BOOOOOOOKS, glorious books!

I'm making the most of this reliable internet while we travel, thinking of alllllll the things I've wanted to post on my blog but haven't been able to do so where we live.  I love to read books of various genre, and love hearing and sharing from other readers. 


Some novels I have thoroughly enjoyed the past few months:


The Hunger Games Trilogy  I wasn't sure if the gore factor would be too grim for me, but I loved these books, borrowing one each month with my Amazon Prime Kindle deal (do you know about that, it pays for itself just in borrowing the one book per month!)


The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai  An excellent historical fiction novel about 1990's NE India.  The characters all reminded me of people I have known in this grand land and the writing is just delicious.


The Snow Child  by   This is like a fairytale for grown-ups, based partly on a Russian fairytale, leaving me curious and wondering about the identity of Faina. 


My Man, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. A little British snooty humor is a great anti-dote to taking oneself too seriously.


Some non-fiction that has been kicking my booty and stimulating thoughts:

God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey Into Sex Trafficking and Rescue by Daniel Walker
This book wins The Heaviest Read award for my 2012 so far.  It is a stark and dark depiction of slavery and our tendencies toward depravity.  I came away from this with eyes open and looking, wondering who is crossing my path that might be enslaved, or part of that other world of which I am so ignorant.  I also came away with a humbled awareness of my own proclivity to numbness. 


Letters of Madame Guyon by Jeanne Marie Bouvier
I only heard of this 16th century saint recently and have been intrigued by her observations on life in Christ. 

The Seasons on Henry's Farm by Terra Brockman
In my secret life (ie pipe dreams) I'm a farm girl so I love a good non fiction account of the land throughout the course of the year. I loved joining this family in their efforts to bring life from seeds, dirt, and rely on each other.  And it has been super motivation for all the jamming, canning and dehydrating I'm doing this summer to prepare for winter!

Parables of the Christ-life by Lilias Trotter
Lilias Trotter is a devoted plant lover who compares the life of a Christ-follower to the life cycle and processes of various plants. I was astounded at the detail she provided and my eyes were opened to see much more of God of His process in me in the beauty that is all around, and to the hope of the unseen seed.

Biographies:

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself  by Harriet Ann Jacobs
I have read many, many books about slavery, but this autobiography gave me new awareness as this former slave told her own story with strength, clarity and beauty. 


Western Himalaya and Tibet: a narrative of a journey through the mountains by Thomas Thomson
This is a great Anti-Whining Read for me next winter.  These French dudes cross Mongolia and China to get to Tibet like 150 years ago.  They are frostbitten, accosted by bandits, and this is all in severe cold with few provisions.  Amazing.


Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
This was a disciplined read for me, parts were dry, but I was so challenged as I followed Bonhoeffer's life of priviledge into hard choices for justice, a theme in our days. 

Nepal!

To comply with our 5 year Indian visas we have to leave India every 6 months.  These are pretty much the only times when our family comes out of the hills to Modern India, which is like a different country in itself.   We had 5 great days of vacation in Kathmandu, Nepal where our kids got to SWIM...

and play a GIANT CHESS SET ...

and play on playgrounds and climb at play places in malls.

After Nepal we were in Delhi for a few days for Sara to get some orthodontic work done that isn't available where we live.  During our days in HOT Delhi we met some of our good friends at the National Children's Museum.  They enjoyed climbing on the various things that would be behind bars in many museums (I wasn't quick enough to get pictures of our boys IN the engines and up at the nose of the fighter jet about 8 ft off the ground 'locked' behind a gate they easily opened.)

Our Delhi hotel also had a bathtub (a rare treat in this land!), which Indira Gandhi is rumored to have called, "the ideal place in which to enjoy a mango" so our mango monsters did just that.  The abundance of fruit in the flat part of India this time of year is just amazing, so we really enjoyed lots of that!!!

We are now enroute to our Himalayan home, spending a few days near the town where our car is getting repaired after a little fender bender on the way down to Delhi.  It's an odd feeling to be going ' home' to the place that is most home for us, but still not HOME, a poignant longing for permanence that we won't have on this earth, a great reminder that we are just sojourners.