Bookworm

I have been on break for a week and two days. I have hung out with friends a couple times, but the majority of this break has been spent on the couch knitting and reading. And, for probably the first time in my life, I am enjoying this doing nothing. I don't know how much longer this will last, but hopefully till Monday when I go out of town :)

I have been reading really great stuff, too.

• Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge: This was my third or fourth time to read this book, but every time I read it, I get a renewed sense of who I am in Christ and how God has created me. It makes me feel beautiful and special and created for a purpose. It also convicts me with the way I have been living and what I need to change.
  
• Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis: I started this book last spring and didn't make it through; I got bored and was somewhat confused, as it was not typical C.S. Lewis. One of my friends in Fayetteville recommended it to me, though, and said that the second part of the book made everything come together, so me and my friend Seth both decided to read it so we can discuss it in January (one of the best things about reading is talking about the book afterwards with people). Anyway, I don't remember where I got bored last time because I enjoyed the whole thing. It was different because, unlike the Chronicles of Narnia, it was not easily comparable to Christianity. But the last four chapters of the book helped everything to come together, and I learned some great truths from this book that perhaps I will blog about some other time.
• Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson: I haven't gotten to read much fun fiction lately, and this was just an easy read. My grandmother gave it to me after she read it, so I was kind of skeptical, but I sat down yesterday afternoon and read the whole thing. It was just a fun romantic story. If I was the crying type when it came to books, there might have been a couple parts where I would have cried, but I liked Patterson's writing style.
• Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis: I have been wanting to reread the Chronicles of Narnia books for the past year, and this is finally my chance! I loved them in junior high, and with the movies coming out I wanted to remember the greatness in the books. I decided to read them in the published order instead of the chronological order, but I skipped The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe because I basically have that one memorized since I read it multiple times before I realized the other books existed. And I read it pretty fast, too. The movie added a lot to the book, and for once I learned more from the movie than from the book as far as spiritual metaphors go, but I still liked to read it.

Right now, I am in the middle of When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight For Joy by John Piper as well as The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I will probably finish by tonight - I am a fast reader. I started the Piper book in high school and got half-way through. Then Dad stole it and I never got a chance to finish it, so I started all over earlier this week. It is hard to get through, maybe because Piper is really repetitive in it, but that's my goal for this break. I also received The Screwtape Letters by Lewis (one of my favorites, I just never owned it) and Wilderness Skills for Women: How to Survive Heartbreak and Other Full-Blown Meltdowns by Marian Jordan for Christmas. The latter is one of that one of my friends was reading and said that I should read, not because I am going through heartbreak but just because it's good. 

I think part of the reason I am loving this is because I don't get to do this during the semester. I mean, I read a lot, but it's all for class and never the stuff I want to read. And I have three ENGL classes this next semester, so I think I will be overloaded with literature. With that in mind, I am going to absorb as much of this fun stuff as I can.

P.S. The best line from Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the first one in the book: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."