FINALLY!  It is that time of year again…. the weather is turning nice…  the draw to be outside during these beautiful days is overpowering.  This is the start of the season  that the TV is turned on very little, and even sitting in the house playing on the computer is hard to do when the outdoors is calling.

For me – this is a huge reading time.  I love nothing more than to sit on my back deck in the sun and read.  And – as always, my “to be read” list is taller than me.  Here’s a sample of what I plan to be reading over the next few months:

The Necklace by Cheryl Jarvis:   The true story of thirteen women who took a risk on an expensive diamond necklace and, in the process, changed not only themselves but a community.

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan :   In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR’s Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.

Clutter Free Christianity:   It’s time to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of what it means to please God. In this liberating look at the core principles of faith, Dr. Robert Jeffress reveals the truth about what God wants from you-and what he wants to do for you-as he points you toward a revitalized faith centered on becoming more like Jesus Christ. You’ll learn how to partner with God in the process of spiritual transformation as you choose to follow Christ in forgiveness, obedience, trust, contentment, service, and prayer.

The Power of a Praying Wife: Today’s challenges and pressures can make a fulfilling marriage seem like an impossible dream. Yet God delights in doing the impossible if only we would ask!

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince (re-reading for the July release of the movie)

Rebecca: With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten—a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house’s current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim’s first wife—the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.