For my #40bookschallenge, I started by browsing my own shelves looking for titles that I already owned rather then waiting for library holds to come in. I settled on a book that nicely dovetailed with a non-fiction I already had on the go. That book was one I spotted in an indie bookstore in Toronto earlier this fall. As I often do while visiting bookstores, especially ones not local to me, I snapped a photo of the book to request later from my library.
Most of the books I read this past month, both for my challenge and for fun spoke to each other, reading in stream as it were. I'm excited to see how the rest of the year unfolds and how my books complement each other.
And now onto the books:
The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
The classic tale of a girl and her brother running away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because she feels underappreciated and longing for an adventure, out of her ordinary everyday life. I've read (or listened) to this book many times since my first reading when I was probably ten or eleven. It sparked a curiosity then in art and adventure that has never gone away.
My takeways this time: the author does a stellar job of capturing life from a child's perspective, much like the Ramona books. The adult characters are very much on the periphal. Life was incredibly simple before technology became a main character in all our lives. Claudia reads the print newspaper, uses old paper tickets, there are no digital updates. It's a time capsule of a book set within a time capsule because what is a museum if not a preservation of how things were.
All the Beauty in the World : The Metropolitan Museum and Me by Patrick Bringley
This book is the surprisingly engrossing memoir of a security guard at the Met. It is also the story of a brother working through the loss of his brother and wanting a more simple job as he comes to grips with his grief. As someone who has also experienced great loss, I found this book very beautful and relatable. It also gave an unique behind the scenes look at a place that is so well known and public. Reading it at the same time as Mixed up Files was such a fun experience and it definitely made me want to go back to New York City and the museum.
Surprised by Oxford: a memoir by Carolyn Weber. This was a memoir of an entirely different kind. I wanted to read this book before we watched the movie, to dive deeper into the concepts of the story. This book tells the story of an awakening, a coming to faith in Jesus. Deep questions wrestled over and different concepts worked through, on the cobbled streets and well- worn walking paths of Oxford. I loved this book for the writing but also for the strong sense of place in Oxford, a city I've been to only once but a place I felt immediately at home.
A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
Another #40bookschallenge reread. I haven't read this since I first read it in my late teens/early twenties and it deeply formed my ideas of any future relationships. This book deals so much with the concept of Beauty and again the slow conversion of a couple coming to relationship with God. It is two love stories, between Sheldon and Davy and also between them and God. Some of my favourite parts this time through was reading about their stint in Oxford and their relationship with C.S. Lewis. I felt so seen and validated also as a fellow deep feeler and beauty seeker. Reading it now as a thirty- nine year old, sixteen years into a marriage, I can't help but wonder what their relationship would look like if it was decades long.
Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
I love reading seasonally and requested this one as soon as I saw that it was being published. The charming story of a journalist who helps the new Queen with her Christmas speech and wrestles with being a working woman in a post World War Two world. It's also the story of a chef who finds his way after tragedy working in the kitchens of Sandringham and Buckingham Palace. It was reminscent of the early seasons of The Crown and captured the magic of England at Christmas. It's a delightful historical read that's not set during World War Two. I read this on an snowy, at home afternoon by the Christmas tree and the only thing missing was a mince pie and a mug of mulled wine.