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.

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.

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!

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!)

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!

My Books

 I read five books in August but did not read any non-fiction in August. Two of the books I had seen recommended online and I was glad that I read them! I had never heard of them before.

1) The Lake House by Kate Morton. This is an older book by the author, written in 2015. It's an entertaining mystery!

The story takes place in Cornwall. Detective Sadie Sparrow was "on leave" from her job, following a rather unprofessional friendship that she had formed with a family. She went to her grandfather's cottage to spend some time and reconsider/reflect on her recent activities. One day, she went for a long walk and came upon an abandoned country home. The detective in her began researching to learn more about the estate. She learned that the Edevane family had lived there and that seventy years ago, in 1933, a baby boy had disappeared from the home. The family that had lived there left the home after the baby's disappearance and never returned. The case of the missing baby was never solved.

Soon Sadie was able to contact and connect with author Alice Edevane, who was sixteen years old when her baby brother disappeared.  Alice was an eighty-three-year-old bestselling author of detective books, who didn't seem too interested in helping Sadie....there were too many secrets involved.

This was quite a good, easy-to-read mystery! I liked it!

2) Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon. So, it turned out that I had read this a few years ago! But I read it again, and enjoyed it more this time!

This novel is set in 1853 and tells the story of the May family traveling the Oregon Trail. Daughter Naomi May had been widowed when she was only twenty years old. She and her parents and siblings left with other families from St. Joseph, Missouri to move out West. Before leaving St. Joseph, Naomi met John Lowry. It turned out that John, a half Pawnee was the guide for the wagon train. Naomi and John had an instant connection which they both tried to fight before giving in.

The journey was difficult, and fraught with uncertainty as the families encountered the hardships and deaths that occurred. Just as John and Naomi were preparing to marry while on their journey, an unspeakable tragedy happened and Naomi was separated from all she loved, including John.

This novel is a good story. It kept my interest all the way through.

3) The All of It by Jeannette Haien. This is a novel that I read about online. It was written in 2011, a small book that I read in one day. This was Ms. Haien's first novel. It seemed to be a small simple book, but there really is so much more to it.

The story takes place in a small Irish village. Kevin Dennehy was dying and the parish priest was at his bedside when Kevin declared that he and his wife were living a lie and he needed to confess it. But Kevin then died before he could tell Father Declan.  So Kevin's wife, Enda shared the story of their fifty years together as husband and wife, finally telling "The all of it."

Father Declan is left trying to sort out the morality of it all. I really loved this book, and is one I would recommend to my book group. 

4) The Touch by Colleen McCullough. I had never heard of this book by the author of The Thornbirds until I saw it written about online.  This novel was written in 2004 and takes place in Australia.

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Drummond was living with her family in Scotland when her forty-year-old cousin, Alexander Kinross, living in Australia, wrote to his uncle, asking for one of his daughters to be his wife. Alexander had left Scotland when he was a young man in some trouble. From his letter, the Drummond family realized that Alexander was quite wealthy and Elizabeth's father promised her to Alexander and sent her off to Sydney.

When Elizabeth finally arrived she found that she did not care for Alexander...she was rather scared of him. However, she was all alone there and so went through with the marriage. It remained a loveless marriage. Eventually, Elizabeth learned of and met Alexander's long-time mistress, Ruby, and, strangely enough, Elizabeth and Ruby became close friends. Ruby had a son, Lee, who Alexander had always been very fond of and he helped Ruby with financing Lee's formal education in London.

There is a lot to the story and it is similar to The Thornbirds in many ways with the different characters and family saga. I was glad that I read it!

5) The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman. Will review it in my next post!