I have always enjoyed reading, but have not found much time for it the last couple of years for whatever reason. Now that my full time job is caring for Mikayla, I have found much more time for reading. That and we live where there is not much entertainment but each other and the occasional television show. Plus power outages make reading a necessity at night! A couple of weeks ago Ben sat down and wrote out a list of books he has read since arriving in Swaziland. After reading through his, I decided it would be fun to jot down all of the books I have read thus far. Here are the ones I can remember so far.
Little Women – An oldie, but a goodie. I cry every time I read this book.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart – A Mary Higgins Clark novel. She used to be a favorite author of mine, but I am not sure if she still is. I would have to read a few more books to decide.
The Harry Potter series (7 books) – I refused to read this series for so long, but after several pushes from close friends I decided to give it a go. I am so glad I did. I actually read the series in like two weeks, it was that good!
The Hunger Games Series (3 books) – I also loved this series! The third book wasn’t great, but the first two were awesome.
Kitchen Confidential – There were several books in the closet we now use as our pantry when we arrived and this was one of them. It was okay, but got a bit repetitive. Not a favorite of mine.
Poisonwood Bible – Another book that has been on my radar for awhile now, but I had never gotten around to reading. It was a very well written book and I really enjoyed it.
Animal Farm – Ben read this one first and suggested I read it as well. It was a decent read, but not really my style of book.
The Complete Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (4 books) – This was another free Kindle download and included four books (Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer Abroad, Tom Sawyer Detective). I loved the first two, but the last two were a bit of a stretch.
One September Morning – Easy read, but not that enjoyable.
Manny Williams Trilogy (3 books) – This was a murder mystery trilogy by Rick Murcer. I really enjoyed this one and can’t wait to read more of his books. The three books in the series were called Caribbean Moon, Deceitful Moon and Emerald Moon.
Dixie Divas – I read this one early on and can’t remember what it was about…must not have been that good!
Life From Scratch – Another easy read, but not that incredible.
Late Rain – Free kindle download that was a super quick read.
The Abbey – A well written murder mystery book.
Crossing the Bridge – Another one I read early on that I don’t remember very well.
Megan’s Way – A story about a mother who is dying of cancer but doesn’t know how to tell her daughter and friends. This one really hit home with me because I read it right after I found out my uncle’s cancer had come back.
Stealing Faces – This one is about a guy who literally steals faces off of his victims. Appetizing right? It was actually a decent read though.
The Help – I loved this one. I think it was one of the first I read when we got here, but it was really good. I would eventually like to see the movie.
Kisses from Katie – This is a book about a girl from Tennessee who lives in Uganda. She has "adopted" 13 or so kids from there and it talks about her story. I have read her blog for awhile, so the story wasn’t that new to me.
Steig Larson series (3 books) – For those of you who aren’t familiar with this series the three books are called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The first book was really slow to get into, but once it got going was excellent. The second book was great, my favorite in the whole series. However, I could have done without the last one. Way too many characters and plot lines were introduced for my liking. All in all though, it was a good series and well worth checking out.
A lot of these books were free Kindle books I downloaded. I am a big fan of murder mystery books so that is what a lot of them ended up being. I have enjoyed the few series I read. I have also read a lot of books from our closet here, but unfortunately after reading them we got rid of them so I am not sure what they were called. I know several of them were James Patterson books and some were just random books. So all in all I have read about forty books in the last six months. Crazy huh? I am currently in between books and leave for a long weekend getaway in a couple of weeks if anyone has any good suggestions.