THIS BOOK IS ANOTHER “KEEPER”

Last night I finished a book that I will NOT put out in my Little Free Library in the yard or sell it in the bookstore. This is one I will want to return to again and again. It helped me “grow” that much.

Staci Eldridge’s Becoming Myself explores the inner battles most women face. It invites the reader to “step up and step out of every crippling, counterfeit thing that keeps us from the only thing, the everything that is Christ.” Many times I have said, “Someday I’ll get my act together.” Eldridge says, “not someday, but now!”

There is an abundance of material in this engaging book on which to base workshops, women’s motivational speeches and women’s retreats. One chapter I’d like to try my hand at presenting is titled, “Becoming Our Name.” It deals with meeting one’s authentic self and living up to the ideal of her. The first chapter, titled “Does Anyone Ever Change?” points out that lasting change takes time. Eldridge looks into the question, “How can we hurry up the process?” She invites us to look back, evaluate, and set goals. Many parts were quotable and well worth sharing. I guarantee you’ll come away with a kinder, more patient view of yourself.

This book has been on my TBR shelf so long that I don’t know where it came from, so it will help me with my 2023 challenges, fulfilling the Books From the Backlog Challenge to read 12 books from my TBR ranks in 2023.

RAE 3/12/23

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STACKING THE SHELVES

As you can see, the last thing I need to do is stack any more TBR books on my shelves, but…
I haven’t written one of these in a long time and I see Carla of Carla Loves Books do it once a week.

Here are some books I added to my TBR:

FROM HALF PRICE BOOKS,

A trip to Barnes and Noble–ended up buying books for easy shipping Christmas presents–two books per person!

LOADED ON MY KINDLE:

See Tuesday Teaser on this blog.
See review of this book on this blog.

FINALLY

Received in the mail yesterday, Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer, which I’m considering using as a textbook next semester. I need a fresh start, so what better way to get one than changing the text?

Quite a haul, wouldn’t you say?

WEDNESDAY TO-DO’S

One of my goals for the New Year (2020) was to whittle my TBR shelves (at the time there were two of them in my book closet) to a reasonable size. I managed to get them down to about twenty-three books, and at the end of January, I pronounced that goal “accomplished.”

Since then, during the pandemic, people in my neighborhood have gone crazy cleaning closets, de-cluttering, and donating books to my Little Free Library…

…which leaves me with a tipsy pile of TBR books. (see photo above)

At first I tried my own “read the first fifty pages and decide” plan for discarding books. I applied this strenuously and arrived with this stack (see top photo) to read. Not only have I not accomplished my 2020 goal, but I have ruined what efforts I had made toward accomplishing it!

Some of the books are ones I kept when friends gave me hand-me-downs (Thanks, Deb Nance of Readerbuzz and Susan Wilson, downsizing friend) that I didn’t have time to read when I was scrambling to convert my Face-to-Face Advanced Writing class to an on-line format, but I promised to “take a look at later.” WARNING: Do not put off until tomorrow too many books or you will have a “Leaning Tower” similar to mine!

TWO NEW PERSONAL CHALLENGES FOR 2020

CLEAR THE SHELVES CHALLENGEĀ 

I plan to read as many books on my TBR shelves as possible in 2020 to make way for new arrivals. My goal is to read or at least give a fair try (before delegating to my Little Free Library in the yard) to one book a week for all 52 weeks of the coming year.

RECOMMENDED READS CHALLENGE

I plan to scan blogging friends’ posts thisĀ coming year for reviews and recommendations of books they liked. My goal is to read 20 recommended reads in 2020.

What goals are you setting for yourselves?