What I'm Reading this Season

this isn't my usual type of blog post, but I just gotta tell you about the exciting books I plan to read this season.
For Christmas, I get lots of bookstore gift cards, (and some books are sent by my ever-so-literary brother, Jay) so I go to town (literally) and stock up on good reads.

Books on writing I started last fall and am working through:
The Fire in Fiction, by Donald Maas
Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maas
Editors on Editing, edited by Gerald Gross
Deep and Wide, by Susan May Warren

Non-fiction:
Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxis (I bought this.)
He is There and He is Not Silent, by Francis Shaeffer (I borrowed this one.)
The Lives of the Great Composers, by Harold Schonberg (Another gift.)

Fiction: ( I bought all of these myself)
The Survivor's Club, Lisa Gardner
An American Childhood, by Anne Dillard (Actually, non-fiction that reads like a novel.)
The Making of Angels, by my friend, Terri Michel
Two Lives, by William Trevor
Nightingale, by Susan May Warren

In December, I finished:

Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer (borrowed from the brilliant Greg Sanger)

Surviving the Storms, a compilation by various authors

On Writing, by Stephen King.

The point of this list is, that although I've asked my heavenly Father to supernaturally bless my writing gift and to increase it for His glory. . . God also expects me to do my part. This includes reading all types of good writing, non-fiction as well as fiction. I need to work hard at my craft by studying and practicing good writing technique. And it is always a blessing to expand my knowledge of the world by seeing through the eyes and pen of writers who have been places I've never been.

I can't wait to dig in!