today is the first day of summer! which means the end of the Spring Reading Thing. here is my original post on the books i planned to read. i got through a few of them completely and some of them part-way. i think that's pretty good for a slow-reader who has a million other things to do in her spare time (like every other participant, i'm sure).

i'm already knee-deep in my two other challenges (posted here and here). the boys and i picked up five books from the library the other day and we've read 4 of them a few times through already. rowan's favorite is a book called Farmer Will. we've read it about 54 times already. :)

here is my "Spring Reading Thing" wrap-up:

• What was the best book you read this spring?

The Mommy Manual, hands down.

• What book could you have done without? 

unfortunately, i think i'm the only one who didn't enjoy The Thirteenth Tale. all the reviews i've read of it so far have been extremely positive and i just wasn't impressed.

i also wasn't as impressed as i thought i would be with The Liturgy of Motherhood. i think i wanted more on the "motherhood" part and less on the "liturgy" lessons. i was hoping for a clever weaving of the seasonal liturgies into the busy and somewhat chaotic life of mothering (especially mothering young children). i thought it did too much liturgical teaching and not much life application.

• Did you try out a new author this spring? If so, which one, and will you be reading that author again?

yes. i'd read Flannery O'Connor already, but every other book was written by an author i hadn't previously read. i'd love to read Marilynne Robinson's Gilead after reading Housekeeping for the Spring Reading Thing.

• If there were books you didn't finish, tell us why. Did you run out of time? Realize those books weren't worth it?

i'm still reading Five Quarters of the Orange, The Contented Life, and Sacred Rythms. i just haven't had the time to finish them! but I'm enjoying them a lot. the latter two are non-fiction works and i want to savor them. i could rush through them to "finish" them but i'm enjoying them too much to rush them.

• Did you come across a book or two on other participants' lists that you're planning to add to your own to-be-read pile? Which ones?

katrina mentioned sacred parenting and i'm hoping to pick up a copy of that. and everyone seems to really love lisa samson. so i might pick up one of her books to read eventually.

• What did you learn -- about anything -- through this challenge? Maybe you learned something about yourself or your reading style, maybe you learned not to pick so many nonfiction books for a challenge, maybe you learned something from a book you read. Whatever it is, share!

from the mommy manual: "by the time a child is ready to enter school (kindergarten) it is already determined what kind of adult they're going to be." wow. that's why they call these years the "heavy investment" years.

• What was the best part of the Spring Reading Thing?

 i really liked reading all the reviews and lists of other participants.

• Would you be interested in participating in another reading challenge this fall?

absolutely! and i hope some of my blog readers will join in on the fun!