While we are certainly in holiday mode, we are definitely not in no-reading mode. In fact, summer is a great time to get a head start on our reading lists. Each of the children has a pile of “summer books”, the older ones have set out a proposed work plan for the entire year and I have an ambitious (for me) plan too. At the end of my year of grabbing moments to read I was surprised at how much I had managed to churn through. So with the determination to devote an hour to my own education every day this year, I anticipate I will be able to read the following by October (leaving a couple of months for books that get passed my way that I really want to dip into – it always happens! Plus I know I want to get through more of the Russian lit than just Anna Karenina):
Devotional books:
- Stepping Heavenward
- Radical
- The Practice of the Presence of God
- Ninety Days with the Classics
“Monday reading” (on Mondays I plan to take a chapter or two from books that I want to mull over and not read straight through from cover to cover)
- Johnson’s Scotland
- Families Where Grace is in Place
- Fallacy Detective
- Peacemaking For Families
- Beyond Stateliset Marble
- The Rights of Man
- Essays
“Tuesday – Sunday Literature”
- Great Expectations
- Anna Karenina
- Cry, the Beloved Country
- Les Miserables
- The Old Curiosty Shop
- Jane Eyre
- To Kill A Mockingbird
- The Three Musketeers
- Madam How and Lady Why
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Smoky
- Rasselas
- A Basket of Flowers
- Robinson Crusoe
- Understood Betsy
- Treasure Island
- The Princess and the Goblin
- Huckleberry Finn
- Frankenstein
- Silas Marner
- Jack and Jill
- That Hideous Strength
- Age of Fable
- The Ark
- Wee Sir Gibbie of the Highlands
- The Holy War
- Westward Ho!
- David Copperfield
- Penrod
- Rob Roy
- The Scarlet Pimpernel
- The Second Mrs Giaconda
- The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze
- Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Anna and the King
- The Crucible
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- Lord of the Flies
- Number the Stars
- Ulysses
- The Hobbit
off the BOOKshelf 
Your list is looking VERY good. I haven’t quite gotten this far yet. Have grabbed Shane Claiborne’s “Common Prayer” for our family devotional this year and have packed Don Quixote to FINALLY finish while away;-)
I love to be surrounded by readers! My neighbor just commented that he is working through Anna Karinina, Our pastor did 4 dark classics for advent, Dracula, Frankenstein, Don Quiote, Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde-I know- not typical, but very thought provoking, and my 10yo and I are journeying through the Odyssey. We can’t read like this every day, but it sure does feed the soul.
Silas Marner, a discovered favorite of mine, because he is a linen weaver. I have woven linen-took a special workshop 16 years ago, and love the details in the book. The book wasn’t even on my radar until the movie ‘A SImple Twist of Fate’ with Steve Martin. not a faithful interpretation of the classic, but enough to peak my interest. He also did that with the movie ‘Roxanne’ as a Cyrano piece. My kids were drawn to the Odyssey by one episode of the tv show ‘Tower Prep’ that featured characters that paralleled characters in the odyssey.
Oh your Tuesday list has some fabulous reads on it. You are going to have the best time!!!
I’m really enjoying my reads so far, and with a little plan in place I’ve found myself reading more than when I just picked up what took my fancy! (A few of those types have made it past my eyes already too!)
Ooooh great list! I have Ulysses staring down at me from it’s shelf as I type, and am half way through Nicholas Nickleby (alternating with Carl Sagan’s Billions & Billions). Frankenstein is well worth the read just for how terribly human (double entendre intended) the monster is… thought provoking about what makes us truly human etc.. I do love Tolkien’s work too, for fantasy genre material it is very un-magical, and rather down-to-earth really! (and of course I have to approve of the sources of 3 musicals!)