuesday, something life half a year ago? I’m almost finished reading it. I’ve been savoring it-a few lines here and there during my morning reading over the last several months.

Here is what I read this morning, and it’s sticking to me like a burr:

I sat on a bench with a book and a journal at a local park, but I did more staring than reading. I watched the moms and babies stroll by, the workers with their good intentions toward the public bathrooms, the guy on his bike who roe without a helmet. I read a little about David, how he was both a man after God’s heart and a killer. I thought about how none of us are just one thing, but many shades of light and dark and shadows of gray, proof that we need Jesus.

-Emily P. Freeman

Love,

Rachel

*Facebook post about this: Here is the thing. It’s tomato season and you need plenty of home-grown tomatoes (I can help you with that), thick-sliced bacon (hard for me to share but I will make an effort), crisp lettuce (not weak, watery iceberg; the real green stuff), and mayo (you know you want the chipotle or sriracha kind). Sourdough bread is delightful, too, but if you’re avoiding bread then just wrap everything else together and throw in some sliced jalapeños for good measure. Breakfast, lunch, dinner-boom. Menu planning is over.

Letter 28 

Letter 30

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Letter 25 {Freaky Friday Arm}

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Dear Candace,

I’ve been sleeping so much better lately so naturally it was time for a bout of insomnia.

The other night at 2am I woke abruptly, feeling odd. I quickly realized I couldn’t move my right arm! It was asleep, with that funny deadened sensation. This was not a usual occurrence. I moved positions, trying to stimulate my arm. It would not be stimulated. I sat up. My arm began to feel tingly, but still it would not go back to being my arm. I got out of bed and stood up, fully awake yet wondering if I was dreaming that my arm wouldn’t work. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and left for the bathroom. There, I googled “why is my right arm dead” and received terrifying answers about my heart. I did little pumping motions and tried squeezing my hand into a fist, well aware that these were not my preferred hours for exercising. Eventually, the feeling returned but not before I was fully freaked out. Upon my return to bed, I had to be careful about how I placed my arm so as not to let it fall asleep again.

And then I lay there for one hour forty-five minutes.

Finally realizing that my reassurances every 10 minutes of “I’ll be falling asleep any minute now” weren’t working, I turned on the phone light and grabbed my book off the nightstand. {That’s how I finished Hatching Twitter so quickly.}

Other things I did to pass the time: go potty and while walking through the dark kitchen, think about how horrible it would be to see a silent figure standing in the corner. Walk faster to the bathroom with the echoes of true crime podcasts filling my sleep-deprived mind.

Eventually, I was afraid all my tossing and turning in bed would bother Tom, so I finished the night {er, morning} in the living room. I felt mad at Jack and sad for Ev (you’ll have to read the book).

After 6am I crawled back in bed, mercifully sleepy and hopeful I could get in a couple hours of rest before taking Drew to his morning swim lessons. That 9am alarm was not easy to wake up to! But I rallied and rushed out the door as one does when life must go on.

In other news, the deer ate the new growth off my new hosta plants and now I hate them. Not the plants, the deer. It’s war.

Still sleepy,

Rachel

Letter 24

Letter 26

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Letter 24 {Scotch Eggs & Life Contemplation}

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Dear Candace,

The weekend is lazy, breezy and bright. June’s last parting gift, a reprieve from summer heat. I’m loving this Missouri spring and summer! One never can tell with Missouri.

Last weekend’s camping adventure was a delight. Specifically, camping in CABINS and not in tents or hammocks IN THE RAIN. I could get used to that kind of camping! Your breakfast of Scotch eggs was so delicious. The perfect marriage of breakfast food staples: eggs and sausage. I want them in my life more. Crispy spheres of perfection.

As I reflect on the past week, two things stand out. The importance of relationships, and the brevity of life. We hosted a few visits from family and friends at our home here in STL, and mis-mashed between those was a car accident.

The boys were driving with one of the aunts to a nearby park when their car was rear-ended. Tom and I were able to quickly arrive at the scene, even before police did, and found everyone shaken but unhurt. Drew was in the backseat. I have to stop myself from letting my mind consider all the “what ifs”…our time isn’t in our hands, and I can’t live in fear. The “what ifs” are in God’s hands. We know this, but when something like a car accident happens or cancer is diagnosed our focus becomes more narrow, more exact. Suddenly we see everything which had formerly been overlooked or not given its proper attention… the feel of warm summer, freckles on a child’s nose, being present in a moment, the full gift of life being lived.

The boys have been checked out and both received chiropractic treatments which were helpful. Then I started developing neck pain and tension with a side of massive headaches, because clearly I wanted it to be all about me. I have some thick muscle-relief salve which I applied on Thursday and am still trying to wash out of my hair. It’s very hard for me to be glamorous these days.

I am currently reading: Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. I’m a fairly new Twitter user, tweeting in stops and starts, but always mesmerized when I scroll through my feed. That 140 character limit is BRILLIANT! It’s all so very succinct and clever. Foodie bloggers, spiritual leaders, politicians, comedians, authors, that one guy with the big family I met once who likes to #humblebrag, it’s all remarkably out there in the world, in 140 characters. It feels less cluttered than Facebook to me, which is probably why I gravitate to it more. The book delves into the people and stories behind the startup of what is now a world-wide phenomenon.

Yes, I did once tweet a message I meant to text Tom. Since I discovered this months after the fact, I could only be grateful no one really reads my tweets plus it was mundane and appropriate for all audiences. One must be very careful which platform one’s 140 characters land on.

#love

Rachel

Letter 23

Letter 25

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Letter 23 {Flowers + Owlfred}

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Dear Candace,

It’s a beautiful morning and I am pleased to report all the new flowers we’ve planted have so far survived. I didn’t realize until everything was in the ground that the color palette I chose is predominately purple! Purples and blues.

The garden owl statue you gave me for protection has been named Owlfred. He sits on the back deck and regally overlooks the yard.

The house smells rich and wonderful since I just finished baking cinnamon rolls. For our camping adventure this weekend. With you! It’s going to be fun having our families together. Let’s not get sunburns m’kay?

I finished The Foundling. Wow. So interesting! It’s hard to believe the stories in that book are true…yet they are. The truth really can be stranger than fiction.* Its been fun to read more. I’ve missed devouring books! These days I try to keep one with me wherever I go…

See you and the ticks and chiggers soon.

Love,

Rachel

* on my list of fave movies

Letter 22

Letter 24

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Letter 22 {June Cheers}

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Dear Candace,

This will be a shorty because I forgot to start writing to you until now and now is late. Now is past my bedtime. Now I am yawning and my feet are sore from being on them all day and my body is achy in a plum-wore-out way. I’m happy with all this, though, because it was a good day! I was able to pull off a surprise birthday party for Tom at the farm with the help of family. Seven of his eight siblings were here! Plus spouses and childrens…it was a full house. I arranged furniture out on the deck and added lights, candles, tables, music…as close to Hobbiton one can get in the Ozark woods. It was a delight to watch the children play and enjoy visiting with everyone on a beautiful June evening.

Reminder to self: treasure these remaining June evening-they only come once a year!

Also I am now a year older. Wuut!

June Bugs,

Rachel

P.S. Oh-I started reading the book you gave me. “The Foundling” is unlike any story I’ve heard and it’s quite remarkable. It’s true and sad and hopeful and all the things one wishes for in a June read.

Letter 21

Letter 23

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Letter 19 {Storms + Being Alone}

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Dear Candace,

If it’s not flood water, it’s high winds.

Last night I woke with a jolt at 3:00 a.m. “Oh no!” I thought. “Please not another 3 hours of insomnia.” 

My unwanted guest, insomnia, has been showing up on occasion, despite the UNwelcome mat. I wasn’t plagued with insomnia, though. I soon realized I was dealing with a headache from the changes in barometric pressure. Within the hour, the storm hit and and I could hear the incredible whooshing of the wind. I grabbed my phone to check the weather radar. A bad thunderstorm, but no tornado warnings I could see. I told myself that if I heard the sirens go off, I would move downstairs to the basement. Otherwise, there was no way I was leaving my squishy Purple mattress. Plus, being alone in the house, the basement seemed extra-scary and dark.

The idea was that while Tom and the kids were off adventuring at the family farm, I would get some needed rest in a quiet house. I ended up laying awake in the early morning hours listening to the rain hit the window like gravel two feet from my bed. Eventually I did go back to sleep, and woke to a white yard covered in my neighbor’s catalpa blossoms! The storm downed an electric wire (draped across the street in front of my house, of course), with trees and heavy branches littering yards and streets. I’m thankful I never lost power!

I just finished The ZooKeeper’s Wife, and now I’m reading All the Light We Cannot See. Both take place during WWII. The first is the true story of a Polish couple living in Warsaw and how the war affected them and the zoo they managed. The second is historical fiction and intertwines the lives of a Parisian girl and a young German soldier-highly recommended by all my friends who’ve read it! I have very well-read friends; they advise me on what to read next (and boy is my list long).

Today I finished nearly all the laundry and put four lemonade pies in the freezer, so I feel very pleased even though my to-do list is still quite long. Lemonade pies and fresh blueberries signal all things summer-can’t wait to share them with friends and family this weekend. Come have a slice!

I just noticed something. The house creaks an awful lot when you’re the only one in it.

Hoping I survive another night alone in Kansas,

Dorothy

Letter 18

Letter 20

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