5 books on my future reading list

Call the Midwife

I just love this show and was happy to find out it was based on a book, the memoirs of midwife Jennifer Worth. Needless to say I went out and bought it with my Christmas gift card! 

Jennifer Worth was a midwife in the east end of London in the 1950's and if the show tells us anything, its that she was enriched by the experience.

Amazon's description:
  
"At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London's East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London-from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city's seedier side-illuminate a fascinating time in history."


Stealing the Preacher

I have a handful of Christian fiction authors I absolutely love and count the days till their next book comes out. Karen Witemeyer is one of them. I love Karen's books, they are so much fun to read.

Here's part of the excerpt from Goodreads:

"On his way to interview for a position at a church in the Piney Woods of Texas, Crockett Archer can scarcely believe it when he's forced off the train by a retired outlaw and presented to the man's daughter as the minister she requested for her birthday...

For months, Joanna Robbins prayed for a preacher. A man to breathe life back into the abandoned church at the heart of her community. A man to assist her in fulfilling a promise to her dying mother. A man to help her discover answers to the questions that have been on her heart for so long... "

This book comes out June 2013

The Weight of Glory

C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. I've loved everything I've ever read of his. I'm even enjoying his Narnia series, two more to read!

Here are the chapter headings:

The Weight of Glory
Learning in War-Time
Why I am Not a Pacifist
Transposition
Is Theology Poetry?
The Inner Ring
Membership
On Forgiveness
A Slip of the Tongue

Amazon describes the book this way:

"Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses offer guidance and inspiration in a time of great doubt. These are ardent and lucid sermons that provide a compassionate vision of Christianity."

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

I recently read a review of this book and it caught my interest. I love this era of American history, a dark time that saw the light and abolished slavery.

This friendship, between Mary Lincoln and her dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley, sounds so intriguing, though it ended sadly. The quilt made by Elizabeth Keckley, is a work of art. Check out the video at the end of this post.*

Amazon describes the novel here:

"In Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, novelist Jennifer Chiaverini presents a stunning account of the friendship that blossomed between Mary Todd Lincoln and her seamstress, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Keckley, a former slave who gained her professional reputation in Washington, D.C. by outfitting the city’s elite. Keckley made history by sewing for First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln within the White House, a trusted witness to many private moments between the President and his wife, two of the most compelling figures in American history.

In March 1861, Mrs. Lincoln chose Keckley from among a number of applicants to be her personal “modiste,” responsible not only for creating the First Lady’s gowns, but also for dressing Mrs. Lincoln in the beautiful attire Keckley had fashioned. The relationship between the two women quickly evolved, as Keckley was drawn into the intimate life of the Lincoln family, supporting Mary Todd Lincoln in the loss of first her son, and then her husband to the assassination that stunned the nation and the world.

Keckley saved scraps from the dozens of gowns she made for Mrs. Lincoln, eventually piecing together a tribute known as the Mary Todd Lincoln Quilt. She also saved memories, which she fashioned into a book, Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. Upon its publication, Keckley’s memoir created a scandal that compelled Mary Todd Lincoln to sever all ties with her, but in the decades since, Keckley’s story has languished in the archives. In this impeccably researched, engrossing novel, Chiaverini brings history to life in rich, moving style."

 Through the Gates of Splendor

My daughters and I watched the movie 'The End of the Spear' over the holidays and it got me to thinking about this book. I've been wanting to read it for awhile now.

Here's Amazons description:

"Through Gates of Splendor is the true story of five young missionaries who were savagely killed while trying to establish communication with the Auca Indians of Ecuador. The story is told through the eyes of Elisabeth Elliot, the wife of one of the young men who was killed."

Elisabeth stayed, and eventually led her husbands killer to the Lord. She says here of what happened after her husband was killed:

"Our daughter Valerie was 10 months old when Jim was killed. I continued working with the Quichua Indians when, through a remarkable providence, I met two Auca women who lived with me for one year. They were the key to my going in to live with the tribe that had killed the five missionaries. I remained there for two years." 


*Video about the quilt Elizabeth Keckley made from the scrapes of Mary Todd Lincoln's dresses: