Personal development: What's in two years of reading?

  

Do you love to read? I certainly do. Maybe that’s why I chose to work as a writer, even though that pursuit took me into several different pathways of wordsmithing – from advertising to journalism to editing to speech-writing to authoring my own books – and back again. Writers tend to be voracious readers.

 

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you don’t have to be a writer to love books.

 Reading is not only informative, instructive, or entertaining. (The best writing usually includes all of these qualities.) It’s also enriching, both personally and professionally. It stretches our boundaries in countless ways.

 

Reading can be a wonderful annual goal. It surely is for me.

 For the past two years, I have set specific reading objectives for myself. Here’s how that turned out.

 Please note: Inclusion does not imply endorsement. I enjoyed and appreciated many of these books. Others left me less than enthused. Fortunately, the vast majority proved well worth the time and treasure it took for me to turn their pages. (Yes, I read nearly all of these in their cloth-bound or paperback versions. Call me a traditionalist, if you must. (I love the feel of a solid book.)

 

My 2022 reads:

Books are listed alphabetically (by title) and unsorted (by genre).

1. A Mercy, Toni Morrison
2. A Thief of Time, Tony Hillerman
3. A Thousand Voices, Lisa Wingate
4. All He Ever Wanted, Anita Shreve
5. Beyond the Soiled Curtain, Beth Grant and David Grant
6. Big Lies in a Small Town, Diane Chamberlain
7. Caleb’s Crossing, Geraldine Brooks
8. Circling the Sun, Paula McClain
9. Close to Home, Lisa Jackson
10. Covenant Child, Terri Blackstock
11. Criminal Mischief, Stuart Woods
12. Dead Sea Rising, Jerry B. Jenkins
13. Discerning the Voice of God, Priscilla Shirer
14. Divine Disruption: Holding on to Faith When Life Breaks Your Heart, Dr. Tony Evans, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Priscilla Shirer, Anthony Evans, and Jonathan Evans
15. Double Minds, Terri Blackstock
16. Eat the Cookie … Buy the Shoes, Joyce Meyer
17. Everything We Didn’t Say, Nicole Baart
18. Fierce Jesus, Lisa Harper
19. Fifteen Minutes, Karen Kingsbury
20. Find Her, Lisa Gardner
21. Forgiving Paris, Karen Kingsbury
22. Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, Lysa TerKeurst
23. Girl Forgotten, Karin Slaughter
24. Greenwich Park, Katherine Faulkner
25. History Decoded, Brad Meltzer
26. Horse, Geraldine Brooks
27. House Rules, Jodi Picoult
28. It Ends with Us, Colleen Hoover
29. Light on Snow, Anita Shreve
30. Limitations, Scott Turow
31. Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica
32. Look for Me, Lisa Gardner
33. March, Geraldine Brooks
34. My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
35. Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud
36. Night Road, Kristin Hannah
37. On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library, Glory Edim
38. One Step Too Far, Lisa Gardner
39. One True Thing, Anna Quindlen
40. Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
41. People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
42. Plain Truth, Jodi Picoult
43. Point of Origin, Patricia Cornwell
44. Pretty Baby, Mary Kubica
45. Red Swan, P.T. Deutermann
46. Reminders of Him, Colleen Hoover
47. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
48. Riding Freedom, Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick
49. Riven, Jerry B. Jenkins
50. Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
51. Run Rose Run, Dolly Parton and James Patterson
52. Shattered, James Patterson
53. Shunned and Dangerous, Laura Bradford
54. Something Wicked, Lisa Jackson
55. Something Worth Doing: A Novel of an Early Suffragist, Jane Kirkpatrick
56. State of Terror, Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton
57. Sunflower Sisters, Martha Hall Kelly
58. The Book of Fate, Brad Meltzer
59. The Book of Lies, Brad Meltzer
60. The Burning, Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
61. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
62. The Death of Mrs. Westaway, Ruth Ware
63. The Family Remains, Lisa Jewell
64. The Fifth Assassin, Brad Meltzer
65. The First Lady, James Patterson & Brendan DuBois
66. The Flying Angels, Danielle Steel
67. The Girl Behind the Red Rope, Ted Dekker and Rachelle Dekker
68. The Girls in the Garden, Lisa Jewell
69. The Hidden Child, Louise Fein
70. The Horse Dancer, JoJo Moyes
71. The Horsewoman, James Patterson and Mike Lupica
72. The Inner Circle, Brad Meltzer
73. The It Girl, Ruth Ware
74. The Kommandant’s Girl, Pam Jenoff
75. The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid
76. The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
77. The Murder House, James Patterson and David Ellis
78. The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah
79. The Other Mrs, Mary Kubica
80. The Palm Beach Murders, James Patterson
81. The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley
82. The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
83. The Pilot’s Wife, Anita Shreve
84. The Prayer Box, Lisa Wingate
85. The President’s Shadow, Brad Meltzer
86. The Priestly Sins, Andrew M. Greeley
87. The Right Kind of Strong: Surprisingly Simple Habits of a Spiritually Strong Woman, Mary A. Kassian
88. The Rumor, Elin Hilderbrand
89. The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks
90. The Templar Legacy, Steve Berry
91. The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult
92. The Third Grave, Lisa Jackson
93. The Traitor’s Wife, Kathleen Kent
94. The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins
95. The Winter Guest, Pam Jenoff
96. Three Sisters, Heather Morris
97. Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey
98. Verity, Colleen Hoover
99. Where the Light Fell, Philip Yancey
100. White Lies: Nine Ways to Expose and Resist the Racial Systems That Divide Us, Daniel Hill
101. Wish You Were Here, Jodi Picoult
102. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, Geraldine Brooks

 This roster omits books I authored. It also does not include the Bible, Bible studies, children's books I read (again and again), cookbooks, devotionals, magazines, newspapers, reference books, etc. It's simply a list of full-length, cover-to-cover reads (to-date) for the year.

Titles are hyperlinked to Amazon. (Disclaimer: I'm an Amazon Affiliate, so I may earn a very small commission from orders placed through links on my sites.)

 My 2021 reads:

1. A Church Called Tov, Scot McKnight & Laura Barringer
2. A Matter of Life and Death, Philip Margolin
3. A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins
4. American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
5. Before She Disappeared, Lisa Gardner
6. Behind Closed Doors, B.A. Paris
7. Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
8. Dark Horses, Susan Mihalic
9. Did I Say You Could Go, Melanie Gideon
10. Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table, Louie Giglio
11. Hell of a Book: A Novel, Jason Mott
12. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance
13. Home Front, Kristin Hannah
14. How to Fight Racism, Jemar Tisby
15. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, Austin Channing Brown
16. If I Run, Terri Blackstock
17. If You Tell, Gregg Olsen
18. In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware
19. Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
20. Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez
21. Last Girl Standing, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush
22. Liar, Liar, Lisa Jackson
23. Love Does, Bob Goff
24. Miriam: A Treasures of the Nile Novel, Mesu Andrews
25. My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
26. Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult
27. One Last Breath, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush
28. Pretty Little Wife, Darby Kane
29. Prey Tell, Tiffany Bluhm
30. Reading While Black, Esau McCaulley
31. Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Aimee Byrd
32. Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church, Diane Langberg
33. Secrets to the Grave, Tami Hoag
34. Sisters Trilogy (The Sea Glass Sisters, The Tidewater Sisters, The Sandcastle Sister), Lisa Wingate
35. Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir, Ashley C. Ford
36. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
37. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, James W. Loewen
38. The Black Book, James Patterson
39. The Book of Lost Names, Kristin Harmel
40. The Coming Race Wars: A Cry for Justice, from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter, William Pannell
41. The Family of Jesus, Karen Kingsbury
42. The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell
43. The Fortunate Ones, Ed Tarkington
44. The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah
45. The Guest List, Lucy Foley
46. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
47. The House of Deep Water, Jeni McFarland
48. The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley
49. The Invisible Girl, Lisa Jewell
50. The Justice Game, Randy Singer
51. The Last Bookshop in London, Madeline Martin
52. The Orphan’s Tale, Pam Jenoff
53. The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris
54. The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities, Kate Bowler
55. The Red Book, James Patterson
56. The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
57. The Summer House, James Patterson
58. The Talented Miss Farwell, Emily Gray Tedrowe
59. The Testaments, Margaret Atwood
60. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
61. The Woman in the Window, A.J. Finn
62. The Woman with the Blue Star, Pam Jenoff
63. Tranquility Falls, Davis Bunn
64. True Colors, Kristin Hannah
65. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
66. Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, Emmanuel Acho
67. Watching You, Lisa Jewell
68. We Were the Lucky Ones, Georgia Hunter
69. When No One Is Watching, Alyssa Cole
70. When the Stars Go Dark, Paula McLain
71. When You See Me, Lisa Gardner
72. You Betrayed Me, Lisa Jackson

A quick perusal of these titles and authors reveals that the list includes multiple literary genres. Some books are current or recent bestsellers, and a few might be called classics. Still others are somewhat more obscure.

True confession: I am a library nerd, so most of my recent reads have been borrows from our local branch (often via the statewide inter-library loan program) or from the Little Free Libraries found at the ends of driveways in my own community. Others were trades or pass-alongs from friends and colleagues. And I actually purchased a few from book swaps, online sellers, and regular book retailers.

What have you been reading lately? Do you have any books to recommend (in the comment section, below)?

 

Image/s: Public domain

 

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20 sincere sympathy card sentiments to comfort those who grieve

 

What does one say to a grieving colleague, friend or loved one, when words seem to fail?

 How can a person find the right words to write in a sympathy card? Sometimes the simplest words are the most difficult to find, especially when it comes to comforting those who mourn the death of a loved one.

 

20 comforting statements for sympathy cards

 Here are 20 tender and true phrasings that caring folks might include in sympathy card notes for those who are grieving a loved one's loss. Some of these words of sympathy include statements of faith, while others are simply comments of personal compassion.

 Following this list are a dozen funereal faux pas comments that are best avoided, when addressing thse who are in grief. 

NOTE: Written by this author, this copyrighted material originally appeared on another publisher’s site. That site no longer exists. This author holds all rights to this content. No republication is allowed without permission.

1. “I am truly sorry to hear of the loss of _____.”
2. “I’m praying for you.”
3. “I’m thinking of you during this difficult and sad time.”
4. “In loving memory of ______. We will all miss him dearly.”
5. “Love and sympathies to you and your family.”
6. “May fond memories of _______ bring you comfort, even as you face these dark days.”
7. “May God bless you and keep you in his care, now and in the days to come.”
8. “May God comfort you with His peace and strength.”
9. “May the love of family and friends sustain you in these difficult days.”
10. “Our heartfelt condolences.”
11. “Our hearts go out to you in your time of grief.”
12. “Please accept my sincere sympathies.”
13. “Please know that we are here from you, sending our love.”
14. “Praying for you in fondness and friendship, particularly at this sad time.”
15. “Sharing your sorrow, as we fondly recall our dear friend ________.”
16. “We cannot begin to understand what you must be going through right now, but we send our love, and we promise to pray for your entire family.”
17. “With love and fond memories of ________.”
18. “With sincere sympathy.”
19. “Words fail to express our sadness at the death of ________.”
20. “You are in my thoughts.”

 

These expressions of sympathy may also be appropriate for comments posted on social networking environments (online) or in email messages, although actual hand-written notes may be most memorable and meaningful for grieving recipients.

12 well-intended statements to avoid at all costs

 Of course, certain overused phrases and well-meaning, but inappropriate, statements are to be absolutely avoided in sympathy cards. Here are a dozen toxic examples of these potentially tacky and damaging statements.

1. “At least, she is no longer suffering.”
2. “Death and taxes are certain.”
3. “Feel better fast.”
4. “He lived a full life.”
5. “His health went downhill so fast.”
6. “I know just how you feel.”
7. “It was just his time.”
8. “It was worse when my dad died.”
9. “Perhaps his death was a blessing, after all.”
10. “Time heals all wounds.”
11. “You will get over it eventually.”
12. “You’ll find someone else.”

 

Still at a loss for words for a condolence card for a grieving friend, coworker or other contact?

 Browse through the sympathy card rack at a local greeting card store, and read what card makers have written. Pick the phrasings that seem most appropriate for the particular situation, and tailor the wordings to make them your own.

 The most important concern, of course, is to follow through and actually send a sincere note or card to those who are grieving. Often, a telephone call or in-person call offers even more comfort and encouragement to a dear one who is in grief.

Image/s: Public domain

 

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