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Dana’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Dana’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Dana VanderLugt’s Followers (78)
1,315 books
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22 friends
2,452 books
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108 friends
394 books
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60 friends
1,059 books
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110 friends
1,249 books
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255 friends
1,429 books
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4 friends
461 books
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62 friends
555 books
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138 friends
More friends…
Dana VanderLugt
Goodreads Author
Member Since
January 2012
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/dvanderl
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Enemies in the Orchard
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Enemies in the Orchard: A World War 2 Novel in Verse
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
Origin story: Enemies in the Orchard
For most of his life, my grandfather managed an apple orchard.
We called it Grandpa’s Orchard, though technically the 200 acres of apples (plus 50-some acres of peaches, cherries, and plums) never really belonged to us, never belonged to Grandpa. My dad and his siblings were raised on that farm, and in many ways, I was, too. It’s hard to separate our family history from the trees that are now gone, Read more of this blog post »
We called it Grandpa’s Orchard, though technically the 200 acres of apples (plus 50-some acres of peaches, cherries, and plums) never really belonged to us, never belonged to Grandpa. My dad and his siblings were raised on that farm, and in many ways, I was, too. It’s hard to separate our family history from the trees that are now gone, Read more of this blog post »
Dana’s Recent Updates
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Dana
wants to read
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Dana
entered a giveaway
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel
by Emma Knight
25 copies
available, ends on
January 02, 2026
Enter to win »
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Dana
is currently reading
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Dana
rated a book liked it
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“My life didn’t feel like a novel. It felt like a million moments. I didn’t want to make anything fit together. I didn’t want to make anything up. I didn’t want it to make sense the way I understand a novel to make a kind of sense. I didn’t want anywhere to hide. I didn’t want to be able to duck. I wanted the shock of truth. I wanted moments that felt like body blows. I wanted moments of pure hilarity, connected to nothing that came before or after. I wanted it to feel like the way I’ve lived my life. And I wanted to tell the truth. My truth doesn’t travel in a straight line, it zigzags, detours, doubles back. Most truths I have to learn over and over again.”
Abigail Thomas |
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Dana
rated a book it was amazing
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“THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WRITING has taught me is this: the more vulnerable you allow yourself to be, the stronger you become.”
Abigail Thomas |
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Dana
rated a book it was amazing
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Dana
started reading
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“Avoiding the truth,
avoiding the responsibility
that comes with admitting the truth,
can seem a lot easier than being brave.”
― Enemies in the Orchard
avoiding the responsibility
that comes with admitting the truth,
can seem a lot easier than being brave.”
― Enemies in the Orchard
“I want to be a man of faith,
but sometime I wonder
if there isn't enough
God to go around.”
― Enemies in the Orchard
but sometime I wonder
if there isn't enough
God to go around.”
― Enemies in the Orchard
“On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”
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“It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”
― Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
― Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”
― Bird by Bird
― Bird by Bird
“My belief is that when you're telling the truth, you're close to God. If you say to God, "I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don't like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You," that might be the most honest thing you've ever said. If you told me you had said to God, "It is all hopeless, and I don't have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand," it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real-really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.
So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light - I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.
Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.”
― Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light - I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.
Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.”
― Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
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