I’m on a reading spree right now and absolutely loving it. I have books in the car, on our counters, on shelves… just everywhere! I’m definitely one of those people who will read a few books at once because I like the variety and can never choose just one.
Here’s a look at everything I’ve been reading lately!
Fiction
Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict
This story follows Clara Kelley, a poor farmer’s daughter who immigrates from Ireland to the U.S. and impersonates a woman with the same name who died on the voyage over. Clara is hired as a housemaid to work in one of Pittsburgh’s wealthiest households, the Carnegie residence. When her employer, Andrew Carnegie, becomes more than just an employer, Clara walks a fine line between keeping her identity under wraps and revealing the truth to Carnegie as they become closer.
I couldn’t put this book down because I wanted to know what would happened between Clara and Andrew. I also loved that this was based in Pittsburgh.
Nonfiction
Frontier Follies by Ree Drummond
Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman, writes about her adventures in marriage and motherhood while living on a secluded ranch in Oklahoma. This book literally had me laughing out loud. Highly recommend if you’re a fan of The Pioneer Woman’s sense of humor.
Life After Darkness by Michelle Knight
Michelle Knight, one of the three women found in the Cleveland kidnappings in 2013 details her life after her rescue from eleven years in captivity. This book was deep, meaningful, and left me feeling so much respect for Michelle Knight. What a strong, special woman.
#DoNotDisturb by Jedediah Bila
Jedediah Bila chronicles her love-hate relationship with technology and explains how easy it is to get sucked into the vortex of social media, apps, and more–all while missing out on real life. She poses a lot of questions about technology and how our society interacts with it and discusses her journey to paying more attention to her actual life instead of her online life.
Maid by Stephanie Land
Struggling through poverty, becoming a single mother, and the loss of how she thought life would look, Stephanie Land shares her story in this memoir. From living in a homeless shelter and relying on food stamps, to becoming a maid and working her way to a better life for her and her daughter, Land gives an unflinching look at what it’s like to try to pursue the American Dream while toeing the poverty line.
Faith-Based
Quick Answers to Social Issues by Bryan Osborne
This book is a great faith-based guide on how to respond to hot-button issues that plague our culture today. Some of the topics addressed are racism, animal rights, marriage, and more. I found this to be a helpful guide on understanding a Christian’s perspective on a lot of issues that I didn’t know much about in the first place!
Life in His Presence by Sarah Young
A beautiful guided journal that’s based off of Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, which is a best-selling devotional. This journal has over 100 entries from Jesus Calling along with questions to journal about based off of each day’s reading.
Kid-Related
Fun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials by Kimberly Mcleod
This is such a fun little craft book for kids and parents to work through together. It has 60 projects that all use recycled materials like egg cartons, jars, toilet paper rolls, cardboard, and more. Sadie and I have done a few projects from this book together and they’ve been so enjoyable!
Have you read any good books lately? Sadie absolutely loves this interactive little book lately.
Do you read more than one book at once?
Do you ever reread books?
Living My Full Life 
That is so funny! I also have books piled up everywhere and I’m reading multiple at a time. My library is open and I went in to pick up a book…walked out with 10 others! Frontier Follies is also in my bag!
Yaaay! I fellow multiple-book-reader! I am so like you with coming home from the library with as many books as I can hold! I hope you love Frontier Follies. I already want to re-read it 🙂
Awesome! I can’t wait to read it – currently tied up with 3 other books right now 🤦🏼♀️ but I’m glad you liked it!
That was me in high school, I would read in class instead of pay attention to the teacher!
That is too funny! What did you like to read?!
Your recent reads all sound very varied! 🙂
I have an informal book group with two of my friends and we read a book together each month. This month’s pick was Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. It was quite funny and ridiculous in places — very melodramatic!
It was a lighter read than our previous month’s pick, which was To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. That one was written in a stream of consciousness style — the language was quite elaborate and the paragraphs were very long. It took me a while to finish it as I didn’t find it easy to focus on!
They are a bit all over the place, haha! I looked up the book by Mario Vargas Llosa and it sounds funny! I’ve never read a book by Virginia Woolf, but I read a book written by her granddaughter (or maybe great granddaughter) and thought it was neat that writing runs in the family for them!
Frontier Follies looks so good! I had no idea Ree Drummond had written a book beyond her cookbooks!