Thankful (And a Bit of Book Collecting)

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving celebration with your family and friends! I enjoying gathering around the table with this goofy, godly tribe, talking our heads off and playing some rollicking games of Taboo and Pit later on. 😉 And eating pie. ❤ And icecream. And stuffing. As a noun and a verb. XD

I haven’t found very many good Thanksgiving songs, but this one just sums it all up so perfectly for me that I’m not sure any more are needed. 😉

I can never say what I’m thankful for without mentioning books. Great books are pretty hard to find sometimes, but it’s been a stellar reading year for me which is such a blessing for this bookworm! I went ahead and picked five of the books I read in 2016 and am thankful for…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s entirely goofy, brilliantly written, and extremely quotable! 😉 I’m very grateful that my mom was willing to do a few slight language edits on it for me so I could devour it’s quirky cleverness. 😉

Song of the Sword by Hope Ann was a huge surprise to me! I always go into reading for review strapped in and ready for anything–but I don’t usually expect to love a book with all my highlighting soul. 😉 It was so beautiful and encouraging with great Gospel themes. I’m very grateful to have read this gem and added it to my Kindle collection to read again soon. 😉

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was a great experience in book and movie format. Such a broken and beautiful work about the power of friendship and words. Even just the formatting of the book is an adventure with sketches on random pages and definitions of words on others. I’m especially grateful that my edited copy made it possible for me to read it aloud to a younger sister and have that special time with her. 😉

Shiloh by Helena Sorensen was not your typical fantasy adventure. It is so much deeper spiritually and storywise. How can a book be so hopeful and heartbreaking at the same time?! I’m especially grateful that there was WiFi where I was camping when it came up for free on Amazon just days after it was recommended to me. 😉

5 Secrets of Story Structure by K.M. Weiland has really revolutionized the way I think about writing. It made plotting and planning an exciting, attainable goal for me, and I’m enjoying implementing the things I learned as I write my story “Kiera”. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious book, honestly.

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to another great year of reading! (Here’s to beating that Goodreads yearly reading goal. 😛 ) One more thing to be grateful for–books on sale! While other people are running each other over to get boring TVs and free makeup, I’m sitting at home like a dragon hoarding books as I run across new deals. 😉

In honor of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, a group of independent Christian authors (myself included) banded together to offer over seventy discounted books on Nov 25-28. There’s literally something for everyone.

Every single book listed on Indie Christian Books is on sale in one or more ways. With discounted paperbacks, dozens of books offered with free shipping, $0.99 ebooks, package deals, and more, all the bookworms have died and gone to heaven. And even if you did spend all your money, there’s still something for people with a budget of zero. 😉

Don’t know what to pick? The fearless Indie Christian Books team created a quiz that will generate a book list perfect for you! It’s pretty awesome–go check it out. 😉 

I’m so grateful for the beautiful gifts God has given me this year–my insanely amazing family; godly, artistic, and supportive friends; books (that’s a given after this post!); 25k words on a story; white-out; cheese; chai tea; getting to help with a wedding reception; music; His never-ending love; and the list goes on… I’m thankful for you all too!

What are you grateful for this 2016? What are you looking forward to in 2017?

Here’s some nice fine print for you… A note on the Ebooks Only page. All books are listed as “Sold Out.” This only refers to paperback copies of these titles. Please click onto the product pages to find descriptions and links to discounted or free ebooks.Also, some of the authors this year chose to not sell their paperbacks directly through the site. Those books are also marked “Sold Out” but if you click them open, you’ll find a link to the site where they are on sale and a discount code for you to use at check out. Thanks so much to Leah E. Good and Kendra E. Ardnek for their work organizing this sale, and Hannah Mills for her fantastic design work on the website graphics! Hannah can be contacted at hmills(at)omorecollege(dot)edu for more information about her design services. Have a happy after stuffing yourself day! That was just to make sure you read the fine print. 😉