It’s been a long time since we read anything by Dickens in our group,1 but it’s not for lack of trying. I’m pretty sure I’ve put one of his books in every poll, and we finally got a winner.

I was already in the middle of another book by Dickens and really tried to finish it before we started this one. But alas…I am now going deeper in Great Expectations which I’ve read before, and going wide in Barnaby Rudge, which I haven’t. I don’t recommend reading two books by Dickens at once, but at least I was a) far enough into Barnaby Rudge to feel established in the plot and characters, and b) familiar enough with Great Expectations to not confuse it with the other. Still…don’t try it at home, kids.

For fun, here are my current fiction reads — I have blown through the first three Emma Lion books and am on the fourth which is on my nightstand instead of in this photo:

And for mostly ministry and Bible school, here’s my current non-fiction stack:

Quick note on Foucault’s Pendulum (it’s pronounced foo-KOH, you’re welcome): This has been on my list for a while but I’m not sure how it got there. At only 50ish pages in, so far about 30% of it is over my head but I’m still fascinated.

UPDATE: At 140 pages in, I quit it. I don’t mind the out of the box theories and wild associations, but when the author starts manipulating the reader with his atheistic beliefs that Jesus’ existence is a Celtic myth, he loses both my respect for him as a historian and my attention for whatever else he has to say. I tossed it; do not recommend.

vocab in Great Expectations

But! Here are some fun words we’ve come across in GE that we don’t see every day:

• ablution: washing or cleansing

• caparisoned: richly ornamented

• connubial: relating to marriage

• erudition: learning or scholarship

• execrate: denounce, abhor, or evoke a curse upon

• imbrue: to saturate or stain

• myrmidon: an unquestioning follower; sycophant, lackey (see the Greek mythological background here)

• perspicuity: clearness of expression or thought

• suborn: to persuade someone to commit a crime

• trenchant: keen or forceful

…and a playlist

I thought this would be fun:

Upon second thought, I think “With or Without You” (also by U2) evokes the mood of Great Expectations more than anything else I suggested. It begins hauntingly, and still is full of all the gloomy, foggy angst that imbues the book.

But! MustangSammy found this to edify our Dickensian reading time:

Also, here’s “Death and the Maiden” by Schubert:

quotes

A significant theme of Great Expectations is how the people and places we are surrounded by impact us. Like so:

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong that it became infectious, and I caught it.

— from chapter 8

What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms?

— from chapter 12

Things like this remind me to consider the environment I’m making for my kids, and surrounding myself with.

Also, this morning I took down a flowerpot from the top of my kitchen cabinets and it looked like it came straight out of Miss Havisham’s sitting room. I immediately dusted everything because that is not an atmosphere I want sneaking in here.

Subscribe now

a few more shenanigans, GE and otherwise:

update

A bonus for those of you who’ve endured to the very bottom of this post:

We now have a chat available here on Substack, instead of only on Telegram. I resisted for a long time but it just makes sense to have the chat available where our blog already is, yes? So please pop in, join us, and fire at will. BRING MEMES.

from the Telegram group, a question:

Have any of you seen Dickensian? We’ve probably talked about it before; it’s an 8-part miniseries that pulls together most of Dickens’ works (but primarily Great Expectations, Bleak House, Oliver Twist, and Christmas Carol) into one interwoven, fascinating storyline. With the exception of a couple characters, it is SO WELL DONE and gives a brilliant origin story to those four books.

In the last (?) episode, it illustrates exactly how and why Miss Havisham became what she is when we meet her in chapter eight of Great Expectations, down to the smallest detail of her only wearing one shoe. As a Dickens fan, it is one of the most stunning scenes I’ve ever seen — watching her transformation was a mindblowing “aha” moment for me.

I recommend waiting to watch it till after you’ve finished those four books, though. It’s probably still enjoyable but you’ll get so much more out of it when you pick up on all the references.

Check it out on IMDB here.

upcoming

We have two months left of Great Expectations but next on our list is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, which we’ll be starting at the end of June and reading for seven weeks. You have loads of time to grab a copy; here’s where you can get it new or used at ThriftBooks.

That’s everything I’ve got for you this month. May your bookstack be ever growing, and may your schedule give you plenty of time to tackle it.

Happy reading,

Shannon

Subscribe now

Share

My cousin walked in and said, “Here, maybe you can make sense of this,” as he handed me a small book.

I flipped it over, thumbed the pages. A tiny book, The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung. Of all classic psychologists I studied in high school and college, Jung seemed to be one of the more sane ones. Which, we should acknowledge right out of the gate, isn’t really saying much.

It’s been slow going but the pages are small and I started reading it alongside Anthem, another tiny book that is also about individualism…sort of. And this is how it works, because although as far as I can tell neither of these authors knew God, He knew them. And God knows how to put a curriculum together for those of us who are willing to pay attention.

So I didn’t plan on reading Jung’s case for individual worth at the same time as Anthem’s case against collectivism, but here’s what happened:

Judged scientifically, the individual is nothing but a unit...and could just as well be designated with a letter of the alphabet.

— Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self

And:

Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists…

— Ayn Rand, Anthem

And also:

The individual, however...is the true and authentic carrier of reality, the concrete man as opposed to the unreal ideal or normal man to whom the scientific statements refer.

— Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self

Maybe Jung didn’t know it, but he was talking about the Imago Dei, how we reflect the Maker in countless individual facets, while the enemy (or the State, but I repeat myself) continually tries to sand us all down into a collective sameness — a smooth, perfect average that represents no one, but attempts to control everyone.

Anthem is an illustration of escape from legalism, when you realize questions and honesty are not only allowed but encouraged. This can be hard for us until we realize that God protects us; it’s not the other way around. God is not afraid of our questions.

May the Council have mercy upon us! We had no wish to write such a questions, and we knew not what we were doing till we had written it. We shall not ask this question and we shall not think it. We shall not call death upon our head.

— Ayn Rand, Anthem

In the beginning of Equality’s journey, we have fear of man, which leads to slavery. This legalism is utterly opposed to growth and honesty, and will never allow the pursuit of mystery and truth.

Here’s Jung again, as though he was reading along with us:

Instead of moral and mental differentiation of the individual, you have public welfare and the raising of the living standard.

The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself.

The individual is increasingly deprived of the moral decision as to how he should live his own life, and instead is ruled, fed, clothed, and educated as a social unit, accommodated in the appropriate housing unity, and amused in accordance wit the standards tat give pleasure and satisfaction to the masses.

— Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self (emphasis mine)

Huh. Contrast that with how God is unafraid of our questions, and wants us to search for the answers.

It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out.

— Proverbs 25:2

and

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth.

— Romans 1:18

So let’s talk a bit about that pursuit of mystery and truth, because there’s more at stake here than the liberation of a fictional character. You probably know several people right now who are on the same journey as Equality.

: spoilers ahead : proceed with caution :

I love that Anthem ends with a taste of freedom. One of the overarching messages is escape from total control and slavery, and how there is a world outside if you can find it. A person can’t always, physically. But in the world of Anthem, it’s there. (It’s here, too, of course.)

On the surface, the end of the book seems to be about self worship because Equality realizes that he is the purpose of his own existence. As Christians we cringe at that, but consider his progression: He came from complete ignorance, control, and slavery (the enemy’s tactics) and moved to freedom, discovery, and revelation (these are the ways of God).

This is only going from one terrible belief system to another if the timeline stops there.

But if the timeline continues, it is the progression toward understanding that something Greater is out there. Equality doesn’t understand that yet. Most people don’t, instantaneously.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made.

— Romans 1:19-20a

So Equality recognizing his own personhood is the first part of that. He is now free, potentially walking toward truth. He still misses the point (“the guiding star is within me…they point to me”) but he is on the way to discovering it. As far as we know, Ayn Rand did not discover it, but this character of hers who went from zero identity to discovering his own individual existence could make his way there.

Ayn Rand clearly had a bone to pick with religion and she swung her pendulum to other end of the extreme. Her tone in chapter 11 smacks of one who is just as angry with legalistic Christianity as she is with communism and collectivism.

The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit.

— Anthem

Maybe no one showed her true freedom in being surrendered to Christ. It sounds like she only saw a form of so-called Christianity that looked no different from the slavery of communism. These messages are still being spoken today, and still driving people away from the Kingdom by their misrepresentation of it.

Like Anthem, Jung’s book also has solid truth about the value of individual worth, but then it veers into statements that hang on a skewed misunderstanding of scripture and Christianity, and misses some of the very things it’s trying to argue for. Both of these books miss the forest for the trees as they try to send their message.

And this is the danger of classifying and categorizing without considering nuance, the big picture, or other things we might not understand. Like Jung, Rand knew just enough of scripture to abuse it and turns its phrases to her own meanings.

For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled.

— Anthem

This is our main character speaking, and he is so close, yet still so far.

In the temple of his spirit he is alone, but he doesn’t have to be. And if he recognizes Who made that temple in the first place, and Who loved him into being in the first place, and Whose image he was made in, he would not revel in its sterile vacancy.

This is the journey so many are still on.

Equality is wounded, afraid of any control after such abuse. And like many who’ve survived such situations, he is possessive of his own freedom because the taste of it is new and intoxicating, and he recognizes it as precious. And it is.

But he has yet to learn that His Maker sees him as precious, too.

Just as he hates the word We for how it was abused, We in the right context is a beautiful thing. So is surrender in the right direction, to the only One who is worthy of it.

Until he understands that, his possessiveness over his newfound liberation is just another form of slavery. If and when he invites his Maker in, that empty room will be furnished with all matter of precious things and he will find meaning beyond just himself.

By wisdom a house is built,
and by understanding it is established;
by knowledge the rooms are filled
with all precious and pleasant riches.

— Proverbs 24:3-4

So at the end of the book, Equality has found some meaning beyond slavery, but he hasn’t found true freedom yet. He might be on the way, though.

Subscribe now

and now, to our current book

We started A Little Princess just last week and it’s available everywhere (online, in audio, at your library, at ThriftBooks, and I think we have at least three copies around here) so you still have time to jump in and join us. It is SO MUCH LIGHTER than Anthem. There’s poetic justice, classy vengeance, and wisdom galore.

Also! I’ve opened the poll for the next round of books, so go vote here. It’s a little early, but it looks like we’ll be reading Great Expectations soon. YAYYYYY

And one more quote from Jung if you can handle it; I thought this was hilarious but I’ve been in the weeds of Greek and theology for the last few months and my taste in humor might currently be as skewed as Rand’s existential conclusions.

Anyway, here you go:

Everywhere in the West there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population.

One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum.

— Jung, The Undiscovered Self

Seriously, that made me laugh out loud. I should probably take a break and go read some more Wodehouse.

Happy learning,

Shannon

buy me a coffee

support our work at Copperlight Wood

As you can see, these are not in order, and some of our copies have really been through it. I mean, the top of The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh is so gross I almost cropped it from the photo. We purchased it for our oldest child in 2001, and it has been read approximately that many times.

Anyway, here’s a closer look at where we’ve been…in order, this time:

To those of you who endured, plowed through, withstood, and persevered through FIVE MONTHS of reading Gone With the Wind, well done. Try not to throw any vases at a wall over the heads of unsuspecting nappers as you celebrate.

Having started 2025 in the middle of Gone With the Wind, we are currently smack in the middle of At the Back of the North Wind. We still have two books scheduled this year before the next vote:

If you’re feeling super responsible and ahead of the game in 2026, you can get a copy of Anthem by Ayn Rand here, and a copy of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett here.

We’ll vote on the next round of books in March, in our Telegram chat, where discussion lately has not only revolved around At the Back of the North Wind, but also fantasy novels, Wodehouse, and which books we read by flashlight as kids.

Happy reading,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

P.S. Curious about other books we’ve read? Here are the lists from 2024 and 2023.

We are starting At the Back of the North Wind!

Next week. By George MacDonald. If I recall correctly (I’ve only read it once before, several years ago) it is less weird than Lilith and more fairy-tale-ish like The Princess and the Goblin…if that helps. I think (hope) you’ll love it. We’ll be reading about four chapters a week through December and January.

If you need a copy, you can find it here: free audio online, read free online, or get new or used copies at Thriftbooks here.

recommended books for logophiles

Logophile: someone who loves words. (Logo=word, phile=love…basically.)

One of these is not like the others, but it’s not obvious from this photo. A Green and Ancient Light is here just because my daughter recently finished it, and when I read it a few years ago I loved it so much. It is reality mixed with fantasy, beauty and danger, mystery and myth. Also, as I was typing this I realized I talked about it on my blog in my favorite books of 2023 post, whoops.

But! These other books are all wordy-nerdy — puns and letters and grammar and punctuation and vocabulary, all in fun ways. No, really, I promise. There’s something here for all ages.

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss — pictured is the kids version, but I also loved the book for adults. Why are commas important? And why should you make sure you put them in the right places? Because we’re not savages, that’s why.

But also, this:

Other-Wordly by Yee-Lum Mak: A small dictionary of sorts, filled with beautiful words from all over the world. The illustrations are dreamy and hygge, too.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn: A clever epistolary novel written in letters…that is, of course, what “epistolary” means, but also, I mean it’s written in letters — as in, a b c d, etc — that diminish as the story progresses. How much could you write without certain vowels? Or a W? Or…well, most of the alphabet?

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster: We just finished reading this as a family. It is great fun that young kids will enjoy, but older kids and adults will enjoy even more as they recognize all the plays on words that happens throughout the entire story.

“In this box are all the words I know…Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is to use them well and in the right places.”

— Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

and now, a word for those who long to write

…but maybe you don’t know where to start, it’s so overwhelming, or you can’t find the time, or for whatever reason. Or, you’re just curious about the process.

Writing is no trivial thing. Private journaling may be simple, but writing in any public sphere is a different beast entirely. And when you add business to it (like selling books, or any kind of monetization) it expands into a many-legged creature that invades your thoughts at all hours and demands to be fed in a variety of time-consuming, creative ways.

Sometimes that beast lays a golden egg. But for it to do so, you have to feed it…a lot. And some beasts, no matter how much you feed them, don’t lay eggs at all. They’re just not, you know, oviparous.

Maybe that seems discouraging. It is, sometimes. But what I want you to hear is that even if you’re not a writer — or, you’re interested in writing but not sure where to start, and you have other giftings you are already really good at — there’s room for you in this discussion. Because writers need you.

Writing and business are not simply about writing and business.

It is also about graphic design
and marketing
and readership
and distribution
and editing
and research
and merch creation
and networking
and sales
and social media
and collaborations
and photography/illustration
and publishing
and so many, many other things.

Are you good at any of those? There’s a writer out there who needs you. (Us. It might be us.)

Also, it’s about handling public criticism, and vulgar online weirdos, and the effort to keep privacy sacred while living in many ways as an open book.

It is the exertion of transforming a culture of instant, scrolling gratification into one that reads and thinks deeply again.

It is the fight against the cheapening of our craft as we compete with those who cheat by cranking out fake work with chatGPT.

It is about honesty and transparency, and priorities and time. So much time.

It is learning how to deal with people misunderstanding what you said, and lovingly ignoring them when they tell you how you should have written it differently, though they themselves don’t seem to bother writing anything more than negative comments and certainly not 2500-word posts.

It is about learning to not defend yourself when Mildred says you should have added her personal perspective or soapbox issue into your article, and blessing her as she unsubscribes — or unsubscribing her yourself because she’s clearly not your target audience anyway, and as much fun as her negativity is, you don’t need to be her target anymore, either.

It’s hard. If you’re dealing with any of that, you are already learning the process.1 Kudos.

So there’s a place for you in the writing world — unless you’re Mildred2 — and jumping in with your other “non-writerly” giftings is a great way to learn about writing and get a feel for what it might look like for you.

And one of the best ways to support writers (and encourage them to keep going) is just to read their stuff and share it.

Is it worth it? I think so. I mean, ask me in another seventeen years. If we’re still going by then, then the answer is definitely yes.

Happy reading, writing, and learning,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

it’s ‘ve, not of

That doesn’t make sense yet, does it? Here’s what I mean, in a quote from a book I loved earlier this summer in spite of this error strewn all throughout it:

He might of been listening to what the colonel was saying…

—Janice Holt Giles, The Kentuckians

Did you catch it? It’s supposed to be might’ve (as in, “might have”), not might of. See also: could’ve, would’ve, should’ve known better.

This was the second book I’ve read by this author (the other is Hannah Fowler) and they were both excellent historical fiction written around the 1950s. If you don’t like reading dialect, skip them, because she writes true to both the accent and regional grammar, but otherwise, they’re fun and fast reads. Also, The Kentuckians gives a perspective on the early days of the Revolutionary War that isn’t usually talked about.

A Man for All Seasons

We’re currently in the middle of this one and it’s short, so we’re flying right through. This is the first play we’ve read together in Gaining Ground, but not the first time I threw a play in the voting poll…so kudos to all of you adventurers for trying something new. Reading one play a year is a solid goal to shoot for, so I’ll keep throwing them in the polls.

This passage remains one of my favorites — the symbolism of More relighting the candle that Wolsey extinguished is gentle and powerful:

…and it makes me think of so many sections in the New Testament about praying for government, leaders, and the body. This example is from Ephesians 6:

But as I said, we’ll be done with A Man for All Seasons in no time, so let’s talk about what’s next…

coming soon: Persuasion

Fun fact #1: We have never had a book by Jane Austen in the polls that has not won a slot among the next round of scheduled reads.

Fun fact #2: Counting Persuasion, we have now read all of Jane Austen’s main works in Gaining Ground EXCEPT for Mansfield Park. So that might be added to the running sometime next year.

You can find Persuasion for free online at Gutenberg, in free audio at Librivox (lots of versions to choose from — usually the solo ones are best), or get used or new copies here at ThriftBooks.

And, speaking of polls: This is our last scheduled book, so we’ll vote on our next round of books in October.

fall book recommendations

Meanwhile, want some cozy books for cooler weather? Books that make you want to have soup and tea, curl up with blankets and cocoa, and listen to the rain outside as it pounds the leaves to the ground? Here are some good ones for kids and grown ups.

For those of you who just finished Treasure Island with us last month and want to introduce your kids to some Robert Louis Stevenson that doesn’t include quite so much piratical crime and mayhem, A Child’s Garden of Verses is filled with beautiful short poems that speak right to the wild fancies of childhood. I’m currently reading it aloud to my kids.

The Wreck of the Golden Mary: This is the easiest introduction to Charles Dickens I’ve found. The book was actually a group effort between Dickens and several of his author friends; each wrote different parts of the story but in spite of that, the tone is consistent and it flows well.

Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter: If you joined us for A Girl of the Limberlost, this is the prequel. Both can stand alone, though.

Hannah Fowler, mentioned above

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: If you’ve never read it, it’s probably not at all as spooky as you think it might be. Also, it’s extremely short. Beautiful, beautiful writing.

Have you introduced your kids to Mr. Putter and Tabby yet? This is a huge series and sometimes they’re hit or miss, but Stir the Soup and Pick the Pears are two of our absolute favorites. These ones all take place in the fall.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned at least two of these before, but they are so good I don’t even care.

Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem: The stories are really fun but it’s the illustrations that put it over the top. What would the inside of a giant tree look like if a family of mice lived in it, complete with elaborate pantries and stairwells, libraries and dancing halls? SO MUCH FUN

The Hundred-Year Barn by Patricia MacLachlan: This is the same author of the Sarah, Plain and Tall series and this picture book has the same gentle, perceptive feel to it.

Home in the Woods by Eliza Wheeler: A mother with her many children need to make a new home, starting with almost nothing. Based on the true story of the author’s grandmother; gorgeous illustrations.

Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall: I fell in love with this book about 20 years ago, and have not fallen out of love with it yet. The Ox-Cart Man’s family makes and grows things throughout the year, and what they don’t use, they sell to buy what they cannot make. It is a beautiful one-sentence (a loooong sentence) story about economics, growth, patience, and achievement.

Happy reading,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

But first, in case the title threw you off…

…used here figuratively, of course. But it is Independence Day tomorrow, so there you go.

Now, onto a quick writing tip

Here’s a quote from The Body Keeps the Score1, an excellent book I’m in the middle of:

Change begins when we learn to “own” our emotional brains. That means learning to observe and tolerate the heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations that register misery and humiliation.

How many times did you have to read the second sentence? Did you have a hard time with it?

The first sentence is clear, but the second is a quagmire that requires some navigating. I had to read it three times. Let’s look again, with some emphasis:

That means learning to observe and tolerate the heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations that register misery and humiliation.

You see the problem? We have three duos linked by “and,” and it’s too much. One is good, two is asking for it, but three is a mess with sirens blaring in the distance.

This is where I tell writers to pick their favorite, and clarify their priorities.

We have to look closely at the words we choose so our readers can effortlessly glide right through them. In other words: As writers, we do the work so our readers don’t have to.

So we’ll pretend we’re the writer, and look closely at these pairs:

• Observe and tolerate: These are different actions, and both are needed here. Let’s keep both for now.

• Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching: These are synonyms, therefore one of them is redundant. So this is an easy simplification; just pick your favorite. (I’ll go with “gut-wrenching” because it feels stronger and isn’t as overused as “heartbreaking.”)

• Misery and humiliation: Ahh, a little trickier. Are these synonyms? Not quite, but close. Humiliation is a form of misery, but not all misery is humiliation…just as a shirt is a form of clothing, but there are other forms of clothing besides shirts. So the writer needs to decide which is more accurate for the context of our piece — do we need a general concept like misery, or something more specific like humiliation? What if we want to emphasize the general and the specific?

Huh. All the options. Let’s just remove the redundant adjective from the second pair and see if it helps.

So we now have:

That means learning to observe and tolerate the gut-wrenching sensations that register misery and humiliation.

…and that is a much stronger, clearer sentence. All we did is remove two words.

Moral of the story: Beware of too many pairs of ands. Three in one sentence is almost always too many.

other book recommendations for July

…because yes, even though that was a sticky sentence, I do recommend The Body Keeps the Score. :) Here are some others:

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge: I just finished this one and loved, loved, loved it. If you’ve never read Goudge before, it’s a great one to start with. Her writing is cozy, vivid, beautiful, and true to human nature…almost in an “I can’t believe you actually said that” kind of way sometimes. This book is about 400 pages long and it’s about two characters who find families in different ways (and at different stages of life) during the late 1800s when England is at war with France.

I think God creates what one might call spiritual families, people who may or may not be physically related to each other, but who will travel together the whole of the way. And it's a long way.

— Elizabeth Goudge, Gentian Hill

Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers: This is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey series — a murder mystery involving two situations that seem like they must be related, but aren’t…or are they? Or is something else entirely going on?

For kids, Pelle’s New Suit by Elsa Beskow and Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle are fun stories that both show the process of making things — a suit from wool in the first case, and pancakes from wheat in the other. I love it when my kids understand that things they want aren’t instantaneous. :)

And one more recommendation for kids and their parents — I confess I started this one a month ago with my boys, even though it’s not scheduled until mid-July…

coming soon: Treasure Island

Arggh, ye mateys! Yes, it’s book of pirates, so there’s death and treachery in these pages, but there’s also innocence and complexity and adventure and goodness. (And yes, that was also a sentence of many “ands,” but I like it.) If you’ve heard of Captain Flint, Jim Hawkins, Ben Gunn, and a guy named Long John Silver, this is the book they come from.

As a group, we start reading it in less than two weeks and here are some places you can find it if you don’t already have a copy:

• Free online at Gutenberg

• Free audio on Librivox (the "solo" options are usually the best, and they have several)

• Used or new copies at ThriftBooks

And lastly…

Do you need motivation to write? This post might give it to you. It convicted and encouraged me:

The Word Baker

I Didn’t Know Writing Was Spiritual Warfare Until I Saw This in Esther

It was the usual route to our church at the University of Ibadan, and I never paid much attention until that day. Erected at the roundabout was a signpost bearing the image of Nigeria’s only Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, along with a quote by him…

Read more

a year ago · 342 likes · 107 comments · Olufemi Babalola

And if you need help, accountability, or just another set of eyes to look over your current writing and help you decide whether To Comma or Not to Comma, I have openings for light-yoked, private monthly coaching here.

Happy reading AND writing,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

It is June (!) and I have a slew of books for you and your kids to enjoy this summer. But first, here are our next four scheduled reads:

Which brings me to the most fun we’ve (probably) had in Gaining Ground yet, because…

WE HAVE STARTED WINNIE THE POOH!

(Sorry for yelling, but YAY!)

Note that this is actually The Complete Tales/Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (depending on your version) which includes The House at Pooh Corner...without which we would never meet Tigger, and many things would be left unbounced that need to be bounced.

“There's the South Pole, said Christopher Robin, and I expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them.”

― A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Our ancient, much-loved, and taped-up copy looks like this:

We just started last week but it goes so fast you’ve got time to jump in. The crustimoney proceedcakes — er, customary procedure — is that we roughly follow a schedule that I put out a week or so ahead of time, but since we’re a week or so behind time already, here you go and I’m sure you’ll do just fine anyway:

And now for some…

more great summer books for kids

Looking for fun books to keep (or get) you and the kids outside? Here are some that we’ve loved:

An Egg is Quiet by Diana Aston: This book is so gorgeous, and it is just one of a series (A Seed is Sleepy, A Butterfly is Patient, etc) of about seven books.

In and Out of the Garden by Sara Midda and The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden are both nature journals that will inspire your artsy doodle-y kids (or your artsy doodle-y self).

Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots and Sunflower Houses by Sharon Lovejoy: Brilliant ideas for your yard and garden that will fascinate and occupy your kids in most weather. We’re on year 2 of our bean/pea pole teepee.

The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley: This is not a book for little kids (more complex info, not a picture book) but his explanations are fabulous even though he needlessly mentions Covid (gahh) at least twice. (Side note: When authors do this in recent works it immediately bugs me; therapists please advise.) If you love this book, he’s got several more along these lines, too.

…aaand for the writerly among us

If you want to take advantage of the slowdown of summer to brush up on your writing skills (or you have a kid who needs/wants to), I offer personal feedback and coaching. Schedule as many months as you want, or jump in and out as your schedule allows; you can write pieces that go along with our scheduled reading, or your topics can be entirely different. It’s super flexible, just $30/month — details here.

Aside from that though, here’s a simple prompt for you or your kids, for your journal or discussion:

Which character in Winnie the Pooh do you most identify or resonate with, and why?

I used to be very much like Rabbit, but have eased back toward a blend of Owl and Kanga.

Owl looked at him, and wondered whether to push him off the tree; but, feeling that he could always do it afterwards, he tried once more to find out what they were talking about.

— The House at Pooh Corner

Happy reading (and writing!),

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

Participants bailed out left and right; a large contingent opted to settle for one of the movie adaptations; rebellious factions along the sidelines are waving trashy romances from the 80s and flinging them into the lists.

(I kid, I kid…I made the last one up.)

No shame. It is harder. Shorter than GWTW, but the history, language, and terms are so unfamiliar to most of us, some of the paragraphs fly right over without any of the words sticking the landing. This one is definitely a challenge.

So here, a little help: Here’s a list of jousting vocabulary, which comes in very handy around chapter 7. (HT MustangSammy for the link!)

Also helpful around chapter 7 is a brief understanding of King Richard and Prince John’s dysfunctional royal (but I repeat myself) family dynamics.

The beginning of chapter 7 had me reading several different articles to try to understand the Plantagenets and their line of succession. None of this is familiar to me, but here’s what I’ve got:

• King John and Prince Henry are brothers, two of the eight children that came from the union of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Five boys, three girls…plus two illegitimate sons.

  

• The first son, William IX, dies as a toddler.

• The second son, Henry the Young, co-reins with Henry II a bit before rebelling alongside his mother and brothers Richard and Geoffrey, and dies at age 28.

• So by the time we get to our story, this is why Richard, who is the third in line of succession behind two other brothers, is actually king. As far as I can tell, at least. 😵‍💫

Also very helpful this time around has been Jeff’s enthusiasm about the book. Jeff, you may be single-handedly responsible for keeping at least a few readers from jumping ship in this round. Bravo!

Here’s a bit of his great perspective on Ivanhoe:

If you examine this book from an ecclesiastical viewpoint, it is the story of the redemption that Christ offers …

• The hidden King

• The servant Knight

• The discredited Pharisaical Normans

• The stubborn Saxons

• The unlikely apostles…

• And weakness of the leadership, both Jewish and catholic

• The reverent women…

It’s really a quite extraordinary story…if you read between the lines.

And here’s our schedule if you lost track of it:

If you are biding your time until we finish this book — or you’re just anxious to see what the next round will be— I’ll post the next poll in early May, and announce the winners by mid-May. The next book will start June 1.

books I loved this month

Looking for something else to read? Here are four books that I finished (and loved) over the last month or so:

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: This is not a fast-paced book. Also, it’s not spooky, creepy, ghostly, or anything else like what some of the more sensational reviews say. It was published in 1851 and reads like it — long sentences, but generally not too complex; profound observations on life, human nature, and symbolism.

Individuals, whose affairs have reached an utterly desperate crisis, almost invariably keep themselves alive with hopes, so much the more airily magnificent, as they have the less of solid matter within their grasp…

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables

Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks: If you’ve read the Shannara series (I haven’t) you’ll recognize this author (I didn’t), but even without that connection, it’s a fun, light, fascinating look into a writer’s life. I’ve read a lot of books on writing, and loved that this one doesn’t repeat all the same basics, but instead delves into specific topics that not all books on writing do: What is it like to write a book based on a movie screenplay? What might an outlining process look like? What can you learn from a 5-year-old about storytelling?

Made in China by Amelia Pang: This is one of a very few books that I think everyone — especially Christians — should read and be aware of.

After working eight hours a day in the quarry, prisoners had to manufacture artificial flowers for six more hours at night. Chen folded adhesive labels to garish lilies, tulips, and poppies. He glued fake stems to polyester and silk flowers. The mustiness of the silk mingled with the strong glue, covering the iron scent of blood.

— Amelia Pang, Made in China

Do you know how all the cheap made-in-China goods are made? Do you know why they’re so “affordable?” It’s because the labor isn’t paid for. Or it is, but only by the slaves — many of whom are Christians and other religious minorities — and the price they pay is sometimes their lives.

By 2001…the practice of selling organs of executed prisoners of conscience had spread beyond Xinjiang; at this point, the Chinese government was also targeting Falun Gong followers, underground Christians, and Tibetans….

Although all healthy prisoners are at risk, there is evidence that suggests Falun Gong practitioners and other religious minorities are especially targeted for organ harvesting because they tend not to smoke or drink alcohol….it is no coincidence that China’s organ transplant industry started experiencing rapid growth in 2000, shortly after the crackdown of Falun Gong began…there were only 91 hospitals performing organ transplants in China that year; just six years later, there were one thousand….

China’s then-minister of health Huang Jiefu admitted in 2005, before the Falun Gong investigations began, that more than 95% of the nation’s transplant organs came from executed prisoners.

— Amelia Pang, Made In China

Dear Church, we need to stop buying this junk, stop giving it away in our services and classes, and stop saying we care about freedom when we continue to perpetuate slavery and profit from a “good deal.” This has been one of our soapboxes for 20 years, and I’m so glad there’s a new book that exposes it.

If you’re interested in a fiction story that explains this from a Christian perspective appropriate for middle-to-high-schoolers, Safely Home by Randy Alcorn is excellent.

The Awe of God by John Bevere: This is a revival-inducing book. If the Church understood what the fear of God really is, it would change everything. I hope we let it. Vin wrote a 5-star review of it here if you’re curious.

I also have a couple books that I either finished or quit in disgust in the last week; I won’t tell you about those. 😅

But hey, what have you finished lately that you recommend? Tell us all about it in the comments, or join us in our Telegram group, where we’ve been discussing things like kitchen book storage, ideas for storing kids books, other books, and book decor in general, plus current (other) reads, The Wind in the Willows (which was a Gaining Ground book in 2022), movie versions of Ivanhoe…and I don’t know what else. It’s busy. You should come and join us. 😁

Happy reading,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

It’s been 22 weeks.

For those of us who have followed the schedule (as opposed to those who blew right through and finished months or weeks ago because they couldn’t help themselves) we’re finally finishing Gone With the Wind.

We’ve loved and hated characters — some of them, simultaneously.

But then there’s Melanie, who is not perfect, and yet somehow, still is.

What struck me so much in this reading (it was my third time through) is how the Holy Spirit is present in the creation of incredible works, whether the author is a believer or not.

I don’t know if Margaret Mitchell was a Christian. But in reading about the complexities and dynamics of the relationships between Scarlett, Ashley, Melanie, and Rhett, you could not possibly convince me that a mere human — even the most brilliant one — could have planned the end from the beginning and woven all the intricacies together in such a true, heartbreaking, ironic, authentic way.

Who are these characters, and why do we care about them? Because they reveal so much of our best and worst selves.

• Melanie. Believes the best of everyone and will not entertain any malice against those she loves, even when they deserve it…because she can’t possibly believe they do.

• Ashley. Educated, wise, philosophical, and cares very much about things like reputation, tradition, and what is proper.

• Rhett. Just like Ashley, but the opposite — selfish and too honest for good manners, unless it serves him.

• Scarlett. A female version of Rhett in her narcissistic scheming, but the opposite in that she is clueless about human nature and history (refusing to learn from the past is sort of her trademark) and she cares very much about what other people think…sometimes. But really, does she even know what she believes? I don’t think so.

We hold them up to the light, turn them a little, and suddenly a facet glints, and we see our own reflection in it. We look from another angle, and see parallels to relationships and events and people we know. And we start to understand our own world with a little more fullness…and isn’t that why we read, anyway?

Both Scarlett and Rhett will do whatever it takes to get what they want. Ashley won’t, and sort of lets life happen to him. And Melanie just wants everyone to be happy and loved.

So she is happy, and loved.

Melanie, the most of humble of all, is the only person Rhett respects, trusts, and reveals himself fully to. “To the pure, all things are pure” and she was — and remarkably, so was Rhett when he was with her, because she drew it out of him.

Scarlett fancies herself discreet, but Rhett sees right through her every time. Her cluelessness is rooted in her constant unwillingness to deal with the present, to continually push off painful thoughts and situations that need confronted.

But then the story shifts, and suddenly Rhett doesn't understand Scarlett anymore because she is finally changing and maturing, and he's too angry and wounded to realize it. She’s too angry and wounded to admit it. They’ve both dug deep holes of distrust and suspicion.

And here we see where the tiniest bit of grace given to the other could have saved everything. Just a little humility, just a small bit of surrendered pride — but neither of them were willing.

So grace is necessary...and yet, so many times I've been burned by believing the best in people who didn't deserve it, either.

But do any of us deserve it? No. So there are lessons to be learned on both sides — grace that believes the best, and boundaries from being burned — and the Lord isn't wasting any of it, as long was we're walking with Him.

What really impresses me about Mitchell’s portrayal of Scarlett is that she’s still so interesting to read. Plenty of writers have created unlikeable main characters that make for miserable stories (Thomas Hardy, Steinbeck, Tolstoy) but Scarlett is so dang fascinating, and the level of what she endures and overcomes demands respect, no matter how begrudgingly we give it.

Also, about the Civil War

My husband just finished this (other) doorstopper on Stonewall Jackson and he highly, highly recommends it. Here’s his review if you love All Things Civil War:

Vince Guerra

Five Star Book Reviews

“People who are anxious to bring on war don’t know what they are bargaining for.” — Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson…

Read more

a year ago · 5 likes · Vince Guerra

hot tip for book care

When you get these little desiccant packets, toss them behind your books (or in the backs of bookshelves) to keep moisture away and protect your books from mold.

Don’t put them on the lower shelves where toddlers will find and chew them, of course. 😁

Looking ahead: Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe is a fabulous story by Sir Walter Scott as long as you don’t actually expect it to be about Ivanhoe (surprise!) because it’s totally not.

It is, however, about some other fun characters…one in particular…and that’s a wonderful surprise to stumble upon in, oh, the middle-ish of the story.

If you don't have it yet, you can find Ivanhoe here...

• free online at Gutenberg Press

• free audio on Librivox (It says there are 4 versions but unless you speak Dutch, there’s only one — two are in progress, though, and it’s possible they might be completed soon.)

• or new and used at Thriftbooks here

And if you’re not with us on Telegram where we will be talking about it, you might want to join us. (It’s free and we’re not scary!) Over the last month we’ve been all over the place discussing not only the depths of GWTW, but also debating the merits of audiobooks, sharing GWTW memes and trivia (book, movie, sequels, and otherwise), contemplating crafty book projects and decor…and somehow we also had time to deliberate entirely other bookish topics like Watership Down, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. It’s been a busy few weeks.

Happy reading,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

First, don’t hate me, but for honesty’s sake I feel like I should tell you right off that poetry isn’t really my thing.1 I read it when I come across it, and we have many volumes on our shelves, but I don’t pursue it in my personal reading. My husband knows not to write me poetry; he once gave me a romantic letter handwritten in cursive but I was so unimpressed that he’s never heard the end of it.2

I do, however, have a high school student right now who just switched to the poetry section in our creative writing course3, and the assignments are so fun: Write a poem that makes sense with only one word per line. Write an acrostic poem using the the letters in the alphabet as your outline. We go back and forth helping each other write the lines, and some of the poems are good, while others are hilarious.

The cool thing about poetry is the rules.

I know, that’s not normally the cool thing about anything.

But with (good) poetry, there are rules set forth in the beginning: Stipulations about rhythm, rhyme, shape, metaphor, syllables, or a combination of similar elements.

What makes this a poem? What is it trying to do that you can’t do in prose? Because it ought to be something.

I mean,

you

could make

a sentence look

like this,

…but that’s not poetry. Anyone with the IQ of a toaster can scatter words like that on paper or screen and it’s not impressive. And maybe, probably, it’s the abuse of similar tactics that make people like me decide that poetry just isn’t really our thing.

But writing poetry (or anything else with particular rules, like stringent word counts) is sort of like algebra, pushing us to think in different terms and ponder new possibilities.

Or, maybe it’s more like teaching us to count by fives in our writing. Don’t use the first or second or third or fourth thing that just comes to mind. Don’t go with the easy, immediate solutions. Jump a little farther, and reach for the solution that feels just beyond your grasp…that’s the one. Perfect.

The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill…

— Sir Walter Scott, “The Lady of the Lake”

Thinking inside these parameters forces us to think outside the box. It stretches us, and it’s good for us. It’s good for our writing, too.

I told my student that the limits in poetry are a gift that helps us to focus. For example, if you were stuck in an empty room for a day with only two books and nothing else to do, you would probably read those two books. But if you were in a room full of a hundred books plus a tv and a piano and four different craft projects, you’d probably putter around here and there, dabbling in everything.

Limits (or rules) force us to focus, and we realize we can do things in our writing that we didn't think we could do otherwise.

Here’s a personal limit I set for myself — and if I ever edit your work, I’ll set it for you, too. (*looks sideways at husband*)

avoid unnecessary repetition

Blarghhh, let me show you4. Here’s a quote from a book I just finished5:

As a medieval historian who specializes in English sermons, the debate over gender-inclusive translations amuses me. It amuses me because…

Okay, stop. This isn’t conversational, it’s annoying. No one wants to hear us repeat ourselves. Maybe this works in TED talks, but it’s a bad writing move and it doesn’t serve our readers; it tries their patience. Much better to just combine the sentences, get rid of the duplicate words, and say “…amuses me because…”

But wait, it struck again in the very next paragraph:

I’ll admit that the debate also scares me. It scares me because…

WHAT IN THE WORLD. Why would anyone do this?! I’ve only seen similar sentence-bloating in high school papers where the student was trying to meet a word count on a subject they clearly had not studied, and were trying to smokescreen their lack of understanding with a lot of useless nonsense.

So, rules are good. Let’s keep them and use them. But also…

know how to break the rules

…but it has to be worth it. Like here, where Robert Frost shows us a glorious use of repetition, and he doesn’t overuse or abuse it. It’s a light touch, just enough for impact.

Repeating the last line has deep meaning and purpose. And really, each of our sentences ought to have, at the very least, a purpose. (Not necessarily a deep one, but we do what we can.) Sentences and words without purpose are just taking up space and wasting the reader’s time.

And we can’t have that. There are too many books to read already.

Share

Subscribe now

P.S If you’re not into poetry but you still want to practice writing with rules to see how creative you (or your kids) are, this book is full of fun exercises I use with my homeschoolers:

Unjournaling by Dawn DiPrince and Cheryl Miller Thurston has 200 writing assignments in it, like “Write a sentence with every single word beginning with either a or t,” and “Shoot the moon. Write a story that has 20 ‘oo’ words.” It also has longer, slightly more complicated assignments that I didn’t want to copy. :)

I have done something wild and radical in my reading endeavors this year.

I have gone from reading ten books at a time to...eight. (It's a wild party around here every day, let me tell you.1)

Over the last couple years of writing posts about my favorite books of the year, I’ve realized that even though I read mostly non-fiction, what I truly love is fiction. Classics. Mostly British lit. So why have I pushed myself to focus on so much non-fiction every year? Because I felt like I should.

Gaaaahhh, why do we do things like this to ourselves? How much have I really gained from "responsible" reading? How much more would I have gotten out of reading more books that I really, genuinely, loved? (I can hear Aslan right now: "To know what would have happened, child? No. Nobody is ever told that."2)

So here's what I did – and it's probably not at all what you should do, but I hope it will help you reconsider what you are doing if you're not happy with it, and make a shift toward a different routine that works better.

I am now reading four novels, like normal. But not like normal, I am only reading four non-fiction books (instead of six). And in the last month of making that change, I am (relatively) flying through them.

I get bored if I only read a few books at a time, and it’s never really been feasible as a homeschool mom who’s already in the middle of a bunch of books with the kids, anyway.

The thing that's always limited me to four novels at once, though, is not wanting to confuse the plots and characters. So I try to make sure the four fiction books are as different as possible: one modern fiction, one 19^th century or older, one mystery, one fantasy, for example. It doesn't always work out, though – while we've been in Gone With the Wind and the Civil War, I've also been in Jeff Shaara’s Revolutionary War series. And that was bad timing. For example, I can tell you for sure that I read about Ticonderoga, but I don't remember which book it went with.

But here's the question:

What are you reading? And are you enjoying it? (Sorry, that's two questions. This is a blog about reading and writing, not math.)

Also, some more questions:

Are you plodding through a bunch of books you don't really like and aren't getting much out of because you feel like you're supposed to? Are you being "responsible" while ignoring other books you would truly enjoy?

Yes, we should challenge ourselves to read harder books, and reach into topics that aren't normally in our wheelhouse of interests. But also, we should love most of what we're reading.

So let's invent a new concept, called Quadrant 2 Reading. (And here’s a chart, so you can pretend it’s about math if you’d like.)

If you're already familiar with the four quadrants, or Stephen Covey's Seven Habits book3, you'll know where I'm going with this. If not, we can quickly summarize as we apply them to reading:

• Quadrant 1: Important and urgent, like important mail/email/texts, a recipe you're cooking, or a frantic inernet search for whether or not chickens can eat canteloupe that your kids threw into the run (they can and love it, just so you know). Anything that applies to what you are doing right now and can't be avoided goes here.

• Quadrant 2: Important but not urgent. This is whatever you read that grows you deep and wide – books, research, studies, letters from loved ones.

• Quadrant 3: Not important but urgent – and "urgent" should be taken with a grain of salt, because this stuff isn't important. Like social media notifications.

• Quadrant 4: Not important and not urgent, like social media scrolling, most of what we browse on the internet, and books by Steinbeck. (I kid, I kid…sort of.)

Quadrant 2 is always, always, always where we want to spend the bulk of our time. When we spend more time there, we reduce the demands of quadrant 1 and we starve the beast that tempts us into wasting time in quadrants 3 and 4.

So read what grows you deep and wide. Read the stuff you'll want to have under your belt in a year, or ten years, or twenty years. Read what you’ll need to know before you get chickens. Read a balance of what challenges you and what inspires you. Find a rhythm that works for you, and don't be afraid to change it.

Here's a fun way we do that in our house.4 We modify this list a little every year and have yet to complete it (there are over 100 categories) but we keep trying. This is last year’s list:

And here’s this year’s list. You are welcome to download and edit it for what fits you, your family, or your group of friends who want to tackle it together.

Booklist 2025

16.6KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Happy reading,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

P.S. Looking for book suggestions? Here’s my list of favorite reads from last year, with links to the previous years’ lists, too:

Shannon Guerra

best books of 2024

We take a school break every Christmas: no assignments, no schedule, no charts…

Read more

a year ago · 12 likes · 8 comments · Shannon Guerra

And if you’re a writer and journaler, you might appreciate what I wrote earlier this week.

Shannon Guerra

keep going

The cars went up and down the highway, headlights and taillights flickering through the trees. Dusk hits lately around 4 pm, and on this side of the window, my journal was open to page 360-something. I wasn't sure what to write but I wrote anyway, words about mundane things, hoping something would spark – a theme, an idea, an analogy, a memory of someth…

Read more

a year ago · 26 likes · 12 comments · Shannon Guerra

Well hey, friends, we read seven classics together this year…almost. Sorta. It’s Gone With the Wind’s fault.

We’ve spent a lot of time in Great Britain, mostly London — dystopian, Victorian, and otherwise — but also visited a bit of revolutionary France, traveled the swampland of the Limberlost (which I never realized was in Indiana before), and we’re currently mired in the Civil War South with Scarlett O’Hara. And we need to be content with that, because we just passed the halfway mark and we’re not getting out until the end of March, because ELEVEN HUNDRED PAGES, ohmygosh. But they’re so good, it’s worth it.

Here’s a glimpse of this year’s books:

Even if you took part in the poll last fall to choose the next round of books, you may have forgotten (like I did) which book was scheduled after GWTW.

So for the record, in the tail end of March we’ll be starting Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott and I hope you’ll join us for it because it’s wonderful as long as you don’t actually expect it to be about Ivanhoe (surprise!) since it’s totally not. It is, however, about some other fun characters…one in particular…whom I won’t tell you about yet because it’s a fun surprise to stumble upon in, oh, the middle-ish of the story.

Ivanhoe is about 400 pages so it will take us through June, and we’ll vote for the next round of books in May.

Finally, some fun links you’ve shared with us lately:

• 14 Famous Author’s Houses You Can Actually Tour — including Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens…

• How the English language would sound if silent letters were used

• Bookish (and other) comics, like so…

Happy reading,

Shannon

Subscribe now

Share

Ever read something that demanded too much of your patience? Of course you have, because if you read posts like this on the internet, this intro area is where it usually starts testing to see if you’re really interested in the topic at hand — or, the topic promised to be at hand, eventually, because it was mentioned in the title, but it won’t come around until the author decides they’ve warmed up their audience enough to finally get to the point.

Are you, dear reader, sufficiently warmed up? Good.

In light of that, in the new year, let's give our readers the gift of respect. Like so…

get to the point, forcryingoutloud

Rather than the lengthy intro-that-goes-nowhere leading into our point (foodie websites are the wurst worst at this), let's just get right to it. As writers, some good things to ask ourselves are, Am I just venting? Does this share important information or perspective? Or do I sound like a drunk hanging off someone’s arm?

There are exceptions, of course, like when you’re telling a story, or trying to create tension and mystery. But if you’re simply sharing information or writing about XYZ, no one wants (or needs) to read a dissertation on all the other letters of the alphabet.

check your ego and serve the reader

Rather than treating deadlines as boxes to check off to make ourselves feel better, let's make sure we wrote something that’s worth our reader’s time to open and read. We’re not just doing this to puff ourselves up, so here’s another important question to ask ourselves: Is this making me feel good at the expense of my readers’ patience?

We’re not just checking off our list, but we’re writing for the reader so they actually get what they need in the time that they need it. And what many readers need is less time with their eyes stuck on a screen (or page) that’s not actually serving them something important.

don’t cheat

Rather than cheating our readers (and fellow writers) by succumbing to the temptations of AI, chat GPT, and other robot slave acronyms, let's actually do the work of writing instead of just pretending to and taking credit for it.

My husband has a student who blatantly uses chat GPT in papers; it became obvious when the previously slang-ridden papers riddled with punctuation errors suddenly veered sharply into Dickensian phrasing and words like “moreover.” Will this student get much out of the course he’s taking? Nope, he’ll only get what he puts into it. We only truly advance when we put the work in to practice, learn, and refine our skills.

take the time to edit your work

…so your reader doesn’t have to. If you’re saying the same thing over and over, find the strongest sentence or paragraph and eliminate the rest so your reader doesn’t have to wade through it all. Each of our sentences should mean something, rather than dribbling out a million different paraphrases of the same idea, which waters down our message.

but also, don’t overthink it

Your message is worth getting out there. It’s in you for a reason and your perspective is important, so make sure it’s written in a way that represents that. Just don’t let perfectionism or your inner critic silence it. Hit the “send” or “publish” button, and let it go. xo

And hey, if you’re joining us in GWTW…

We’ve had a little controversy in the chat over Rhett Butler: whether or not we like him, whether or not he’s a great character or someone to admire. But I’ve noticed that those who like (I daresay, love) his character (*raises hand*) are those who’ve already finished the book or have read it before. For those who are on their first trip through Gone With the Wind, he’s still mostly a blackguard rogue.

But hey, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about with Mr. Darcy the first time I read Pride and Prejudice, either. I see new Gaining Ground bumper stickers in the future… #GiveRhettAChance

Happy New Year,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

But first, GWTW

We’re about one month into our five month (!) foray into Gone With the Wind and loving it — at least, I think we’re loving it — I am, for sure. Several of you have blown through it in no time, throwing the schedule out the window like litter on a road trip, posting your thoughts, vents, and bragging rights.

So yes, it’s a crazy long book (over a thousand pages), but if you haven’t started yet and would like to jump in, you could catch up pretty fast. And I’ve heard rave reviews about the audio version read by Linda Stephens, which would be one way to do it.

And now, a tip for holding all those pages

Got a tiny hair clip? This is marvelous.

I have a book holder (called a Book Gem) that I’ve used forever but it doesn’t work so well with gigantic books like GWTW. A little hairclip does, though; I just clip it around a chunk of pages to hold them down so the one I’m reading doesn’t float up by itself…which keeps my hands free for knitting.

And now, about the Oxford comma

I’m not sure why it’s controversial, but it is. People generally either love it or disregard it; I believe in the Oxford comma.

What is it, though? It’s the last comma in a series of items in a sentence, like so: Make sure you take care of the chickens, turn off the radio, and lock the door. Without the Oxford comma (in this case, after the word radio) it reads Make sure you take care of the chickens, turn off the radio and lock the door — as though the two things you need to do to take care of the chickens are to lock the door and make sure their music isn’t bothering the neighbors.

Or this, by Margaret Mitchell, which I recently vented about in our chat:

The offending sentence is Even old Dr. Fontaine admitted that he was puzzled, after his tonic of sulphur, molasses and herbs failed to perk her up. And it has two problems, both involving commas, but only one of which is a missing Oxford comma.

The first comma is unnecessary and confusing, slowing the reader after the word puzzled for no good reason (and we never want to slow the reader down unless we have good reason to). But if you move that comma over to where it actually IS needed, which is after the word molasses, it reads much better. Without the oxford comma, it sounds like his tonic of sulphur is made of molasses and herbs.

Or this example, which pretty much all of my writing students have received in their email at some point:

Or this example, which shows that some sports writers really know their stuff — and also clears up potential confusion about the parentage of Tim Tebow:

Without the clarity of the Oxford comma, you may find yourself in this situation:

Aaand lastly, a couple recommendations

Got a couple favorites here to share with you if you need some new resources for story time. I put these together because they remind me of each other — both are hilarious, "break the fourth wall" style of talking to the reader, and they are so fun to read to the kids. Or better: Give them to an unsuspecting grandpa to read aloud.

The Monster at the End of This Book — I confess we have five copies of this, and the oldest is from when I was about that many years old and it's completely tattered to pieces. Here's where you can get it at ThriftBooks.

The Book With No Pictures — if you haven't read it yet, I guarantee it's not what you're expecting. 😂 ThriftBooks has it here.

Also! For adults, our books are currently 20% off until December 1st. Check them out here.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. Winter is here, so stock up on all the books and let me know if you manage to whittle your to-read stack down to the size of the Burj Khalifa. I have a ways to go.

Share

Subscribe now

An epiphany this week: I just realized that I've been homeschooling for twenty years.

Twenty yeeeears. It's a milestone made all the more significant by the fact that I have never owned a denim jumper and just recently had to be reminded what a "scope and sequence" is.

("Wait wait wait, you mean the stuffy instructor's material that I always throw in the bin so I can get to the good stuff? Oh...yeah, I knew that..." *nervous laughter*)

So hey, twenty years, eight kids, three down, five to go. Craziness. But it explains why my mind is often in fourteen literary directions and experiencing bookish spasms of attention deficit disorder. It’s just an occupational hazard of being a homeschool mom; we're always reading great books.

I don’t ask the kids to analyze or dissect them. We don’t dig around for meanings and implications that were never intended by authors and only planted by dry language arts classes. Books are fun and fascinating and stand on their own without any picking apart, so we enjoy them and the stories they tell.

Rather than leaving us cold, education should produce the warmth of interest and pleasure in the knowledge we meet.

- Karen Glass, In Vital Harmony

But still, reading takes time. How do we justify all the hours put into reading pages and volumes and shelves full of great books – especially classic literature?

Here's how.

We learn about bravery, and cowardice, and consequences, and human nature, and relationships, and responsibility, and maturity. We get to know heroes we want to emulate, and we are repulsed by villains who sometimes remind us a little too much of ourselves. In complex characters we see bits of our own tendencies, and we don't usually even realize it's happening, but as we read, we're confronted with questions about if we want to keep those tendencies.

We learn about the world around us, and the world far away from us that we’ll never experience otherwise. We think we're reading the story of an epic disaster but we learn about Indian culture and the British Empire. We grab a fun mystery and end up learning about the tradition of bell ringing in churches. We open a novel from the 1800s and think we're in for, maybe, an old-fashioned romance and dusty glimpse of village life – but no, by the time you're halfway through you've learned to translate a bit of Scottish and you know that "I dinna ken whaur I cam frae" means "I don't know where I came from" and you don't even have to think about it.

We learn how to communicate and articulate, and how to attend and listen. We learn the nuance of different phrases and vocabulary so we can express how we really feel and what we really think without resorting to vague generalizations. We use language that demands a response from those who might otherwise blow us off, and we get our point across to a society who needs better content to think on. We lengthen our attention span and expand our understanding, and we're not tuned out by complex language. And we are saved a multitude of misunderstandings, conflicts, inconveniences, and embarrassments by doing so.

We preserve culture and strengthen our communities by acquainting ourselves with great classics. Why have scholars and writers been persecuted in "cultural cleansings" by tyrants throughout history? Because they know and figure out things. Those who read classics have a common language filled with short phrases that have complex, full meanings that are shared in just a few words. We say, "There is a tide," just four words, and those who have ears to hear know the time has come to act before the opportunity is gone. We quote, "War is peace" and the sarcasm is understood by everyone who's read 1984. We quote, "It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done" and to anyone who's read A Tale of Two Cities, we've distilled the 374 pages of repentance, sacrifice, restoration, and victory in just fourteen words, because readers have their own code.

Great children’s books are enriching for all ages, and many of us missed them when we were younger anyway. And even if we already read them (or they were read to us), we get new experiences and insights out of them years later – and many of those insights lead to maturity and perspective that we want our kids to have.

Life is too short to learn from only our own mistakes, so we need to learn from Frodo and Scarlett and Jane Eyre and Tom Sawyer and Mr. Darcy and Robinson Crusoe and thousands of others. We see multiple facets of human nature and learn how people respond to their circumstances, and how those responses do and don’t work. As we read about struggles and triumphs and flaws and heroism, we learn compassion and wisdom and bravery and self control.

Or at least, the seeds are planted. What we do with them afterward, when we are tested, is up to us.

Share

Subscribe now

P.S. Want to join us for our next book in Gaining Ground? It’s a biggie and will last us a while…we’re starting Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell on October 28 and we’ll be reading about 50 pages a week through the end of March. Join us on Telegram anytime as we wrap up Emma.

I love having guests in my home. It’s not my husband’s favorite thing, but we have found a pretty good social balance after two and a half decades of marriage.

However.

There is this thing that happens when a new friend comes over to my home for the first time. It comes after the effusion of greetings at the door, the removal of their shoes, and the offer to show them around a little. I’m pointing out my mom’s quilted wall hanging, but they are clearly not listening.

They glance politely at the fabric scene, but their eyes are dragged irresistibly backwards. To my bookshelves. Then it comes.

“Wow, have you read ALL those books?”

That question used to make me squirm. I used to scan the internet uncomfortably, checking out the newest plans every January for reading my own shelves this year. I used to make fervent New Year’s Resolutions not to buy any books until I had read X number of books off my own shelf.

Books were a pleasure, but a guilty pleasure. Because if you owned a bunch of books you didn’t read, didn’t that mean you were a hoarder? A poser?

Now, though, I can laugh at the question. “Hmm? Oh, of course I haven’t!”

Here’s the thing, friends: my books aren’t some kind obligation, a barometer for my own intelligence, or an obligation to be filled. I don’t have anything to prove.

The idea that you can only buy books if you plan to sit down and read them immediately is a utilitarian thought—an assumption that books exist to be used to advance your knowledge, and if you aren’t using each and every book then you aren’t maximizing your return on investment.

Homeschooling my kids for the last 15 years has plunged me into the Charlotte Mason and Christian Classical world, and the way I see pretty much everything has changed. Even books.

I adore my books. I’m not obliged to “use” them effectively. I don’t need them to work for me. They are friends. I like to wander my shelves, running my fingers over old favorites, remembering what it felt like the last time I read them, and making the promise of "someday" to the ones I haven't read.

Don’t get me wrong, I don't have space to waste on books I don't ever want to read, but I also have no intention of reading all my books, nor do I feel guilty for buying books when other books are unread on my shelves. Unread is a whispered promise, not a source of shame.

I am creating a library. It's supposed to be broad, expansive, inviting and exciting, with mysteries tucked in for the interested person to discover someday. That might be me or my kiddos, or maybe it will be a neighbor or homeschool friend. I do a fair bit of recommending to families I know and a little bit of lending to certain trustworthy people. I'm also starting to tuck away some excellent middle grade books for my one-day-in-the-future grandchildren. It’s so hard to have a bookworm that age and to supply their voracious appetite when you don't know what's popular and there is a mountain of trash at the public library. (Go and check out Gary D. Schmidt, if you have a middle-school or older kiddo. Honestly, go read him just for yourself. You’ll thank me later.)

To me, a library is a source of possibility—it’s The Wood Between the Worlds in The Magician's Nephew. With thousands of books comes thousands of doorways to new worlds of thought. I try to curate possibilities that are beautiful, interesting, good, deep, powerful, truthful, funny, restful, and challenging, and I don’t worry about who exactly is going to accept each invitation. Books are a doorway and a library is nothing less than a miracle.

Share

Subscribe now

The blank page is often way too much freedom. We twiddle the pen. The cursor on the screen blinks back at us, mocking our indecision.

But all we need is a little structure: a topic, a timeline, a deadline. Fence us in a little, so we know what to push against.

For example, a topic:

Writing.

No no no, way too broad. Narrow it down: How to help people write.

That’s better, but nope, it’s still too wide. There are too many directions to go and I’m still staring at this page like a deer in the headlights.

Let’s try...How to help people write when they're stuck, facing a blank page. Perfect.

And now we’re getting somewhere. (Or we have a destination, at least.)

But when will I write it?

Committing time to writing is just as big of an obstacle as not knowing exactly what to write about in the first place. I need structure for this too, because just saying, “I’ll write that piece sometime this week” is no good at all. If procrastination were a sport, I’d have a brazillion gold medals.

Try again: Today I will write.

That’s closer but it’s still no good; you might as well say, Sometime today I will find time to discipline myself to sit in the chair and do this even though I have never in a million years been consistently able to conquer good but vague intentions with actual progress.

If you said that, you'd at least be honest about it — and plus, you'd have written forty words. (Way to go!)

But if you look at your day’s schedule and firmly decide, I'm going to write for 30 minutes after the kids are in bed tonight, you have a fair shot of success…especially if you leave your phone locked in your car.

What about a deadline?

In my experience, the sooner the deadline, the better, but it depends on the length of what you're writing. If it's a basic post around 1000 words, more than a week is way too much time. We need to give ourselves deadlines that put a little fire under us.

Maybe you aren’t a procrastinator, but I have learned this about myself: If I have a deadline for a minor project, most of the work won’t be touched until about 72 business hours before it’s due.

I can do hard things; I just usually choose not to until it’s necessary. This is true for short writings or teachings, homeschool paperwork, meeting prep, and, to my husband’s chagrin, packing for childbirth.

Now if you, too, are a ninja-level procrastinator, tell me if this works for you also: I’ve learned to hack this by just assigning myself more deadlines. With five deadlines, I will get five times as much done as opposed to only having one deadline and too much time to drag my feet.

The deadlines work because they tell me what to keep my eyes on. In the fog of overwhelm, they give me direction, focus, and a target to aim for. But without a deadline (or several) I’m back to aimlessness and procrastinating, because I don’t know what I should really be looking at.

It’s not that I have lazy intentions. It’s that I forget where my focus is, and my default is the easy route. Life is hard enough already, yes?

And if those boundaries are still too broad and don't work for you, try a two-minute timer.

Two minutes?! you ask. Only two minutes? What can you do in just two minutes, when faced with a blank page?

Anything you want, as long as it's getting words down.

You only have two minutes, so expectations are lighter and pressure is off. You're not writing Gone With the Wind; you're just writing to get moving, to get off the runway. Or put another way, you're turning on the faucet to see what kind of water comes out, rather than staring at it for ages and wondering if it’s drinkable.

You could stare at the blank page for days and die of thirst, not knowing. And worse, other people are out there, thirsty for the words you haven't spilled out yet. You have a message and they need to read it.

(Sorry, sorry; we were trying to reduce pressure and I just ratcheted it back up again. But really, people need to hear what God wants to express through you.)

When we are feeling pressure about writing, we’re dealing with two conflicted needs:

• the need to feel free enough to let words flow out without feeling lost amid allllll the options and possible bunny trails.

• the need to reduce pressure to write a masterpiece right off the bat, while we also recognize our writing will influence others. This requires humility that walks in boldness, letting go of ego and perfectionism.

And if you’re looking for a writing prompt, there are two big (but also defined) possibilities worth exploring. 🤍 I’d love to hear what you come up with.

Share

But! If you’ve been reading A Secret Garden with us, here are a few writing prompts related to the story:

1. From this section in chapter nine, how does hope and productivity make work a playground? (This is what inspired my post here.)

   ...She could not believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.

   “I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they heard her.

2. Referring to this section from chapter 14, how does our perspective and attitude about something affect how we tell others about it — and what they end up believing about it?

   “Does he like the moor?” said Colin. “How can he when it’s such a great, bare, dreary place?”

   “It’s the most beautiful place,” protested Mary. “Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fun under the earth or in the trees or heather. It’s their world.”

   “How do you know all that?” said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at her.

   “I have never been there once, really,” said Mary suddenly remembering. “I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous. Martha told me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey—and all full of bees and butterflies.”

3. Mary told Dickon about the garden on the same afternoon she met him, and an afternoon was long enough to know he could be trusted. But in chapter 15, Colin is different and she needs time to know if he can be trusted. What makes him different, and what makes us trust some people right away and others not for a longer time?

   “In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the secret garden….she wanted to discover whether he was the kind of boy you could tell a secret to. He was not in the least like Dickon, but he was evidently so pleased with the idea of a garden no one knew anything about that she thought perhaps he could be trusted. But she had not known him long enough to be sure.”

Aaaaand one last thing: EMMA

Our next book is coming soon! We'll be reading Emma by Jane Austen for eight weeks in September and October, which works out to about 50ish pages per week (or 71 pages, if you have a tiny copy like I do).

Don't have a copy yet? Here are some options:

• Gutenberg has it free online here

• Librivox has it in free audio online here — there are 6 versions, so scroll through and pick your favorite (sadly, none of the narrators are British; I checked)

• And ThriftBooks has new or used copies here

Subscribe now

My uncle had given me a beautiful hardcover copy of it a few years earlier, on Christmas Eve of 1989. I know this date because it’s scrawled on the bookplate inside in terrible handwriting because he’d broken his arm and was in a cast that year.

But the book was almost immediately cast aside. It wasn’t that I didn’t like reading when I was a kid; I just had no experience with (and no taste for) classics. I was used to potato chips and candy and twaddle, not the stuff that really fills and grows us. My sole experience with classics came from school, where the books were mostly dissected and overanalyzed rather than appreciated, and had I not gotten sick that time in tenth grade, I never would’ve been inclined to pick it up for my own enjoyment — until many years later, out of school, when I started reading classics on my own.

So hey, did you hear? We’re starting The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and we’d love for you to join us.

We’ll be reading about 40-45 pages a week for the next six weeks, and if you don't have a copy yet, you can get it free online here, or free in audio here, or buy it used or new at ThriftBooks here.

One of the things I’m appreciating in The Secret Garden this time around, right from the start, is that it’s a much more realistic portrayal of what happens in childhood neglect, as opposed to the rainbows-and-unicorns message of so many books (Oliver Twist and Anne of Green Gables, I’m looking at you) about children magically overcoming or even thriving on abuse and neglect.

Mary Lennox is an unloved, neglected girl who has been cared for by almost no one, and therefore cares for no one. That’s the beginning of her story, not the end, but it’s important to be honest about how ugly some of our stories start off.

[Her mother] had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also…by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.

— The Secret Garden, chapter 1

We’ve had some discussion about this in our Telegram group since finishing A Girl of the Limberlost, which is slightly (very slightly) more realistic in its portrayal of childhood neglect with Billy, the young son of a dying alcoholic. Billy is affectionate and caring and tries to do good, but creates all sorts of mischief and chaos. Somehow he fairly quickly becomes almost a model citizen of childhood in spite of starvation and abuse and other trauma, and this sounds like it may be typical of Gene Stratton Porter’s approach to these kinds of characters.

From Elizabeth, in our group:

I finished GOTL early, so read The Harvester, and last night I finished re-reading Freckles. I enjoyed it, and was kind of in awe of the author’s descriptive powers.

But I noticed in Freckles the same thing that bugs me in Oliver Twist — the idea that one inherits righteousness and good character from one’s parents. This ideology goes along with the idea of the noble savage — the innocence of mankind. Freckles is as wonderful as he is because his parents were — regardless of all he experienced in the orphanage. That idea is unrealistic and it bothers me.

However, it’s a very enjoyable piece of fiction!

It was enjoyable! But that part bugs me, too. I’m desperately trying to stay out of “adoptive mom” mode, avoiding a lecture on how early childhood attachment affects us and our ability to attach to others later in life…suffice it to say, if a child has no attachments in the beginning (like Mary) it makes sense that she would not easily attach to others later, either.

So here we are with The Secret Garden and we’ll see how it compares. Mary Lennox isn’t the only character in the book with a rough beginning and I’m curious to see how much reality versus rainbows and unicorns will be in the book…because it’s been ages since I read it, and I just don’t remember.

Want to delve deeper and hone your writing skills while we read The Secret Garden, and also grow in your personal wholeness, too? This is a great book for exploring how we rise above the imperfections and immaturity of our youth, and also how we can grow from loneliness to belonging.

If that interests you, there are two inexpensive options for writing coaching, both of which are light-yoked, flexible, and private — no one will see what you write besides me and my cat, promise.

Option 1: We'll write two short papers (less than 1000 words each) in this course of Gaining Ground, and you'll get private coaching and feedback. This is a 6-week track, so papers are due every three weeks and you still have tons of time to get the first one in. Info and sign up here.

Option 2: If you'd like something even lighter, you can sign up for just 500 words a month by upgrading to a paid subscription here on our Substack. More info here.

Happy reading, writing, and growing in wholeness,

Shannon

Share

Subscribe now

P.S. Fun fact: The uncle who gave me my copy of The Secret Garden is the same uncle who, seven years later, hired a guy named to work at his movie theater…where I happened to be working, too…and the following year, we were married. 🙌🏻

I spent most of the last weekend immersed in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. If that’s unfamiliar territory to you – and it is to many, I never even heard of it until a year ago – it’s by Anne Bronte, probably the least known of the famous Brontes. It wasn’t an easier read than her sisters’ more famous works. But I flew through it, probably for a couple of reasons.

First, I gave it a fair shot – which means when I sat down with it the first time, I read at least 15-20 pages, enough to get a little ways in and scope out the territory. And then I made sure to pick it up again before letting too many days pass, so I could get a little farther and get familiar with what was going on before book entropy set in.

Don’t know what “book entropy” is? I made it up. But you’ve probably experienced it – you open a book, read a few pages, then set it down for a week or more, then try a few more pages, and abandon it again with the best of intentions. Before you know it, six months have passed and you’re only at page fifty, and you have no idea who Lizzie Hexam is, what her father is doing in the river retrieving corpses, or whether or not it’s important that he found that one body that one time. (It is. Of course it is.)

It’s the worst way to read anything. (Dickens, especially. Ask me how I know.) Might as well quit and start over later.

Second, I’ve gotten used to reading classics and don’t struggle through them so much anymore. In high school we read very few classics, and I used to be so intimidated by the unfamiliar territory, struggling with the language, customs, cultures, and terms. But as a young adult I started dipping my toes in and muddled my way through a few on my own.

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

In our early 20s, in our first apartment, we started our library with a bookshelf we bought for about $75 in quarters that we’d saved in a blue Arizona Iced Tea bottle. We sat on opposite ends of our hand-me-down couch and read quietly to ourselves and out loud to each other, eating our dinner of boxed PastaRoni because these were also the days before we learned how to cook.

In Sense and Sensibility, I had no idea why one daughter was “Miss Dashwood” and the other daughter was called by her first name. In Anna Karenina, I barely managed to untangle each character’s three separate names. (Really, are the nicknames that necessary? Tolstoy couldn’t have made it a little simpler?) I spent two years slogging through The Hunchback of Notre Dame and I don’t need to read about Parisian architecture or flying buttresses ever again. Please.

But then I started building on that scaffolding. And it started getting easier.

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read.

— Charles Spurgeon

(Yikes. Spurgeon is a little harsh…but he’s not wrong.)

I moved over to Pride and Prejudice and things started to make sense. I tried Sense and Sensibility again, and this time things fell into place. And then I found Gone With the Wind, The Lord of the Rings, and Jane Eyre, and fell in love.

I was hooked. This was the deep part of my ocean. This is where I could keep exploring and never get tired.

But I hit bottom pretty quickly in other areas. I read three books by Kipling that convinced me we probably aren’t kindred spirits. I endured months of Dostoevsky’s rascally Karamazov brothers and hustled my way through Crime and Punishment, and those weren’t my favorites, either. Not too long ago I went back to Hugo and it still took me over two years to finish Les Mis. But I had to spend some time with them – a fair shot’s worth – to hold an opinion in the first place.

And this is where we go wide: We stretch out into the shallows, where we dip our toes in and maybe find the water isn’t to our liking. But at least it gives us an idea of what the terrain around that edge of the ocean looks like. The fog is lifted a little; we can draw in some curves on the map instead of leaving the entire area shrouded in mist. We gain ground.

I love, love, love, finding new territory. I love helping others grow deep and wide and find new territory, too. So I started Gaining Ground for those who want to expand their territory in literature, writing, and wholeness – you know, for the slightly nerdy deep thinkers, or those who want to be slightly nerdier, deeper thinkers. You guys are my people.

Contrary to general belief, writing isn’t something that only “writers” do; writing is a basic skill for getting through life. Yet most American adults are terrified of the prospect – ask a middle-aged engineer to write a report and you’ll see something close to panic. Writing, however, isn’t a special language that belongs to English teachers and a few other sensitive souls who have a “gift for words.” Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly – about any subject at all.

― William Zinsser, Writing to Learn

Life is different now, but Vin and I still sit on opposite ends of the couch, and we still read quietly to ourselves and out loud to each other. Somewhere along the way we learned to cook from scratch, and now we can make a mean chicken curry, homemade enchiladas, and bacon-wrapped jalapeños. I’m hoping this helps us live long enough to read all those books.

Because we’re still learning. We often read a book and tell the other person they absolutely must read this one next – and sometimes we actually follow those recommendations.

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

And sometimes it works. But other times, book entropy sets in, and Anna Karenina sits on Vin’s shelf for about two years.

The bookmark is on page 111. Or, eleventy-one, for you Middle Earth fans. It might be time for him to ditch it.

So if anyone wants to borrow a beautiful old copy of Anna Karenina and struggle through all the different Russian names, I’ve got one for you. He probably won’t even notice it’s gone – and if he does, I’ll let you know.

Share

Subscribe now

This post was originally published in June 2020 at Copperlight Wood.

Coming soon...🙌🏻 The Girl of the Limberlost. This is the first book by Gene Stratton-Porter that we've done in Gaining Ground, and I'm excited to hear what you guys think of it. We'll be reading 45-50 pages a week for seven weeks.

Don’t have a copy yet? We’ve got you covered…

Gutenberg has free online and audio versions here and Librivox has free audio versions here. You can also get it new or used from ThriftBooks here, and they probably have much better options than the ugly one I have.

And hey, for the writers:

Want to practice a little writing to go along with it? Sign up here for two writing assignments of 750-1000 words over the seven weeks we’ll be reading the book, or if you’d like a lighter-yoked deal of only 500 words per month, just upgrade your subscription to paid.

Subscribe now

Why should you write through this book?

The Girl of the Limberlost tackles wholeness issues like forgiveness (especially of parents), believing redemption and restoration is possible for people, and processing the need to persevere around people who’ve been less than supportive of your endeavors. Writing through these as we read the story is a powerful way to find answers, closure, and peace about our own memories and situations.

If you’re new here, we chat about the books on Telegram and would love to have you join us there as we wrap up 1984. We’re not scary — just a little nerdy and bookish (like you, probably) and we like quotes, memes, and dreamy photos of libraries.

join the Telegram group

Looking forward to chatting with you guys soon about the next book. Also, very VERY excited to be done with 1984…only 60ish pages to go.

Shannon