I finished Do More Better. Unfortunately it wasn't very helpful, too much stuff related to using apps. But I'm glad I finally finished it.

April was kind of a crazy month, so I decided it was good time to read some fiction that has been in my collection for years and I read Snow Angel by Jamie Carie (yes, teenage me liked this book and its cover a lot ), Rekindled and Revealed by Tamera Alexander. And then I started into my Gilbert Morris collection reading The Saintly Buccaneer, The Reluctant Bridegroom, The Last Confederate, and The Dixie Widow. The Last Confederate is still my favorite of the House of Winslow series and The Dixie Widow is a close second. I was relieved to find some of my teenage favorites aren't terrible. And Gilbert Morris was definitely one of my favorites, at one point I had 30 of his books. My younger sisters don't care for most of the Gilbert Morris books they have read, but I still like them. I have two more House of Winslow books and then I will either read The Cheney Duvall M.D. series or switch authors and read Stuart Brannon by Stephen Bly. Hard choice for me.

I was reading Luke by Michael Card and The White Horse King by Ben Merkle in April, but I didn't finished either of them...so I will try to get them done in the next week or so. I've requested two more books on the Crusades from the library, I would like to finish the books I am currently reading before starting the new batch.

SnowAngel

I was wondering if anyone else here reads lighthouse books and magazines.  I have a number of books on lighthouses of the Great Lakes. The last one I bought was Lighthouses and Lifesaving on the Great Lakes by Linda Osbourne Cynowa. I also subscribe to Lighthouse Digest magazine, which may be the only magazine entirely devoted to lighthouses. Michigan has over 100 lighthouses along its coastline, which is the most of any state in the U. S. The books and magazines are of excellent quality for the history of lighthouses and they are very interesting reading.  🙂

I wasn't successful with finishing the Luke commentary or The White Horse King before the library books came in, so I'm reading the commentary and Sword and Scimitar by Raymond Ibrahim now. I'm nearly to the end of the second chapter of Sword and Scimitar, since it is about battles instead of individuals it's a little slower reading than Defenders of the West.

And for fiction I'm reading The Gold Trail by Max Brand before I start the Stuart Brannon series. It was a birthday gift and a set of short stories, so I figured it was a good fiction choice while I'm reading about the Crusades.

Also I might recently have gone to a book sale and bought a bag of 13 vintage westerns for $3 including two by Luke Short. I've been trying to get my hands a Luke Short book for a while and hadn't been successful until now. And while most of the books are not in very good shape, the price was right to be able to try some more vintage westerns.  

SnowAngel

The most recent Star Trek book that I am reading is Mindshadow by J. M. Dilliard. It is quite a good story based on the original series in which Mr. Spock loses much of his intellect and memory through a tragedy which happens on a planet. Many of these novels written during the 1980’s were about the original series. I haven’t seen any new ones in recent years, although there may be some about the more recent series.  I like the original series books the best. They seem to be the stories that are the most like the series that they were based on, and thankfully they are not pulp fiction. 🙂

If you are interested in reading poetry about birds there is Dawn Songs, edited by Jamie K. Reaser and J. Drew Lanham.   It is mainly a book of poems about bird migration. Although the subtitle is A Birdwatcher’s Field Guide to the Poetics of Migration the book is mainly an anthology of bird poems. They are very beautifully written poems and well worth reading.  🙂

Down to the second to last chapter in Sword and Scimitar. For the last week my parents and siblings have been hearing the following phrases "by the way the Crusades", "what about the Crusades", "that brings us back to the Crusades", etc. in conversations that previously had nothing to do with the Crusades.  

I started reading through the Stuart Brannon series, I've just begin the third book Last Hanging At Paradise Meadow. If I  remember right it's the weakest storyline in the series, but still very much worth reading as part of the series. I'm very much so enjoying reading about Stuart Brannon, Edwin Fletcher, and the rest of the crew.  

BTW, not the Crusades, but I got a Stonewall Jackson biography as a birthday present and it arrived in the mail today, so when I am done with my crusader kick and I can switch right to Stonewall Jackson.  

SnowAngel

I recently bought the guidebook to the Sliders TV show by Brad Linaweaver.  The book covers only the first three seasons of the series, but they are the best seasons of the show. After the Professor left the series was not as good as before without the great acting of John Rhys-Davies. Jerry O’Connell was excellent as Quinn Mallory and Sabrina Lloyd was very good as Wade Wells.  I loved the imaginative stories of the first three seasons. The novel by the same author based on the series pilot is quite good too. The concept of interdimensional travel is so interesting. As far as I know the 1998 guidebook is the only guide to the individual episodes of the series that was published in book form.

I finished Sword and Scimitar and then read God's Battalions by Rodney Stark, fascinating reading. I would recommend both to anyone curious about the Crusades. And season three of The King's Hall podcast pairs really well with reading the books.

I really enjoyed reading through the Stuart Brannon books again, still love the series.  

I've returned to reading The White Horse King by Benjamin Merkle and started reading Coroner Creek by Luke Short. Coroner Creek is the first Luke Short western I've read, although I listened to a couple of his books last year and I've seen several films based on his books.

I'm hoping to finish The White Horse King this month as well as Michael Card's commentary on Luke, I figure if I read 11 pages of The White Horse King and 4 pages of the commentary a day I can finish both in June. If I do it will be the first time I have finished 4 nonfiction books in a month.  

SnowAngel

Star Trek: Best Destiny by Dianne Carey is the book I am reading now. It is a fairly good book about Kirk’s childhood.  The novels about Star Trek are quite well written except for a few grammatical errors.  They are for the most part interesting stories.  I like to think of them as episodes that were unused for the television series. They are worthwhile reading, and I highly recommend them.

Some of the very best of the STAR TREK novels:

UHURA'S SONG by Janet Kagan. Spot-on characterizations of most of the crew, and a story that would be hard to portray on television. (I.e. the written medium is being used correctly). And this is in spite of a Mary Sue guest star!

MY ENEMY, MY ALLY / THE ROMULAN WAY by Diane Duane, Peter Morwood. Largely internal-monologue novels with "historical" components.

ISHMAEL by Barbara Hambly. Spock, amnesia, and time travel.

THE NEVER-ENDING SACRIFICE by Una McCormack. This really needs to be a premium-television TV series as a Deep Space Nine spinoff.

@the-old-maid

I have read My Enemy, My Ally and The Romulan Way, but the other three I don’t think I have read. I have read most of Diane Duane’s and some of A. C. Crispin’s Star Trek novels. The books based on the original series by other authors are becoming hard to find, although sometimes they will turn up on eBay and some libraries may still have them.  They are well worth searching for and I think they are some of the best ever written about Star Trek. I would recommend the original series books over the ones based on the other series, although there are also good ones based on The Next Generation and Voyager. 

I finished The White Horse King and the Luke commentary before the end of June. One brother is currently reading The White Horse King, another brother just finished God's Battalions, and both are pleased with the books.  

I am currently reading Robert Lewis Dabney's Stonewall Jackson biography and I am quite enjoying it. I've only read one short biography about Jackson previously...oh, I almost forgot in high school I read Beloved Bride: the letters of Stonewall Jackson to his wife. I should have read full length biography sooner, it's so interesting.

I also started The Case For Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe and R.C. Sproul's commentary on Galatians. Why read one nonfiction book when you could read three? On that note when I do finish all three books I will have my 2024 nonfiction goal completed.  All three are really good thus far, but then that's why I picked them.  

Fiction wise, I have thus far in July read Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer (this was an entertaining read) and They Called Her Mrs. Doc by Janette Oke (I really enjoyed revisiting this one), and now I am rereading Wolf Soldier by James R. Hannibal to reacquaint myself with all the characters in the Lightraiders Academy trilogy before I read Lion Warrior for the first time. 

SnowAngel

Star Trek fans would enjoy The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold. This book has much in it about how the original series was made. It does not have any pictures in it, but the text is interesting enough.  It was first published back in 1973 and reprinted three times.  It was a little expensive for a paperback when I bought it at around $25, but I thought it was worth the price considering that the author has a great reputation among Star Trek fans. If you a devotee of the series and don’t mind paying the high price I would recommend the book simply because the author is a very interesting writer and knows so much about Star Trek. Mr. Gerrold wrote the script for the episode The Trouble with Tribbles and other stories for the original and animated series.  It is wonderful reading!  🙂

July was crazy, so I didn't read nearly as much as I had hoped to...however I did read through the Lightraider Academy trilogy by James R. Hannibal. My biggest complaint with the complete series is too many characters, in the last book especially there's a bit too much jumping among the characters IMHO. I've passed the books off to the siblings to read, it will be interesting to hear their takes on the series.  

Now I'm reading the Complete Adventures of Homer Price and what fun it has been to read it again. This is just one of those books that's so pleasant to read again and of course the illustrations are great too.  

Almost finished with the commentary on Galatians, still working on both of the other nonfiction reads too. I really haven't read much over the last three weeks or so.

SnowAngel

I've just finished reading Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef — I was expecting it to be a difficult and challenging read, and it certainly is very harrowing in parts, but I soon found I just couldn't put it down and finished it within two days.

I don't really want to discuss it in any detail, especially as this forum is absolutely not the place for politics, so I will just say I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares deeply about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, whatever your own background or political leanings. It is a truly wonderful testament to the power of God's saving love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and to just how much it's needed in all the world.

If it's OK, I'd just like to quote the author's experience of attending a Christian Bible study group, purely out of curiosity, and starting to read the New Testament for the first time:

I began at the beginning, and when I got to the Sermon on the Mount, I thought, Wow, this guy Jesus is really impressive! Everything he says is beautiful. I couldn't put the book down. Every verse seemed to touch a deep wound in my life. It was a very simple message, but somehow it had the power to heal my soul and give me hope.

The I read this: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:43-45).

That's it! I was thunderstruck by these words. Never before had I heard anything like this, but I knew that this was the message I had been searching for all my life. (p. 122)

I've read a book called Titus: Comrade of the Cross. It is about the thief on the cross. It's really moving.