All blurbs are from Goodreads.

I picked two books from Book of the Month this month.

The Child by Fiona Barton (2017). I’m not much into suspense novels, but this one sounds pretty intriguing. “As an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman discovers a tiny skeleton, buried for years. Journalist Kate Waters cobbles together a piece for her newspaper, but at a loss for answers, she can only pose a question: Who is the Building Site Baby?”

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (2017). You know I love me a good memoir. “A searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.”

And my Amazon finds!

The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff (2017). I’ve had my eye on this one since before its release and it finally reached out and smacked in in the face. Nazis, babies, and hiding in plain sight as a trapeze artist in a German circus? I can’t wait to see how this one works!

When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests by Leana Wen and Joshua Kosowsky (2013). I got this one because it’s the August book for the DSN Book Club. “In this examination of the doctor-patient relationship, Drs. Wen and Kosowsky argue that diagnosis, once the cornerstone of medicine, is fast becoming a lost art, with grave consequences. Using real-life stories of cookbook-diagnoses-gone-bad, the doctors illustrate how active patient participation can prevent these mistakes.”

Hitler’s Forgotten Children: A True Story of the Lebensborn Program and One Woman’s Search for Her Real Identity by Ingrid Von Oelhafen and Tim Tate (2016). “Created by Heinrich Himmler, the Lebensborn program abducted as many as half a million children from across Europe. Through a process called Germanization, they were to become the next generation of the Aryan master race in the second phase of the Final Solution.” I’ve read this already and it was very eye-opening and a bit disturbing.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (2017). I adore Matt Haig’s writing, so I was so excited when I saw he had a new fictional novel coming out! “I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.” And this has nothing to do with vampires, sparkly or otherwise, or freaky magic.

Joni: An Unforgettable Story by Joni Eareckson Tara and Joe Musser (1976, updated 2001). I love everything she writes, so I figured it was time to learn the full story of this remarkable woman. “In a split second on a hot July afternoon, a diving accident transformed the life of Joni Eareckson Tada forever. She went from being an active young woman to facing every day in a wheelchair. In this unforgettable autobiography, Joni reveals each step of her struggle to accept her disability and discover the meaning of her life. The hard-earned truths she discovers and the special ways God reveals his love are testimonies to faith’s triumph over hardship and suffering.”

Things We Couldn’t Say by Diet Eman and James Schaap (1994). I loved The Hiding Place, which sounds like it has a similar plot, so I wanted to learn more about the Dutch resistance during World War II. “The true story of Diet Eman, a young Dutch woman who, with her fiance, Hein Siestma, risked everything to rescue imperiled Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II.”

Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander (2012). After his brain is attacked by a rare illness that leaves him comatose, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander miraculously awakes with visions of an angelic being in his head. “Alexander’s story is not a fantasy. Before he underwent his journey, he could not reconcile his knowledge of neuroscience with any belief in heaven, God, or the soul. Today Alexander is a doctor who believes that true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition.”

And Still She Laughs by Kate Merrick (2017). Bible-reading Christians might immediately recognize that the title of this book comes from Proverbs 31:25, “She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” Following the loss of her young daughter to cancer, Merrick digs into the stories of women in the Bible who suffered deeply and yet somehow emerged joyful. There we can find hope in the midst of devastation, laughing without fear of what is to come.

Have you read any of these? What books have you read or acquired recently?

💛ribbonrx