Must Read in 2017: An End of the Year Update!

Hello Dear Friends.  Please excuse the dust flying off this blog! Stay tuned for less dust flying soon...but for now...let's talk about our reading shall we?!

A few thoughts before I share my titles.  I'm so glad that I jumped on board this year with Must Read in 2017.   Here's what I've learned/observed/learned:

• There is time to read.  I get up between 5-5:30 in the morning.  I read and write during this time.  
• If I'm reading, my kids are reading.  
• I set a plan in January.  It went totally off the rails by the summer.  Here's why:
• When my now teenager recommends a book or series, I will drop everything and read it.  That won't change.  
• As I read your recommendations and followed new releases, I knew there were some books I just had to read.  Right.Now.  Several of those are in this last post of the year.  

I'll be participating in the Must Read 2018.  But for now, here is how the end of the year went:

I loved this book.  It was funny to read at 5 AM, because then I had to work hard not to laugh too loudly and wake up the family.  I just connected with every page. 



So, my Big 13 recommended this series to me.  I'm in it to win it!  The last half of this series is on my Must Read in 2018.  And anything else he hands to me in the next couple of days. 



Some nonfiction that I studied this fall.  I will say, I loved reading about the history of Lutheran schools, the story of Martin Luther, and the application of it all.  This was a friendly read for me on theology.  It made me want to read more. 


I read this book in a collaboration group.  It lead to great conversations about ideas, jobs, twitter!  (Blogging and Ted Talks to come!) 


Oh.  This book.  I got to a point in this book where I couldn't put it down, because I needed to find out what happened!  And I'm so hopeful that people reading this book see themselves in it!  When I was talking to a family member who worked in a high school this fall, she shared that her students were also reading to the end.  :)  I loved it.  We bought the Big 13 a set of John Green books for Christmas.  I hope he shares them with me. 

 I wanted to like this book.  I really did.  It just didn't resonate.  But it is finished, and I was able to share it at Christmas with a teacher-cousin.  Hoping it resonates with her! 

What an important read.  It's still sitting on my pile.  I keep picking it up and rereading pages.  I'm all about neighbors and getting to know them.  So this book spoke to me in volumes! 

Now, I had set a goal to read 30 books by the end of the year.  I'm going to hit that goal with these two reads:





Now, I haven't finished either of these books. (No spoilers please!)   I'll be reading the rest of the day.  :)  You can look for my reactions to these two on Instagram. 

A thank you to Carrie for bringing us together!  I appreciate your efforts, and enjoy this community very much! 

Happy New Year! 
Joy!
Kendra