Garner's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 22 Apr 2025 06:55:53 -0700 60 Garner's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Caesar's Gallic War 167894 246 Olivia E. Coolidge 0208023348 Garner 4 3.52 Caesar's Gallic War
author: Olivia E. Coolidge
name: Garner
average rating: 3.52
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2013/10/22
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: ancient-classical-historyl, y6-homeschool
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Year with C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works]]> 17333 A Year with C.S. Lewis is an intimate day-to-day companion by C.S. Lewis, the most important Christian writer of the 20th century. The daily meditations have been culled from Lewis’ celebrated signature classics: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and A Grief Observed, as well as from the distinguished works The Weight of Glory and The Abolition of Man. Ruminating on such themes as the nature of love, the existence of miracles, overcoming a devastating loss, and discovering a profound Christian faith, A Year with C.S. Lewis offers unflinchingly honest insight for each day of the year.]]> 416 C.S. Lewis 0060566167 Garner 0 4.36 2003 A Year with C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Garner
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: currently-reading, anglophile, life-in-christ, rule-of-life
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Advent Mission: Advent (Seedbed Daily Text)]]> 42206224 John 3:16–17 gives us Christ’s mission: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it” (1996 NLT).


Jesus’ silent-night arrival in the manger is the first part of that mission. His trumpet blasting arrival in the clouds is the last part. Taking the two seasons together, Omar Rikabi shows how preparing for this kind of Advent before we celebrate Christmas is how we get in on God’s rescue mission.

]]> 122 Omar Rikabi 1628246146 Garner 4 life-in-christ 4.62 The Advent Mission: Advent (Seedbed Daily Text)
author: Omar Rikabi
name: Garner
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> War and Peace 264358 War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon's army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature. Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.

Three-Volume Boxed Set]]> 1744 Leo Tolstoy 1857150961 Garner 0 4.41 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Garner
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1869
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: currently-reading, classics, historical-fiction, literature
review:

]]> Pride and Prejudice 5996120 435 Jane Austen 0141040343 Garner 5 anglophile, literature 4.50 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1813
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/30
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: anglophile, literature
review:

]]> Persuasion 11758566
This edition is part of the Penguin Classics Clothbound series designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.]]> 250 Jane Austen 0141197692 Garner 5 anglophile, literature 4.24 1817 Persuasion
author: Jane Austen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1817
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: anglophile, literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany]]> 21413792
In keeping with At the Still A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time (“a thing of beauty” and “a literary treasure trove and devotional feast,” two reviewers called it) this collection contains daily and weekly inspirational readings to help the reader prayerfully experience God through the liturgical seasons of winter. Well-loved classics by Andersen, Dickens, and Eliot join contemporary works by Frederick Buechner and Gary Schmidt. Poems by Donne, Herbert, and Rossetti are paired with newer Scott Cairns, Benjamín Alire Sáenz, Susanna Childress, and Amit Majmudar. Readers are invited to experience Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany in its raw strangeness, stripped of sentiment, and to turn toward Emmanuel.]]> 224 Sarah Arthur 1612614191 Garner 5 4.37 2014 Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
author: Sarah Arthur
name: Garner
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2019/04/07
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: christmas-term, life-in-christ, poetry
review:

]]> Winter's Tales 12969
Shimmering and haunting, Dinesen's Winter's Tales transport us, through their author's deft guidance of our desire to imagine, to the mysterious place where all stories are born.]]> 313 Isak Dinesen 0679743340 Garner 4 3.96 1942 Winter's Tales
author: Isak Dinesen
name: Garner
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1942
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:
Beautiful writing, imagery, characters. But dark at times. Winter is cold, and dark, enough.
]]> <![CDATA[The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper]]> 148014534 The first history of the notebook, a simple invention that changed the way the world thinks.

We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our lives, and why are they such powerful tools for creativity? And how can using a notebook help you change the way you think?

In this wide-ranging story, Roland Allen reveals all the answers. Ranging from the bustling markets of medieval Florence to the quiet studies of our greatest thinkers, he follows a trail of dazzling ideas, revealing how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking. He tells the notebook stories of artists like Leonardo and Frida Kahlo, scientists from Isaac Newton to Marie Curie, and writers from Chaucer to Henry James. We watch Darwin developing his theory of evolution in tiny pocketbooks, see Agatha Christie plotting a hundred murders in scrappy exercise books, and learn how Bruce Chatwin unwittingly inspired the creation of the Moleskine.

On the way we meet a host of cooks, kings, sailors, fishermen, musicians, engineers, politicians, adventurers and mathematicians, who all used their notebooks as a space for thinking and to shape the modern world.

In an age of AI and digital overload, the humble notebook is more relevant than ever.

Allen shows how bullet points can combat ADHD, journals can ease PTSD, and patient diaries soften the trauma of reawakening from coma. The everyday act of moving a pen across paper can have profound consequences, changing the way we think and making us more creative, more productive -- and happier.]]> 416 Roland Allen 1782839151 Garner 0 4.36 2023 The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper
author: Roland Allen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: currently-reading, ancient-classical-historyl
review:

]]> Hard Times 5344
Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives.

Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterization, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations.

Of Dickens' work, the eminent Victorian critic John Ruskin had this to say: "He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions."]]> 384 Charles Dickens 0321107217 Garner 5 3.55 1854 Hard Times
author: Charles Dickens
name: Garner
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1854
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/29
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: anglophile, classics, literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey, #2)]]> 192888 288 Dorothy L. Sayers 0061043532 Garner 4 anglophile, classic-detective 3.98 1926 Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey, #2)
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1926
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/01
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> Strong Poison 8829228 252 Dorothy L. Sayers Garner 5 anglophile, classic-detective 4.15 1930 Strong Poison
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1930
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey, #7)]]> 40669974
The majestic landscape of the Scottish coast has attracted artists and fishermen for centuries. In the idyllic village of Kirkcudbright, every resident and visitor has two things in common: They either fish or paint (or do both), and they all hate Sandy Campbell. Though a fair painter, he is a rotten human being, and cannot enter a pub without raising the blood pressure of everybody there. No one weeps when he dies.

Campbell’s body is found at the bottom of a steep hill, and his easel stands at the top, suggesting that he took a tumble while painting. But something about the death doesn’t sit right with gentleman sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. No one in Kirkcudbright liked Campbell, and six hated him enough to become suspects. Five are innocent, and the other is the perpetrator of one of the most ingenious murders Lord Peter has ever encountered.

This edition features an illustrated biography of Dorothy L. Sayers including rare images from the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College.]]> 297 Dorothy L. Sayers Garner 0 anglophile, classic-detective 3.62 1931 The Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey, #7)
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1931
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> North and South 156538
In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.]]> 521 Elizabeth Gaskell 0140620192 Garner 5 4.14 1855 North and South
author: Elizabeth Gaskell
name: Garner
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1855
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: anglophile, classics, literature
review:

]]> Shadows on the Rock 834424 229 Willa Cather 0679764046 Garner 5 3.98 1931 Shadows on the Rock
author: Willa Cather
name: Garner
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1931
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: literature, historical-fiction
review:

]]> The Elegance of the Hedgehog 2967752
We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.]]> 325 Muriel Barbery 1933372605 Garner 4 3.76 2006 The Elegance of the Hedgehog
author: Muriel Barbery
name: Garner
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:
So I looked over the reviews and had to laugh at the one and two stars because I agreed with them. When I started this book it seemed like the author was name dropping, and the characters were self-obsessed and pretentious. I quit reading and was about to take it to my HPB. Then, I had a medical procedure which meant more time to read. I picked it up again and perhaps because I was close to the middle, it grabbed my interest. I found some interesting growth in the characters over the course of the book. When they start interacting with others and not just "journaling" they became more interesting, and compelling. Likeable. So, I recommend perseverance with this title.
]]> <![CDATA[The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness]]> 246849
Written by Navigator author Jerry Bridges, this book explores how the same grace that brings us to faith in Christ also disciplines us in Christ. In learning more about grace, you also will learn about God's character, His forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit.]]> 253 Jerry Bridges 1576839893 Garner 0 life-in-christ 4.30 1994 The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness
author: Jerry Bridges
name: Garner
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art]]> 48890486
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.

Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren't found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.

Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.]]> 280 James Nestor 0735213615 Garner 0 4.13 2020 Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
author: James Nestor
name: Garner
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The last of the Mohicans, a narrative of 1757. By: James Fenimore Cooper, illustrated By: N. C. Wyeth(October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945) was an American artist and illustrator.: Historical Novel]]> 34302896 246 James Fenimore Cooper 1543003265 Garner 5 3.83 1826 The last of the Mohicans, a narrative of 1757. By: James Fenimore Cooper, illustrated By: N. C. Wyeth(October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945) was an American artist and illustrator.: Historical Novel
author: James Fenimore Cooper
name: Garner
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1826
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: y9-homeschool, classics, historical-fiction, literature
review:

]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Garner 0 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Garner
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at: 2018/09/13
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: anglophile, classics, daughter-favs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson]]> 6350795 This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

]]> Robert Louis Stevenson Garner 5 4.25 2012 The Complete Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Garner
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2020/05/26
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Gentle Answer: Our 'Secret Weapon' in an Age of Us Against Them]]> 48856810 224 Scott Sauls 1400216559 Garner 3 4.38 2020 A Gentle Answer: Our 'Secret Weapon' in an Age of Us Against Them
author: Scott Sauls
name: Garner
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/30
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves:
review:
I picked up this book because of a BSF leadership exercise I found valuable. I believe this topic is absolutely vital to the church. A good read, if short and needing further development. The author writes from a liberal bias, so there is not a well rounded treatment of the topic, but what is here is certainly worth considering if you don't mind making your own connections and applications.
]]> <![CDATA[Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda]]> 204982725 “This may just be the single most important book on modern Evangelicalism in recent years. It is bold, clear, and very well-researched.”—John MacArthur

How deeply have leftist billionaires infiltrated America’s churches?

Liberal theology isn’t new. Pastors and theologians have drifted, slipped, or even plunged into doctrinal error for centuries. But in recent decades, Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham reveals, well-funded forces from outside the church have been sowing seeds of discord from behind the scenes.

In Shepherds for Sale, Basham documents how progressive powerbrokers —from George Soros, to the founder of eBay, to former members of the Obama administration— set out to change the American church. Secular foundations and think tanks have deliberately targeted Christian media, universities, megachurches, nonprofits, and even entire denominations, not to mention many high-profile pastors and influencers, with infiltration and astroturf campaigns. Their to co-opt the church for political purposes. In exchange for toeing a left-wing line, many of those church leaders and institutions have received cash, career jumps, prestige, and praise. 

Now, many evangelical leaders are pushing their members to “whisper” about sexual sins, reconsider the importance of abortion, lament the effects of climate change, and repent of “perpetuating systemic racism.” Meanwhile, America’s largest evangelical denominations are fraught with division over issues like critical race theory, and many ministries once known for publishing sound doctrine are now promoting social justice.

Through years of investigation, Basham uncovered compromise at the highest levels of evangelical leadership —from the revered Presbyterian theologian who furtively backed a rogue congregation rebelling against his own denomination, to the celebrity megachurch pastor who secretly encouraged a group of pastors to change their views on sexuality.

A rigorously reported exposĂ©, Shepherds for Sale serves as a warning of what can happen when a church forgets that true power lies not in the world’s wisdom, but in Scripture.Ěý±Ő±Ő> 352 Megan Basham Garner 5 4.35 Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda
author: Megan Basham
name: Garner
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: current-events, life-in-christ
review:
Important read for all Christians.
]]> <![CDATA[Romans: Encountering the Gospel's Power (John Stott Bible Studies)]]> 6250648 112 John R.W. Stott 0830821651 Garner 0 life-in-christ, rule-of-life 4.41 1998 Romans: Encountering the Gospel's Power (John Stott Bible Studies)
author: John R.W. Stott
name: Garner
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: life-in-christ, rule-of-life
review:

]]> The Ordering of Love 16054783 Praise for The Ordering of Love
By Madeleine L’Engle

“In a brilliant marriage of myth and manner, histories sacred and profane, prayers of petition and of praise, these poems both articulate and illumine the trouble in the gap in which we live–the gap between human affections and Divine Love. L’Engle is unfailing in her willingness to see through–n´ÇłŮ around–human suffering, and in so doing announces no final severing of spirit and flesh but an enduring vision of resurrection in that crux, in the cross, in the One in Whom all things meet, continuing.”
–Scott Cairns, author of Slow Pilgrim and Philokalia: New and Selected Poems


“I love L’Engle’s poetry for the way it incarnates not only the great Truths of the faith, but all the little truths of our ordinary existence–our working and playing and loving and fighting and dreaming and idling and all the rest of it–and for the way it shows us that those big and little truths should not, cannot, be separated.”
–Carolyn Arends, recording artist and author

“Why is L’Engle one of the defining poets of our time? Because when life hurts, she does not shrink from the wounds. She clarifies the murk with hope as we feel the lift of grace.”
–Calvin Miller, Beeson Divinity School
Birmingham, Alabama


“We are, all of us, the richer for this carefully crafted and prayerfully rendered collection.”
–Phyllis Tickle, Author, The Divine Hours



“Poetry, at least the kind I write, is written out of immediate need; it is written out of pain, joy, and experience too great to be borne until it is ordered into words. And then it is written to be shared.”
–Madeleine L’Engle


Madeleine L’Engle’s writing has always translated the invisible and intricate qualities of love into the patterns and rhythms of visible life. Now, with compelling language and open-hearted vulnerability, The Ordering of Love brings together the exhaustive collection of L’Engle’s poetry for the first time.

This volume collects nearly 200 of L’Engle’s original poems, including eighteen that have never before been published. Reflecting on themes of love, loss, faith, and beauty, The Ordering of Love gives vivid and compelling insight into the language of the heart.]]> 384 Madeleine L'Engle Garner 0 4.29 2005 The Ordering of Love
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Garner
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: poetry, life-in-christ, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Home for Christmas: Stories for Young and Old]]> 2249827 For readers who are tired of Christmas commercialism, or who feel that Santa Claus and reindeer don't tell the whole story, these classic gems provide a winning alternative. Selected for their insightfulness, spiritual value, and literary quality (nothing moralistic here) they project the spirit of the season in a fresh, compelling manner that will resonate with readers of all ages - from children too young to read to themselves, to parents and grandparents who enjoy reading stories aloud.

Home for Christmas includes time-tested favorites by some of the world's most beloved children's authors - Pearl Buck, Selma Lagerlof, Henry van Dyke, Madeleine L'Engle, Elizabeth Goudge, Rebecca Caudill, and Ruth Sawyer - as well as little-known European stories appearing in English for the first time.]]> 339 Katherine Paterson 0874869242 Garner 0 to-read 3.88 Home for Christmas: Stories for Young and Old
author: Katherine Paterson
name: Garner
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization]]> 9964939 Understand where we came from.

Whether you're an avid student of the Bible or a skeptic of its relevance, The Book That Made Your World will transform your perception of its influence on virtually every facet of Western civilization.

Indian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi reveals the personal motivation that fueled his own study of the Bible and systematically illustrates how its precepts became the framework for societal structure throughout the last millennium.  From politics and science, to academia and technology, the Bible's sacred copy became the key that unlocked the Western mind.

Through Mangalwadi's wide-ranging and fascinating investigation, you'll discover:

What triggered the West's passion for scientific, medical, and technological advancement
How the biblical notion of human dignity informs the West's social structure and how it intersects with other worldviews
How the Bible created a fertile ground for women to find social and economic empowerment
How the Bible has uniquely equipped the West to cultivate compassion, human rights, prosperity, and strong families
The role of the Bible in the transformation of education
How the modern literary notion of a hero has been shaped by the Bible's archetypal protagonist
Journey with Mangalwadi as he examines the origins of a civilization's greatness and the misguided beliefs that threaten to unravel its progress.  Learn how the Bible transformed the social, political, and religious institutions that have sustained Western culture for the past millennium, and discover how secular corruption endangers the stability and longevity of Western civilization.

Endorsements:

“This is an extremely significant piece of work with huge global implications. Vishal brings a timely message.” (Ravi Zacharias, author, Walking from East to West and Beyond Opinion)

“In polite society, the mere mention of the Bible often introduces a certain measure of anxiety. A serious discussion on the Bible can bring outright contempt. Therefore, it is most refreshing to encounter this engaging and informed assessment of the Bible’s profound impact on the modern world. Where Bloom laments the closing of the American mind, Mangalwadi brings a refreshing optimism.” (Stanley Mattson, founder and president, C. S. Lewis Foundation)

“Vishal Mangalwadi recounts history in very broad strokes, always using his cross-cultural perspectives for highlighting the many benefits of biblical principles in shaping civilization.” (George Marsden, professor, University of Notre Dame; author, Fundamentalism and American Culture)]]> 442 Vishal Mangalwadi 1595553223 Garner 5 4.31 2011 The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization
author: Vishal Mangalwadi
name: Garner
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2015/05/17
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: worldview-books, y10-homeschool, current-events, daughter-favs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Lord Peter Wimsey, #5)]]> 192887 243 Dorothy L. Sayers 0061043540 Garner 5 classic-detective, anglophile 4.05 1928 The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Lord Peter Wimsey, #5)
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1928
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/19
shelves: classic-detective, anglophile
review:

]]> The Moonstone 1581589
The elements that make up The Moonstone—a purloined jewel that carries a mysterious curse, an indefatigable British police sergeant, a drama of theft and murder in a spacious country house—have been repeated, in varying guises, throughout much of the avalanche of detective fiction that followed Collins's immensely popular 1868 novel. But none of those books has surpassed the richness and suspense of the storytelling of The Moonstone, the first detective novel and the continuing standard of its genre.

Introduction by Catherine Peters]]> 528 Wilkie Collins 0679417222 Garner 4 3.98 1868 The Moonstone
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Garner
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1868
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: anglophile, historical-fiction, classic-detective
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout]]> 197773418 Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload.

Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices?

Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers—from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe—Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for workers to replace them with a slower, more humane alternative.

From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.]]> 244 Cal Newport 0593544854 Garner 4 3.65 2024 Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
author: Cal Newport
name: Garner
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/21
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves: current-events, worldview-books
review:

]]> Pearl Maiden 712072 384 H. Rider Haggard 1930367899 Garner 4 4.07 1903 Pearl Maiden
author: H. Rider Haggard
name: Garner
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1903
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/10
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: christian-fiction, historical-fiction
review:
I genuinely appreciate Christian historical fiction set in the first century. This novel was written in the early 20th century, about a young Christian girl, Miriam, who grows up a ward of the Essene community and becomes one corner of a love triangle involving Marcus, a Roman Tribune sent to the Essene community to investigate a murder, and Caleb, the Jewish boy who has loved her since they were children. Character development takes a back seat to the plot, but there are interesting twists and turns that take Miriam from Jerusalem to Tyre, back to Jerusalem during the tragic final battles, to Rome and across the Mediterranean to Alexandria. All things considered, I found it a worthwhile and enjoyable read.
]]> <![CDATA[Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something]]> 34460639 Warning: If modern church culture makes perfect sense to you, and you always fit in seamlessly, don’t read this. As for the rest of us…

While American church culture (and American culture at large) seems largely designed for the extroverted, it’s estimated that half of the American population is introverted, and they’re often left wondering how, even if, they fit in the kingdom of God. As one of them, popular radio host Brant Hansen brings news. It’s wonderful, refreshing, and never-been-said-this-way-before good news.

In his unique style, Hansen looks to answer questions that millions of people carry with them each day:


If I don’t relate to God as emotionally as others do, is something wrong with me?
How does one approach God, and approach faith, when devoid of the “good feelings” that seem to drive so much of evangelical church culture?
How does God interact with those who seem spiritually numb?
Is the absence of faith-based emotion a sign of that God has moved on or was never there?
What if we aren’t good at talking to people about our faith, or good at talking to people at all?
What if I’m told I’m too analytical, that I “think too much”?
Where does a person who suffers from depression fit in the kingdom? Is depression a sure sign of a lack of faith?
This book is good news for people who are desperately looking for it. (And for their loved ones!)

It’s also for those who want to believe in Jesus, but inwardly fear that they don’t belong, worry that don’t have the requisite emotion-based relationship with God, and are starving for good news.

Blessed Are the Misfits is going to generate discussion, and lots of it. It’s simultaneously highly provocative and humbly personal. It’s also leavened with a distinct, dry, self-effacing humor that is a hallmark of Hansen’s on-air, writing, and public speaking style.]]> 256 Brant Hansen 0718096312 Garner 0 life-in-christ 4.55 Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something
author: Brant Hansen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit]]> 26568656
In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.

Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas presented in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.]]> 224 James K.A. Smith 158743380X Garner 4 4.09 2016 You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
author: James K.A. Smith
name: Garner
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: life-in-christ, rule-of-life, worldview-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unnatural Death (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #3)]]> 17200719
Published as part of the 4 volume Dorothy L. Sayers Mysteries Collection]]> 242 Dorothy L. Sayers Garner 5 anglophile, classic-detective 4.00 1927 Unnatural Death (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #3)
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1927
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/18
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds]]> 19353107 160 Jen Wilkin 1433541769 Garner 4 4.49 2014 Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds
author: Jen Wilkin
name: Garner
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/15
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: life-in-christ, rule-of-life, worldview-books
review:

]]> The Spy 455411
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Ěý±Ő±Ő> 412 James Fenimore Cooper 0140436286 Garner 4 3.57 1821 The Spy
author: James Fenimore Cooper
name: Garner
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1821
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/26
date added: 2024/05/18
shelves: american-history, historical-fiction
review:

]]> Vanity Fair 5797 867 William Makepeace Thackeray 0141439831 Garner 3 3.80 1847 Vanity Fair
author: William Makepeace Thackeray
name: Garner
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1847
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/30
date added: 2024/05/18
shelves: anglophile, classics, historical-fiction, ugh
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Thrones, Dominations (Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane #1)]]> 132671 316 Dorothy L. Sayers 0312181965 Garner 5 anglophile, classic-detective 3.88 1998 Thrones, Dominations (Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane #1)
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/18
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> Tarka the Otter 654647
Tarka the Otter relates the adventures of a wild otter, his narrow escapes from Deadlock, the hound, and their final confrontation in the Torridge River]]> 279 Henry Williamson Garner 4 nature-study-living-science 3.77 1927 Tarka the Otter
author: Henry Williamson
name: Garner
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1927
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/16
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: nature-study-living-science
review:

]]> Towers in the Mist 1513505 376 Elizabeth Goudge 0715603639 Garner 4 3.95 1937 Towers in the Mist
author: Elizabeth Goudge
name: Garner
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1937
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/28
date added: 2024/03/29
shelves: anglophile, christian-fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> Northanger Abbey 50398 Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.]]> 260 Jane Austen 1593082649 Garner 5
While the characters have a lot of fun making reference to the popularity of novels, including gothic fiction, and our "heroine" gets a little carried away with it upon a visit to Northanger Abbey, it is a subordinate theme to that of friendship. What is a good friendship? How constant is a good friend? How trustworthy? How considerate? Throughout the story, Catherine is a faithful friend to a bad friend, and a faithful friend to a good friend, and both friendships encounter serious hurdles. With the lately touted "loneliness epidemic," perhaps more women should read this diverting book that provides a view of friendships, both good and bad, and consider which kind of friendship they offer.
]]> 3.85 1817 Northanger Abbey
author: Jane Austen
name: Garner
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1817
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/10
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: anglophile, historical-fiction, classics
review:
Who hasn't been lonely in a crowd? Who hasn't felt relief at friendly overtures and companionship, and been delighted to discover an unexpected friendship, only to find that it wasn't really friendship. Who hasn't had a friend who broke promises, excused cancellations and mischaracterized the situation? Who hasn't been shocked and humiliated at sudden rejection? Who hasn't suffered through self-examination, and painful reflection searching for the cause for offense? These experiences are timeless, and ageless, and Austen proves a worthy guide.

While the characters have a lot of fun making reference to the popularity of novels, including gothic fiction, and our "heroine" gets a little carried away with it upon a visit to Northanger Abbey, it is a subordinate theme to that of friendship. What is a good friendship? How constant is a good friend? How trustworthy? How considerate? Throughout the story, Catherine is a faithful friend to a bad friend, and a faithful friend to a good friend, and both friendships encounter serious hurdles. With the lately touted "loneliness epidemic," perhaps more women should read this diverting book that provides a view of friendships, both good and bad, and consider which kind of friendship they offer.

]]> Complete Book of Calligraphy 1372371 80 Caroline Young 0746021461 Garner 0 4.00 Complete Book of Calligraphy
author: Caroline Young
name: Garner
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Oh Pioneers! 28582618
O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie. The novel is also concerned with two romantic relationships, one between Alexandra and family friend Carl Linstrum and another between Alexandra's brother Emil and the married Marie Shabata. - from Wikipedia]]> 148 Willa Cather 151715023X Garner 5 3.88 1913 Oh Pioneers!
author: Willa Cather
name: Garner
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1913
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/26
date added: 2024/01/26
shelves: historical-fiction, literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World]]> 33666211
As Mike Cosper wrestled with his own disillusionment, he found writers, thinkers, and artists like Hannah Arendt, Charles Taylor, James K. A. Smith, and David Foster Wallace whose words and ideas reassured him that he was not alone. And he discovered ancient and modern disciplines that shape a Christian way of life and awaken the possibility of living again in an enchanted world.

Exquisitely written with thoughtful practices woven throughout, this book will feed your soul and help you recapture the wonder of your Christian walk.]]> 180 Mike Cosper 0830845062 Garner 4 rule-of-life, life-in-christ 4.27 Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World
author: Mike Cosper
name: Garner
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2024/01/15
shelves: rule-of-life, life-in-christ
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cowboys and Cattle Country (American Heritage Junior Library)]]> 29624049 0 Don Ward 0060263458 Garner 0 y10-homeschool 3.50 1988 Cowboys and Cattle Country (American Heritage Junior Library)
author: Don Ward
name: Garner
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: y10-homeschool
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep]]> 54405228 ECPA Christian Book of the Year
Christianity Today Book of the Year
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist
IVP Readers' Choice Award

How can we trust God in the dark?

Framed around a nighttime prayer of Compline, Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, explores themes of human vulnerability, suffering, and God's seeming absence. When she navigated a time of doubt and loss, the prayer was grounding for her. She writes that practices of prayer gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news.

Where do we find comfort when we lie awake worrying or weeping in the night? This book offers a prayerful and frank approach to the difficulties in our ordinary lives at work, at home, and in a world filled with uncertainty.]]> 208 Tish Harrison Warren 0830846794 Garner 5 life-in-christ, rule-of-life 4.63 2021 Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep
author: Tish Harrison Warren
name: Garner
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/16
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves: life-in-christ, rule-of-life
review:

]]> The Wonderful Works of God 49092754 695 Herman Bavinck 1733627227 Garner 0 to-read 4.75 1907 The Wonderful Works of God
author: Herman Bavinck
name: Garner
average rating: 4.75
book published: 1907
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Joyful Surrender: 7 Disciplines for the Believer's Life]]> 40392257 Joyful Surrender, former missionary and beloved author Elisabeth Elliot offers her understanding of discipline and its value for people of all times. She shows readers how to

- discipline the mind, body, possessions, time, and feelings
- overcome anxiety
- change poor habits and attitudes
- trust God in times of trial and hardship
- let Christ have control in all areas of life

Elliot masterfully and gently takes readers through Scripture, personal stories, and incisive observations of the world around her to help them discover the understanding that our fulfillment as human beings depends on our answer to God's call to obedience.]]> 176 Elisabeth Elliot 0800729471 Garner 5 4.41 1982 Joyful Surrender: 7 Disciplines for the Believer's Life
author: Elisabeth Elliot
name: Garner
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves:
review:

]]> A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Garner 5 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Garner
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/15
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: y10-homeschool, classics, anglophile, literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[As Sure as the Dawn (Mark of the Lion, #3)]]> 95621
Following A Voice in the Wind and An Echo in the Darkness, As Sure as the Dawn continues the chronicles of Hadassah, a Christian slave woman living during the height of the Roman Empire. She has saved the life of the scorned child of a disreputable Roman woman and the Germanic gladiator, Atretes. For her faith, Hadassah now languishes in condemnation, awaiting death in a dungeon beneath the arena. Atretes, who holds fast to his dreams of revenge for the slaughter of his people, wants his son back. So he seeks out John the Beloved, who is the key to finding the custodian of his son, and brings his war-weary soul closer to redemption.]]> 520 Francine Rivers Garner 5 4.40 1995 As Sure as the Dawn (Mark of the Lion, #3)
author: Francine Rivers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/25
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: life-in-christ, historical-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Echo in the Darkness (Mark of the Lion, #2)]]> 46601 The political intrigue of the imperial city provides a dramatic backdrop for Marcus' spiritual quest. This rich and unforgettable work achieves even greater impact through Richard Ferrone's dramatic narration.]]> 461 Francine Rivers Garner 5 4.63 1994 An Echo in the Darkness (Mark of the Lion, #2)
author: Francine Rivers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.63
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/30
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: life-in-christ, historical-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Voice in the Wind (Mark of the Lion, #1)]]> 95617 520 Francine Rivers Garner 5 4.57 1993 A Voice in the Wind (Mark of the Lion, #1)
author: Francine Rivers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: christian-fiction, life-in-christ
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)]]> 18512 here.

The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by SmEagol--Gollum, still obsessed by his 'precious'. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive--in the hands of the Orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing. J.R.R. Tolkien's great work of imaginative fiction has been labeled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail.]]> 404 J.R.R. Tolkien Garner 5 classics, daughter-favs 4.54 1955 The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Garner
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/01
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: classics, daughter-favs
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)]]> 15241
Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs.

Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin -- alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.]]> 322 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618346260 Garner 5 daughter-favs, classics 4.45 1954 The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Garner
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1954
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: daughter-favs, classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)]]> 34
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
--back cover]]> 398 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618346252 Garner 5 4.36 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Garner
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1954
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: classics, daughter-favs, life-in-christ
review:

]]> A Girl of the Limberlost 1261921
--

Synopsis from Huffington Post: Cornfields, soy fields, alfalfa fields ― Indiana has long been seen as an agricultural plain. But to make it a lucrative farming state, much of the land had to be deforested, leaving behind devastated habitats. The Limberlost, a wetland in northern Indiana, was mostly destroyed by drainage, logging and oil production. Gene Stratton-Porter, an early 20th-century naturalist and novelist, captured the fading beauty of the swamp in books like A Girl of the Limberlost, a novel about a smart, ambitious girl who lives in the dwindling wetland with her mother and pays for school by collecting local moth specimens to sell to naturalists. The book isn’t exactly an environmentalist tract, but it makes the case nonetheless: It celebrates the beauty and richness of the swampland, while showing how easily economic forces push landowners to strip it away.]]> 464 Gene Stratton-Porter 1930142137 Garner 0 4.18 1909 A Girl of the Limberlost
author: Gene Stratton-Porter
name: Garner
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1909
rating: 0
read at: 2019/05/01
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: nature-study-living-science, classic-children-s
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sex and the Unreal City: The Demolition of the Western Mind]]> 53661120

And it's no fantasy. It's where we live. "We dwell in Unreal City. We believe in un-being."


With saber-like wit, poet and professor Anthony Esolen leads readers on a tour through the ruins of their own Western world—through king-size bookstores, manicured college campuses, strobe-lit choir lofts, mechanized farms, divorce courts, drag-queen libraries, and beyond. This hilarious guide to a culture gone mad with sex and self-care minces no words and spares no egos. We the people of Unreal City are no better, and certainly no smarter, than our fathers.


But fear not. Sex and the Unreal City insists there's no need to settle down in the ninth circle of unreality. Esolen lights a torch and heads up the well-trod path back to our cleaner, kinder, truer homeland: earth. Along the way, the author sings the songs of masters somehow long forgotten—Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, the evangelists—and asks us to chant along.


Readers of essayists like George Weigel, George Rutler, Malcom Muggeridge, and Walker Percy will enjoy this rollicking, intelligent book.]]> 209 Anthony Esolen 1621643069 Garner 0 to-read 4.48 Sex and the Unreal City: The Demolition of the Western Mind
author: Anthony Esolen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.48
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The World of the End: How Jesus' Prophecy Shapes Our Priorities]]> 61856791 In a world that seems to be spinning out of control, we need hope more than ever. What if the life sustaining hope you need is found within the pages of the Bible?

Join New York Times bestselling author and trusted Bible teacher, Dr. David Jeremiah's as he unpacks the scriptures to reveal that the problems we are facing is to be expected, and in fact will increase as we draw closer to the End Times. But even more importantly we should not worry since Jesus has overcome the world. And because of this there is hope for this life, but more importantly for the next.

Learn


The Bible has already laid the foundation on how we can live victoriously, even in difficult times
Jesus not only calls Christians to a higher standard, but equips us with the tools and strength we need to confidently follow him daily
And explore the gospels more closely to find the comfort you need to trust God is in control and that his plan is still working to completion
Grow your faith, by going deeper, with Dr. David Jeremiah.]]> 248 David Jeremiah 078525210X Garner 5 4.70 The World of the End: How Jesus' Prophecy Shapes Our Priorities
author: David Jeremiah
name: Garner
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/31
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: life-in-christ, current-events
review:

]]> The American Senator 267117 one of Trollope's most famous and vivid creations.]]> 608 Anthony Trollope 0192837141 Garner 4 3.89 1877 The American Senator
author: Anthony Trollope
name: Garner
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1877
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: anglophile, historical-fiction
review:

]]> The Scent of Water 673799 The Scent of Water is a novel of love—love in its many aspects and love in its final, finest essence. It tells the story of Mary Lindsay, one of Miss Goudge's most absorbing and memorable characters, a mature, attractive woman who, after a distinguished career in the city, returns to the village of her childhood memories in quest of the personal fulfillments that have been denied her.

In the beautiful village of Appleshaw, deep in the English countryside, each person Mary meets seems to be landlocked in the sea of life—torn by conflict, searching for self-realization and love. Like herself. Though loved, Mary feels that she has never experienced the giving of love, for her fiancé had been killed in the war and she had never married. Yet here, in the natural beauty of the country, surrounded by the gift of love from her Cousin Mary, who had willed to her the wonderful cottage called The Laurels, and in her relationships with the villagers, Mary learns in turn to give—and her selfless devotion to the young war veteran Paul Randall nourishes his broken spirit back to health, and his marriage back to happiness.

As the modern story of Mary Lindsay unfolds, another story is spun with the haunting threads of nostalgia—the story of the beloved Cousin Mary whose posthumous gift of The Laurels had brought Mary to Appleshaw. Mortally ill, Cousin Mary had created this magnificent home for the fulfillment of someone other than herself, sustained through her long struggle by the conviction expressed in The Book of Job: "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease...through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."

As the living branch of the fallen tree, Mary Lindsay reaches out to the residents of Appleshaw, and their lives blossom under the warmth of her compassion and the wisdom of love she has learned from Cousin Mary: "Nothing is ever over. You thread things on your life and think you've finished with them but you haven't because it's like beads on a string and they come around again. When it comes round again then if it is possible you give what you failed to give before to someone else. You will have made reparation for we are all one person."]]> 349 Elizabeth Goudge 0698103270 Garner 5 christian-fiction, anglophile 4.17 1963 The Scent of Water
author: Elizabeth Goudge
name: Garner
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/25
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: christian-fiction, anglophile
review:

]]> Amora 54771339
With that introduction, author Grant Hallstrom draws you into the world of ancient Rome with its intrigue and contrasts, where he explores the timeless struggles between revenge and forgiveness, hope and despair, and loss and redemption.

This award-winning bestseller follows Amora on her path of self-discovery from her opulent teenage wedding with Leo through her life full of personal disappointment, tragedy, and betrayal, ultimately leading to peace in the face of death. We watch Leo withdraw into his dark private world of despair as he struggles to maintain his standing in society while trying to escape from the ever-present pain of loss. We delight in the romance between two slaves and champion the young man’s quest to avenge his lover’s untimely death. The sweeping panorama of this immersive story includes the suspense of battles and the action of gladiators fighting to survive in the arena as well.

The author weaves a well-crafted and deeply researched historical fiction based on a true story that will captivate the reader’s attention from the start. The book is filled with non-stop action and suspense, so you are never sure what’s about to happen on the next page. This superbly written and richly descriptive novel with brilliantly drawn characters and settings will have you turning pages from beginning to end. Skillfully constructed, cinematic in presentation and deeply inspiring, this thought-provoking book makes a solid impact.

Even though the book shows how new Christian ideas influenced some characters, it does not try to convert the reader. It simply tells the story including the role that religion played in their lives. Amora is ultimately a story about love, family, friendships, faith, trials and forgiveness. It is well worth the read!]]> 333 Grant J. Hallstrom 0982150334 Garner 2 christian-fiction ]]> 4.17 Amora
author: Grant J. Hallstrom
name: Garner
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/08
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: christian-fiction
review:
I was looking for a historical fiction read from the Early Church period and saw this book on someone's list. If you have not read books like Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis, Thomas Costain's The Silver Chalice, or Francine Rivers' Mark of the Lion trilogy, then you might find this book consumable.

]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919–2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Garner 4 contemporary-fiction 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Garner
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/29
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: contemporary-fiction
review:

]]> Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Garner 5 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/03
date added: 2023/06/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Woman in White 5890 Librarian note: Alternate covers can be found here and here.

'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

Matthew Sweet's introduction explores the phenomenon of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, and discusses Wilkie Collins's biographical and societal influences. Included in this edition are appendices on theatrical adaptations of the novel and its serialisation history.]]> 672 Wilkie Collins Garner 4 anglophile, classic-detective 4.00 1859 The Woman in White
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Garner
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1859
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/10
date added: 2023/06/10
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Message of Revelation (The Bible Speaks Today Series)]]> 1727883 240 Michael Wilcock 0877842930 Garner 5 life-in-christ 4.01 1975 The Message of Revelation (The Bible Speaks Today Series)
author: Michael Wilcock
name: Garner
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/01
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Franchise Affair (Inspector Alan Grant, #3)]]> 243401 304 Josephine Tey 0684842564 Garner 4 3.95 1948 The Franchise Affair (Inspector Alan Grant, #3)
author: Josephine Tey
name: Garner
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/01
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The George MacDonald Omnibus: The Princess and the Goblin; The Princess and Curdie; At the Back of the North Wind]]> 5481581 George MacDonald 1588734692 Garner 5 classic-children-s, classics 4.34 2004 The George MacDonald Omnibus: The Princess and the Goblin; The Princess and Curdie; At the Back of the North Wind
author: George MacDonald
name: Garner
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/01
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: classic-children-s, classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12)]]> 93575 501 Dorothy L. Sayers 0061043494 Garner 4 anglophile, classic-detective 4.20 1935 Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12)
author: Dorothy L. Sayers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1935
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: anglophile, classic-detective
review:

]]> <![CDATA[THROUGH THE BIBLE, THROUGH THE YEAR: Daily Reflections From Genesis To Revelation]]> 248982 432 John R.W. Stott 0801012678 Garner 4 4.39 2006 THROUGH THE BIBLE, THROUGH THE YEAR: Daily Reflections From Genesis To Revelation
author: John R.W. Stott
name: Garner
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/15
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Christ thinks of the church: Expository addresses on the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation (Preaching for today)]]> 132140194 0 John Stott Garner 5 life-in-christ 5.00 What Christ thinks of the church: Expository addresses on the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation (Preaching for today)
author: John Stott
name: Garner
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/12
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Revelation: The Triumph of Christ (John Stott Bible Studies)]]> 3271198 64 John R.W. Stott 083082023X Garner 5 4.47 2008 Revelation: The Triumph of Christ (John Stott Bible Studies)
author: John R.W. Stott
name: Garner
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/30
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: life-in-christ, worldview-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation]]> 59863839 272 Nancy Guthrie 1433580209 Garner 4 life-in-christ 4.66 2022 Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation
author: Nancy Guthrie
name: Garner
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/16
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Garner 5 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Garner
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/03
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: anglophile, literature, classics, christian-fiction
review:

]]> Slanted 53546156 The five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled and The Smear uncovers how partisan bias and gullibility are destroying American journalism.

The news as we once knew it no longer exists. It’s become a product molded and shaped to suit the narrative. Facts that don’t fit are omitted. Off-narrative people and views are controversialized or neatly deposited down the memory hole. Partisan pundits, analysts and anonymous sources fill news space leaving little room for facts. The line between opinion and fact has disappeared.

In Slanted, Sharyl Attkisson reveals with gripping detail the struggles inside newsrooms where journalism used to rule. For the first time, dozens of current and former top national news executives, producers and reporters give insider accounts, speaking with shocking candor about their industry’s devolution.

Americans know their news diet is now filled with fast food concoctions created from talking point recipes devised by partisan and corporate interests. They see a record number of fact mistakes made by some of the world’s most formerly well-respected media outlets . . . often with no apologies. The media largely blames Donald Trump. But as this autopsy shows, the death of the news as we once knew it is self-inflicted. And the weapon was the narrative.

Sharyl Attkisson also finds reason for hope and argues that courageous, counternarrative news reporting can revive journalism.]]> 316 Sharyl Attkisson 006297470X Garner 4 current-events 4.32 2020 Slanted
author: Sharyl Attkisson
name: Garner
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/16
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: current-events
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure]]> 272211
"Christian people," writes Lloyd-Jones, "too often seem to be perpetually in the doldrums and too often give this appearance of unhappiness and of lack of freedom and absence of joy. There is no question at all but that this is the main reason why large numbers of people have ceased to be interested in Christianity."

Believing the Christian joy was one of the most potent factors in the spread of Christianity in the early centuries, Lloyd-Jones not only lays bare the causes that have robbed many Christians of spiritual vitality but also points the way to the cure that is found through the mind and spirit of Christ.]]> 300 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 0802813879 Garner 4 life-in-christ 4.39 1965 Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure
author: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
name: Garner
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/16
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: life-in-christ
review:

]]> Herb of Grace 41885529 356 Elizabeth Goudge 0340009934 Garner 4 4.31 1948 Herb of Grace
author: Elizabeth Goudge
name: Garner
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at: 2019/04/10
date added: 2021/06/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Deeper Heaven: A Reader's Guide to C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy]]> 56986542 394 Christiana Hale Garner 0 to-read 4.61 2020 Deeper Heaven: A Reader's Guide to C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy
author: Christiana Hale
name: Garner
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Heavens and Their Story 26658438
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.]]> 374 Annie Scott Dill Maunder 1297574257 Garner 2 3.50 2012 The Heavens and Their Story
author: Annie Scott Dill Maunder
name: Garner
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2021/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West]]> 28814679 A magisterial, essential history of the struggle between whites and Native Americans over the fate of the West.

After the Civil War, the United States turned its attention to conquering the Great Plains and the lands beyond. The expansion of the country and discoveries of gold drew whites to territory traditionally claimed by Indians. The Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America.
The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today. Dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, the Sierra Madre campaign, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
As the action moves from the great Plains to Texas desert to the sheer cliffs of the Rockies and Sierra Madre, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of officers, soldiers and indian agents, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led. The Earth Is Weeping brings them all together for the first time in the fullest account to date of how the West was won—and lost.

]]> 544 Peter Cozzens 0307958043 Garner 0 to-read 4.27 2016 The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
author: Peter Cozzens
name: Garner
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism]]> 43259919 105 Russell Kirk Garner 0 to-read 4.16 1957 Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism
author: Russell Kirk
name: Garner
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business]]> 12609433 375 Charles Duhigg 1400069289 Garner 0 to-read 4.13 2012 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
author: Charles Duhigg
name: Garner
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Garner 5 4.29 1937 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Garner
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/01
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: classics, daughter-favs, christian-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit]]> 13343283 The Hobbit is one of the most widely read and best-loved books of the twentieth century. In December 2012, millions will be introduced or reintroduced to J.R.R. Tolkien's classic with the arrival of the first of two film adaptations by acclaimed director Peter Jackson. Exploring The Hobbit is a fun, thoughtful, and insightful companion volume, designed to bring a thorough and original new reading of this great work to a general audience. Professor Corey Olsen (also known as the Tolkien Professor) will take readers on an in-depth journey through The Hobbit chapter by chapter, revealing the stories within the story: the dark desires of dwarves and the sublime laughter of elves, the nature of evil and its hopelessness, the mystery of divine providence and human choice, and, most of all, the revolutions within the life of Bilbo Baggins. Exploring The Hobbit is a book that will make The Hobbit come alive for readers as never before.]]> 318 Corey Olsen 054773946X Garner 5 christian-fiction 4.21 2012 Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
author: Corey Olsen
name: Garner
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/22
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: christian-fiction
review:
I thoroughly benefitted from Olsen's exploration of themes and characters. His book greatly enriched my appreciation of The Hobbit. Excellent companion to The Hobbit.
]]> <![CDATA[Murder on the Leviathan (Erast Fandorin Mysteries, #3)]]> 64552
Paris, 1878: Eccentric antiquarian Lord Littleby and his ten servants are found murdered in Littleby’s mansion on the rue de Grenelle, and a priceless Indian shawl is missing. Police commissioner "Papa" Gauche recovers only one piece of evidence from the crime scene: a golden key shaped like a whale. Gauche soon deduces that the key is in fact a ticket of passage for the Leviathan, a gigantic steamship soon to depart Southampton on its maiden voyage to Calcutta. The murderer must be among its passengers.

In Cairo, the ship is boarded by a young Russian diplomat with a shock of white hair—none other than Erast Fandorin, the celebrated detective of Boris Akunin’s The Winter Queen. The sleuth joins forces with Gauche to determine which of ten unticketed passengers on the Leviathan is the rue de Grenelle killer.

Tipping his hat to Agatha Christie, Akunin assembles a colorful cast of suspects—including a secretive Japanese doctor, a professor who specializes in rare Indian artifacts, a pregnant Swiss woman, and an English aristocrat with an appetite for collecting Asian treasures—all of whom are contained together until the crime is solved. As the Leviathan steams toward Calcutta, will Fandorin be able to out-investigate Gauche and discover who the killer is, even as the ship’s passengers are murdered, one by one?

Already an international sensation, Boris Akunin’s latest page-turner transports the reader back to the glamorous, dangerous past in a richly atmospheric tale of suspense on the high seas.]]> 229 Boris Akunin 0812968794 Garner 3 classic-detective 4.05 1998 Murder on the Leviathan (Erast Fandorin Mysteries, #3)
author: Boris Akunin
name: Garner
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: classic-detective
review:

]]> Phantastes 174948
In MacDonald's fairy tales, both those for children and (like this one) those for adults, the "fairy land" clearly represents the spiritual world, or our own world revealed in all of its depth and meaning. At times almost forthrightly allegorical, at other times richly dreamlike (and indeed having a close connection to the symbolic world of dreams), this story of a young man who finds himself on a long journey through a land of fantasy is more truly the story of the spiritual quest that is at the core of his life's work, a quest that must end with the ultimate surrender of the self.

The glory of MacDonald's work is that this surrender is both hard won (or lost!) and yet rippling with joy when at last experienced. As the narrator says of a heavenly woman in this tale, "She knew something too good to be told." One senses the same of the author himself.

Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.]]> 212 George MacDonald 160096401X Garner 0 to-read 3.91 1858 Phantastes
author: George MacDonald
name: Garner
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1858
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Middlemarch 19089 "People are almost always better than their neighbours think they are"

George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".]]> 912 George Eliot 0451529170 Garner 5 4.00 1872 Middlemarch
author: George Eliot
name: Garner
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1872
rating: 5
read at: 2021/04/14
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains]]> 45894067
“This is a book to shake up the world.” ―Ann Patchett Nicholas Carr’s bestseller The Shallows has become a foundational book in one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? This 10th-anniversary edition includes a new afterword that brings the story up to date, with a deep examination of the cognitive and behavioral effects of smartphones and social media.]]> 320 Nicholas Carr 0393357821 Garner 5 4.10 2010 The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
author: Nicholas Carr
name: Garner
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2021/04/14
date added: 2021/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> A Girl of the Limberlost - 54338799
--

Synopsis from Huffington Post: Cornfields, soy fields, alfalfa fields ― Indiana has long been seen as an agricultural plain. But to make it a lucrative farming state, much of the land had to be deforested, leaving behind devastated habitats. The Limberlost, a wetland in northern Indiana, was mostly destroyed by drainage, logging and oil production. Gene Stratton-Porter, an early 20th-century naturalist and novelist, captured the fading beauty of the swamp in books like A Girl of the Limberlost, a novel about a smart, ambitious girl who lives in the dwindling wetland with her mother and pays for school by collecting local moth specimens to sell to naturalists. The book isn’t exactly an environmentalist tract, but it makes the case nonetheless: It celebrates the beauty and richness of the swampland, while showing how easily economic forces push landowners to strip it away.]]> Gene Stratton-Porter Garner 0 4.08 1909 A Girl of the Limberlost -
author: Gene Stratton-Porter
name: Garner
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1909
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Vinegar Girl 27070127
Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.

Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.

When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?]]> 237 Anne Tyler 0804141266 Garner 4 contemporary-fiction 3.35 2016 Vinegar Girl
author: Anne Tyler
name: Garner
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2019/07/01
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: contemporary-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Gospel Comes with a House Key]]> 36384252 240 Rosaria Champagne Butterfield 143355786X Garner 4 life-in-christ, rule-of-life 4.30 2018 The Gospel Comes with a House Key
author: Rosaria Champagne Butterfield
name: Garner
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/02/12
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: life-in-christ, rule-of-life
review:

]]> The Tale of Despereaux 37190 A brave mouse, a covetous rat, a wishful serving girl, and a princess named Pea come together in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Medal–winning tale.

Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.]]> 272 Kate DiCamillo 0763625299 Garner 0 4.07 2003 The Tale of Despereaux
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: Garner
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2019/01/09
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity]]> 51979022 A Movement Seeks to Redefine Christianity. Some Think that It Is a Much-Needed Progressive Reformation. Others Believe that It Is an Attack on Historic Christianity.
Alisa Childers never thought she would question her Christian faith. She was raised in a Christian home, where she had seen her mom and dad feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and love the outcast. She had witnessed God at work and then had dedicated her own life to leading worship, as part of the popular Christian band ZOEgirl. All that was deeply challenged when she met a progressive pastor, who called himself a hopeful agnostic.

Another Gospel? describes the intellectual journey Alisa took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions that struck at the core of the Christian faith. After everything she had ever believed about God, Jesus, and the Bible had been picked apart, she found herself at the brink of despair . . . until God rescued her, helping her to rebuild her faith, one solid brick at a time.

In a culture of endless questions, you need solid answers. If you or someone you love has encountered the ideas of progressive Christianity and aren't sure how to respond, Alisa's journey will show you how to determine--and rest in--what's unmistakably true.]]> 288 Alisa Childers 1496441737 Garner 4 life-in-christ
The setting could be a "Bible study" in progress, with an authority figure that is considered trustworthy, and a room full of friendly, well meaning Christian friends. Suddenly something is said that doesn't sit right, but you can't quite put your finger on it. A few weeks later the statements are bolder and clearly designed to create doubt and confusion, but no one else in the room seems to be catching on. Worse they chuckle and titter condescendingly along with the wolf in sheep's clothing while you struggle to find the right words to question or clarify or confront what was just said. You go home kicking yourself, filled with self doubt, praying for strength and inspiration. The following week you finally speak up, but you are deemed judgy, or close-minded, or quite possibly labelled "a hater."

It could be at a women's Bible study, or a college faith event, or in the author's case, a class led by a
"progressive" self-described hopeful agnostic "pastor." Regardless. Their goal is to rock the foundation of your faith.

Alisa Childers, a former Christian music artist, offers an engaging account of her experience with the progressive "deconstruction" of Christian doctrine and how it drove her to study, research, and shore up her faith despite the demands of two small children at home. In twelve chapters she describes the progressive's line of attack, their redux of familiar heresy, their convenient ignorance of the wealth of research that undermines their assertions, and finally the weak, pathetic emptiness of the progressive's milquetoast theology.

Because of my experiences, we read apologetic classics in our homeschool, so I was familiar with much of the research that she discussed. That said, I found Childers book to be a very helpful reminder of the strategies that are designed and used to challenge the faith of the unprepared: the ever. so. clever. misquotes, convenient redefinitions, isolating tactics and leading questions.

This book is highly recommended for women who are looking for a good, approachable introduction to Christian Apologetics, and/or who are becoming troubled by what they are hearing in their "progressive church." Childers provides chapter notes, a study guide, and a fantastic list of additional resources for reading and listening (podcasts).]]> 4.53 2020 Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity
author: Alisa Childers
name: Garner
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/03
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: life-in-christ
review:
She describes the situation perfectly.

The setting could be a "Bible study" in progress, with an authority figure that is considered trustworthy, and a room full of friendly, well meaning Christian friends. Suddenly something is said that doesn't sit right, but you can't quite put your finger on it. A few weeks later the statements are bolder and clearly designed to create doubt and confusion, but no one else in the room seems to be catching on. Worse they chuckle and titter condescendingly along with the wolf in sheep's clothing while you struggle to find the right words to question or clarify or confront what was just said. You go home kicking yourself, filled with self doubt, praying for strength and inspiration. The following week you finally speak up, but you are deemed judgy, or close-minded, or quite possibly labelled "a hater."

It could be at a women's Bible study, or a college faith event, or in the author's case, a class led by a
"progressive" self-described hopeful agnostic "pastor." Regardless. Their goal is to rock the foundation of your faith.

Alisa Childers, a former Christian music artist, offers an engaging account of her experience with the progressive "deconstruction" of Christian doctrine and how it drove her to study, research, and shore up her faith despite the demands of two small children at home. In twelve chapters she describes the progressive's line of attack, their redux of familiar heresy, their convenient ignorance of the wealth of research that undermines their assertions, and finally the weak, pathetic emptiness of the progressive's milquetoast theology.

Because of my experiences, we read apologetic classics in our homeschool, so I was familiar with much of the research that she discussed. That said, I found Childers book to be a very helpful reminder of the strategies that are designed and used to challenge the faith of the unprepared: the ever. so. clever. misquotes, convenient redefinitions, isolating tactics and leading questions.

This book is highly recommended for women who are looking for a good, approachable introduction to Christian Apologetics, and/or who are becoming troubled by what they are hearing in their "progressive church." Childers provides chapter notes, a study guide, and a fantastic list of additional resources for reading and listening (podcasts).
]]> <![CDATA[Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World]]> 93426 312 Jack Weatherford 0609809644 Garner 0 to-read 4.02 2004 Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
author: Jack Weatherford
name: Garner
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dragonsong (Harper Hall, #1) 28541 Fifteen-year-old Menolly allies with magnificent dragons in the first book in the Harper Hall trilogy, set within science fiction legend Anne McCaffrey’s beloved and bestselling Dragonriders of Pern series.

For centuries, the world of Pern has faced a destructive force known as Thread. But the number of magnificent dragons who have protected this world and the men and women who ride them are dwindling.

As fewer dragons ride the winds and destruction falls from the sky, Menolly has only one to sing, play, and weave the music that comes to her so easily—she wishes to become a Harper. But despite her great talents, her father believes that a young girl is unworthy of such a respected position and forbids her to pursue her dreams. So Menolly runs away, taking shelter in a cave by the sea. Miraculously, she happens upon nine fire lizards that could possibly save her world...and change her life forever.]]> 192 Anne McCaffrey 141692499X Garner 2 nostalgia 4.23 1976 Dragonsong (Harper Hall, #1)
author: Anne McCaffrey
name: Garner
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1976
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: nostalgia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History]]> 43522628 Investigative journalist Lee Smith uses his unprecedented access to Congressman Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, to expose the deep state operation against the president--and the American people.

Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the President tells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country. The plot officially began July 31, 2016 with the counterintelligence investigation that the FBI opened to probe Russian infiltration of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. But the bureau never followed any Russians. In fact, it was an operation to sabotage Trump, the candidate, then president-elect, and finally the presidency. The conspirators included political operatives, law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the press.

The plot was uncovered by Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his investigative team. They understood that the target of the operation wasn't just Trump, but rather the institutions that sustain our republic. A country where operatives use the intelligence and security services to protect their privileges by spying on Americans, coordinating with the press, and using extra-constitutional means to undermine an election then undo a presidency is more like the third world than the republic envisioned by the founding fathers.

Without Nunes and his team, the plot against the president -- and against the country -- never would have been revealed. Told from the perspective of Nunes and his crack investigators -- men and women who banded together to do the right thing at a crucial moment for our democracy -- the story of the biggest political scandal in a generation reads like a great detective novel, feels like a classic cowboy movie. The congressman from the cattle capital of California really did fight corruption in Washington. Devin Nunes took on the "deep state."]]> 360 Lee Smith 1546085025 Garner 0 4.37 The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History
author: Lee Smith
name: Garner
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/28
shelves: current-events, government-economics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the World]]> 44132678
Publisher’s Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds was published in the UK under the title Brilliant Maps.

Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? How many national economies are bigger than California’s? And where can you still find lions in the wild? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds. This one-of-a-kind atlas is packed with eye-opening analysis (Which nations have had female leaders?), whimsical insight (Where can’t you find a McDonald’s?), and surprising connections that illuminate the contours of culture, history, and politics.

Each of these 100 maps will change the way you see the world—and your place in it.]]> 208 Ian Wright 1615196250 Garner 0 4.05 2019 Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the World
author: Ian Wright
name: Garner
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[United States of Socialism: Who's Behind It. Why It's Evil. How to Stop It.]]> 51333444 For those who witnessed the global collapse of socialism, its resurrection in the twenty-first century comes as a surprise, even a shock. How can socialism work now when it has never worked before?

In this pathbreaking book, bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza argues that the socialism advanced today by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar and Elizabeth Warren is very different from the socialism of Lenin, Mao and Castro. It is “identity socialism,” a marriage between classic socialism and identity politics. America’s typical socialist is not a working-class union man but a Black Lives Matter activist, a transgender militant or a prophet of environmental apocalypse. Today’s socialists claim to model themselves not on Mao’s Great Leap Forward or even Venezuelan socialism but rather on the “socialism that works” in Scandinavian countries like Norway and Sweden.

This is the new face of socialism that D’Souza confronts and decisively refutes with his trademark incisiveness, wit and originality. He shows how socialism abandoned the working class and found new recruits by drawing on the resentments of race, gender and sexual orientation. He reveals how it uses the Venezuelan, not the Scandinavian, formula. D’Souza chillingly documents the full range of lawless, gangster, and authoritarian tendencies that they have adopted.

United States of Socialism is an informative, provocative and thrilling exposé not merely of the ideas but also the tactics of the socialist Left. In making the moral case for entrepreneurs and the free market, the author portrays President Trump as the exemplar of capitalism and also the most effective political leader of the battle against socialism. He shows how we can help Trump defeat the socialist menace.]]> 292 Dinesh D'Souza 1250758300 Garner 0 4.21 2020 United States of Socialism: Who's Behind It. Why It's Evil. How to Stop It.
author: Dinesh D'Souza
name: Garner
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Garner 0 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Garner
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems]]> 38530824 272 Leland Ryken 1433558610 Garner 0 4.31 The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems
author: Leland Ryken
name: Garner
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/25
date added: 2020/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[30 Poems To Memorize (Before It's Too Late)]]> 54653769
Here you will find sonnets by Shakespeare, Donne, and Keats; legendary verse from Hopkins, Dickinson, and Wordsworth; classics from Frost, Eliot, and Auden; and memorable stanzas from modern masters like Wilbur, Kenyon, and Espaillat–and many others. In short, the poems in this anthology are worth spending time with. They are the kind of poems you will go back to, the kind that become a part of how you see and experience the world.

We each have a limited amount of time to fill our minds–and our souls–with good things. Here’s one tool to help.

Including poems by Homer, Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, William Wordsworth, Wendell Berry, Jane Kenyon, Langston Hughes, Dana Gioia, Elizabeth Jennings, Rhina Espaillat, W.B. Yeats, John Keats, Paul Laurence Dunbar, A.E. Stallings, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Percy Shelley, Richard Hayden, Richard Wilbur,

With essays by Anthony Esolen, Maurice Manning, James Matthew Wilson, Sally Thomas, Jessica Hooten Wilson, A.M. Juster, Christine Perrin, Jeffrey Bilbro, Heidi White, Ian Andrews, Emily Andrews, Brian Phillips, Matthew Bianco, and David Kern.

Featuring an introductory essay on how to read a poem by Sally Thomas.]]> David Kern Garner 0 4.55 2020 30 Poems To Memorize (Before It's Too Late)
author: David Kern
name: Garner
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/25
date added: 2020/12/25
shelves:
review:

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