Five Fall Favourites Day 6 // Top 5 for 2021!

Anddd it’s the last day of the FFF, y’all. It’s been great, hasn’t it? I just love this time ❤ I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Today it’s pretty chilly, so let’s cuddle up on some…

I have plenty! Blankets are a speciality of mine. I’d rather roll myself up in a cocoon and walk in it than wear socks or a sweater. So grab one from a pile here, and curl up with a hot drink of your choice while I share about my…

Yesss, peeps! Now, so far, I’ve read 545 books this year. And here are my top 5, so you’d better believe they’re good!

Are you all ready?! DRUMROLL PLEASE…

(P.S. Click on the book title for a Goodreads link, and click on the book image for a link to a download of the book.)

1. Style: The Basics of Clarity & Grace by Joseph M. Williams.

The Basics of Style is a direct, engaging, brief conversation on writing with style. The four sections—Style as Choice, Clarity, Grace, and Ethics—feature principles of effective prose. Williams offers these principles as reason-based approaches to improving prose, rather than hard and fast rules to writing well.

Style empowers writers to use their writing not only as a tool to identify and solve problems, but also as a method to explore their own thinking. 

9/10 hearts, y’all. I loved this book so much I bought a paperback copy. That almost never happens. Now, I read the 2003 edition and it is the best, in my humble opinion. *halo* Also this book is so good I already want to reread it. It was extremely helpful to me as a writer and a copyeditor, and I HIGHLY recommend it! Full review here.

The next is a fiction book… and is actually a 2-in-1. ;P

2. The Truth From Taerna Series by Erika Mathews.

Is this a kind of cheating? I suppose so… but this entire series was insanely good. Promise’s Prayer (8/10 hearts) was my favourite hands down… so extremely encouraging and convicting with its messages on saving the world and making a difference! Victory’s Voice (5/10 hearts) had a message on using your words for God or against Him and about dwelling on His words, and it too really impacted me. Surrender’s Strength (8/10 hearts) was all about surrendering and finding true strength, and man, it spoke to me when I really needed it. And finally, Sustainer’s Smile (8/10 hearts) is such a gorgeous book about the meaning of pro-life and its releasing this month and everyone needs to read it. In short, I recommend this series 1000000% percent to every Christian out there. It needs to be read.

Okay, now here we go with a nonfic again. *halo*

3. Northern Trails: Some Studies of Animal Life in the Far North by William J. Long.

The reader who follows these trails will find them leading into a new country, a land of space and silence where it is good to be, away up among the mountains and woods and salmon rivers and mossy barren grounds of Labrador and Newfoundland. There he will find himself face to face with new animals white wolf, fisher, salmon, wild goose, polar bear, and a score of others big and little that stop their silent hunting to look at the intruder curiously and without fear. In his turn he will lay aside his gun and his thoughts of killing for a moment, and watch these animals with his heart as well as his eyes wide open, trying to see without prejudice just what things they are doing, and then to understand if possible why and how they do them: why, for instance, the big Arctic wolf spares the bull caribou that attacks him wantonly; why the wild goose has no fear at home; why the baby seals are white at birth; how the salmon climb the falls which they cannot jump, and why they hasten back to the sea when they are hurt; how the whale speaks without a voice; and what makes the fisher confuse his trail, or leave beside it a tempting bait for you when you are following him, all these and twenty more curious things are waiting to be seen and understood at the end of the trail.

I LOVE Long’s natural history books—they’re some of my favourite books ever. And this one is the tops. The first part is 8/10 hearts on its very own. ;P He has such a gorgeous writing style and he is knowledgeable and teaches so much in such a nice way. And I have no vocabulary left. Full review here… and you can find a free copy if you click on the cover image!

Again, a nonfiction. Sorry, I love nonfic, okay?

4. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.

Born a slave circa 1818 (slaves weren’t told when they were born) on a plantation in Maryland, Douglass taught himself to read and write. In 1845, seven years after escaping to the North, he published Narrative, the first of three autobiographies. This book calmly but dramatically recounts the horrors and the accomplishments of his early years—the daily, casual brutality of the white masters; his painful efforts to educate himself; his decision to find freedom or die; and his harrowing but successful escape.
An astonishing orator and a skillful writer, Douglass became a newspaper editor, a political activist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. He lived through the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the beginning of segregation. He was celebrated internationally as the leading black intellectual of his day, and his story still resonates in ours.

I was always very impressed by Frederick Douglass and intrigued by his story. Reading his autobiography really raised my admiration for this remarkable and Godly man! It was an eye-opening piece of literature, very informative and remarkably unbiased. I quite recommend it. Full review here, including content. And it’s free as an ebook on Amazon… ;P

All right, our last recommendation is…

5. Shirley by Charlotte Brontë.

Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontë vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on “something real and unromantic as Monday morning.” Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.
A work that combines social commentary with the more private preoccupations of Jane Eyre, Shirley demonstrates the full range of Brontë’s literary talent. “Shirley is a revolutionary novel,” wrote Brontë biographer Lyndall Gordon. “Shirley follows Jane Eyre as a new exemplar but so much a forerunner of the feminist of the later twentieth century that it is hard to believe in her actual existence in 1811-12. She is a theoretic possibility: what a woman might be if she combined independence and means of her own with intellect. Charlotte Brontë imagined a new form of power, equal to that of men, in a confident young woman [whose] extraordinary freedom has accustomed her to think for herself…. Shirley [is] Brontë’s most feminist novel.”

Now don’t run away and hide. I promise I am not a feminist and this novel is NOT feminist in the modern sense. All that this book does is argue against the idea of not letting women employ their brains and keep themselves busy, and instead keeping them dolled up and gossiping from place to place with nothing to keep their minds busy. Modern “critics” call it feminist; it’s simply common sense and in fact Biblical.

Okay, that said, it’s a great novel. Hooking from page one; full of great, real characters; amazing writing style; plenty of twists and turns; a seldom-touched historical era; and full of great thoughts and messages. Again, I promise it isn’t feminist! I hope you’ll try it and enjoy it as much as I did. I love Jane Eyre best but Shirley is very good. Both are free, so give them a shot. (That’s another 2-for-1 for ya *halo*) Oh, and here’s my review of Shirley.

Okay, everyone!! It’s BOOK SALE DAY!!! So hop over to the Literary Lodge to a) see who won and b) check out all the freebies and sales!!!

Before I go, I wanna say a huge thank you to Rebekah & Erika for organizing this, and letting me participate! And a big thank you to all of you for joining us! And finally… what are YOUR top 5 favourite books for 2021? I wanna know!!

Happy fall, y’all!!!