2022 Countdown of Favorite Books

I read 60 books in 2022. Not as many as I would have liked, but life got in the way! 3 were non-fiction, again, not as many as I would have liked. There are 19 books that I rated as either very good or excellent that I read in 2022:

Northernmost-Peter Geye

Tell the Bees that I Am Gone-Diane Gabaldon

Lost Boy Found-Kirsten Alexander

The Secret Scripture-Sebastian Barry

The Sweetness of Water-Nathan Harris

Florence Adler Swims Forever-Rachel Beanland

The Yellow Wife-Sadeqa Johnson               

Grace-t. Greenwood

The Personal Librarian

Remarkably Bright Creatures-Shelby Van Pelt

Once There Were Wolves-Charlotte McConaghy

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook-Ellen Marie Wiseman

The Hour of the Witch-Chris Bohjalian

The Tide Between Us-Olive Collins

Lucy By The Sea-Elizabeth Strout

A Thousand Moons-Sebastian Barry

The Winners-Fredrik Backman

These were all good books! I would recommend any of them!

However, moving on to my top 12 of the list:

Northernmost-Peter Geye

Tell the Bees that I Am Gone-Diane Gabaldon

Lost Boy Found-Kirsten Alexander

The Secret Scripture-Sebastian Barry

The Sweetness of Water-Nathan Harris

Remarkably Bright Creatures-Shelby Van Pelt

The Hour of the Witch-Chris Bohjalian

Lucy By The Sea-Elizabeth Strout

A Thousand Moons-Sebastian Barry

The Haven-Emma Donoghue

And now it starts getting hard. Narrowing the list down to my top 5 meant taking off The Winners, which I really loved! But here's what's left:

Northernmost-Peter Geye

The Secret Scripture-Sebastian Barry

The Sweetness of Water-Nathan Harris

Remarkably Bright Creatures-Shelby Van Pelt

Lucy By The Sea-Elizabeth Strout

Now it's easy though! Even though I loved each of the above books, one stands out for me as my very favorite:

Lucy By The Sea-Elizabeth Strout

I hope to read more in 2023 and hope that I have as many good reads as 2022! Happy reading in the New Year!

My November Reads

 November is over already and Christmas is three weeks away! Where, oh where, does the time go? Here are the books that I read in November!

1) Haven by Emma Donoghue: I like Ms. Donoghue's writing. I saw this at the library and swooped it up.  It was on the "It's Your Lucky Day" shelf, where you can check out the book but only have a week to read it! This was a reasonably short book, so I got it read in time! It was an interesting concept for a story!

This story took place in seventh-century Ireland. There was a priest named Artt who was considered the wisest and holiest of all.  He had a dream about an island and wanted to take two of the brothers (monks) in the community and go to the island to create another community of brothers. He chose the two that he wanted to go with him and they left with the very barest of supplies because Artt felt that God would take care of all their needs.  They sailed away and searched for the island that Artt dreamt of. Eventually, they came across an uninhabited island that Artt approved and they settled there. They sought to do and make everything with what was there on the island and Artt would not let them go out to sea to obtain supplies as theirs dwindled away. 

The ending was superb. It's a book worth reading!

2) A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry: Yes, I am still reading Sebastian Barry. What can I say? I love his writing! This book begins where his book Days Without End ended!

The story takes place in Tennessee in the post-Civil War time. Winona Cole, a young orphaned child of the Lakota Indians was taken in and raised by John Cole and Thomas McNulty. 

"Where John Cole abided, there was to be found Thomas with his simple heart.  Their love was the first commandment of my world-Thou shalt hope to love like them. We have all to meet many souls and hearts along the way-we are obliged to-we must pray we can encounter one or two Thomases and John Coles on that journey.  Then we can say life was worth the living and love was worth the gamble."

Winona was a smart young woman living where Indians were not welcome, nor were smart women. She was viciously attacked one evening and that lead to her search for her attacker. She believed it to be Jas, a boy/man who had been interested in her.  When Jas was found killed, Wenona was arrested and sentenced to hang.

This is a spiritual book in some ways. I loved it!

3) Such a Pretty Face by t. greenwood: I have read many of this author's books and really liked them.  This one was a disappointment for me. 

The story has two timelines: present-day and 1970's New York City.  Young Ryan's mother, Fiona, dreamed of becoming a movie star. Her dreams were just that...dreams. But one day, young Ryan was discovered and treated as a grown woman rather than the young girl she was (around ten years old). Of course, Fiona was her biggest promoter. Forty years later, Ryan got a text from her oldest friend telling her that a pre-teen picture of her had been found in the possession of a well-known wealthy investor who had just been found to be a pedophile and a sex trafficker.  To make it worse, the photo had an inscription written to him by Ryan's mother.

After this discovery, Ryan began examining her childhood and her relationship with her mother and what it all meant in the present time.

Some of the story was interesting, but it just dragged on for me.

4) The Cloisters by Katy Hays: Oh, this was a good one! I look forward to more from this author!

Recent college graduate, Ann Stilwell, arrived in New York City from Washington (the state) to work for the summer at the Metropolitan  Museum of Art. Instead, she was assigned to work at the Cloisters (at the Museum) where the Museum's medieval art was kept and displayed along with an elaborate garden.  There was a small, but seemingly close staff working there.

Ann soon finds that the researchers there are working on a theory that medieval tarot cards hold the key to telling the future. This leads to much mystery and power-seeking among the staff.

This book was well written and a great mystery! Read it!

5) Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy by Blaine T. Bittinger: Ok, so I am able to tell you the name of the book, but that's about as much as I understood.  Not that the book isn't well-written, it's that I have absolutely no understanding of anything vaguely scientific. I try, but it just doesn't happen.  That being said, there were some (few) parts in the book that I highlighted because I did understand, so that was helpful!

For those who do understand science, etc. I think that this book would be extremely helpful.  And I am hopeful that as I continue to study DNA I will be able to use the book more!

What I read in October

 

Well, again, 4 books were read this month.  Maybe I need winter to set in so I just sit and read! October was full of unpacking from our move back to Illinois and we are just starting to wind down from all of it! The good news? I loved every one of the books that I read!

1) Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton: I was slow to warm up to this book, but by the middle of it, I was hooked! Marisol Ferrera was heartbroken when, in 2017, her beloved grandmother (Elisa) passed away. Marisol had grown up listening to her grandmother's stories of life in Cuba when her grandmother was a girl. Elisa's father was a sugar baron in Cuba and the family was quite wealthy. However, by 1958, Cuba was facing great political unrest, and Elisa had met and fallen in love with one of the revolutionaries. Her family had to flee Cuba and went to Miami where Elisa married and raised her son, Marisol's father.  Before Elisa died she asked Marisol to scatter her ashes in her beloved Cuba. Because Marisol was a journalist she was allowed into Cuba and stayed with her grandmother's best friend who still lived there. While in Cuba, Marisol began uncovering some family secrets and had a secret of her own when she became attracted to a man who was a political activist. It was a really good story!

2) Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout: I couldn't have loved this book more.  It is the last one so far in the Lucy/William series and if you haven't read them, do so ( read them in order, however).

In Lucy By the Sea, Lucy and William (Lucy's ex-husband) went to Maine to ride out the pandemic soon after it began to hit New York. There they spent the next few months, just the two of them isolated. As time went on, Lucy and William experienced a deep connection as they navigated the pain of not being able to be with their daughters during this time, who were also going through painful times. As time went on, Lucy and William found their love again for each other.

This is such a beautiful book, especially if you have gone through Lucy's journey in the earlier books. Ms. Strout's writing continues to amaze me.

"If I had known what it would be like the next time that I saw them-Well, I did not know then.

It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us." 

3) Time and Again by Jack Finney: My daughter recommended this book to me when we were in New York this past fall.  We were looking at the Dakota and that is where this story takes place! That made this book especially interesting to me! This book came out fifty years ago and Stephen King has called it "THE great time-travel story".

Si Morley was bored with his life. When he was recruited by a secret government entity, he decided to take the opportunity. The entity was studying/working on time travel.  Si went from the 20th century back to 1882 numerous times and enjoyed seeing New York City as it was developing.  Meeting a young woman there, whom he fell in love with complicated Si's life and he ultimately had to decide if he wanted to remain in 1882 or return to his modern life. 

There is also a mystery involved in the story, which added good interest.  It was a good read! 

4) The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford: This is such an interesting book. It is a novel and is about inherited trauma, which I keep trying to explain to my family about (it was often something that I explored with clients when I was working).

Dorothy Foy had struggled with depression and dissociative episodes for years, but when her five-year-old daughter began remembering past memories from her ancestors, Dorothy decided that she had to seek help.  She was fearful that her daughter might develop the same mental health issues that she had been struggling with and she didn't want that for her daughter.

Dorothy connected with a therapist who was doing some experimental treatments around inherited trauma.  She was able to take Dorothy back to view her ancestor's lives and began to understand how their trauma was affecting her life. 

This story also has a mystery running through it that adds to the pleasure of the story. Another good read!

What I read in September

 September and October were consumed with moving across the country and I just never found the time to get to my blog readers. Somehow, however, I did manage to read 4 1/2  books in September and liked all but one (that one I only read the first half and then moved on). Here are the four books that I liked:

 

1)The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wiseman: I have read a couple of her books before and liked them and this one was also good. The story takes place in the 1970s at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island in New York. When Sage's identical twin sister, Rosemary died, Sage was devasted. Rosemary had always been a rather "different" child, but she was Sage's best friend. Sage was ten years old when she was told that Rosemary died of pneumonia. A few years later, Sage's mother died in a car crash. In a moment of anger, Sage's stepfather told Sage that Rosemary wasn't dead but had been placed at Willowbrook and he had gotten a call that she was missing. That night Sage left home to go to see her sister. After Sage arrived at Willowbrook, she was mistaken for Rosemary and suddenly her life became one she had never imagined. It is a good mystery read!

2) Tamarack County by William Kent Krueger: I am still working through reading the Cork O'Connor thought that I would finish the series this year, but it's not going to happen! This is okay with me, because I love the books! There were several mysteries going on in this book, which ended up all coming together! Great book! 

3) The Wonder by Emma Donoghue: I loved this book, although I did find it a bit of a slow read. It is a very interesting story.  The story takes place in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century where an English nurse, Lib, was brought to tend to Anna, an eleven-year-old girl who appeared to have survived for four months without eating. Lib is quite skeptical and was brought to attend to Anna for two weeks to try to see what exactly was going on. The young girl, of course, became a national wonder and people flocked from all over to try to see this miracle. Anna was caught up in religion and superstition after the death of her brother and the rituals of the Church and the beliefs of her family.  This is a fascinating book, based on some true stories! 

4 ) Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian: This story takes place in 1692 in Boston and, yet, was quite timely in many ways! Mary Deerfield was the second wife of Thomas, who was a cruel, mean man, especially when he had been drinking, which was usually every day.  After he stuck a fork in Mary's hand one evening, she knew that he would kill her if she stayed in the marriage. She left and went to her parent's home, while the men of the city talked and discussed what was to be done about her leaving her husband. She had begun finding things around around their home, that she was suspected of placing, then a boy she was treating died and suddenly everything she did was examined. She was eventually brought to trial.

I found this book to be very well-written and a great read.

5) I read half of Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian but found myself not looking forward to going to bed to read it.  After reading half of it, I gave up and moved on to better books. Life is too short!

August Reading

I had a good month reading for August, except for one book, which was a DNF (did not finish). I hated doing that but I just couldn't do it!

1) The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray: This book kind of blew me away! It is a historical novel based on the true story of Belle da Costa Greene who hid her black identity and passed as white.  She became the personal librarian for J.P. Morgan and developed and managed his very impressive personal library. She became well-known in New York City as she curated his library to become one of the most important libraries in the world.

However, she spent her life hiding her true identity, Belle Marion Greener, daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black to graduate from Harvard. Her parents separated when she was young and her father was not around. Her mother encouraged her children to pass as white, as Portuguese Americans and worked hard to instill "whiteness" in them. Her mother wanted better for all her children and so she moved them from their predominately black neighborhood in Washington DC up to New York City. They changed their surname to "Greene". 

So Belle had to live with her secret and protect her secret all her life as she would travel and mix in society all over the world. 

The book was such a fascinating story and from what I have read about Belle it seemed quite true to the facts of her life.

The most interesting fact that I found was that it wasn't until after her death that biographers were researching her life and discovered her secret. She managed to keep her secret all of her life!

2) Daughters of Memory by Janis Arnold: This is an "older" book (published in 1991) that I came across while packing books up and decided to re-read it. It was a good book!

Two sisters grew up in a small Texas town. One sister, Claire Louise got out of that small town as quickly as she could, running off with her high school boyfriend. The other sister, Macy Rose, stayed home and became the "good sister". She graduated from college, got married, and had children just as was expected of her.  She lived in Houston, so was fairly close to the family farm. Meanwhile, ten years had passed with her family having absolutely no word from Claire Louise. 

Then one day, Claire Louise showed up at her childhood home with her two children. Soon it was evident that both their parents and their beloved grandmother were in failing health.  Claire Louise inserted herself into every aspect of the family, taking over all of her parents' lives. Macy Rose decided that Claire Louise would not take over their grandmother's life and at the risk of losing her own family, she became obsessed with saving her grandmother from Claire Louise.

The family dynamics in this book are so very interesting. Each chapter is narrated by one of the two sisters, back and forth. By the end, secrets have come out and it appears likely that the animosity between the sisters may be worked out!  Good book!

3) The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins: this is the book that I did not finish.  I read half of it and just didn't care anymore. If anyone has read the whole book, I would be interested in your opinions of it!

4) Radical Love by Zachary Levi: while my family was visiting us a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this book that my 18-year-old 

granddaughter was reading. She began telling me about the book and I realized that I had just recently seen Zackary Levi on an episode of Who Do You Think You Are! So she offered to let me read it when she finished it. It was a good read. He discussed his disturbing childhood and began some of the journey of looking past his parents to his ancestors and how who they were played into who his parents and grandparents were. He discussed his mental health journey and how he has progressed. The subtitle of the book is "Learning to Accept Yourself and Others"...perfect description of the book!

(Note: I had forgotten to put the picture of this book in the collage!)

5) Remarkably Bright Creatures by Selby Van Pelt: this book has been a top-seller for some time so I finally picked it up. It is described as a friendship with an octopus, so I really hadn't been interested in it.  However, it turned out to be a lovely story!

Tora Sullivan's son Erik had died mysteriously thirty years ago. Recently her husband had also died and she began working at the Aquarium in her small town. She worked there as a cleaning lady at night, and after a while, she became interested in the octopus who resided there.  He was a big one and was named Marcellus.

Marcellus, after getting to know Tora, Marcellus figured out what had happened to her son Erik. He just needed a way to prove it and be able to help her uncover his findings. 

There is so much else to this story....I thoroughly enjoyed it!

6) Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy: this was a good book, also and probably one that I will read again.  It is a story of twin sisters who grew up spending time alternately between their mother (a police officer) in Australia, and their father who lived isolated in Alaska.

Inti Flynn had spent her life studying and working with wolves. She and her team had arrived in Scotland to re-introduce wolves to the country. They ended up having fourteen wolves with them.  She also had brought her twin sister with her, hoping that perhaps she, the wolves, and the land can help her sister Aggie begin to recover from the trauma she had endured.

Needless to say, the Scottish people in the town were not supportive of wolves being released outside their town, especially those with farms. 

This is another book with very interesting dynamics going on between people. A very interesting story!

I Am So Behind (July reading)

 

 I apologize to those who follow me. We bought a new place in Illinois, and sold our condo in Alabama all within 2 weeks this month, so things have been crazy!

I did have some good reading in July! I can honestly say that I liked each of the above 5 books!

1) The Measure by Nikki Erlick: On one random day, every person 21 years and older in the entire world woke up to a small wooden box on their doorstep. Inside was a thread, either long or short. It turned out that the measure of the thread you received told you how long you had left to live. Would you decide to open your box? Do you want to know how long you will live? 

The book follows the stories of several different people as they struggle with the decision to know how long they have to live.  It is untimely, a quite moving book. The message I took from it was to live a life of meaning.

2) Wish You Were Here by Jodi Pocult: I hadn't read any of her books for several years, but this one intrigued me.  This was such an interesting story.

Diana, who had her whole life planned out, and Finn, her boyfriend who was a surgical resident at a hospital, were planning to travel to the Galapagos, where Diana was sure that Finn was going to propose to her.  Suddenly, the city was hit by a plague and Finn had to stay there to work.  He encouraged Diana to go on the trip by herself since the trip was non-refundable.  She reluctantly agreed to and that was when things got interesting.  As soon as she arrived, the island was shut down, including the hotel where she was to stay and everyone had to isolate themselves. There was barely any wifi, her luggage had been lost and she knew no one.

Diana slowly acclimated to where she was as she began to meet some people willing to help her. She ended up on the island for a long time, and eventually, Diana was able to get back to her home. But when she awoke, she wasn't where she thought she was going and.....

That's all I'm going to tell you! 

3) The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller: another fascinating book with a very interesting ending!

Elle, went to the paper palace, as it had been called, with her family one August and everything changed in her life in a moment. She had been going to this place every summer growing up and her oldest friend Jonas had been there also.  Now, coming there when Elle was 50 years old, happily married with 3 children, one night Elle and Jonas discreetly left the party happening inside and had sex for the first time ever with each other, while their spouses were still inside at the party. Now Elle was left with a decision....she had always been in love with Jonas and when she was younger had thought that they would have married. Now years later, the attraction was still there and she struggled with what to do.

This was a very simplified version of this story...there are many family dynamics at play in the story, along with some tragedy. It is a good book!

4) The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse: This novel is about the happenings in a long abandoned sanatorium that was developed into a very minimalist, rather exclusive, hotel up in the Swiss Alps. Elin Warner was a detective that was taking some needed time off. An invitation to her estranged brother Isaac's engagement party came to her and she decided that perhaps she could mend fences with her brother and reconnect with his fiance, Laure, who she had been childhood friends with.  However, when Elin arrived at the hotel the vibes were not good.  And the next morning, Laure was missing.

So, of course,  Elin was back in detective mode as other things kept occurring. This was a good mystery. I had not realized that it is the first of a series, so I am looking forward to reading more about Elin!

 5) A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler: I will say, right off the bat, that after I finished this book, my first thought was "This would make a great book for a book club!"

Valerie lived in a good neighborhood, raising her biracial son, Xavier, by herself.  Valerie was a college professor and soon Xavier was headed off to college. All was great until the Whitman's arrived.  They tore down the house next to Valerie's, including the beautiful old trees, and built a mansion-type showhouse. Valerie was a professor of forestry and ecology, so everything the Whitmans were doing to the property was hard for her to take.  And they also had a troubled teenage daughter to boot who, of course, got involved with Isaac. 

This book raises so many questions, about friendship, love, neighbors, and race. It was a very heart-rendering read, but a very good read.

My Reads in June

 I am vacationing and visiting our kids and grandkids this month, so this will be brief! I actually finished four of the above-pictured books. I read 186 pages of  A Single Thread and gave up! I just never got into the characters or the story and had other books I wanted to read!

I really liked The Yellow Wife and Grace.  And I read two more of the Cork O'Connor series.

I hope your summer reading is going well and you are finding great reads!