What I Read – January 2022 & 5×5 Challenge

close up shot of a person reading a book
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New year, new reading challenge! This year, I’m trying out the 5×5 Challenge (via the Scholé Sisters homeschooling community). The premise is to pick 5 categories or topics you want to read about more in-depth this year, then select 5 books for each category over the course of the year. It comes out to about 2 books a month. I’m hoping this will be a way to balance my need for structured reading with the ability to still pick up random books from the library (or more realistically, the new Brandon Sanderson novel).

My five categories for 2022 are:

  1. Old Testament Context – Our church’s Come Follow Me curriculum this year is on the Old Testament. In addition to reading a new translation, I want to get some background on how to get your head around the Old Testament. Some of these will be LDS-specific and some more generally Christian or even Jewish (I hope to pick up Robert Alter’s Psalm translation.)
  2. Mormon Lit Backlist – Filling in some works by Mormon authors that have been on my TBR pile for a while that I need to get to.
  3. Stoicism – It’s been a rough year for me coping with the new political environment in Utah (really, several years and the whole country would also work here). I’m hoping that reading about stoicism will give me some tools to both act according to my conscience while not drowning in anxiety and anger.
  4. Reading the Hugos – Working my way backwards through the novel winners that I haven’t read yet.
  5. Books Becoming Movies – Because I like to have read the book first, plus my other categories are so serious that I felt like I deserved a break.

Now on to the reviews!

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What I Read – December 2021

Happy New Year! The holidays were a stressful time, but I still got through a few great reads. I also have several that are halfway done that will be carried over to next year, which drives my INTJ personality insane.

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What I Read – November 2021

cake on white ceramic plate on top of a book
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Not many completed books this month due to hosting Thanksgiving and a lot of stress. I do have a lot of half-finished books on my pile that I’m trying to get through by the end of the year. Gotta start the new year with a clean book slate. Anyway, here’s what I read in November.

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What I Read – October 2021

October has come and gone and it’s time for book reviews again. Looks like the themes in this month’s reads are great short stories and novels with cliff hangers! I’ll also throw in a link to my Twitter review of the newly released Dune movie. Book reviews after the jump.

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4 Writing Lessons from an Astronaut

Here’s what the life of astronaut Chris Hadfield can teach writers.

This week I had a chance to re-listen to a favorite of mine, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. One of my book clubs chose to read this one at my suggestion, and I’m so glad they did. Chris Hadfield is the astronaut you might recognize from his viral music video from the ISS or any of his great educational YouTube videos on the everyday life of astronauts. I find Chris’s writing delightful, his life fascinating, and his insights to life spot on.

sky earth space working
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This time through, I read the book with an eye towards how his advice could apply to a writing career. As you probably know, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. Now that my youngest child is in kindergarten, I’ve started to think more often about what I want to be when I grow up. I know I want to do something with words, but nailing that dream down can be hard.

This is where Hadfield’s advice comes in. Here’s what the life of an astronaut can teach writers:

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