My favorite books of 2021!

General Nonfiction

• What Happened to You by Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry, et al.

• The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi

• Try Softer by Aundi Kolber

• Esssentialism by Greg McKeown

Fiction

• The Ocean At the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

• The Dutch House by Anne Patchett (specifically the audiobook read by Tom Hanks)

Memoir

• Elsewhere by Rosita Boland

• Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

• The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Parenting

• The Connected Parent by Karyn Purvis and Lisa Qualls

• Girls on the Edge by Leonard Sax

Spiritual

• Gentle & Lowly by Dane Ortland

• Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn

• Handle with Care by  Lore Ferguson Wilbert

I’ve had a few questions about how to find time to read. It is tricky with six kids.

• We still have quiet time on school breaks and weekends. That’s when I do a lot of reading. I need that time to recharge and so do my kids!

• I read for about 20 minutes before bed.

• Since we moved and had to purge a lot of things, I’ve been reading a lot of books on my kindle. Libby is a great app to borrow e-books free from your local library. I bring my kindle if I know I’m going somewhere that I’ll have to wait, so instead of mindlessly scrolling on my phone (which I definitely still do), I’ll bring up the kindle app and get a few minutes of reading.

• Audiobooks!! I’ve been using noise-cancelling headphones to listen to so many audiobooks. You can speed up the reading rate (the fastest I can go is 1.75). Your brain gets used to the faster reading so that normal speed sounds incredibly slow. These are my favorite budget noise-canceling headphones.