In 2017 (which still feels like last year, but technically isn’t) I joined a Facebook group and read through all of Shakespeare. It involved about five hours a week; I told myself this was continuing education. In 2018 I wanted to continue deep-reading, but without the pressure of all of [insert author’s name] in one year.

Thus began my C.S. Lewis Reading Project. I’m reading through his published works at the rate of about fifty pages a week. I’ll admit it: my motivation flagged when I hit some hard spots (his early poetry, for one). But I’ve been promising myself that I’d reread The Space Trilogy (which I’ve been a stranger to since high school) and this year I’m happy I did.

Read with Me
Some local friends and I have been talking about starting a book club, but we’ve not unwrapped that package yet. Besides CSL (which I’m reading with some Facebook friends) the Close Reads podcast has been a continual feast. Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory , the story of a whiskey priest in Mexico, was satisfying on many levels.

Because they have four more hours in the day than the rest of us, the people at Close Reads started another podcast called The Play’s The Thing. I l-o-v-e the concept of reading through Shakespeare’s canon, one act at a time.

My friend Mary Jo Tate guides a burgeoning group of readers through Jan Karon’s Mitford books on Facebook. We just read Shepherds Abiding at Christmas.

This Is Your Life
Biographies and memoirs, old and new, are always a staple in my reading diet. I read the final six of a twenty volume set, Makers of History. Tara Westover’s Educated was a stunner. And 2018 was the year I made it through a 1K marathon of a book, Martin Gilbert’s Churchill. My favorite memoir was Hannah Grieser’s The Clouds Ye So Much Dread.

Soo-prize, SOO-PRIZE!!
Oh, yes, books surprised me. Nina Teicholtz’s The Big Fat Surprise is in the category of game-changer. Oh. boy. Not only are saturated fats good for you (?!!) but vegetable oils like safflower, canola, and corn oil have been around less than a hundred years and are pretty much guaranteed to make you sick.

Barbara Tuchman wrote about Stilwell and the American Experience in China, and I bet you’ve never heard of this general. He would have been the Allied Surpreme Commander, Eisenhower’s role, except that he knew the language, the people, and the geography of China better than anyone in the armed forces.

Kiddos
I spend a day a week with my four local grandkids. Of course, I read books aloud whenever I can: while they eat lunch, practice handwriting, sculpt playdough, etc. We read through Andrew Peterson’s tetralogy, The Wingfeather Saga. Wow oh Wow oh WOW! I’ve never known them to be so captured by a story.

Health and Diet
For a reason I cannot fathom, it is like a switch turned on this year and I started to really care about my health. This is potentially the most boring paragraph in this blog post, so I will give each book one word: Fasting, diabetes, sugar, cancer, and brain health.

Favorite Authors
I managed to read at least one title of Anthony Trollope, P.G. Wodehouse, Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry, and Barbara Tuchman. Good stuff!