Courtney Westlake

live a different beautiful

My Top 5 Books Read in 2013

Today, I’m linking up with one of my favorite bloggers, Modern Mrs. Darcy, to review my favorite reads from 2013.

In no particular order, here are my top 5 picks from what I read last year…

1. Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic by Martha Beck. This is an intense, and can be a somewhat unbelievable, story. But I think it is a beautiful story too, and Beck’s insights and perspective change as she discovered, while she and her husband were studying at Harvard, that she was carrying a baby with Down Syndrome were really compelling to read about. I couldn’t put it down.

2.  Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt. (Ebook version here.) This book was so great that I took notes. I love Michael Hyatt’s blog, and he writes with great relevance and insight about being an “intentional leader.” A great read for anyone, but especially those who want to build their platform in any way.

3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This may be a strange pick, but I was just fascinated by this true story of a woman whose cancer cells were taken from her without her permission and, because they grew with such vengeance, they have now been used all over the world for decades for some of the greatest medical advances, like the polio vaccine and the HPV vaccine.

4. Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected by Kelle Hampton. Hampton writes with such raw emotion and honesty about the first year of her daughter’s life after she was unexpectedly born with Down Syndrome.

5. Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist. My husband’s coworker has been pushing me to read this book for months, saying that the author’s writing style is similar to mine, and I finally picked up the ebook when it was on sale and just finished it. While nothing “extraordinary” happened to make the author write this book, I think that was just the point – that you can live an extraordinary life of celebration whenever you choose. And Niequist’s insights throughout the book left me writing down many of her quotes to remember.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Wowzers – great list! I’ll be adding several books from your post to my GoodReads list! I have Platform on my Kindle and ready to read next (after I’m finished with The Signature of All Things) and I loved Cold Tangerines as well. Everything by Shanua Niequest is great! Thanks so much for sharing your list – Happy reading!

    Reply

  2. Wowzers – great list! I’ll be adding several books from your post to my GoodReads list! I have Platform on my Kindle and ready to read next (after I’m finished with The Signature of All Things) and I loved Cold Tangerines as well. Everything by Shanua Niequest is great! Thanks so much for sharing your list – Happy reading!

    Reply

  6. I’ve read all these except Expecting Adam, and now I’m curious to hear more about that one.

    It sounds like Cold Tangerines is the first you’ve read by Shauna Niequist? I hope you get to read her others–I think each of her books is a little better than the last.

    Reply

  8. I’ve read all these except Expecting Adam, and now I’m curious to hear more about that one.

    It sounds like Cold Tangerines is the first you’ve read by Shauna Niequist? I hope you get to read her others–I think each of her books is a little better than the last.

    Reply

    • Yes Cold Tangerines was the first, but I just finished Bread & Wine last night. I couldn’t resist skipping ahead since I’d heard so many good things about it. I picked up Bittersweet though, and will be reading that soon!

      Reply

    • Yes Cold Tangerines was the first, but I just finished Bread & Wine last night. I couldn’t resist skipping ahead since I’d heard so many good things about it. I picked up Bittersweet though, and will be reading that soon!

      Reply

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