On this week’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas share a wrap up of their year in reading–their favorite books of the year, their most hated books read in 2021, and how they each did with covering the categories of the #LitLife192021 Reading Challenge. They also talk a little about how they will be approaching their reading for next year. Download the Two for ’22 adult reading challenge PDF here, and the kids’ reading challenge PDF here. The Literary Life Commonplace Books published by Blue Sky Daisies are back with new covers for 2022! Also, check out the Christmas sale at HouseofHumaneLetters.com! Coming up on The Literary Life podcast in the new year, we have Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream coming up in January and after that, Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. Then we will be reading The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times later in the year. Our children’s classic novel this year will be The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Commonplace Quotes: Literature’s world is a concrete human world of immediate experience. The poet uses images and objects and sensations much more than he uses abstract ideas. The novelist is concerned with telling stories, not with working out arguments. Northrop Frye The moon is the only one of the heavenly bodies that, whilst rising resplendently like the other luminaries, nevertheless changes and waxes and wanes as we do. Malcolm Guite I almost think that the same skin For one without has two or three within. Lord Byron, from “Don Juan” The Poetry of Shakespeare by George Meredith Picture some Isle smiling green ‘mid the white-foaming ocean; – Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays; Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it; Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm’d by one great human heart. Book List: Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye Faith, Hope, and Poetry by Malcolm Guite David’s Crown by Malcolm Guite Savior of the World by Charlotte Mason The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side by Agatha Christie Anthony Horowitz Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson Wintering by Katherine May The Narnian by Alan Jacobs In the Year of Our Lord 1943 by Alan Jacobs Elizabeth Goudge Assignment in Brittany by Helen Macinnes Look Back with Love by Dodie Smith The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley The Atonement by Ian McEwan Desmond MacCarthay David Cecil Letters by a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell The Odd Women by George Gissing Excellent Women by Barbara Pym If Walls Could Talk by Lucy Worsley Corsets and Codpieces by Karen Bowman *The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall (not recommended) *Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt (not recommended) MacBeth by William Shakespeare As the Indians Left It by Robert Sparks Walker Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset Lady Susan by Jane Austen Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and A World War by Joseph Laconte Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Neil Gaiman The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham Mythos by Stephen Fry Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Inst