Saturday, February 10, 2024

Good reads in January

 


January was a good month for reading at my place! Four good books were read and enjoyed! I can envision two of them in my end-of-the-year countdown!

1) the storyteller by Jodi Picoult. This was the second time that I had read this. I chose it because I bought this book for one of my granddaughters for Christmas and we decided to read it at the same time! 

It's a good story. A young girl, Sage, worked at a bakery during the night shift so that she would be alone and not have to interact with customers. She was grieving the loss of her mother and attended a grief support group where she met an elderly gentleman, Josef Weber. Josef began coming to the bakery in the mornings as Sage was getting off work and they struck up a friendship.  One day Josef decided to share a secret about himself that he had not ever shared with anyone else that was about his younger self. The secret left Sage in quite a dilemma, morally and legally. 

The story is told by several different people and it is quite engaging. Good book!

2) As Close To Us As Breathing by Elizabeth Poliner. I will start by saying there were so many characters in this story that I ended up writing them all down because this is the book my book group is reading for February and I needed help keeping them all straight! That being said, this is a good book.

The story takes place in 1948 at a beach house where the Connecticut shoreline was called "Bagel Beach" (because a summer Jewish community came there each year). The story starts off right away with the focus of the book:

"The summer of 1948 my brother Davy was killed in an accident with a man who would have given his own life rather than have it happen."

And so begins the saga of the Leibrilsky family. The story includes the brothers and sisters-in-law of the family, along with the children of all the families. It is the story of that summer in 1948. It is a very interesting story of family and loss and grief.

3) Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I usually like this author's books, and this is by far my favorite of hers. Many have not cared for the slow pace of the book, but I found it a bit reminiscent of one of my favorite books Gilead (by Marilyn Robinson) in that there is not really a plot per se but instead a slow, but interesting piece of someones' life being shared in story form. 

It is a rather profound book as it tells the story of three daughters learning more about their mother's long-ago relationship with a rather famous actor that occurred one summer at "Tom Lake", a theater company in Michigan. It also was where their mother met their father. Over the time of telling the story, the mother and all three of the daughters slowly examine relationships of their own.

This book will definitely be a contender for my best book of the year!  And it's only January!

4) Weyward by Emilia Hart. Another contender for the top ten of the year! This novel is about 3 generations (not consecutive) of five centuries of Weyward women. Kate's story is in 2019. Altha's story is in 1619, and Violet's story is in 1942.

Kate lived in London in 2019. She had recently escaped from an abusive marriage and went to an old. cottage that she had inherited.  Her great-aunt Violet left the cottage to her when she had recently passed away. Kate barely remembers the one time she had met her when she was younger. Violet had lived in the cottage after her mother's death. Violet had discovered that her mother's last name was Weyward. In 1619, Altha was awaiting trial for murder/witchcraft. She had learned their "magic" from her mother which was based on plants and healing.

It is a story of resilience that had passed through generations. It is a great read!

Monday, January 8, 2024

End of 2023 Countdown of Favorite Books Read

 It's that time again! I read 68 books in 2023, missing my goal of 70...maybe next year!

I will share my favorite books of 2023, counting down to #1.

Top 16 Books Read:

The Sweetness of Water: Nathan Harris

All The Broken Places:John Boyne

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas:John Boyne

Lucy by the Sea: Elizabeth Strout

Horse: Geraldine Brooks

The Other Einstein: Marie Benedict

The Secret Book of Flora Lea: Patti Callahan Henry

Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver

Trust: Hernan Diaz

The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese

The Invisible Hour: Alice Hoffman

The River We Remember: William Kent Kruger

A Fall of Marigolds: Susan Meissner

Still Life: Louise Penny

In An Instant

Bewilderment: Richard Powers


Top 10 Books Read


All The Broken Places: John Boyne

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: John Boyne

Lucy by the Sea: Elizabeth Strout

Horse: Geraldine Brooks

The Other Einstein: Marie Benedict

The Secret Book of Flora Lea: Patti Callahan Henry

Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver

Trust: Hernan Diaz

The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese

The Invisible Hour: Alice Hoffman


Top 8 Books Read

[obviously, it's getting harder to eliminate any]


All The Broken Places: John Boyne

Lucy by the Sea: Elizabeth Strout

Horse: Geraldine Brooks

The Secret Book of Flora Lea: Patti Callahan Henry

Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver

Trust: Hernan Diaz

The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese

The Invisible Hour: Alice Hoffman


Top 3 Books Read


All The Broken Places: John Boyne

Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver

The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese


Top 2 Books Read

[this is breaking my heart]

[can there be a tie?]

All The Broken Places: John Boyne

The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese


My Favorite Book Read in 2023


All the Broken Places by John Boyne




Slow December

 This month I read three fiction books and one poetry book. Slow month of reading for me. December was such a busy month, that I just didn't get the reading in that I would have liked to get! However, I did get eight new books to read! Here's what I read in December:


1) The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff: This story was really good. 

The book takes place in Nazi-occupied Poland where five children have survived their parent's deaths and are left alone in a small cabin in the woods. Two of the children are eighteen year old twins, and the other three are younger. As the towns people struggle with who to trust, the twins, Helena and Ruth work hard to keep life normal for their siblings.

One day Helena was out for a walk and went to an old abanded church where she found an injured American soldier. It turned out that Sam, the soldier, was also Jewish which added even more danger to her finding and not reporting him to the authorities. As Helena continued to care for Sam, she kept his existence a secret even from Ruth. And Helena and Sam were falling in love with each other. Meanwhile the Nazis continued to search the area for any strangers. The decisions that they have to make result in decades long heartache.

I found the ending to be quite unexpected and satisfying and sad.

2) Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner; Ms. Meissner is a recently newly found to me historical fiction writer. This is the third book of hers I read this year, and will continue to seek out her books.

This book has a dual time line between the 1940's in England and current day in England.  It is also about two sisters. In present time, a young student at Oxford had the opportunity to interview 93 year old Isabel McFarland, a survivor of the London Blitz. Isabel was reluctantly eager to share secrets she had kept for the last almost 80 years. Including who und she really was. She and her sister had been sent to the countryside outside of London as children when London was either experiencing or expecting to be bombed the Nazis. They were taken in by a  lovely woman who took excellent  care of them. But Isabel was about 16 years old, she wanted to work as a dressmaker/designer and wanted to head back to London to try to apprentice with someone there.  However, when she was getting ready to sneak out to head to London, her younger sister begged to go with her. She threatened to tell the woman they were living with if her sister didn't take her. So Isabel decided to take her and leave her with their mother when they arrived. Her mother wasn't home, but she left her sister there and later learned that where her mother lived had been bombed. 

This was a really well written sort of mystery. I liked it very much!

3)The Dark between Stars by Atticus. I have always liked the poetry of Atticus. This book was a disappointment to me. Much of it seemed rather dark, not like his/her poetry I have always loved.

4) Bewilderment by Richard Powers: This was my second reading of this book-my book club chose it for December. It made for an excellent, interesting discussion. I published my review of it in my blog dated April 23, 2023.

5) The Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko : This book was recommended to me by my niece. It was written more than thirty-five years ago and is praised as "one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing" . It is a book that I will read again sometime.

This novel is the story of Tayo, who served in the military during World War Two and came home deepy scarred by his experience. After he left the military and returned home to his reservation, he continued to experience rejections, just as he had in the military. He had been a prisoner of war by the Japanese and then felt rejection when he returned home to his people. As his friends turn to alcohol and drugs to cope, Tayo turned to his past, learning about the native American past and how to heal by learning their customs.

It is a powerful book.


Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Lacking my reading motivation?

 

I really can't believe that I only read three books last month. What happened here? I don't know! Anyway...

1) Unsaid by Neil Abrahamson was a book club choice. The novel was published in 2012. I'm not an animal person, so I wasn't as taken with it as some of our members, but it did have some interesting moments. This debut novel was about a man whose wife had died leaving him with all her many animals. The woman, Helena, had been a veterinarian and had been involved in research with a chimpanzee named Cindy. Cindy had been trained to communicate using sign language. Soon following Helena's death, funding was pulled for the research and Cindy was to be returned to regular animal research which likely would lead to her death. As Helena looks on from death, she was haunted by all the animals who she had helped died. As her husband David, a lawyer, learned more and more about Helena's life, he became determined to help Cindy not be sent away for animal research. The courtroom scenes brought out more and more about Helena's life and some rather explosive news.

2) Dead Cold by Louise Penny is the 2nd of the Three Pines series (for some reason it is also called A Fatal Grace). At first, I had a bit of trouble getting into the book, but as I settled somewhat, it was quite entertaining. In this book, an unpopular woman was electrocuted in the middle of a frozen lake while watching a curling match and no one there saw how it happened. There emerged several suspects, but Chief Inspector Gamache had his work cut out for him to solve this one! It was a fun read.

3) Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward was the last book that I read in November. This is a rather difficult book to describe. It is about Annis, a young black slave, who was taken from the Carolinas and marched to New Orleans. Throughout the story, Annis calls to her mother and grandmother, recalling and seeking their wisdom and strength to get her through her ordeal. The book is somewhat mystical, but certainly moving.

Thursday, November 23, 2023

October Reads

 

I can't believe how far behind I am on my postings.  Here it is almost December, and I haven't posted what I read in October! I am going to make this a very short post.

I really liked all four of these books.  Susan Meissner is becoming a favorite author for me. Surviving Savannah was quite an interesting historical fiction read. Secrets of the Lighthouse was good, also.   My favorite read in October was In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn. It is written well and tells the story of the aftermath of a terrible winter accident. I was quite taken with it and have talked to several others who loved it as well!

Friday, October 20, 2023

The Invisible Hour

 


The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman. Oh, how I love Alice Hoffman's books! She

can write and create magic so effortlessly (or it seems to me). She took the book,

The Scarlett Letter, and turned it into a magical book of her own!





One day Mia Jacob’s mother, Ivy, took her young daughter Mia and ran away to join The Community, a local cult out in the country. There Ivy soon married the cult leader and became totally under his control. The Community had many, many rules, including that books were not allowed. The Community ran a farmer’s market in the local town and when Mia was old enough to work at it, her mother took her to the local Library, where the public restrooms were. Ivy was overcome with all the stacks of books, and soon her mother allowed her to go in there on farmer market days. The librarian began to help Ivy find books that she would enjoy. 

Mia fell in love with the book, The Scarlett Letter. One day she stole it from the library and hid it in a secret panel in the barn where she could have access to it whenever she wanted. Ivy felt that the two-hundred-year-old book captured what she and her mother’s lives had become. She had never read any book that resounded so much with her. And she fell in love with the words and the author.

It's hard to write more about the book, because I don't want to give anything away. However, the local librarian and her partner eventually helped Mia get away from the cult and have her own life. She also met Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Now that should peak your interest!)


Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Reading in September


September was a good reading month for me! Probably because I was in a wheelchair the whole month. But that's another story, Here's what I read:

1) The River That We Remember by William Kent Krueger. This book is not part of the Cork O'Connor series. Still, it is a mystery in Minnesota, reminiscent of the series, involving the local sheriff, some Native Americans, and a murder. A wealthy landowner was found dead in the river that ran through the town and with his murder and the investigation, many long-buried secrets arose. It was a good read.

2) A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne. Another good book by the author. He is so talented. Interestingly, this novel was about a want-to-be writer, Maurice Swift, who sought out people's life stories and secrets and then published them without their knowledge. He wasn't an especially good writer but his first book was a story that he got from an older man who was a well-known author and whom Maurice befriended for his own benefit. The story was about the older man's time during WWII. What the book revealed ruined the older author's career.

Maurice continued his writing over the years but never achieved the accolades he was looking for.  However, in the end, his ruthlessness and immoral activities were his downfall. The book ended perfectly!

3) The Exiles by Jane Harper.  This is another mystery set in Australia with Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk (the 3rd of a series). A young mother had disappeared a year earlier at the town's festival, leaving her baby alone in the stroller. She just disappeared into the crowd and had never been heard from or seen since. This story involved old friends and long-ago secrets.

4) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.  I was a bit disappointed with this book. Although It was an interesting story, it just seemed to go on too long. It is a true story of Dr. Paul Kalanithi who, when he was thirty-six, was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer. the book is about the struggle to handle all that the diagnosis meant for his life and his upcoming loss of life. He studied many questions about his future and that of his family. And what it meant to be a doctor and then a patient. He died before finishing the book.

5) A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner. this is the first book of the author's that I have read. I kept reading good things about her books, so I bought this one at the used book store. I loved it! I will be buying more of her work.

This is rather a difficult book for me to explain. It takes place in two different timelines, one being in September 1911, and the other in September 2011. The story involves a scarf that found it's way to both time periods. And changed lives forever. It's a good read!

6) Blood in the Ozarks by Clint Lacey. This was a book that I purchased for genealogy as I continue my years and years researching my Adamson and related people who served in the CSA during the Civil War. It's an interesting history of the War that was fought in the Ozarks.

7) Still Life by Louise Penny. This  and the first of the book is our October read for bookgroup. It also is a mystery and the first of the Chief Inspector Gamash series.  Gamash was called in to investigate a murder of a beloved town member in Three Pines, a small village south of Montreal. There are numerous characters in the book, one as quirky as another. Her murder is first thought to be a hunting accident, but as the Inspector and his team investigate, clues begin adding up.to something more sinister. It was quite a fun read!