I began reading Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women (2013) with the impression that I was going to learn about how Jesus was a feminist. After all, my own feminist leanings began because of how well the feminist theory I was studying as a master’s student seemed to line up... Continue Reading →
I tried to read The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame and number 30 on the BBC book list to my daughter, but after a few pages, she said, “I don’t understand what is going on.” I couldn’t blame her. It turned out to be a fun story, but the prose is somewhat... Continue Reading →
I admit it. I don’t really like The Lord of the Rings series, number 2 on the BBC book list. I am dutifully reading them for this blog and for the sake of crossing them off of my list, but I can’t say that I’m enjoying it. In fact, I dread it. I’ve been listening... Continue Reading →
Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons and number 53 on the BBC book list is quite the comic novel. The story centers around Flora Poste, who, when left an orphan, decides to stay with some relatives. She sends out letters to all of the possible relations that would allow her to visit, and decides... Continue Reading →
I just discovered that I’m not a Christmas book reader. I got excited about writing a post for you about some of my favorite Christmas books, and then I realized that I didn’t have many. I haven’t even read very many! So, here are those I have come up with as “favorites,” but they honestly... Continue Reading →
A few years ago, my husband and I watched a popular television show. Whenever I tried to explain the show’s premise and action to somebody who hadn’t seen it, I sounded like a crazy person. “There’s a polar bear, a black smoke monster, and a hatch in the ground. The people crashed there on a... Continue Reading →
Well, that title is quite a mouthful. I should’ve just said that George Eliot covers just about everything in her 800-page novel Middlemarch (1874), number 20 on the BBC book list. I decided to read Middlemarch at the same time as Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Let’s just say, Middlemarch is now finished, and War and... Continue Reading →
I recently read Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). It is the second time I have picked up this book. The first time occurred about a decade ago, and I got intimidated and stopped reading. Sometimes I do that. I let the first few pages of a book slide through my... Continue Reading →
Marilynne Robinson is so smart that I can barely understand her books. Her work forces me to slow down, savor each sentence, and really think about what I’ve just read. When I put forth this effort, I am richly rewarded by her prose. She’s like Joan Didion, another one of my favorite essayists, only Robinson... Continue Reading →
Yes, my husband read Les Miserables (1862) before I did. Several years before I did, in fact. When we were dating in college, he had to read it for an assigned reading course as part of his master’s degree in accounting. To accomplish this, he brought the book to church with him on Sundays and... Continue Reading →
The Bookshelf of Emily J. 