It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Books Completed Last Week

Last week I finished The Duggars: 20 and Counting, by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar. Like many people in America who have small families, I find the Duggars and their 18 children quite fascinating. I picked up the book because I found the TV show rather boring and shallow, and I hoped to discover more in-depth information in the book. Unfortunately I didn't really find that. Sure, the book gives more details about the Duggars lives, but I guess I was looking for something more internal. Or maybe that's not quite right. Maybe something more, um ... real? Some evidence that the Duggars aren't completely perfect and happy all the time. That they have conflicts and problems, just like everyone else. Unfortunately the book only hints vaguely at such things, and focuses on the happy, happy, happy! Oh, and one fact in particular bothered me in the book. The Duggars state that they are not particularly well-off financially, yet they go on to say that they spend $3000 a month just on groceries. Wow! Unless they don't spend much money on anything else, I think they have to be pretty well-off to be able to afford that.

Last week I also read The Backyard Homestead, edited by Carleen Madigan. Well, I didn't actually "read" the whole book, but read some parts and skimmed through others. This is more of a resource book than a read-through book, and wow is there a lot of great information in here, everything from starting seeds to butchering chickens. As a fledgling homesteader myself, I've added it to my Amazon wishlist. I need to own this book.

Books I'm Currently Reading
This week I'm reading The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt. It's an interesting book, and very complicated and disturbing, which is typical of A.S. Byatt. It's also nearly 700 pages long and very dense, so I'm not sure how long it'll take for me to read it.

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