Monday Memes

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by A Sea of Books and is where book bloggers gather to share what showed up in their mailboxes this week, whether those mailboxes received email or snail mail.

Snail Mail:

A participant in a swap of Amish men, independent yet kindhearted Matthew Yoder can't wait to leave the vast farmland of Lancaster County and make a fresh start in Missouri, where he'll move in with the Stoltzfus family until he finds a place of his own.

Strong–minded yet filled with compassion, Shanna Stoltzfus always dreamed of becoming a nurse, despite her father's threats to shun her. Determined to follow her heart, Shanna ran away and enrolled in college. But when her classmates embark on a medical mission trip that Shanna can't afford, she must turn to the last place she wants to go for help: home.

Even though Shanna still flirts with the people and practices of her Englisch life, Matthew is fascinated by the Stoltzfuses' prodigal daughter, and a close friendship soon blossoms between them. When the tension escalates between Shanna and her father to the point where his health is in jeopardy, Shanna is forced to face some tough issues, including the question of where her true home is.

Jezebel and Delilah have plenty to teach contemporary Christian women, according to Bad Girls of the Bible and What We Can Learn from Them. In this self-help book, Liz Curtis Higgs tells fictionalized, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical characters including Eve, Potiphar's Wife, and the Woman at the Well. In verse-by-verse commentary, Higgs summarizes each life's lessons and provides a list of questions for personal consideration or group discussion. The overall message of each chapter is the same: "Good Girls and Bad Girls both need a Savior. The goodness of your present life can't open the doors of heaven for you. The badness of your past life can't keep you out either." In its effort to turn readers' minds heavenward, Bad Girls draws a distinction between fun and joy. Associated with "fleshly pleasures," fun "is temporary at best; it's risky, even dangerous, at worst." Joy, on the other hand, is found in God's "gift of grace." Perhaps the book's greatest weakness is its inability to see that "fun," in many lives, is a holy and necessary means of attaining "joy."

"Honoring relics was one of the distinguishing marks of early Christianity. A practice rooted in Scripture, it was a universally popular devotion. Thomas Craughwell helps us recover this important element of our tradition. He shares a fascination born of love, the deep familial love that made a family of the first-century Church, and can renew our sense of family in the Church of the twenty-first century." —Mike Aquilina, author of The Fathers of the Church and Roots of the Faith

NetGalley downloads 

Not a one--I've exercised restraint and have worked on the virtual stack I already have rather than adding to it.

Amazon Freebies (which I may actually read someday)

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It's Monday, What Are You Reading is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.  She asks what we read or reviewed this week and what we plan to read next week.
Read this Week:

 To be reviewed July 10

 My Review

 To be reviewed in August
 My Review

Books Read Earlier; Reviewed last week:

 My Review

 My Review

 My Review

 My Review
 My Review

Other posts:

I rant about high school curriculum.