Books I've read in January 2015.

I adore reading! I found the above image on Pinterest. I have a cabinet full of old books similar to these. I should take some photos soon. I love their beautiful bindings and the old engravings inside, plus the delightful stories of days long gone.

This is Anne Perry's latest Christmas book, 2014.

Matthew gave it to me as a gift, which has been his tradition for many years now.

I read it in one day. It was very well written. I love Anne Perry's writing.

In January 2015 I read a total of 4 books which for me is a large amount!

I re-read "A Christmas Journey". I love Anne's Christmas novels.

Being in the mood for Anne, I also re-read her first Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novel,

The Cater Street Hangman. This is one of my all time favourites of hers.

Then I turned to a deeper novel by George MacDonald.

It was written in 1866 and re-published with modern English in 1985 by Dan Hamilton. 

I love George MacDonald's writing. "A Quiet Neighborhood" is a romance set in Marshmallows, in rural Victorian England. A young vicar, Harry Walton, begins work in his first parish. Oldcastle Hall is the center of the area in which he lives, and hides dark secrets.

This is a theme MacDonald loves to weave through his stories, which contrast the evil side of human nature, along with the grace and forgiveness of a loving Heavenly Father.

I discovered George MacDonald's novels in the 1980's when they became popular again due

 to revising and republishing. I collected nearly all of them, and they are stored in an antique walnut book cabinet in my living room. I haven't re-read them in a very long time, so I enjoyed this book immensely. 

Here is a paragraph from the book:
"What a horror of darkness seemed to hang over that family! What deeds of wickedness! But the horror came from within; selfishness, and fierceness of temper were its source; no unhappy doom. The worship of one's own will fumes out around the being an atmosphere of evil, an altogether abnormal condition of the moral firmament, out of which will break the very flames of hell." 

(page 132)

A famous quote which you may recognize is on page 145:

"If, instead of a gem, or even of a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels, I suppose, must give."

In another part of this book, an old woman is dying, and she says:
"I don't see how He can think of everybody, at every minute, like. I don't mean that He will let anything go wrong, but He might forget an old body like me for a minute, like."

The young vicar responds:
"You would need to be as wise as He is before you could see how He does it. But you must believe more than you can understand. It would be unreasonable to think that He must forget because you can't understand how He could remember. I think it is as hard for Him to forget anything as it is for us to remember everything, for forgetting comes of weakness, and from our not being finished yet, and He is all strength and all perfection."

His writing is quite profound and very refreshing, so I always read his books fairly slowly.

But how I do love them!

Loretta Houben