 |
Finding Joy in Your HomeAuthor: Jami Balmet
The Finding Joy in Your Home podcast exists to give you the tools, inspiration, and encouragement that you need to craft a Gospel-Centered Home (formerly called the Homemaking Foundations Podcast)! Join Jami, creator behind FindingJoyinYourHome.com, as we explore various aspects of homemaking including biblical womanhood, marriage, healthy living, organizing, cooking, and so much more! If you feel like your home is out of control - or if you ever feel overwhelmed in your role as homemaker - then join Jami each week as she stands firm on God's Word as our path to bringing glory to God and finding true joy and peace in the everyday. Language: en Genres: Christianity, Kids & Family, Religion & Spirituality Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
My 40 Before 40 Reading List - Working on the Western Canon - BLOG
Friday, 6 March, 2026
For the first time in a couple of years, I've really been enjoying my reading list! I've set a goal of reading 104 books this year, at a clipped pace of 2 books per week. Here at the end of February, I've managed to stay on track with this goal and hope to see it through this year. Part of my renewed vigor with reading is that it has now been 4+ years since I've gone this long without being pregnant. In fact, 2026 might be the first year that I will not have a nursing baby or be pregnant since 2019 (7 years, wow)! In fact, I've only had two years (2013 and 2018) since 2011 that I have not been pregnant or had a baby under 1. Holy moly, when you put it that way, I need to give myself a lot more grace for my failing routines. I say that partially in jest and partially in truth. Only the Lord knows what is ahead but my focus this year is building back up my body, my strength, and hopefully some braincells while I'm at it! It feels like a year wide open for good routines and nurturing parts of my health that have gotten neglected as of late. I know you landed on this post to read my 40 before 40 list of classics I'm attempting to tackle over the next 4 years, but for me, the context matters. I think I'm finally ready to tackle some of these more daunting reads. And more than that, I'm excited to! Jason and I have each taken on a big reading goal. We will turn 40 and 42 just 3 weeks apart from each other. So I made my 40 list and he made a 42 list. We have a lot of overlap but many changes too (books either of us has already read and he replaced the homemaking books on my list with others). This gives us just under 4 years to complete this list. So at a pace of 10 books per year, I think we can do it! Now technically, my list is actually 44 books long. I counted C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy in one spot an then ended up adding two more books to the end of the list. I'm on a big classics binge right now and I want to read those anyway, so might as well add them to my list! My reading list is based on working through the entire Western Canon. Also refer to this article for a crash course in the classics or for starting your own 40 before 40 list. I'm already looking forward to my 50 before 50 list. Jami's 40 Before 40 Reading List: Classic Literature & Story: 1. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë 2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 3. East of Eden – John Steinbeck 4. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 5. Middlemarch – George Eliot 6. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 7. Bleak House – Charles Dickens 8. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë 9. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet 10. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton 11. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell 12. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier 13. Gullivers Travels - Jonathan Swift 14. Silas Marner – George Eliot Epic & Philosophical Literature: 15. The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri 16. The Aeneid – Virgil 17. The Odyssey – Homer 18. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky 19. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky 20. The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser 21.L es Misérables – Victor Hugo 22. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Christian Faith, Family, & Home: 23. The Hidden Art of Homemaking – Edith Schaeffer 24. What Is a Family? – Edith Schaeffer 25. A Chance to Die – Elisabeth Elliot 26. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton 27. Pilgrim's Progress – John Bunyan 28. The Space Trilogy – C.S. Lewis 29. Life Under Compulsion – Anthony Esolen 30. How Should We Then Live? – Francis Schaeffer 31. On the Incarnation – Athanasius History, Philosophy & Formation: 32. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius 33. Pensées – Blaise Pascal 34. Plutarch's Lives – Plutarch 35. Church History – Eusebius 36. Foxe's Book of Martyrs – John Foxe 37. In Defense of Tradition – Richard Weaver 38. The Gulag Archipelago – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 39. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry 40. Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset 41. Paradise Lost - John Milton 42. Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer Another goal that I will slowly be working through (without a timeline) is reading all of the works of a few particular authors including: George McDonald C.S. Lewis J.R.R. Tolkien Jane Austen Charles Dickens Edith Schaeffer Franics Schaeffer G. K. Chesterton John Steinbeck Jason and I both just got our lists finalized and I'm off to a good start! I just finished Pride & Prejuide and then dove into Emma. Emma isn't on my list but I am working on reading all of Austen. I took a break from Emma though because my book club is reading Cranford, another book not on my list but well worth a read! I will be diving into What is a Family by Edith Shaeffer next. I started this years ago and never finished it. I'll add some 40 before 40 reading updates for you throughout the year! Have you created a similar reading list? I'd love to know what you think I need to start adding to my 50 before 50 list!
