//what I've been reading//

I'm safely back from my sojourn to college. I'll be doing a nice long post about it soon. For now, thank you for your prayers- the trip was wonderful and God used it in my heart for sure.

But for today, I thought I'd do a post in response to a request by Anna-

What have I been reading?

Hm.

Lately I've been really into L.M. Montgomery's short story collections. They are free on kindle so I've read quite a few volumes. I like her other works as well, but her short stories are truly superb. And I feel that we share some qualities style-wise in our writing, which is very encouraging. Her characterization is worthy of aspiration- for me, characters are more important than plot, I love characters and capturing true personality's and quirks and, above all, human flaws. L.M. Montgomery does this flawlessly. I recommend her short stories highly.

I also recently read 'The Ankulen' by Kendra A. Ardnek. She was offering several works free for kindle so I decided to try them out. I haven't yet read the others, but this one was amazing. Her use of imaginative fantasy as a young girl goes on a journey to save her own imagination is wonderful. You can truly feel with the main character as she is horrified at the colorless ruin her imagination has sunk into. The allegorical thread throughout is what captured me the most. The message of the story is how those who are gifted artistically must use their gifts for God and others... anyone could love this book, but any Christian artist would be especially blessed.

I also tried some short works by Dostoevsky- White Nights, notes from the underground and a few others, as well as 'The Grand Inquisitor' from 'the Brothers Karamazov'.  I enjoyed them all deeply, they were right up my ally stylistically and thought provoking as well. I can't necessarily recommend them wholeheartedly because they are somewhat mature in parts. You'd just have to use your own discretion there. But I did enjoy them a lot, although 'Notes from the Underground' was more than a little depressing. Russian work that I've read is quite dark over all(I've read a bit of Tolstoy too). It did amuse me the way the characters viewed other countries- Germany and France are mentioned as soft romantic place(which is hardly how I see them) while Italy is practically a heavenly dreamland of golden sunlight and endless love and happiness(which may or may not line up somewhat with my view;). I definitely want to read more from both of them.

Those are the main things that come to mind... I've also been reading my Bible a lot more. I re-read 'The Rope Trick' by Lloyd Alexander not long ago(if you've been to my other blog you'll know my feelings on his work.). I finished a second read of Oliver Twist... not much else in the fairly recent past.

Oh, 'The Book Thief"!! I did read that a while back. Another great work, much deeper than the film, but again it contains some things I can't wholly recommend. It is a wonderful book, though.

So that;s mainly what I've been reading... I don't read as much as I used to. I have a harder time these days finding books that are at a level I can enjoy without containing too much that makes me uncomfortable. Any suggestions are welcome!! Especially something philosophical that will make me think.

A post about my trip, the college and what God taught me there, is soon forthcoming.

Thank you for reading!!