Best Books of 2014

I read a lot.  (In 2014 I read over seventy books.)  I've selected one book (well, okay... sometimes two.  *ahem*  ...or three) from each category that I generally read from, and have listed them for you (with affiliate links) below.

Parenting
A Mother's Heart: A Look at Values, Vision, and Character for the Christian Mother by Jean Fleming
This was my second time reading this book, and it was encouraging and vision-building and affirming of my calling as a mother.  I am thankful there are mothers out there with grown children that write these kind of books which hearten and encourage me as a mother.

Homeschooling
The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason by Laurie Bestvater
I reviewed this book here, but I will say that several months later, I am still inspired by the ideas Bestvater laid out in this book, and this is a book I hope to return to again and again for a refresher on the habit and art of keeping.
Fiction
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman 
Emma by Jane Austen

A Life Intercepted: A Novel by Charles Martin
I chose The Light Between Oceans because when I finished it, I immediately got online to see what else this author had written.  It was that good.  [I reviewed it here.]

I chose Emma because I love Mr. Darcy's discussion of duty and the wittiness Austen gave to so many characters in this book.
I chose A Life Intercepted because the way Martin unfolds a story- any story- even a story about a football player- is magical.

Memoir/Biography
The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein
The Invisible Girls: A Memoir by Sarah Thebarge


The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers is an incredibly well-written story of a family struggling to make ends meet in a mill town in England in the early 1900's.  One side of their street housed Jewish families, the other side, Christian families.  When I finished this one, Ella read it.  Then Mark read it.  They both thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Invisible Girls: A Memoir is about a girl in her late twenties who randomly meets an African mother with her daughters on a bus.  Rather than minding her own business, she minds theirs, and meets some very practical and relational needs of this struggling family. 

 Non-Fiction
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs
Jacobs, a professor of literature, is a kindred because he loves books.  I appreciated his thoughts on reading at whim and on all sorts of other things bookish.


Read-aloud

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
Mary Emma & Company by Ralph Moody 
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth  *some editing required for language

I couldn't choose just one!  All of these we loved.  Cheaper by the Dozen is our current read-aloud, and it is laugh-out-loud funny. 

* * *

As I've pondered the hundreds of pages that I've read over this last year, I came up with a radical idea: to read only God's Word for 2015.  That every time I have a hankering to read, I will pick up my Bible and do just that.  Of course, just as soon as I thought it, I wavered.  One year seems so.long.  I read every single day.  I contemplated three months or even six... and yet eventually settled upon a year.  Will I not sacrifice a year of good books for more of THE Good Book; the living, God-breathed Word?  I am hungry for more of Jesus in my life, and I am excited about this venture.  The one exception to this rule is that I will still read books aloud to my kids, and I can consult books I own for homeschooling ideas/plans.