Every month I try to read at least one book from the following categories: nonfiction, devotional, and fiction. Non-fiction ensures that I’m always learning something new. Devotionals ensure that I’m keying into my faith. And fiction books are just so enjoyable to read! This is What I Read in January 2015.

Books Finished:

How to Travel the World on $50 a Day by Matt Kepnes

I read Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site, and very much enjoy his thoughtful, informative, and entertaining posts. So when I heard that Matt had a new book coming out, I preordered it. This book is a great resource for those planning around the world trips, or simply trips to a particular geographic area. My only complaint is that it didn’t have money-saving tips for an area that I frequently travel to, the Caribbean. Perhaps this can be added in the next edition.

I personally enjoy traveling and staying in a slightly higher level of accommodations, and to eat at restaurants and try local foods as opposed to cooking my own meals while traveling. So some of the tips are ones that I would probably ignore. But even if you are unwilling to travel quite so frugally, there are still plenty enough money-saving tips to make the book worth the purchase price. I anticipate that this book will be a great resource for me over time.

The Last Passenger by Manel Loureiro

This book was creepy and fantastic! It is set aboard a Nazi cruise ship that bears a curse that affects its passengers. It takes place in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War 2, as well as in modern-day. I don’t want to say too much more, for fear that I would give away key plot points, and I’m hopeful that others will want to read it.

I had previously read one other book by the same author, Apocalypse Z, which is a zombie horror/dystopian novel. It is a unique take on the genre, in that the entire thing is told through a series of blog posts and journal entries. So when I found another of Loureiro’s books translated into English, I jumped at the chance to read it, and was not disappointed.

Breaking Free by Beth Moore

I have several Beth Moore books on my Kindle, as I was fortunate enough to stumble across an online sale at one point, thanks to my good friend Carrie.

This book is intended to help readers break free from the lies fed to us by the devil, and our negative circumstances, in order to follow the Holy Spirit toward the future that Christ intends for us. It at times is hard-hitting, in that it forces readers to examine what our reasons are for thinking the way we do, and trying to ‘break free’ from those negative cycles.

Probably the biggest take-away for me, was that I can’t always be the person to provide help, support, and guidance to another person. Sometimes the job to help a particular individual is not on my path, and I need to pay attention to whether the Spirit is leading me to help this person or away from helping this person. It was particularly insightful, because it’s a lesson that I wished I had learned before. It applied so clearly to a situation that I was going through while reading the book, and the passages on this topic seemed to crystallize the experience.

Home by Morning (A Powell Springs Novel) by Alexis Harrington

This book is set in World War I and follows a female doctor in the United States, as well as a few other characters. The story is enjoyable, but not particularly compelling. I wanted to love it, because the character and time period seemed like a fresh idea. But the story was a somewhat predictable love story, so although I finished it and liked it, I just didn’t love it.

Getting to No: How to Break a Stubborn Habit by Erwin Lutzer

I picked this book to read in my non-fiction/learning genre for the month of January to help me get motivated to pick and start some New Year’s resolutions. My takeaways from the book are (1) that we need to make sure that we have something to replace our bad habits with, rather than simply trying to stop doing something, and (2) that we need to seek the guidance of God as to why we have bad habits and help to break them. I did not agree with some of the characterizations of the book (particularly dealing with homosexuality and the ability to change this), and this made it a bit difficult to stay invested in the book and give credibility to what the author had to say. This was even more so, since these references seemed to be included in large part, simply to be inflammatory. The book would be more helpful to more readers without them, so that the message didn’t get lost amidst such a politically and emotionally charged topic.

 

Books Abandoned:

None.