Turning the Page: Book Ideas for 2021

The theme of this week’s Review Crew blog posts is “Turning the Page”.  My first thought was of course that we are about to enter a new year. I thought about how the New Year often feels like a fresh start and a new chapter. However, I decided to share with you my reading goals and plans for the New Year as I turn the pages of some new books.

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Over the last several years I have created goals to get myself reading more books. I have always loved reading, but with young children, homeschooling, and running a business it had quit being a priority. I was still reading to the children, but not spending much time reading for pleasure. I have worked to change that over the last few years and have now rediscovered the joy of reading for pleasure.

Over the last couple years I was reading mostly non-fiction and adding in a bit of fun summer fiction. This year due to the pandemic, I started my fiction reading in the spring and just kept reading. I found that it was a great way to ‘get away from it all’ without actually having to go anywhere. Since we weren’t running from one place to another with meetings, lessons, etc., I had a bit of extra time to indulge my reading habit.

Sisterchicks

I lost track of the number of books I read in 2020 but I did want to share a few with you that I really enjoyed. First, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Sisterchicks series by Robin Jones Gunn. They were engaging, funny, light hearted, but yet still left me with powerful reminders. I also re-read some of the Christy Miller series by Gunn with my daughter and read the Christy and Todd Married Years and Baby Years books. This was a great way to bond with my daughter and pick up a book series I had started when I was in high school. (These books are clean and come from a Christian worldview, however, they do tackle some mature life topics and so in general I’d recommend them for high school and up.)

Dee Henderson

Once I finished up the Sisterchicks books I decided to revisit another author that I had enjoyed, Dee Henderson. I began with the book Jennifer which was a prequel to her O’Malley series. I had read the O’Malley series years ago but decided after reading Jennifer to go back through and read the rest of the series again. That series combines crimes and mystery, a bit of romance, and the Christian life into an enjoyable series.

Amish Inn Mysteries

My husband and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a few days away at a beautiful bed and breakfast in the mountains of North Carolina as a belated anniversary get-away. While we were there, I discovered the Amish Inn Mysteries. I read the first one while we were there and knew that my daughter would also love the series. Once we were home I purchased several of them for us to read and then my husband graciously gifted me with most of the rest of the series for my birthday. (My husband knows me well, books and chocolate are my love language.) I have been reading through those books, passing them along to my daughter, and then she passes them on to my mother to read. They all involve the main character, Liz, who is the new owner of a bed and breakfast in the community of Pleasant Creek, home of a thriving Amish community. In each book she somehow gets involved in a new mystery. While they can be a bit predictable, they are fun and easy reading. The stories are clean and I love that I have another fun series that I can share with my daughter.

2021 List

As we move into 2021, I have been thinking about my reading goals for the year. I have decided to make a goal of reading 52 books this year. I am still working through which books I want to read but I know I want to include a variety of books including non-fiction, fiction, and inspirational. I will also share more about the non-fiction books that I read in 2020 in a future blog post.

I know that I plan to continue to read through the Amish Inn Mysteries with my daughter. I also want to get Will They Stand by Ken Ham, Dumbing Us Down by John Gatto, Lessons at Blackberry Inn, and In the Land of the Blue Burqas. I also want to read My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas. After the holidays, I plan to go through the books I have that I have not yet read and add a few of those to my list for the year. Does anyone else have that problem, a big stack of books that you need to read and yet finding other new and interesting ones to read all the time?

Do you set reading goals? What is your goal for this year? Did you read anything in 2020 that you would recommend? What books are on your to-be read list this year? I hope that you get to take some time and ‘turn the pages’ of some great books this year. Make sure to click the link below and see what the other Crew members have to say about “Turning the Page”.

Review Crew Turning the Page

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