Moving right along to the next five books I read last year! And I’m very grateful I decided on very short reviews back when I first started this, since I’ve read nearly 150 books since these and I’m not sure my memory is sharp enough to remember much more than that about some of these!

That said, there are several five-star ratings on today’s list, so these were a bit more memorable than your average read.

I used to listen to Albert Mohler’s podcast The Briefing regularly, and while I no longer do due to time constraints, I’ve maintained a respect for the man and his boldness to speak out on currently controversial issues with biblical clarity. I found this one on clearance many years ago and just had to pick it up.

It did not disappoint. Mohler lays out the truth on these issues solidly and makes the case for why Christians must speak up, no matter how uncomfortable it may make us. This book, interestingly, was written right as the Obergefell decision was being handed down, clearly a major turning of the cultural tide on these issues. But it stands up well to our current time. Definitely recommend.

I’ve read this one many, many times before, and I will always love the charm and cleverness of the poetry in it. It’s funny, endearing, and just all around pleasant to go through every time I revisit it.

This particular time, I found it in a basket of old childrens’ books at a ranch house where my church was having their ladies’ retreat last year, and I read through it in a couple sittings. Unbeknownst to me, one of the other ladies actually captured a picture of me with my nose buried in the vintage pages, which is a pretty accurate image of me in my natural habitat when it comes to social gatherings!

This was the book club pick for the month, and I had not particularly looked forward to it, but ended up being captured by the beauty and humanity woven through the often heartbreaking story of a girl coming of age in early-twentieth-century Brooklyn. Despite the hardship and the darkness, the story seemed alive with the very metaphor of the title: that of something struggling to grow in a harsh and unfair world, and yet coming out on the other side thriving and strong.

The five-star streak is broken by yet another Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes book, this one #9 in the series. It was fairly enjoyable, though I had mixed feelings about the central involvement of Holmes’s illegitimate son as a character. I always dislike romantic pairings between Holmes and Irene Adler, so that annoyed me, and the son himself was not especially endearing, but I do always like getting a window into who Holmes is and a peek at his past, so that was fun.

The mystery itself was fairly solid and intriguing, though strange. And it starts to get more into Bohemian society of the time, which is an element that remains with the series going forward and that I don’t care for. But overall, I liked this one pretty well.

Was it well-written overall? No. But did I have fun reading it for the most part? Yes!

I enjoy collecting old Star Trek books, and I picked this one up at some sale at some point over the years, and decided to read it because it was next on my shelf. Some storylines were much better than others, and I found out later that the parts I liked were taken from a short story by one writer and the other parts were expansions from another writer, so that made sense. It wasn’t great, but it gave kind of a fun different perspective of some books from one of my favorite movies, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

I’ll be back soon with five more! As always, please comment with any thoughts on any of these. If you’ve read them, would you agree with my ratings?