What I Have Been Reading

This is always the time of year when I become a voracious reader. I hunt and gather books and devour them like a famine is iminent. I read everything and anything. Usually I read in jags. One author or era will begin to fascinate me and I will quickly run through the gammet of that subject before moving on to the next. Earlier this spring it was organizing books, then literature of the industrial revolution. Now, I can't seem to get enough on Charlotte Mason.

One of my favorite books of this year (so far) has been North and South. I have had it on my shelf to read forever, but it took me getting a Kindle hand-me-down'ed to me to actually begin it. I read it in like 3 days. Seriously. What a great love story. The characters will stick with you forever. Mr. Hale, oh Mr. Hale.....how I love his character.

"Nothing is so delicious as to set ones teeth into the crisp, juicy fruit, warm and scented by the sun [says Margaret]". Mr Hale responds, "I shall arm myself with a knife. The days of eating fruit so primitively as you describe are over with me." Oh, love love love!


Another favorite was a book my friend Anne turned me on to, Confessions of an Organized Homemaker: The Secrets of Uncluttering Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. The best organizational book I have ever read. Hands down. Bar none. For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School was next on my list and I quickly ploughed through Susan MacAulay's other books, When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte Mason's Philosophy for Today and For the Family's Sake: The Value of Home in Everyone's Life. I was pretty sold on Charlotte Mason after reading this trio. I quickly read everything I could online, including an awesome article on the Well Trained Mind website by Karen Glass entitled The Classical Side of Charlotte Mason.

All in all, it has been a profitable warm up this past month for my binge of summer reading to come.