Another Day of Sun

It's about a month (and a half? Time is weird.)  into the new reading goal, and I don't have too much to report. Who knew those words would ever come out of my mouth? 

So far, I have three books finished. Only three, I mean, unless you count Genesis. Then I have four. It has been slow going, but not terrible. I mean, like I said, my goals are going in a different direction this year. While the reading speed necessarily needs to pick up, my progress bar is moving a lot slower. 

I already mentioned finished LWW last month. I haven't made too much progress with Prince Caspian, though. I imagine that is in part due to picking up library books, TV shows and not loving lugging my giant copy of the series with me everywhere. I picked up a copy of The Pilgrim's Regress (which I have had borrowed from my church library for FAR too long. I should probably just buy a copy at this point. It is embarrassing.) and fell in love with Lewis all over again? How? I'm not sure exactly, but when a man gives seven (7!) different definitions for the word "romanticism," complete with examples and variations, how can you not fall in love?  Have I made it out of the 16-page introduction and into the actual text of the book yet? Not exactly, but oh man. That introduction! 

I have a copy of A Year with C. S. Lewis, select readings from his various works, that I've added to my daily routine. There are times I skim, times I underline, and times I write furiously in the margins in a feeble attempt to understand what he's trying to say. It hit me the other day why Lewis resonates so much with the Christian community. It isn't that he explains the mysteries of the faith; rather, he brings them to a simple form of understanding. He puts things into language that makes you say, "Oh! That's it! I've had that thought too, but that makes so much more sense." Must be why Bantam Books called him "The Most Important Christian Writer Of Our Century" on the cover of The Pilgrim's Regress. I'm sure he would have hated that...

Onto fiction! 
I read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and loved it...until the very end when I hated it. It's all secret boarding school societies, awkward social interactions, old boys clubs, girls vs boys, etc. A lot of it made me think of Rory at Yale, trying to prove herself (to Yale, to her family, to Paris--even though she is great and wonderful just as she is!), well, I guess almost everyone. I loved the sneakiness of secret society, especially ones that are meant to have been part of the inception of the school. Secret passageways, an old journal full of adventures, and mysterious clues littered around campus? Yes, please! Everything was going great for me until the very last chapter. It...well, it seemed to fall flat? I remember being disappointed by where our main characters ended up. Almost like all the character development achieved through the book had been forgotten, like parts of the Gilmore Girls Revival! (Oops--too soon?) 

The other book I managed to finish last month was my second Fannie Flagg novel, Friend Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Gracious. It was just as delightful as the first Flagg book I read last year, if not more so. Maybe it is my penchant for nontraditional/non-chronological story-telling, but I absolutely loved that we hear most of the story second hand and through newspaper clippings. It was like going through an old scrapbook. I will be getting my hands on this movie soon. I know I saw it years ago with my mom, but don't remember too much about it. I might have to put a few more of Fanny Flagg's books on my list. She wrote a series? Great. I'm doomed. 

Even with the pace (and goal) considerably reduced, I still managed to be on target for my reading goal. Seriously, no one is more surprised than me! How are you guys doing with your reading lists? Anything let you down hard or completely take you by surprise? 

PS Guys, I'm kind of addicted to the La La Land soundtrack. It is glorious and just the right mix of instrumental music and sing-a-long songs. I have it turned way up today to give me lots of energy to clean. 

New Year, New Goals

Happy 2017 to all my faithful readers! 

Day three of a new year and I've just set my reading goal. It is half of what my goal was last year. As you all know, I didn't meet my goal in 2016. I'm really surprised but totally accepting of this fact, really. My much reduced goal of this year isn't defeat. The biggest reading challenge I had last year was to read the New Testament in a year. I didn't mention it on here. I think I wasn't sure it would happen and I didn't want to publicly fail at one more thing. However, I did it. I made it through. This year, my personal challenge is the Old Testament. That will prove a challenge, as I'll need to at least double the daily reading goal to make it. That goal is more important to me, so I backed off my fiction reading goal. 

Hopefully, even though I'll be reading less (ha. Maybe.), I want to be updating things here a little more. I'm looking to try a few new things so keep your eyes open for that. 

I have officially dubbed this year C. S. Lewis year. It isn't a special anniversary year or anything. During some knitting projects a few weeks ago, I picked up the movies and realized I really did love them. So I picked up my tome of all seven stories and started in with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. To my never ending surprise (and thanks to the old BBC miniseries) I have this book almost memorized and I never realized it. The story is enchanting but simple. I think in my head I built it up over the years, thinking it was rife with allegory and symbolism and high literature things. And while yes, it has those things, it also doesn't. It is good storytelling, plain and simple. I've since finished LWW and moved on to Prince Caspian. This one is a little bit slower reading for me, but still good. With the movie time line fresh in my mind, it is interesting to see what they kept, what they didn't, and what they moved around and adjusted for cinematic effect.  I'm heading to the library today (or sometime this week) to pick up two non-Lewis books. We'll see how that goes. 

I've somehow gotten into the TNT show The Librarians recently. I'm a few episodes in and kinda hanging around to see how it develops. I also just started the second season of Galavant and LOVE IT. It is the comedy I needed to start the new year off properly. There might be more TV reviews in the future if I can't shake this cold that has been lingering for about a week. 

Those are just a few of the things I've got going on this year. What about you? Have you set a reading goal? A different goal, maybe? What you are excited about in the coming year?