A picture's worth a thousand words...

I was going to try to describe a recent attempt at leading yoga...but I think this picture pretty much sums up the hilarity:

 And this picture holds several hundred thousand words. This is a pile of all the books I read between September 15th and January 5th. Some I brought with me, some my mom brought for me, and some are in the library here.

 

And for my fellow bookworms...titles, authors, and comments...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo. The first four times I tried to read this (in high school and in college) I didn't get past the 3rd chapter. But apparently the 5th time's the charm, and I got so pulled in that I stayed up til 2:30am because there was no way I would be able to sleep without reading the end.

Too Late the Phalarope - Alan Paton. A beautifully written story about temptation and judgment in apartheid South Africa. Dialogue written without using quotation marks usually bugs the heck out of me, but in this book it was so natural I hardly noticed.

Quentins - Maeve Binchey. A collection of stories centered around a fictional restaurant in Dublin. It's about Ireland, therefore I liked it.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle - Avi. This is one of those historical fiction books that I really want to believe is actually true. Prissy English girl becomes kick-ass sailor. Yay! I love YA fiction.

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott. I have lost count of how many times I've read this. And yet I think it will still be rereading it when I am 83. Last spring I got to visit the house where Louis May Alcott lived, and where the stories of this book (based on her childhood) took place. But even though I now know what the real house looks like, the mental picture of the house and town that I've always had is still rock-solid. Funny how that works. (This is true for Harry Potter too, actually. Watching the movies didn't change how I imagine the characters to look).

The Adventure of the Speckled Band and other stories of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So much fun to read. At one point one of the girls came in and asked me to tell her the story I was reading. It wasn't until I was trying to explain it to someone else that I realized how dark and twisted most of the stories are.

When Helping Hurts - Corbett & Fikkert. This book talks about how short-term missions teams often do more harm than good to the communities they visit, and how to not make those mistakes. I'm really glad I read it, because now these ideas are in the back of my head whenever I'm trying to think about how to give money to people in need without creating dependency. Although I must say after reading this that it's so easy to fall into the trap of always looking for the better way to do something, and never actually doing anything at all.

Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle - Annan. A story of a young missionary couple's first three years living in Haiti. This book was promoted at the Urbana conference as "a reality check for everyone who thinks missionaries all fart rainbows". And it is a good description of all the struggles as well as the joys of living here. Probably my favorite sentence: "It isn't uncommon to see the four-year-old boy we live with dash by with a plastic bag over his head and a machete in his hand, after playing with the cooking fire." I wish I could say this is exaggerated, but I've seen it in my neighborhood too. Multiple times, actually. Eventually the conditioned American response to such sights (panic) starts to wear off.

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahams. This book is wasted on children, I swear. The language is beautiful. It's like reading poetry in story form.

The Chronicles of Narnia I-VII - CS Lewis. I think I read these for the first time when I was nine or so. I was young enough that I didn't get the the allegorical references to Christianity. My mom had to explain, "You know Aslan is Jesus, right?" and I remember it blew my little mind, and I had to go back and read them again. It's been so long that I didn't remember any of the stories other than The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, so it was a lot of fun re-reading them. The current series of blockbuster movies just do not do justice to the simple beauty and theology of these stories.

In a Time of Violence - Eavan Boland. Poems from an Irish author (thanks Johanna!). The last stanza of 'Anna Liffey' is now taped to my mirror. I highly recommend this to anyone who thinks they don't like poetry.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford. One of the best novels I've read in a very long time (thanks Johanna again!) A story of friendship and identity in World-War II Seattle. 

Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout. Most of the time I was reading this I hated it. But I couldn't stop reading it. I think because I was sure that the author couldn't possibly be that pessimistic about life and love and the main character must change into a better person. And I was sorta right.

Pope Joan - Donna Woolfolk Cross. Very silly historical fiction. But it's fun to imagine that in medieval times it may actually have been possible for a girl to disguise herself as a boy and spend her life living in a man's world. 

Reckless Faith - Guckenberger. Beautiful stories of hope and grace from a life of working with orphans in Monterrey, Mexico.

Three Lives - Stein. Didn't like this at all. So very boring, and difficult to follow.

Self-Reliance and other Essays - Emerson. Reading these when tired is a very bad idea. Otherwise they are wonderful. And still quite relevant to today's world, I think. Especially his political commentary. Also you will probably want to have a dictionary close by.

Rose in Bloom - Louisa May Alcott. I read this at least once a year. It is my ultimate 'restoring faith in humanity and myself' book. And it still makes me cry every single time I read it.

Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folk-Tales - Diane Wolkstein. These were very entertaining to read, but even more so when the kids realized that the stories in this book were stories they knew and got really excited. And then they proceeded tell me their own versions of the stories, and new ones, in a mix of Creole and English, accompanied by a lot of very dramatic acting. All Haitian folktales include songs, little sing-songey rhymes that everybody knows and joins in on during the story-telling. Then the kids demanded that I tell them stories...I started with the story of Finn McCool and the Giant's Causeway, which was moderately successful. Then I tried Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but couldn't for the life of me remember how it ended, so I just said "and then they ate her. The end." Which prompted howls of indignation from all my listeners.

Women's Liberation Jesus Style - Bibb. Disappointingly this had very little to do with liberation, as the cover had led me to believe. But it was still a great collection of sermons from women preachers.

Young Goodman Brown and other short stories - Nathaniel Hawthorne. I love Hawthorne. His imagination is next to none, and he has a way of combining the fantastic with the absurd that make his short stories so much fun to read.

Mona Lisa in Camelot - Margaret. This book describes the Mona Lisa's visit to the National Gallery of Art in DC during the Kennedy presidency. It was non-fiction, but read like a novel. The best line was a quote from a French magazine indignant that the Mona Lisa would travel..."One does not ask a beautiful woman to come to your house...you must go to her."

The New Friars - Bessenecker. This book sums up quite a lot of how I feel about life, faith, and missions. And helpfully puts it in historical context. It talks about how approximately every 400 years a monastic movement has shaken up a complacent church and helped it to make necessary reforms, and how we're about due for the next one.

Reconciling All Things - Katongole and Rice. Excellent. A short, on-point description of how Christianity should be a reconciling force in the world, both on the world stage, and in relationships between individuals (and everything in between). They encourage us to "mind the gap" between the way things should be in God's creation, and how they really are.

Good News about Injustice - Haugen. This was one of the first books I read when I got here, and it was so helpful. Haiti is overwhelming, to say the least. My first few days here I was reduced to a puddle by being confronted with so much of what is terribly, horribly wrong with our world. So reading this book, (by the founder of International Justice Mission, whose incredible work I have been supporting for years, check 'em out here.) was perfect for reminding me of why we as Christians have hope in the face of the world's mess. Haugen draws from the wealth of scripture in both Old and New Testaments on the topic of justice/injustice to remind us that God does see, hear, and know what is going on down here, and he has a plan for bringing justice to this world, not just the next one.

Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier. I remember disliking the movie when I watched it (Nicole Kidman, Jude Law). But on hearing that the book came first, and was loosely based on the Odyssey, I decided to give it a try. And I loved it. It's less a love story between two people than it is a love affair between the narrator and the land - beautiful North Carolina mountain country.

also read but for some reason they're not in the picture...

Simple Spirituality - Gary Huertz. Also one of the first books I read while when I got here, and also very helpful. Huertz draws on a lifetime spent living among the urban poor to outline 5 spiritual disciplines that are lost in most affluent societies. It helped me to appreciate how people here are materially poor, but spiritually in much better shape than your average American.

Mountains beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder. Paul Farmer is off the hook. Basically. It's a little difficult to read this book without feeling like you are a pathetic excuse for a charity worker. But also inspiring to see how one person can do so much. And Farmer's commentary on Haiti is priceless.