Books | A Quest to Read More

This summer, Mark and I have vowed to read much more! Thankfully, Mark has graduated from EWS and has lots of time in the evenings to devote to whatever he wants to do. It's been nice to see him in a recliner reading a book of his choice instead of behind a computer studying. He's much more relaxed!

My "Sayonara" doll from all my friends that are PCSing and a stack of books. I'm so artsy! Ha!

We started our "reading adventure" while on vacation in New Zealand! I finally finished The Fault in Our Stars and was able to read The Glass Castle (at my friend, Patti's, recommendation). Both were really great books and I was, especially, happy that I finished TFIOS right before the movie came out!

I enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars for many reasons, but I really fell in love with all of the Indiana references. Being a Hoosier, I felt like the book was written for people that lived there! I got every single reference and joke about the state and felt like I was really a part of the story. Speaking the story... bring on the tissues! It was such a heartfelt, sad love story inspired by Esther Grace Earl who died of the same type of cancer at age 16.

The Glass Castle was a whirlwind of a story! I read the entire thing, developed my opinions about it, and thought it had a super predictable ending. This is all hilarious and important because I didn't know it was a memoir! Yes, I'm an idiot. The whole time I'm thinking that this is just a fictitious story that was really well written! When Patti told me it was a true story, I fell in love with it even more. How could some of that stuff be real?! Jeannette Walls is an amazing writer who has overcome so much. Read it... you won't be let down.

Mark wanted a classic version of The Hobbit for a while and my sister was awesome enough to get him the above version for Christmas. He'd been dying to read it and, once we made plans for New Zealand, he knew he had the perfect setting... where the movie was filmed! 

I'll talk about this more when I go over our trip, but let me just say this... Mark was like a kid in a candy store! He doesn't often get outwardly excited, but he was thrilled to go to Hobbiton and see Bilbo Baggin's house. The photo above was 100% his idea and I think it's incredibly adorable. 

For the rest of the summer, I'm going to try to get through as many of the above books as possible. I'm hoping for some time on the beach with my toes in the sand in the very near future and I think there's no better time to read than that!

He's trading that iPhone in for a good book this summer!!

As for Mark, I'm not sure what's on his reading list. However, he's got a stack of books in the office that he's been trying to get through so I imagine he'll start there. First up: They Fought Alone by John Keats. If you need history and/or war book recommendations he's your guy!

Are you digging into some good books, too? Let me know what's on your list!