The Mind of the Maker
by Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Sayers explores the intricacies of the creative mind, connecting how our creativity functions with how the Creator God also works within the Trinity. She examines the nature of art and why mankind feels the urge to create, just as God created us. We ask questions about life and death, free will, and what it means to be created in the “image of God”.
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How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days
by Kari Leibowitz (Goodreads Author)
Many cultures find winter to be a restful and exciting time of year. Snow becomes a beautiful occurrence when you approach it with the right mindset. But some cultures encourage an attitude of despair and grumpiness in the winter, making summer the star of the year, and forcing winter into a narrow box of grouchy grumbling. This book will give you practical tips for enjoying winter no matter how bleak it may first appear.
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Dickens’ Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England’s Great Victorian Novelists
by Daniel Pool
I liked reading about how the Victorian novel rose to prominence and the different literary trends that came and went during the Victorian era. It was interesting to learn more about some of my favorite authors.
However, the book just drags on and on with really dry writing that made it hard to concentrate, and the sentences are so convoluted and long that it was difficult to follow sometimes.
How To Write Your Life Story
by Karen Ulrich
This book gives a step-by-step guide to writing your memoir, including different styles of writing and organizing your memories. You could write a journal style, epistolary, narrative, or even a scrapbook. There is a whole section dedicated to just researching and remembering your past. There are different things you can do to jog your memory and bring the details into your memoir.
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The Souls of Flowers (Large Encyclopedias)
by Pavlína Kourková
These beautiful portraits of flowers make you really stop to appreciate the delicate beauty of each petal. You can see the details of the stem and pollen and blossoms in a new way. This whole book is so enchanting! Each lovely page is a reminder of how precious creation is. I love that each flower looks both vulnerable and soft, but also strong in its own delicate way.
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Transported: 50 Vehicles That Changed the World
by Matt Ralphs, Rui Ricardo (Illustrations)
This book gives information about 50 amazing vehicles, including boats, cars, planes, motorcycles, chariots, wagons, rockets, and bicycles. It’s really amazing to see how history has changed over the centuries and especially in the last one hundred years just because of mankind’s ability to travel.
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A History of the World in 25 Cities (British Museum)
by Tracey Turner, Andrew Donkin, Libby VanderPloeg (Illustrator)
This book goes through history, giving information about different cities around the world at their height. We start with Jericho and end with Tokyo. There are ancient cities that now lie in ruins, old cities that kept getting renewed and rebuilt through the centuries, and modern cities that are comparatively young.
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Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings
by Diana Pavlac Glyer (Goodreads Author), James A. Owen (Illustrator)
This book analyzes the inner workings of the writing group, The Inklings, showing specific examples of how they encouraged and influenced each other’s writing. We learn about Lewis’ and Tolkien’s individual writing styles, and how their group read aloud portions of their writing. The process of writing, revising, and editing was intimately connected with the influence of the Inklings, despite Lewis famously saying that it was impossible to influence Tolkien: “…you might as well try to influence a bandersnatch.” This book proves Lewis wrong, giving specific examples of times when Tolkien took criticism from the Inklings very seriously and altered major sections of his writing accordingly.
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Gazing at the Night Sky: 5,000 Year of Humanity’s Quest to Find Our Place in the Universe
by Bruce Wilson Jr.
People have been staring at the stars for millennia, marveling at the beauties of the night sky. This book explores how ancient peoples attached meaning to the stars, developed superstitions around horoscopes to gain a sense of control in their world, and studied science and mathematics to understand how the solar system works. The stars have influenced artists and photographers. Today we have a vast amount of information from space probes that tell us about our solar system. From Aristotle to Armstrong, the stars inspire us to keep looking up.
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The Ocean Blue: A History of Maritime Trade, Naval Warfare, and Exploration
by Bruce Wilson Jr.
The oceans of the globe both connect and separate the world. Seafaring cultures have shaped the landscape of history. Battles at sea have defined warfare for millennia. The ocean influences art, music, literature, and architecture. This book explores all the ways that the ocean has shaped our history from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to the modern day.
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