Book covers of the 58 books I’ve read to date in 2026:
Jump to a summary table of each book with the title, author, source, format, number of pages, when read, rating, and genres.
Ratings legend:
| ★★★★★ | Completely enthralling, couldn’t put it down. and/or More than just entertaining (e.g., educational, enlightening). Would highly recommend. |
| ★★★★☆ | Really great book in all respects with perhaps some minor flaws. Would definitely recommend. |
| ★★★☆☆ | Average. An entertaining read but probably forgettable. Might or might not recommend. |
| ★★☆☆☆ | Finished, but did not like. Would not recommend. |
| ★☆☆☆☆ | Abandoned before finishing, usually because it was poorly written or just uninteresting to me. |
The books I’ve read so far in 2026 — summaries
Clicking on the title of a book will take you to its detailed entry, which contains a 10-word summary, a 6-word review, a favorite quote, new vocabulary words, a description of and thoughts about the book.
| Number | Title & author | Source | Format | Pages | Duration | Rating | Genres | 58 | Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life’s End by Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD |
Library loan | 248 | 09/15/26 – 09/16/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | nonfiction, death, science, psychology, medical, medicine, spirituality, grief, health |
| 57 | The Getaway by Kieran Scott |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 282 | 09/11/26 – 09/13/26 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, locked room |
| 56 | The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett |
Library loan | Audiobook | 656 | 09/05/26 – 09/10/26 (6 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, southern, feminism, classism |
| 55 | Brawler by Laruen Groff |
Library loan | 276 | 09/03/26 – 09/05/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, short stories, book club, American | |
| 54 | Meeting New People by Daniel M. Lavery |
Library loan | 278 | 09/01/26 – 09/02/26 (2 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, friendship, LGBT, family | |
| 53 | What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama |
Library loan | 304 | 08/29/26 – 08/30/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, Japanese literature, books about books, magical realism | |
| 52 | Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky |
Library loan | Audiobook | 494 | 08/27/26 – 08/28/26 (2 days) | ★★★☆☆ | nonfiction, microhistory, food, science, cooking |
| 51 | Hot Chocolate on Thursday by Michiko Aoyama |
Library loan | 208 | 08/22/26 – 08/22/26 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | fiction, Japan, Japanese literature, romance, Asian literature | |
| 50 | The Names by Florence Knapp |
Library loan | Kindle | 336 | 08/19/26 – 08/21/26 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, family, domestic abuse, destiny |
| 49 | The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho |
Amazon purchase | Kindle | 84 | 08/02/26 – 08/03/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, classics, fantasy, philosophy, adventure |
| 48 | Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke |
Gift from Leigh Day | 394 | 07/22/26 – 08/02/26 (11 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, mystery, thriller, social media, family | |
| 47 | Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer (Abandoned) |
Library loan | Kindle | 288 | 07/20/26 – 07/21/26 (2 days) | ★☆☆☆☆ | historical fiction, Italy, summer, LGBT |
| 46 | Whistler by Ann Patchett |
Library loan | Kindle | 296 | 07/17/26 – 07/19/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, family, New York, book club |
| 45 | I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney |
Library loan | Audiobook | 294 | 07/14/26 – 07/16/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, humor, death, book club |
| 44 | Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts |
Library loan | Kindle | 512 | 07/09/26 – 07/14/26 (6 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, mystery, crime, suspense, romance |
| 43 | The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits |
Library loan | 231 | 07/05/26 – 07/07/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, family, road trip, marriage | |
| 42 | Missing by E. A. Jackson |
Library loan | 298 | 06/29/26 – 07/04/26 (6 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense | |
| 41 | The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 3) by Beth Brower |
Library loan | Audiobook | 229 | 06/25/26 – 06/28/26 (4 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, humor, romance |
| 40 | The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 1) by Beth Brower |
Library loan | Audiobook | 107 | 06/23/26 – 06/25/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, humor, romance |
| 39 | The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese |
Library loan | Audiobook | 715 | 05/21/26 – 06/03/26 & 06/19/26 – 6/21/26 (16 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, literary fiction, India, family |
| 38 | The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 2) by Beth Brower |
Library loan | Audiobook | 164 | 06/18/26 – 06/18/26 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, humor, romance |
| 37 | Heartburn by Nora Ephron |
Library loan | 179 | 06/17/26 – 06/17/26 (1 day) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, humor, romance, food | |
| 36 | The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick |
Library loan | Large print | 352 | 06/13/26 – 06/16/26 (4 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, books about books, mystery, family, LGBT |
| 35 | May Contain Murder by Orlando Murrin |
Library loan | 384 | 06/07/26 – 06/12/26 (6 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, LGBT | |
| 34 | The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick |
Library loan | Audiobook | 304 | 05/19/26 – 05/20/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, family, humor, grief, mental health |
| 33 | Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid |
Library loan | 368 | 05/10/26 – 05/14/26 (5 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, romance, sports, LGBT, queer, enemies to lovers | |
| 32 | Murder by Design by Lee Goldberg |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 236 | 05/05/26 – 05/06/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, humor, mystery, thriller, suspense |
| 31 | The Replacement by Liv Constantine |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 48 | 05/02/26 – 05/02/26 (1 day) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, thriller, short stories |
| 30 | The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram by Ethelene Whitmire |
Library loan | 320 | 04/30/26 – 05/02/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | nonfiction, biography, history, queer, LGBT, African American, race, World War II | |
| 29 | Red Dog Farm by Nathaniel Ian Miller |
Library loan | 272 | 04/20/26 – 04/28/26 (9 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, farming, coming of age, family, Icelandic culture | |
| 28 | Theo of Golden by Allen Levi |
Library loan | Kindle | 399 | 04/24/26 – 04/26/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, art, books about books, Christian |
| 27 | Ward D by Freida McFadden |
Library loan | Large print | 384 | 04/17/26 – 04/18/26 (2 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, thriller, mystery, suspense, horror, crime, mental health |
| 26 | The Roaring Ridleys: A Novel by K.M. Colley (Abandoned) |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 276 | 04/09/26 – 04/16/26 (8 days) | ★☆☆☆☆ | historical fiction, mystery, family, diversity, African American |
| 25 | Lift Me Up by Milly Johnson |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 128 | 04/07/26 – 04/08/26 (2 days) | ★★★☆☆ | short stories, romance, novella |
| 24 | Tin Man by Sarah Winman |
Library loan | 214 | 04/04/26 – 04/06/26 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | literary fiction, LGBT, romance, queer, relationships | |
| 23 | Echoes of Her by H.K. Christie |
Free BookBub download | Kindle | 276 | 04/01/26 – 04/01/26 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, thriller |
| 22 | Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano |
Library loan | Audiobook | 352 | 03/27/26 – 03/31/26 (5 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, coming of age, young adult, trauma |
| 21 | Bridgerton: The Duke & I by Julia Quinn |
Library loan | Audiobook | 339 | 03/21/26 – 03/25/26 (5 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, romance, regency |
| 20 | Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach |
Library loan | Audiobook | 292 | 03/19/26 – 03/20/26 (2 days) | ★★★★☆ | nonfiction, science, medical, humor, death, history, biology |
| 19 | Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico |
Library loan | 125 | 03/17/26 – 03/19/26 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, Italian literature, existentialism | |
| 18 | Audition by Katie Kitamura |
Library loan | 197 | 03/14/26 – 03/16/26 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, family, identity, existentialism, acting | |
| 17 | What Happened Next by Edwin Hill |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 292 | 03/09/26 – 03/12/26 (4 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, thriller |
| 16 | The Price of Honey by Liane Moriarty |
Free First Reads download | Kindle | 34 | 03/08/26 – 03/08/26 (1 day) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, short stories, novella, thriller, mystery, sci-fi |
| 15 | Annette: Sierra Summer by Doris Schroeder |
Friend loan | 285 | 03/03/26 – 03/08/26 (6 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, young adult, childrens, mystery, juvenile | |
| 14 | Do You Mind If I Cancel?: Things That Still Annoy Me by Gary Janetti |
Library loan | Audiobook | 159 | 03/01/26 – 03/01/26 (1 day) | ★★★★☆ | nonfiction, memoir, humor essays, comedy, LGBT |
| 13 | Between Two Trailers by J. Dana Trent |
Library loan | Kindle | 256 | 02/28/26 – 02/28/26 (1 day) | ★☆☆☆☆ (Abandoned) |
nonfiction, memoir, religion, mental illness |
| 12 | The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton |
Library loan | E-book | 406 | 02/22/26 – 02/28/26 (7 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, classics, literature, class, New York |
| 11 | Pocketbook of Quotes from Socrates to Lebowski by Sean Thompson |
Free BookBub download | Kindle | 385 | 02/10/26 – 02/21/26 (12 days) | ★★★☆☆ | nonfiction, quotations, philosophy |
| 10 | Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano |
Library loan | Kindle | 387 | 02/06/26 – 02/07/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, romance, family, mental health |
| 9 | Little Women by Louisa May Alcott |
Library loan | Audiobook | 504 | 02/01/26 – 02/05/26 (5 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, classics, romance, literature, young adult |
| 8 | The Celebrants by Steven Rowley |
Library loan | Large print | 320 | 01/27/26 – 01/29/26 (3 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, LGBT, queer, friendship, chosen family |
| 7 | The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict |
Library loan | Audiobook | 310 | 01/23/26 – 01/26/26 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, mystery, crime, women, writers |
| 6 | Killing Floor by Lee Child |
Library loan | Kindle | 532 | 01/19/26 – 01/22/26 (4 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, thriller, mystery, crime, suspense, detective, action, adventure |
| 5 | Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout |
Library loan | Large print | 326 | 01/16/26 – 01/18/26 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, friendship, family, love |
| 4 | The Nickel Loop by Nancy Houser-Bluhm |
Friend loan | 340 | 01/12/26 – 01/15/26 (4 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, time travel, romance, LGBT, women’s rights, food safety | |
| 3 | Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout |
Library loan | Large print | 254 | 01/08/26 – 01/11/26 (4 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, family, dysfunction, class |
| 2 | The Correspondent by Virginia Evans |
Library loan | Kindle | 291 | 01/06/26 – 01/07/26 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, family, books about books, grief |
| 1 | What Happened to the McCrays? by Tracey Lange |
Amazon Unlimited loan | Kindle | 352 | 01/01/26 – 01/05/26 (5 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, family, romance, grief |
The books I’ve read so far in 2026 — details
Book #58 |
Book: Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life’s End | Author: Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 248 | Duration: 09/15/26 – 09/16/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: nonfiction, death, science, psychology, medical, medicine, spirituality, grief, health | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Validates meaningful dreams, visions that bring comfort as death nears. 🖌6-word review: I wish I’d’ve read it sooner. |
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| Description:* Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life-affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any regular dream. Described as “more real than real,” these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness; they restore life’s meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance. Drawing on interviews with over 1,400 patients and more than a decade of quantified data, Dr. Kerr reveals that pre-death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients’ stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of humanity’s transcendence. Kerr’s book also illuminates the benefits of these phenomena for the bereaved, who find solace in seeing their loved ones pass with a sense of calm closure.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is a super-important book. If you plan on dying (spoiler alert: whether you plan to or not…), or if you anticipate being around a dying close friend or loved one, this book will help frame what’s going on in a way that can bring a lot of comfort. There is minimal mention of God (thank god!), and not even that much about spirituality, which was great for me, since I’m an atheist. Yet, I still found it extremely insightful, helpful, and anxiety-reducing. The only thing it left me wanting to know was how this tracks (assuming it does) with people who are killed instantly or die completely unexpectedly, particularly in their sleep. I will most likely be making this a Mostly Social Book Club book. | |||
Book #57 |
Book: The Getaway | Author: Kieran Scott | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 282 | Duration: 09/11/26 – 09/13/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, locked room | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Longtime friends share murderous weekend locked up in a mansion. 🖌6-word review: Superfluous dog needs to be dumped. |
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| Description:* For years, 3 couples have gathered at The Villa — billionaire Lincoln Foster’s Hamptons estate — for lavish weekends among friends. But this year, mysterious blue cards appear in each bedroom, exposing their host’s betrayals and the guests’ own dark deeds. Everyone has something to hide. Marley and Marshall Foster. Suzy and Sean McTeague. Juliet and Josh Jacoby. Lincoln and his new wife, Hazel. Even uninvited guests hoping to be accepted among the elite. With a hurricane bearing down, no one is getting out. When the revelations turn deadly, the trapped friends must confront what their lies have cost them — possibly their lives.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This was an August 2026 free Amazon First Reads book. The story involved 4 or 5 couples, and at least one ex-wife, one ex-sister-in-law, and one stranger, which added up to a lot of characters to keep track of at the beginning — both in terms of who was married to whom and how they each knew the host. I found the dog in this book super annoying, and totally unecessary. I hate when an author has to remember to throw something in about an animal that’s been introduced, but really adds no value to a story. The biggest thing I learned from this book is that there is an actual genre called locked room, which on Goodreads comprises 3 lists: 183 locked room mysteries, 9 closed room mysteries, and 46 locked room mystery 21st century. Since locked room made me think of escape rooms, which I have zero interest in, I checked and there is indeed an escape room genre as well. | |||
Book #56 |
Book: The Calamity Club | Author: Kathryn Stockett | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 656 | Duration: 09/05/26 – 09/10/26 (6 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, southern, feminism, classism | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Group of determined women do what they have to do. 🖌6-word review: Very entertaining storytelling; very diverse characters. |
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| Description:* In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, Prohibition is on the wane, and the Great Depression is tightening its grip. Poor and rich folks alike have fallen on hard times, even as the old social order remains. For women on the margins, the options are few and the price of dignity and self-determination is unbearably high. 11-year-old Meg, one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford on a mission to ask her social-climbing sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. And Charlie is a woman with a past, running low on luck but driven by fire, fury, and grit. When their fates converge, they come up with an audacious plan to take back control of their lives. Together, they form an unlikely sisterhood — but in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife, women’s freedom is fragile, and making an enemy can have dire consequences. Will the price they pay for their outrageous risk-taking be too high?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This book is one of the all-the-rage books of 2026, appearing on most “top-10,” or “must-read,” or “not-putdownable” lists. I actually “abandoned” it twice, returning it to the library at 15% & 20% done, respectively, but eventually giving it one more chance. There are alternating first-person narrators in the book, one of them being an 11-year-old girl, who narrated most, if not all, of the first 20%, and children narrators can get on my nerves. Once I got back into it, and the adult narrator kicked in, I enjoyed it much more. There is a lot going on in this book, and I thought its 656 pages could have been fewer, but it did keep me engaged in wanting to know how it was all going to play out. I’d be very surprised if this book didn’t become a featured film or a limited series, following the steps of this author’s previous blockbuster, The Help. And there are a lot of strong female characters in it, which should make for interesting casting. | |||
Book #55 |
Book: Brawler | Author: Lauren Groff | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 276 | Duration: 09/03/26 – 09/05/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, short stories, book club, American | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Nine stories of the light and darkness in us all. 🖌6-word review: Characters, settings, plots, and conflict deliver. |
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| Description:* Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region — from New England to Florida to California — these 9 stories reflect and expand upon a single shared the ceaseless battle between the dark and light in all of us. Among those caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling; a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult; a mother blinded by the loss of her family; and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by human fallibility, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
Thoughts: This book was recommended by my friend Jen, which she picked up after reading scads of 500+-page books, and since it’s been several months since I’ve read some short stories, I got on the library waitlist for it a month or so ago. My 2 favorite stories were Birdie (about 3 friends who reunite at a hospital to say goodbye to a dying mutual friend, all of whom confront decades of resentment, secrets, and misremembered loyalties) and Annunciation (about a young woman who escapes a neglectful family, finding uneasy independence in California solitude). My least favorite was Under the Wave (about a vacationing mother who awakens underwater, battling panic and a fragile grasp on reality). Plot summaries of the other 6 stories:
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Book #54 |
Book: Meeting New People | Author: Daniel M. Lavery | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 278 | Duration: 09/01/26 – 09/02/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, friendship, LGBT, family | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Woman assesses 9 previous “best friends” as she seeks 10th. 🖌6-word review: A striking, ascerbic look at friendship. |
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| Description:* 60-something, twice-divorced Barbara is at a crossroads. In the midst of her emotional uncertainty, she looks back on the dissolution of the 9 best friendships of her life, in hopes of figuring out how to optimize finding her 10th, and hopefully last, best friend. Barbara is acerbic, opinionated, and wrong about many things, but she also doesn’t shy away when she’s at fault. The turning point of her predicament comes from Barbara’s choice, in friends, between (too-young) Caitlyn and the (unsuitable) “Other Barbara.” Will she repeat the exciting mistakes of the past, or will she try a new kind of mistake for a change? She feels like an out-of-season Scrooge who is unexpectedly, and all at once, surprised and entirely transformed by the possibility of joy.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I waffled between 3 and 4 stars while reading this, mostly because I’m not at all a fan of the term “best friend.” It’s too scarcity-paradigm for my taste. I prefer to think of each of my many friends as having “best qualities” rather than just one of them being my “best friend.” I’m talking about qualities like one being “the most intellectually curious,” another having “the most diverse set of friends,” and yet another one being “the easiest to spend time with without talking.” That sort of thing. I thought there were 2 or 3 very, very insightful (and brutally honest) things about deep friendship covered by the narrator, who at times was a little too blunt/honest/direct for my taste, which is to say I couldn’t ever see me being the 10th best friend she was so earnestly seeking. 😂 And finally, with regards to the author, I struggled a bit with the narrator’s “voice” (i.e., a male author with a female narrator/protagonist), and after looking him up, I found out he was a trans man and before he transitioned, he was the 4th writer of Dear Prudence at Slate. I love that column. | |||
Book #53 |
Book: What You Are Looking For Is in the Library | Author: Michiko Aoyama | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 304 | Duration: 08/29/26 – 08/30/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, Japanese literature, books about books, magical realism | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Enigmatic librarian’s perfect, customized book recommendations change 5 people’s lives. 🖌6-word review: It was a quick, enjoyable read. |
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| Description:* What are you looking for? This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves — but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it. Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi — and the surprise book she lends each of them — will have life-altering consequences.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I read this book after just recently reading this author’s Hot Chocolate on Thursday, which I enjoyed immensely and subsequently learned that this book of hers was shortlisted for the Japan Booksellers’ Award and became a Japaense bestseller. Albeit having a few editing errors (or possibly translation errors, but I still blame the editor), it was a delightful little story with an interesting premise — not unlike Hot Chocolate on Thursday. I’ll probably read more by this author some day. | |||
Book #52 |
Book: Salt: A World History | Author: Mark Kurlansky | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 494 | Duration: 08/27/26 – 08/28/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: nonfiction, microhistory, food, science, cooking | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Everything you wanted — and didn’t want — to know about salt. 🖌6-word review: Interesting, but it’s essentially a textbook. |
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| Description:* In his 5th work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: Let me start off by saying this was a well-researched and comprehensive book, and I applaud any author with the ambition, determination, and commitment to leave no grain of salt unturned — to intentionally mix a metaphor — on a topic. I learned about the various ways to obtain salt: mined, solar-evaporated, and brine-evaporated among them. I learned about the many uses of salt including: 𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 (including 𝗺𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻), 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘺𝘮𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤; 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (including cod, herring, pork, & pickling); 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨; 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭 (including de-icing roads); and 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩 (including wound treatments, gargles & rinses, anteseptic practices, and the holistic approach to Ayurvedic medicine). And finally I learned about the 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘤, 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 uses of salt, including taxes, monopolies, as currency, and of course the 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘴 over salt! The contemporary culinary trends of using Himalayan salt and salted chocolates weren’t mentioned in the book, since it was first published in 2002. I found it amusing that one of the genres of this book is not simply 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, but 𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙧𝙤𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺. (It isn’t wrong.) I can unequivocally say that if this wasn’t a book club book, I would have fucking abandoned it. 𝙋𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙮 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚. | |||
Book #51 |
Book: Hot Chocolate on Thursday | Author: Michiko Aoyama | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 208 | Duration: 08/22/26 – 08/22/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, Japan, Japanese literature, romance, Asian literature | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Interconneted characters’ small kindnesses quietly transform one another’s everyday lives. 🖌6-word review: Remarkable, compact book; smartly interconnected characters. |
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| Description:* Across a bridge in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, a seasonal cherry blossom sits on the river. Nearby is the Marble Cafe, where a woman writes in a notebook and a young waiter prepares her favorite hot drink. Both wonder about each other and about the other lives of the clientele who frequent this charming little cafe behind the trees…Taking a walk along the river, cooking the best tamagoyaki, ordering hot chocolate, forgetting to remove our nail polish… The small, everyday acts that we do can lead to unexpected encounters and reverberate far beyond our own circle and ultimately make a difference in the world. Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a tapestry of slice-of-life moments that each open and close with a woman ordering her regular hot chocolate at the mysterious Marble Cafe. What happens in between will touch and swell your heart, as we connect with a community of untold unfolding lives.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This book is a little gem. It reminded me — in different ways — of 2 other books I’ve read: The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller and Turbulence by David Szalay. It reminded me of The Bridges of Madison County in that it was a compact little book I came across without ever having heard anything about it, and it packed such a punch for such a short, unassuming book. (This was before it went what-we-now-call viral and was subsequently critically unacclaimed and ridiculed). And this book reminded me of Turbulence in how the story unfolded in such a way that when in the very next chapter, which was about something entirely unrelated, a name is eventually mentioned that makes you go, “Oh, that’s so-and-so from the previous chapter.” I have been wanting to read another book by a Japanese author but didn’t want to read anything as ambitious as the last one I read, 1Q84, 1318 pages by Haruki Murakami, and this book perfectly fit the bill. | |||
Book #50 |
Book: The Names | Author: Florence Knapp | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 336 | Duration: 08/19/26 – 08/21/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: historical fiction, family, domestic abuse, destiny | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Lives of a boy named Bear, or Julian, or Gordon. 🖌6-word review: Interesting premise. Mostly clever, sometimes confusing. |
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| Description:* In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her 9-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, respected in the community but a controlling presence at home, intends for her to follow a long-standing family tradition and name the baby after him. But when faced with the decision, Cora hesitates… Spanning 35 years, what follows are 3 alternate and alternating versions of their lives, shaped by Cora’s last-minute choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This story was an interesting exploration of nominative determinism — in this case, how different names shape 3 alternate life paths for the same child, and how those names influence expectations, identity formation, and family dynamics. In each increment of 7 years (1994, 2001, 2008, 20015, & 2022) there are 3 chapters updating how one boy’s life would be progressing if he’d been named Bear, Julian, or Gordon. The lives are very different, including being an archeologist, a jewelry artist, and a computer programmer, respectively, and destinies of family members and friends vary considerably in each life. If I had half-ratings, I would have given this book 4.5 stars, because it’s a fresh, intriguing exploration, but it did take a while to figure out what was going on with regards to the structure around the alternative lives and alternating stories. I loved the final — one-word — twist. | |||
Book #49 |
Book: The Alchemist | Author: Paulo Coelho | |
| Source: Amazon purchase Format: Kindle |
Pages: 84 | Duration: 08/02/26 – 08/03/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, classics, fantasy, philosophy, adventure | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Young shepherd boy sets out in search of wordly treasure. 🖌6-word review: Modern fable in allegorical, parable-like style. |
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| Description:* Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different — and far more satisfying — than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and most importantly, to follow our dreams.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: My friend, Wayne Wilson, proposed we read this book before our recent 2026 Total Eclipse Med Cruise, because one of the places the protagonist visits in this story is Tangier, which was also one of the stops on our itinerary. We had our “book club meeting” on the penultimate sea day of the cruise, meeting in the outdoor Oceanview Café Bar, where I had the hottest-ever pimentos, which turned out to be smoking-hot red peppers, in the olives of my Bloody Mary. But I digress. We had a great discussion about this book that included its publication history (as shared by the author in the book’s Forward), its literary identity, its reading grade level, and its many messages, including personal legend, fear vs. courage, interconnectedness, omens & faith, transformation, love, purpose, journeys, and what “home” is. All that in 84 pages??? Well, yes. There’s a reason it’s a classic. We also delved into our personal hopes and dreams (some realized, some that might-have-been, and some yet-realized), with our childhood experiences and environments providing context. All that is to say, the discussion wasn’t fluff or superficial (therapy might even have been mentioned), and I’m surprised I got through it all with only one Bloody Mary. Thank you, my friend, for suggesting we do this and for the deep sharing of our philosophies about a lot of things in life. | |||
Book #48 |
Book: Yesteryear | Author: Caro Claire Burke | |
| Source: Gift from Leigh Day Format: Print |
Pages: 394 | Duration: 07/22/26 – 08/02/26 (11 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: historical fiction, mystery, thriller, social media, family | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A “tradwife influencer” gets called on her social media bullshit. 🖌6-word review: Confusing timeline with thematic scope creep. |
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| Description:* Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her 6 children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I’d been waffling about reading this (wildly popular) book for a while when my friend asked me if I’d read it, because she wanted to discuss it with someone. So, I got in the queue for it at my library and texted her a screenshot of my position on the waitlist — at #1354 — and said, “It’s going to be a while before we can disuss it.” Lo and behold, the next day an unexpected Amazon delivery to our home contained a hardback edition of it! I found this book to be a complete mindfuck. 😀 It was an interesting enough story, highlighting how our online vs. real “lives” often don’t match. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I spent too much time not being sure what was going on. At one point, at the beginning of chapter 22, I asked ChatGPT for help in understanding the timeline without any spoilers, and it pointed out that every other chapter was a time switch, which really helped. I think it was a fresh inquiry into social media’s potential manifestation and effects, but I think it was too-short a novel to traverse so many themes in the process: e.g., the tradwife fantasy vs. the reality of patriarchy; image, identity, & the violence of curation; political power & the weaponization of women’s bodies; domestic labor as violence; motherhood as identity, burden, & weapon; religion as justification and control; the danger of nostalgia; and trauma, recovery, & ambiguous liberation. 𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵. With all that said, I’m glad I read it, and even more glad someone bought it for me to read sooner rather than later. | |||
Book #47 |
Book: Villa Coco (Abandoned) | Author: Andrew Sean Greer | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 288 | Duration: 07/20/26 – 07/21/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ | Genres: historical fiction, Italy, summer, LGBT | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Directionless young archivist takes job with strong-willed, wealthy, renown widow. 🖌6-word review: Tedious. Language communication problems derail plot. |
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| Description:* Broke and directionless, our young man takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco – a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown. Trained as an archivist, he thinks he’s been hired to catalogue the contents of the beautiful, crumbling mansion nestled in the green Tuscan hills… but what are his actual duties? Days are spent ridding the house of a marten – whatever that is – locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to unnervingly handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco’s great and final plan-to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I abandoned this book 17% into it for two main reasons: 1) There is way too much description of people, houses, rooms, decor, furniture, and household objects, reading more like the scene description part of a screenplay than a novel, and 2) One of the main character’s primary language is Italian, and the other one’s is English, and there is entirely too much of one character trying to guess what the other one means when they say certain things, and too much saying something in one language and repeating it in the other. Tedious. Tedious. Tedious. I didn’t realize this book was by the same author who wrote Less, which I also didn’t love. Making a mental note to skip any of this author’s other books. | |||
Book #46 |
Book: Whistler | Author: Ann Patchett | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 296 | Duration: 07/17/26 – 07/19/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, family, New York, book club | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Woman chance-meets her former stepfather — choices are revisited and reframed. 🖌6-word review: Another home run by Ann Patchett. |
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| Description:* When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was 9. Now 53, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: Another notch in her belt that makes me believe Ann Patchett is one of the best living writers today. This is my 5th novel of hers – Bel Canto, The Dutch House, Tom Lake, The Magician’s Assistant, & Whistler — and I’ve given all of them 5 stars. I’ve also read her collection of essays, These Precious Days, which I also gave 5 stars, but I loved her novels more. If you’ve never read an Ann Patchett book, treat yourself. | |||
Book #45 |
Book: I See You’ve Called in Dead | Author: John Kenney | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 294 | Duration: 07/14/26 – 07/16/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, humor, death, book club | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Man accidentally publishes his own obituary bringing about unexpected consequences. 🖌6-word review: Thoroughly enjoyed — my kind of book. |
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| Description:* Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company’s system has him listed as dead. And the company can’t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living. As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I loved everything about this book. I love obituaries. I love writing and editing obituaries — I’ve been asked a few times to do both. And I love the idea of attending strangers’ funerals. Bonus: A secondary character was gay. | |||
Book #44 |
Book: Whiskey Beach | Author: Nora Roberts | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 512 | Duration: 07/09/26 – 07/14/26 (6 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, suspense, romance | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Wrongfully accused husband fights to avenge himself of wife’s murder. 🖌6-word review: Good story could use some editing. |
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| Description:* A Boston lawyer, Eli Landon has weathered an intense year of public scrutiny and police investigations after being accused of — but never arrested for — the murder of his soon-to-be-ex wife. He finds sanctuary at the family’s Bluff House, even though his beloved grandmother is in Boston recuperating from a nasty fall. Whiskey Beach’s resident housekeeper, yoga instructor, jewelry maker, and massage therapist, Abra Walsh is a woman of many talents—including helping Eli take control of his life and clear his name. But as they become entangled in each other, they find themselves caught in a net that stretches back for centuries — one that has ensnared a man intent on reaping the rewards of destroying Eli Landon once and for all.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This was an engaging, if not compelling story, but it could have been at least 100-150 pages shorter, and it needed more dialogue attribution. Too often, I wasn’t at all sure who was speaking. There was also a quite short section in which a complicated family history was described with lots of family members and relationships mentioned only the one time, but later referred to as if we’d been reading about them all along, and I couldn’t remember who half of them were and how they related to each other. It could have been a much better book with some serious editing. | |||
Book #43 |
Book: The Rest of Our Lives | Author: Ben Markovits | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 231 | Duration: 07/05/26 – 07/07/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, family, road trip, marriage | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Family man spontaneously takes road trip away from his problems. 🖌6-word review: So my cup of tea. YMMV. |
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| Description:* When Tom’s wife had an affair, he resolved to leave her once their children had grown up. Twelve years later, after driving his daughter to university, he remembers his pact and keeps driving west to visit friends, family and an old girlfriend. But he also has secrets of his own — trouble at work and health issues — and sometimes running away is the hardest thing to do.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I liked this book, because it’s a realistic look at what many lives are like that never get written about. I also liked the ending precisely because it’s not a Hollywood ending. With that said, I looked at the reviews of the book on Goodreads, and I am definitely in the minority in my 5-star rating of this book; hence, the YMMV in my 6-word review. And with that said, it was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. | |||
Book #42 |
Book: Missing | Author: E.A. Jackson | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 298 | Duration: 06/29/26 – 07/04/26 (6 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Investigator Martha Allen is determined to solve a 30-year-old mystery. 🖌6-word review: Great story riddled with narrative drag. |
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| Description:* During a blistering 1990 London heatwave, baby Bella Carpenter is abducted from her hotel room, and DI Martha Allen throws herself into the high‑stakes case. When young Nell Beatty suddenly appears with a baby she claims to have found — one who looks exactly like Bella — the city celebrates the child’s safe return. But Allen senses inconsistencies in Nell’s story and is frustrated when the case is abruptly closed. 30 years later, Nell is found dead, and Allen can’t shake her old doubts. She begins digging into Nell’s past and the long‑buried questions surrounding Bella’s disappearance, determined to uncover what really happened.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I just don’t need a paragraph of physical description for every character encountered or a description of the layout and decor of every room said character enters. Fortunately, the mystery was compelling enough that I did want to see how it all played out. I asked myself several times while reading, “Why do I put this book down after almost every short, 4- to 5-page chapter and seek other, shinier objects?” I think the tension between a compelling story and getting to the next paragraph that would advance the plot contributed to that, and it ultimately was the reason I rated this book a 4 instead of a 5. But, if I had “halfs” in my rating scale, I’d’ve given it 4¼ stars. There was a great twist in the final 3-page chapter, which was quite satisfying. | |||
Book #41 |
Book: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 3) | Author: Beth Brower | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 229 | Duration: 06/25/26 – 06/28/26 (4 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, humor, romance | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Emma navigates 1883 London society, eccentric neighbors, family financial chaos. 🖌6-word review: Continued good plot and character development. |
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| Description:* Emma attempts to lead a peaceful life in 1883 London, only to be sabotaged by eccentric neighbors, a formidable aunt, and her odious Cousin Archibald, who has severely depleted her family finances.*From cannonballread.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: After coming across The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 2) and enjoying it, I’ve decided to read the other 7 books in the series. This is the 3rd book in the series, and I’m still thoroughly enjoying the plot, the characters, and the narrator of the audiobook. | |||
Book #40 |
Book: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 1) | Author: Beth Brower | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 107 | Duration: 06/23/26 – 06/25/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, humor, romance | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Introductions, backgrounds, and context of Emma and her challenging relatives. 🖌6-word review: Fun language. Good setup for sequels. |
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| Description:* The Year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighborhood of St. Crispian’s. But Emma’s plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian’s.*From cannonballread.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: After coming across The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 2) and enjoying it, I’ve decided to read the other 7 books in the series, going back to this first one. Being the initial book in the collection, there was a lot of description of the Lapis Lazuli House and neighboring areas, and character introductions with lots of details, like pyshical descriptions, backgrounds, and both the lineage and interpersonal relationships among them. | |||
Book #39 |
Book: The Covenant of Water | Author: Abraham Verghese | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 715 | Duration: 05/21/26 – 06/03/26 & 06/19-26 – 06/21/26 (13 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, literary fiction, India, family | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Generations endure tragedy, illness, love as water shapes their destinies. 🖌6-word review: Moving, heart-wrenching, ultimately beautiful. A must-read. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Secrecy lives in the same rooms as loneliness.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: Many medical terms (e.g., hydrocele, blastocyst, Hansen’s disease), and many slang words, idioms, and cultural food and clothing words of India | |||
| Description:* Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows 3 generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning — and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a 12-year-old girl from Kerala’s Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her 40-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl — and future matriarch, Big Ammachi — will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I’ve been putting off reading this book since its debut in 2023, simply because I read this author’s Cutting for Stone 14 years ago in May of 2012, and I know his writing and storytelling puts the reader through the ringer — making it not easily gotten over and never forgotten. I also needed to be “in a good headspace” to commit to a 715-page story of such intensity. As expected, this book made me think, “Dear 𝘨𝘰𝘥. How can someone 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 of this stuff to put in a multigenerational story, and then tell it in such a moving, heart-wrenching, and ultimately beautiful way?” Like then sentiment of everyone I know who’s read this book shared with me, “It’s gruelling, but it’s so worth the read.” | |||
| Book #38 |
Book: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol 2) | Author: Beth Brower | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 164 | Duration: 06/18/26 – 06/18/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, humor, romance | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Emma and aunt differ greatly about who she should be. 🖌6-word review: Has “period flavor” without the stiffness. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “I’ll meet you on the balcony. It’s the safest place. Aunt Eugenia doesn’t believe in balconies. She thinks they make light of the law of gravity.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: garret, dotard, reticule | |||
| Description:* The Year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighbourhood of St. Crispian’s. But Emma’s plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian’s. Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be, which comprise a series of novella-length volumes. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the curious realities of her life at Lapis Lazuli House.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I found this delightful little book by searching on Libby for “audiobooks available now,” and couldn’t have been more pleased with it. I liked its epistolary nature, the “Jane-Eyre-like writing style, and how short the book was. And finally, I was thrilled to see that this was one book in an 8-book series. I can see myself reading them all eventually, assuming they don’t jump the shark at any point. | |||
Book #37 |
Book: Heartburn | Author: Nora Ephron | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 179 | Duration: 06/17/26 – 06/17/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, humor, romance, food | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Woman in a “perfect marriage” works through her husband’s affair. 🖌6-word review: Not as “sidesplitting funny” as advertised. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “My father said a lot of terrific daddy things to me that made me cry, even harder, partly because the dialogue was completely lifted from an obscure Dan Dailey movie he’d played a pediatrician in, and partly because he nevertheless delivered the lines so very well.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: hamantaschen, tzimmes, kreplach, opprobrium, garrote | |||
| Description:* Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has “a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs” is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron’s irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. “Heartburn” is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I really don’t like when reviewers call something a “sidesplitting funny,” “hilarious,” “laugh-out-loud,” etc. as humor is so subjective and 9 out of 10 times I don’t find it as funny as all that. Such was the case with this book, for which I probably also had heightened expectations, since it was written by Nora Ephron. I’ve never read any of her books, and I’ve only seen last-century movies of hers: When Harry Met Sally (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and You’ve Got Mail (1998). (I feel like I would have seen Silkwood (1983), only because Meryl Streep & Cher were in it, but I don’t remember a thing about it if I did.) This book wasn’t at all bad, but it was disappointing, and I don’t see myself reading any more of her books. This was a Mostly Social Book Club book, chosen by Suzanne. | |||
Book #36 |
Book: The Library of Lost and Found | Author: Phaedra Patrick | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Large print |
Pages: 352 | Duration: 06/13/26 – 06/16/26 (4 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, books about books, mystery, family, LGBT | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Librarian finds mysterious book that leads to unraveling family secrets. 🖌6-word review: Good story, too wordy at times. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “She doesn’t understand I want to spend time living it up, not sitting it out.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: rasher, trundled, juddered | |||
| Description:* Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people — though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend — her grandmother Zelda — who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda’s past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I was walking through my library’s “large print” section looking for something that struck me. Titles with library, books, book clubs, family secrets, and letters easily suck me in. Voilà. This book had an interesting premise and fed interesting tidbits, but I eat fast, and I wanted them a little bit quicker at times. Enough already with descriptions that don’t advance the plot. Ultimately the secrets came out, making it a satisfying read overall. | |||
Book #35 |
Book: May Contain Murder | Author: Orlando Murrin | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 384 | Duration: 06/07/26 – 06/12/26 (6 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, cozy mystery, LGBT | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Multiple murders, misfortune, and much mayhem on a dubious yacht. 🖌6-word review: Magnificently short chapters. Entertaining enough story. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Although there are mutterings of concern at her announcement, my fellow passengers look surprisingly serene — the effect Botox, no doubt, the scourge of the furrowed brow or wide-eyed alarm.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: bilges, spatchcock, whingeing, keelhauled, vexillologist, oubliette, pashmina, oleaginous, munificent, banjaxed, thurible | |||
| Description:* Paul Delamare has been roped into accompanying his old friend on a luxury cruise aboard the magnificent superyacht Maldemer. It’s all plain sailing until his friend’s priceless necklace is stolen, and everyone falls under suspicion. As Paul races to catch the thief, the ship begins to drift off-course, veering into the storm-lashed mid-Atlantic. Then one of the passengers is found dead in mysterious circumstances, in a pool of coffee and surrounded by cake crumbs. It’s all hands on deck to catch the killer, but Paul soon discovers guests and crew are harbouring deadly secrets.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This was a Mostly Social Book Club, chosen by Mary. This is book #2 of a 2-book (to date) series called “Chef Paul Delamare Mysteries.” I’ve never read anything by this author and didn’t know he was gay. At the start of chapter 22 (24% into the book), I still didn’t know why this book had LGBT listed as one of its genres. It was an entertaining enough story, but at times I found it implausible that so many nefarious things could happen without witnesses on a yacht; I mean, it’s not like it was a cruise ship. I was grateful for a cast-of-characters chart at the beginning of the book, to which I referred often with questions like, “Who is this character again?” and “Who is this character married to again?” and “What is this character’s profession again?” It probably says something about the novel’s character development; or perhaps, how much (or little) of an impression each character made on me. The best thing about this book was its short chapters, most averaging just a page-and-a-half! I most likely will not read the first book in the series, Knife Skills for Beginners. | |||
Book #34 |
Book: The Good Luck of Right Now | Author: Matthew Quick | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 304 | Duration: 05/19/26 – 05/20/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, family, humor, grief, mental health | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A sheltered man navigates the world after his mother’s death. 🖌6-word review: Excellent, with minimal pockets of tedium. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “I don’t like being called a ‘girlbrarian.’ I’m not a girl — or a librarian. I’m a volunteer at the library.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me word: “girlbrarian” — a portmanteau of girl + librarian | |||
| Description:* For 38 years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday mass, and the library learn how to fly? Bartholomew thinks he’s found a clue when he discovers a “Free Tibet” letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother’s underwear drawer. In her final days, mom called him Richard — there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I saw this book reviewed on a friend’s Facebook timeline just as I’d finished Heated Rivalry, and it was immediately available at the library. So I nabbed it. Although I don’t “buy” the central philosophy of this book that “when something bad happens to us, something good happens — often to someone else,” it was a good story if you do buy it. The “tedium” I mention in my 6-word review was specifically in regards to two instances in chapter 10 where, you know when someone tells you something and then proceeds to give you not only one or two examples of what they mean, but gives you 10 or 30 examples of it? All right already. We get it. I enjoyed the twist at the end that I didn’t see coming, which is the very nature of a twist. I’d consider this for a future book in our Mostly Social Book Club. | |||
Book #33 |
Book: Heated Rivalry | Author: Rachel Reid | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 368 | Duration: 05/10/26 – 05/14/26 (5 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, romance, sports, LGBT, queer, enemies to lovers | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A secret love intensifies between two rival professional hockey players. 🖌6-word review: Worthy of queer drama television series. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “‘I just don’t understand,’ his mother said. ‘How could this even have happened between you? Weren’t there any nice men in Montreal, Shane?'” | |||
| Description:* Pro hockey star Shane Hollander isn’t just crazy talented, he’s got a spotless reputation. Hockey is his life. Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that, especially the sexy Russian whose hard body keeps him awake at night. Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane’s not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he’s as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him — except Shane. They’ve made a career on their legendary rivalry, but when the skates come off, the heat between them is undeniable. When Ilya realizes he wants more than a few secret hookups, he knows he must walk away. The risk is too great. As their attraction intensifies, they struggle to keep their relationship out of the public eye. If the truth comes out, it could ruin them both. But when their need for each other rivals their ambition on the ice, secrecy is no longer an option.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I was afraid this was going to be a “typical” MM romance novel, but I’m happy to report it wasn’t. And by that I mean, not once did I read, “Ilya’s turgid member teetered at the entrance to Shane’s quivering love tunnel.” And that is to say, it was straight-up (pun intended) dirty language without all that metaphorical, dancing around it. Because of the staggering popularity of the eponymous TV series, I got on the library’s waitlist for this book on January 29th and received it on May 6th. Heated Rivalry is the 2nd installment of the 7-book Game Changers series, and I thought it was interesting that the TV series is named after the 2nd book and not the 1st (Game Changer). I’m glad I read this, but as I’m wont to do, I won’t read any of the other books in the series, and I don’t watch TV, so I won’t be checking out the show. | |||
Book #32 |
Book: Murder by Design | Author: Lee Goldberg | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 236 | Duration: 05/05/26 – 05/06/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, humor, mystery, thriller, suspense | ||
| 📕10-word summary: An eccentric, crackerjack insurance investigator solves baffling crimes uncannily quickly. 🖌6-word review: Interesting characters. Usability concepts cleverly incorporated. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Her smile seemed genuine even if her hair did not.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: larder, coprolalia, trilby, soupçon de tristesse, scintilla | |||
| Description:* Edison Bixby is wealthy, handsome, and, due to a traumatic brain injury, impulsively rude. He’s also a brilliant insurance investigator who solves baffling crimes by figuring out how the design of the man-made world around us makes them possible. Enter Wally a struggling actor hired to keep Bixby from offending everyone he meets. Their first case together looks like a simple accident. Caroline Crowley took a nasty fall down a staircase at a shopping mall in front of dozens of witnesses. Video clearly shows the deadly misstep. But Bixby is certain she was murdered by design, subtly manipulated into causing her own demise. The mall itself made the crime intentional, if not inevitable. Now Bixby must prove his outrageous theory before a very cunning killer gets others on his hit list to murder themselves, too.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I enjoyed this advanced copy (scheduled to be published on June 1, 2026) as one of May’s free Amazon First Reads books. Interesting, quirky characters added to my enjoyment, but the biggest draw was that it took me back to my “Usability Studies for Technical Communication” class, which I took in the spring of 2005 as one of my grad school classes. The textbook we used for that class was The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. The author of this book, Lee Goldberg, in his “Author’s Note & Acknowledgements” section, lists Don Norman and that book as one that “educated me and shaped my thinking the most [about usability design].” The Design of Everyday Things and that “Usability Studies for Technical Communication” class is one that has stayed with me for more 20 years now, as I navigate this world rife with poor affordances. In fact, I did a blog entry about some poor affordances — the icons on the water cooler machine and the handles on the doors to the lounge and bar — on the boat we were on for our Danube Riverboat Cruise in July of 2025. | |||
Book #31 |
Book: The Replacement | Author: Liv Constantine | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 48 | Duration: 05/02/26 – 05/02/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, thriller, short stories | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Struggling Hollywood icon befriends newcomer who has a secret agenda. 🖌6-word review: A twisty, albeit average, short story. |
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| Description:* Once Hollywood royalty, Veronica Van Arden has been upstaged by box office flops and tabloid gossip. But when she lands a role in a promising film, a comeback finally seems possible, especially with the support of her young and adoring costar, Sienna Vale. As Veronica weathers a new scandal, Sienna stays firmly by her side, a bright spot in Veronica’s days. But as Veronica welcomes her protégé into every part of her life, they both might find that the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This was one of May’s free Amazon First Reads books. I’ve read one other book by this author, The Last Mrs. Parrish, which I loved. This book was interesting enough, and it did have a good twist, but it was a little “involved” and I had to think too much to follow it. My 3 rating was due to its “may or may not recommend” aspect. | |||
Book #30 |
Book: The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram | Author: Ethelene Whitmire | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 320 | Duration: 04/30/26 – 05/02/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: nonfiction, biography, history, queer, LGBT, African American, race, World War II | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A young, brilliant, queer, Black man defies war for love. 🖌6-word review: Compelling biography historically well pieced together. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “He thought, ‘lots of fun if you don’t have to do it every day.'” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: hygge, philology, strafed | |||
| Description:* On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a housecleaner, who had nevertheless been decorated in the halls of Harvard and Columbia, Reed Peggram flirted with Leonard Bernstein, sat for portraits by famous artists, charmed minor royalty and became like a little brother to famed researcher and writer Jan Gay. Finally in Europe and on the same prestigious scholarship as literary luminaries Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes before him, he ignored the increasingly alarmed calls to return home to a repressive, segregated America and a constrained life as a second class citizen. And as tensions grew and gas masks were distributed in the City of Lights, Reed turned instead to the new life he’d made: with Arne, a tall and dashing Danish scholar with whom he had formed a deep bond.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is one of 3 books I read about in BookPage, a magazine of suggested reading, and then requested from my library. I like this comparison in a review of the book by author Anne Bartlett: Reed Peggram’s story could be an alternative version of Casablanca: Brilliant, young Ivy League scholar lives it up in bohemian Paris, only to become trapped in Nazi-occupied Europe when he refuses to leave behind his true love to return to the U.S. But there were two twists to this perilous real-life adventure that wouldn’t have made it past the studio censors of the 1940s. Peggram was Black, and his lover was a man. While reading this story, I pondered a lot about the difference between “remarkable” and “admirable.” While Reed’s life was unequivocally remarkable, I can’t say that I admired it. I get that he did what he did for love, but living so long without making any money and continually taking money from his relatively poor grandmother (a housekeeper for white people), was not admirable to me. What I did greatly admire about him was how important education was to him, and how his intellect and charm rose to the extreme challenge of getting accepted into Harvard as an African American man, and his impressive accomplishment of learning 5 languages: French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Danish. The fact that the protagonist was a queer, Black man certainly elevated my interest in the story, and I did wish the author had more to work with than having to “tease Peggram’s tale out of letters to his grandmother and mother. I wish she’d’ve been able to interview Reed, Arne (his lover), and other people (mostly men) in his life. | |||
Book #29 |
Book: Red Dog Farm | Author: Nathaniel Ian Miller | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 272 | Duration: 04/20/26 – 04/28/26 (8 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, farming, coming of age, family, Icelandic culture | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A son’s transformative year on his family’s struggling Icelandic farm. 🖌6-word review: Long uninteresting stretches between decent story. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Embarrassing but ideal, one of those moments you know you’ll recall in perfect clarity forever, seared across the neurons like a psychic tattoo.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: abjure, abraded, Írskrabrunnur, Brennivin, Tantalus, Vestmannaeyjar, patronymics, dystocia, riposte, meltwater, skyr, simulacrum | |||
| Description:* Growing up on his family’s cattle farm in western Iceland, young Orri has gained an appreciation for the beauty found in everyday things: the cavorting of a newborn calf, the return of birdsong after a long winter, the steadfast love of a good (or tolerably good) farm dog. But the outer world still beckons, so Orri leaves his no-nonsense Lithuanian Jewish mother and his taciturn father, Pabbi, to attend university in Reykjavík. Pabbi is no longer able to find joy in his way of life and falls into a depression soon after Orri goes away to school. Orri, feeling adrift and aimless at the end of his first semester, comes home. For the first time, Pabbi allows Orri to help him run the farm. Despite their conflicting attitudes, Orri and Pabbi must learn to work together. Meanwhile, Orri meets a kindred spirit on the internet: Mihan, a part-time student. By year’s end, Orri must decide whether he wants to—or should—return to university, and what a future with Mihan would hold, if she’ll have him.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is one of 3 books I read about in BookPage, a magazine of suggested reading, and then requested from my library. Having a hard time getting into it, I stopped a little ways into it to read Theo of Golden, which became available after waiting 2½ months for it on our library’s waiting list. When I picked it back up, I skimmed through several excruciatingly detailed descriptions of tedious and difficult farm life. At one point, I also skimmed over a very long backstory about the grandmother, and later an even longer backstory about the father. Their backstories didn’t advance the plot, only functioning to provide insight into why they each were the way the were, but I just wasn’t that interested in either of them, in spite of them being major characters in the book. Even having been to Iceland (both Reykjavík & Akureyri) wasn’t enough to boost my interest in this story. And a nit, but very annoying because I reference page numbers a lot when making notes while reading: this book choose the worst. font. ever. for its page and chapter numbering. I gave the book a 3-star rating, because I would not recommend it without a lot of caveats. | |||
Book #28 |
Book: Theo of Golden | Author: Allen Levi | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 399 | Duration: 04/24/26 – 04/26/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, mystery, art, books about books, Christian | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Mysterious, benevolent man captures the imagination of select small-town’s residents. 🖌6-word review: Heartwarming story with detracting Christian “edge.” |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “A spate of warm days, not at all uncommon to southern winters, had seduced flowers and shrubs into early blooms. Soon, a hard freeze, also not uncommon, would chasten those tender buds for their impatience.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: riparian, tortillon, susurrus, fado, declension, murmuration, lespedeza, Colheita, encomium | |||
| Description:* His name is Theo. And he asks a lot more questions than he answers. He visits the local coffeehouse, where 92 pencil portraits hang on the walls, portraits of the people of the city of Golden done by a local artist. Theo begins purchasing them, one at a time, and putting them back in the hands of their “rightful owners.” With each exchange, a story is told, a friendship born, and a life altered.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is the “it” book for 2026 — at least at this point in the year. I started off at #1074 on my library’s waitlist on February 5. I finally received it April 23. I didn’t realize that one of the genres of this book is “Christian,” and in retrospect, it’s a good thing, because I might have discounted it completely. It’s not pervasive throughout, but after about 2 references that I thought might be going that way, I actually asked ChatGPT if the story was going to get religious. There was a pretty long scene (which I won’t go into due to spoiler issues) toward the end that was quite preachy and a huge turnoff to me; but in the end, the overall story was too good to let that reduce my rating from 5 stars to 4 stars. (Albeit, if I had ½-stars in my rating system, I would have given it 4½ stars instead of 5.) The great appeal of this story to me, which is not unlike for most people I’ve talked to who’ve read it, is that it’s a huge feel-good experience, tautly pulling on the heartstrings of our shared humanity. And it’s like the Anne Murray song, A Little Good News, says, “We sure could use a little good news today.” | |||
Book #27 |
Book: Ward D | Author: Freida McFadden | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Large print |
Pages: 384 | Duration: 04/17/26 – 04/18/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, thriller, mystery, suspense, horror, crime, mental health | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Mentally fragile med student spends night in a psych ward. 🖌6-word review: Good job making reader doubt sanity. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “There are a bunch of mugs lined up by the sink. I pick up one that says “If you’re happy and you know it, thank your meds.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: folie à deux | |||
| Description:* Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out. And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D. And now she might never escape.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is my 4th Freida McFadden book, after The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Life, Never Lie, and Death Row: A Short Story. She’s written about 32 books, and she recently shared her real identity after using a pseudonym, wig, and glasses over the years to maintain her privacy in public. This was a very compelling story, but I found the writing to be a little shoddy, especially considering how many books she’s written and how wildly popular they are. There are several good twists in the plot, and it moves at a steady pace but really accelerates at the end. This was a Mostly Social Book Club book. | |||
Book #26 |
Book: The Roaring Ridleys: A Novel (Abandoned) | Author: K.M. Colley | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 276 | Duration: 04/09/26 – 04/16/26 (8 days) | |
| Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ | Genres: historical fiction, mystery, family, diversity, African American | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A slow post-murder unraveling of a very diverse, privileged family. 🖌6-word review: Plot unfolds at a glacial pace. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “She was staring at her flesh-pink tights, which were not the color of her flesh but of others’.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: kumkum | |||
| Description:* In the glittering world of 1920s New York, the seven Ridley heirs seem to have it wealth, status, and protection as the city’s most powerful family. But when notorious gossip columnist Dale Caimen is found dead during their family’s renowned summer soiree, their carefully constructed world begins to crack. Behind the champagne and jazz, each adopted Ridley sibling harbors secrets that could destroy them. As the murder investigation intensifies, long-buried tensions surface and family loyalties unravel. Someone knows the truth about the Ridleys — and they’re willing to kill to expose it. In a world where appearance is everything and power comes at a deadly price, the siblings must decide what matters protecting the family name or each other.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I desperately wanted to like this novel and give it every chance, but I ended up abandoning it 66% into it — further into a book than I’ve ever abandoned one before. At the ⅔ mark, we still hadn’t learned the “dirt” on any of the 7 children, all of whom had secrets they were hiding and being blackmailed for. That’s just too long to be strung along. At least giving us a few teasing tidbits to snack on along the way. | |||
Book #25 |
Book: Lift Me Up | Author: Milly Johnson | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 128 | Duration: 04/07/26 – 04/08/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, short stories, romance, novella | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Being stuck in a lift changes a woman’s life trajectory. 🖌6-word review: Didn’t hate it. Didn’t love it. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “There’s Kärèn, my fiancé’s cousin, she spells her name with an umlaut and a grave accent, so I think you can guess the sort of pretension I’m dealing with.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: fusty, pencil-skirted suit, entente cordiale | |||
| Description:* For a decade, Tam has quietly held YorkMart together whilst others took the credit, making herself smaller in the process. When she’s briefly promoted to acting Managing Director, she finally has a chance to shine — until her promotion is snatched away and handed to Jack Cesaroni, the man brought in to do the job that should have been hers. Tam expects nothing but disappointment from Jack. But when they’re trapped in a lift, he sees what no one else has: Tam is exceptional. That single word of recognition sparks something Tam thought she’d lost—and an unexpected connection she never saw coming. Now she faces an impossible choice: stay being the smaller version of herself she’s become used to, or take a leap and reclaim the vibrant, authentic woman she once was.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I hardly feel anything at all about this book. I experienced it as completely average, and I’m glad it was a short story. | |||
Book #24 |
Book: Tin Man | Author: Sarah Winman | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 214 | Duration: 04/04/26 – 04/06/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: literary fiction, LGBT, romance, queer, relationships | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A wondrous, beautifully complicated love story among an MMF throuple. 🖌6-word review: Seductive story. Stylized writing diminishes enjoyment. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “People reckoned he was so skilled at it he could take the cleft out of a chin without the face knowing.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: pay packet, muntjac, vaporetto, Spaghetti vongole, co-codamol, pastis, plangent, towpath | |||
| Description:* Ellis and Michael are 12-year-old boys when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to swim, discovering poetry, and dodging the fists of overbearing fathers. And then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more. But then we fast forward a decade or so, to find that Ellis is married to Annie, and Michael is nowhere in sight. Which leads to the question, what happened in the years between? Tin Man is a love letter to human kindness and friendship, and to loss and living.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I loved these 3 characters: Ellis and Michael were boyhood boyfriends. Ellis eventually married Annie. And Michael eventually joined their relationship for a period of time. I loved the dynamics of this throuple. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Ellis & Michael (of course!), And I was completely simpatico with the relationship between Michael and Annie, specifically by how they both deeply loved Ellis and didn’t hold sharing him against each other. I did have (too much, at times) difficulty following this story for two reasons: this is another book with no quotation marks around the dialogue, which in addition to being distracting to me, also makes some conversations hard to follow, and the structure of the book makes it hard to know what time period in the story you’re currently in. When AI chatbots give you five ways to identify the time period, that’s complicated: 1) 1st- vs. 3rd-person narration, 2) explicit date markers (of which there are very few), 3) contextual clues tied to life stages, 4) the “dream-like” quality of present-day Ellis, and 5) “following the sunflower painting.” That’s a lot of work just to be sure what time period in the story is currently being covered. This is the aspect that made my rating 4 stars instead of 5. | |||
Book #23 |
Book: Echoes of Her | Author: H.K. Christie | |
| Source: Free BookBub download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 276 | Duration: 04/01/26 – 04/01/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Girl’s father’s sudden death opens a can of 🖌6-word review: 4-hour read. Shocking revelations unravel quickly. |
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| Description:* By the time Kay was 6, she had lost both her mother and sister. With only fuzzy memories of them, she had pleaded with her father since she was a little girl to tell her stories about them and to visit their graves. He claimed it was too painful to discuss, and refused. When her father unexpectedly passes, leaving her without any family, Kay prepares to bury him and handle his estate. But as she sifts through his belongings, in the once forbidden attic, all she finds are dusty boxes filled with old textbooks and family photos featuring her late mother and sister, but strangely none of herself. Determined to find her mother and sister’s graves to lay her father to rest, she hires Drakos Monroe Security & Investigations to find them.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I read this “page-turning crime thriller filled with long-hidden family secrets and jaw-dropping revelations” in 4.5 hours. The only thing I didn’t care for were some religious references, but overall, there were few enough to not reduce my star rating from 5. I might make this a future Mostly Social Book Club book, but I probably won’t read more of this author’s work. | |||
Book #22 |
Book: Dear Edward | Author: Ann Napolitano | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 352 | Duration: 03/27/26 – 03/31/26 (5 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, coming of age, young adult, trauma | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Aftermath of a 12-year-old lone survivor of a plane crash. 🖌6-word review: Satisfying, intriguing, dual-timeline, well-paced survival story. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “There was no reason for what happened to you, Eddie. You could have died; you just didn’t. It was dumb luck. Nobody chose you for anything.” | |||
| Description:* One summer morning, 12-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a part of himself has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery — one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I only recently learned of this author, having read Hello Beautiful in February. I like dual-timeline stories, especially when both narratives are equally interesting, which was the case for me in this book. Of course, I liked that there was a gay (secondary) character — a passenger on the plane — in the book. I encountered one funny, and one just plain interesting, AI-related things about this book. The funny one was that it described Veronica, the chief flight attendant, as “professional and composed.” Uh, she had sex in the lavatory with a passenger! And the interesting one was that I asked it about the gay character (a soldier) in the book, and it said that he wasn’t gay, but that another character — the brother of the protagonist — was (secretly) gay. I was, like, “HUH???” Then I asked if the brother of the protagonist was gay, and it said, “No, he was secretly dating a girl he didn’t want his parents to know about, but he wasn’t gay.” So, I asked again about the soldier being gay, and (this is the interesting part, because it hasn’t happened to me before using AI, which I’ve used a lot), it said, “I apologize, I was wrong earlier when I said he wasn’t gay. Yes he was gay, and his chapters explore identity, secrecy, and longing.” And finally, one of the genres listed for this book is “young adult,” which I guess it could be, but it covers a lot of themes that I feel are a little beyond young adult. But then again, I’m an old fuddy-duddy and YMMV. | |||
Book #21 |
Book: Bridgerton: The Duke & I | Author: Julia Quinn | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 339 | Duration: 03/21/26 – 03/25/26 (5 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: historical fiction, romance, regency | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Regency-era family dramatic enough to have their own TV series. 🖌6-word review: Not bad for a romance novel. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: Colin: “I hate when you’re right.” Penelope: “I know; pity for you, I so often am.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: ton, rake, woolgathering | |||
| Description:* In the ballrooms and drawing rooms of Regency London, rules abound. From their earliest days, children of aristocrats learn how to address an earl and curtsey before a prince—while other dictates of the ton are unspoken yet universally understood. A proper duke should be imperious and aloof. A young, marriageable lady should be amiable…but not too amiable. Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen. Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society—just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend’s sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar. The plan works like a charm—at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: Love ignores every rule…*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is the first (of 8) in the Bridgerton book series. I read a “TV tie-in” edition, which is identical to the original novel but contains an extra epilogue. Since I don’t watch TV and Bob rarely reads books, we usually aren’t able to discuss storylines, but since he has seen the first 3 seasons of the Netflix series, we were able to compare and contrast our thoughts about this story on which the first season was based. I typically only read the first book of a series that become movies, as I did with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and The Hunger Games — and that’ll be the same with this series. I’m not interested in reading the other 7 Bridgerton books. Romance is not a genre I enjoy — and it’ll suit me just fine if I never again hear about his corpulent manhood arriving at her cradle of femininity, after which he spilled his seed on the bed instead of deep inside her. With that said, I’m glad I read this, if for no other reason than it adds some tiny tidbits into my vast void of pop culture knowledge. Tangential ejaculation: You don’t ever want me on your trivia team! | |||
Book #20 |
Book: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers | Author: Mary Roach | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 292 | Duration: 03/19/26 – 03/20/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: nonfiction, science, medical, humor, death, history, biology | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A scientific, intellectual, and emotional look at our bodies’ destinies. 🖌6-word review: Informative, at times humorous, and detailed. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: venerated, divarication, many other biology, chemistry & medical terms | |||
| Description:* Mary Roach takes the age-old question, “What happens to us after we die?” quite literally. And in Stiff, she explores the “lives” of human cadavers from the time of the ancient Egyptians all the way up to current campaigns for human composting. Along the way, she recounts with morbidly infectious glee how dead bodies are used for research ranging from car safety and plastic surgery (you’ll cancel your next collagen injection after reading this!), to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. While the myriad uses for cadavers recounted are often graphic, Roach imbues her subject with a sense of dignity, choosing to emphasize the oddly noble purposes corpses serve, from organ donation to lifesaving medical research.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This was a interesting, informative, and at times, light look at a subject that a lot of people find heavy and shy away from, but that I find interesting. I only took off a star (4, instead of 5), because I’m not really into medicine, biology, and chemistry to the depth explained in this book. So, YMMV depending on that. One frustration I had reading this now-23-year-old book was that I wondered how some of the ways to “process” dead bodies just beginning to be explored in 2003 (e.g., water cremation) have progressed. Well ChatGPT & AI to the rescue! Q: What are the eco-friendly ways to avoid burial and cremation? A: natural (green) burial | conservation burial | human composting (natural organic reduction) | water cremation (alkaline hydrolysis) | tree pod burial | mushroom burial suit | reef burial | biodegradable caskets & shrouds | and home funeral + natural burial. | |||
Book #19 |
Book: Perfection | Author: Vincenzo Latronico | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 125 | Duration: 03/17/26 – 03/19/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, Italian literature, existentialism | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Millennial expats Anna and Tom drift in search of perfection. 🖌6-word review: Excellently simulates existential ennui — without dialog. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “But each time, after a while, they would remember those trips more generously, as if the act of remembering could alter the experience itself.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: monstera, acanthus, vibratile, koine, tillandsias, “travel rabbit“ | |||
| Description:* Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, plant-filled apartment in Neukölln. They are young digital creatives, freelancers without too many constraints. They have a passion for food, progressive politics, sexual experimentation, and Berlin’s 24-hour party scene. Their ideal existence is also that of an entire generation, lived out on Instagram, but outside the images they create for themselves, dissatisfaction and ennui burgeon. Their work as graphic designers becomes repetitive. Friends move back home, have children, grow up. An attempt at political activism during the refugee crisis proves fruitless. And in that picture-perfect life Anna and Tom feel increasingly trapped, yearning for an authenticity and a sense of purpose that seem perennially just out of their grasp.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: My friend Todd mentioned he was reading this book, so I checked it out. The main characters are “digital creatives,” and I appreciated the industry-related tools and technologies named throughout the book — graphic-design tools, photo- and image-editing tools, social-media platforms, and internet infrastructure. There was no dialogue at all in this story, as the author has said he has “a terrible ear for dialogue.” As a result, there was a lot of description in it. Critics have noted that “the lack of dialogue makes the book read like a catalogue of objects and curated spaces, mirroring the couple’s image‑driven lives.” The main themes explored include: the illusion of aesthetic perfection; expat life and cultural detachment; ennui, aimlessness, and millennial drift; and authenticity vs. performance. I think the author succeeds in making ennui interesting, which is why among its awards is being shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. | |||
Book #18 |
Book: Audition | Author: Katie Kitamura | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 197 | Duration: 03/14/26 – 03/16/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, family, identity, existentialism, acting | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A woman, her husband, and possibly her son contemplate identity. 🖌6-word review: Compelling storytelling with lots of ambiguity. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Lou immediately stood and went to him, and I remember thinking that even if he was without talent he would enjoy some level of success, in some capacity, he had a face that was made for being looked at.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: languorous, sinuous, carapace, mottled, avidity, rictus, contrapuntal | |||
| Description:* Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day — partner, parent, creator, muse — and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I loved the author’s voice in this story. I kept thinking of this book as very, very interesting — as opposed to fascinating. The beginning of Part II brought forth the figurative “record scratch” eliciting a great big “HUH???” from me. I’m not a fan of ambiguous endings, which this book definitely has — and in fact, there’s a lot of ambiguity throughout it — but I was surprisingly okay with it. What I wasn’t okay with was not one, not two, but three instances of the (overused & my nemesis) word, conspiratorially. And finally, one detractor of this book for me was this “trendy” writing affectation of omitting quotation marks, which is often called “naked dialogue.” I am not a fan. | |||
Book #17 |
Book: What Happened Next | Author: Edwin Hill | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 292 | Duration: 03/09/26 – 03/12/26 (4 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Investigation of 25-year-old crime uncovers betrayal and community, family secrets. 🖌6-word review: Intriguing. The bodies really pile up. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Our father opted for the dog races at Suffolk Downs, not the polo grounds in Newport.” | |||
| 🎓New-to-me words: lichen, antitorque pedals, selectperson, “gave up the ghost” | |||
| Description:* Charlie Kilgore was too young to remember anything, really, about how events on the lake unfolded 25 years ago. He just knows what he’s been told: that his father stabbed a man to death, left Charlie’s mother critically wounded, and then disappeared, never to be seen again. Now Charlie believes there must be more to what happened. But when Charlie [returns to his hometown and] starts asking questions of people with so much to hide, getting to the truth becomes dangerous. Because on this lake — in this family — the past isn’t dead and buried at all. In fact, it’s back with a vengeance.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This free, advanced copy (it’s schedule to be published in April 2026) was an unexpected delight. There’s a lot going on in this small town as a 25-year-old murder is questioned by a young man who was in the thick of it, but as an infant, when it all went down. A lot of suspects emerge, and a lot of people “give up the ghost” as the bodies of even major characters pile up. One thing that was nice was that there were 3 gay characters who were just people who happened to be gay, which is to say it didn’t affect the plot in any way, so it wasn’t a big deal at all. I like stories that normalize being gay. I’d not heard of this author before, but several reviewers said they love all of his books. I’ll probably read another one of them this year. | |||
Book #16 |
Book: The Price of Honey | Author: Liane Moriarty | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 34 | Duration: 03/08/26 – 03/08/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, short stories, novella, thriller, mystery, sci-fi | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Tech billionaire’s widow and ex-wives surprised at unexpected funeral shenanigans. 🖌6-word review: Disarrayed programming, technology, AI, sci-fi mash-up. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “She’s rarely referred to as Luisa. Always her full name: Luisa Long. It’s just one of those names.” | |||
| 🎓A new-to-me word: epigenetic | |||
| Description:* In the car on the way to her husband’s funeral, Honey Beckett still can hardly believe that Barney is actually dead. Granted, he was more than twice her age. But he was Barney Beckett, visionary tech genius, full of surprises—by turns romantic, inspirational, and controlling. Always in control. At the service, she impulsively goes to sit with the three ex-wives: practical Rita, fiery Svetlana, ambitious Meredith. Each broke up the other’s marriage in turn—and now, one final betrayal awaits.*From amazon.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I didn’t dislike this book, but I was glad it was short. This was my 4th book by this author — Nine Perfect Strangers (read in 2019), What Alice Forgot and The Husband’s Secret (both read in 2020) — and it was my least favorite of them. It’s hard to pinpoint why this storyline didn’t really work for me, but it’s something to do with it being unclear whether what was happening was due to a programming error, sinister technology, or AI gone awry, and it took a little too long (especially relative to the length of the story) to get what was actually happening. My favorite quote (above) was because that’s exactly the case with my name. At almost every (professional) job I’ve had, my colleagues have tended to say my whole name when they see me: “Hi, John Martin.” When it was all said and done, I was glad this book was a free download. | |||
Book #15 |
Book: Annette: Sierra Summer | Author: Doris Schroeder | |
| Source: Friend loan Format: Print |
Pages: 285 | Duration: 03/03/26 – 03/08/26 (6 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, young adult, childrens, mystery, juvenile | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Annette (based on Annette Funicello) has an exciting, adventurous summer. 🖌6-word review: Has definite young-adult vibes. Easy reading. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “C’mon, Annette! Let’s get into our sunbonnets!” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: ailanthus, gasser | |||
| Description:* Annette’s summer began with an invitation from her cousin, Tonia, to visit the town of Lost Creek, located in the Sierra foothills. Her invitation was full of excitement as she explained Lost Creek’s centennial celebration plans. The town would turn back time to gold rush days, wear pioneer costumes, and choose a centennial queen. And Tonia’s gang would be there for the fun — handsome Johnny Abbott and all the others. It did sound wonderful, and as Annette climbed into her little white sports car, she was anticipating a pleasant visit. Little did she realize as she sped along that this would probably be the most exciting summer of her life. Annette becomes involved in a mystery before she even arrives at the home of her cousin — a mystery that threatens to ruin the lives of several people.*From amazon.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: As a big fan of Annette Funicello, my husband owned this book from way back. Ready to “give it up” (i.e., donate it), he asked me if I wanted to read it first — to which I succumbed. What struck me the most about the book was its illustrations which made all of these teen characters look like they were in the twenties or so. I was also a little surprised by how unabashedly wealthy these young kids were, driving fancy sports cars as one example. It was an easy read; it took me 6 days mostly because it wasn’t riveting or anything, and I’ve been doing a lot of creative work the past week, which engaged me more than reading. | |||
Book #14 |
Book: Do You Mind If I Cancel?: Things That Still Annoy Me | Author: Gary Janetti | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 159 | Duration: 03/01/26 – 03/01/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: nonfiction, memoir, humor essays, comedy, LGBT | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Funny and poignant look at the “indignities of everyday life.” 🖌6-word review: It grew on me. Ultimately amusing. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “For those of you who don’t know, Dynasty was a sensation that took over the fucking country for a few years in the 80s. It was our Game of Thrones, but with shoulder pads.” | |||
| Description:* Gary spends his twenties in New York, dreaming of starring on soap operas while in reality working at a hotel where he lusts after an unattainable colleague and battles a bellman who despises it when people actually use a bell to call him. He chronicles the torture of finding a job before the internet when you had to talk on the phone all the time, and fantasizes, as we all do, about who to tell off when he finally wins an Oscar. As Gary himself says, “These are essays from my childhood and young adulthood about things that still annoy me.”*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I was a little turned off by it at the beginning, but then I adjusted my attitude and I ended up enjoying it a lot. In the beginning, I thought the humor was a little too “drag-queen-bitchy” for my taste. I’d never heard of this author since I never watched Family Guy, which I only just now realize is not the same show as Modern Family, which I also never watched. (If you think that’s bad, until I one day saw pictures of Kylie Minogue and Nicki Minaj in an article, I thought they were the same person. #BlessMyHeart) I see that Gary was also a writer for Will & Grace, which I did watch but never paid any attention to who the writers were. With it all said and done, I did have a few literal laugh-out-louds in the last half of the book. | |||
Book #13 |
Book: Between Two Trailers | Author: J. Dana Trent | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 256 | Duration: 02/28/26 – 02/28/26 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (Abandoned) | Genres: nonfiction, memoir, religion, mental illness | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Preschooler drug dealer quits, becomes a professor, then a minister. 🖌6-word review: Not my cup of tea. Abandoned. |
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| Description:* Growing up, Dana tries to be the daughter each of her parents wanted: a drug lord’s heir and a debutante minister. Dana imagines that her hidden Indiana life is finally behind her after she graduates from Duke University and becomes a professor and an ambivalent female Southern Baptist minister. But Dana was a child of the drug trade. Though she escapes flyover country, she realizes that she will never be able to escape her father’s legacy, and that her childhood secrets have kept her from making peace with the people and places that shaped her. Ultimately, Dana finds that no one can really “make it” until they return to where their story began.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I really wanted to like this book, and I read 30% of it before abandoning it. The author is speaking [about this book] nearby in a couple of weeks, and I intended to attend her talk, which is why I decided to read it. I’m going to forgo that, too. I found no redeeming qualities in the characters and escapades related in the first third of the book, and as good as it might “turn,” I just wasn’t willing to slog through more. | |||
Book #12 |
Book: The House of Mirth | Author: Edith Wharton | |
| Source: Library loan Format: E-book |
Pages: 406 | Duration: 02/22/26 – 02/28/26 (7 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: historical fiction, classics, literature, class, New York | ||
| 📕10-word summary: New York socialite’s serial inconsequential decisions about love compound tragically. 🖌6-word review: Heavy. Beautifully — if not challengingly — written. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “But we’re so different, you know: she likes being good, and I like being happy.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: crepe-de-chine, empyrean, chary, desultory, bezique, sylvan, odious, oubliettes, dissembling, Quirinal, adjuration, mauvaise honte, parterres, marquetry, puerile, propinquity, infelicity, lustral, cuirassed, ormolu, effulgence, proscenium, sward, stereopticon, phaetons, stertorous, impenitent, adumbrations, excrescences, aigrettes, orangeine, c-spring barouche, victoria, antimacassar | |||
| Description:* Edith Wharton’s dark view of society, the somber economics of marriage, and the powerlessness of the unwedded woman in the 1870s emerge dramatically in the tragic novel The House of Mirth. Faced with an array of wealthy suitors, New York socialite Lily Bart falls in love with lawyer Lawrence Selden, whose lack of money spoils their chances for happiness together. Dubious business deals and accusations of liaisons with a married man diminish Lily’s social status, and as she makes one bad choice after another, she learns how venal and brutally unforgiving the upper crust of New York can be.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is my third Edith Wharton book in as many years, two of them as Mostly Social Book Club books (including this one), and my order of preference is: 1) Ethan Frome, 2) The Age of Innocence, and now this one 3) The House of Mirth. One of the things I like about these classics is the way things are said, but only up to the point at which they become hard to parse. Jane Eyre and The Age of Innocence were easy, but this one was on the verge of being slightly esoteric. Example: “She had even risen earlier than usual in the execution of her purpose.” (Translation: She got up early to get shit done.) I absolutely loved the ending of this book, which is all you really need to know about the kind of endings to books that I like. 😂 | |||
Book #11 |
Book: Pocketbook of Quotes from Socrates to Lebowski | Author: Sean Thompson | |
| Source: Free BookBub download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 385 | Duration: 02/10/26 – 02/21/26 (12 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: nonfiction, quotations, philosophy | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Quotes by a diverse set of people: inspiration, motivation, entertainment. 🖌6-word review: Incredibly sloppy editing detracted from enjoyment. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” ~Albert Einstein | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: inclemency, fand, Feldwebel, obsoledge | |||
| Description:* Are you interested in learning from the greatest philosophers, artists, writers and minds of all time? Do you want to have a handy collection of quotes that you can read anytime, anywhere? Do you want to fill your mind with wisdom, inspiration, and insight? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this book is for you. This is a compact and convenient book that contains hundreds [of] quotes for all occasions. You’ll find quotes on topics such as life, knowledge, virtue, happiness, friendship, and more. This book is perfect for anyone who wants to enrich their mind and soul through the timeless teachings of the greats.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: One of the things that stood out to me after reading so many quotes is that there are probably quotes to support whatever you believe, as many of them contradict each other. For example, there are many quotes that contend that solitude is necessary to your being, while another whole slew contend that we cannot exist in solitude as we’re all intertwined. The editing of this book (at least the kindle version I read) was just bad, bad, bad. This included many missed terminal punctuation marks (mostly periods), capitalizing the word after a semicolon in a sentence, completely wrong words (e.g., throng instead of through, near instead of never), different fonts and line spacing on the same page, and some paragraphs in black and some in a lighter (almost) gray colored font, errant spaces mid-word (e.g., “you’ re” and “you ‘ re”), and paragraph breaks (i.e., hard to tell sometimes if a paragraph break was a new paragraph in the same quote or a new quote starting). Even the blurb on Goodreads had an editing error in it — see the word “of” I have highlighted in the description above — I added it because it was missing. For posterity, of the 12-day duration reading this book, I was on a cruise for 8 days of it and didn’t read. | |||
Book #10 |
Book: Hello Beautiful | Author: Ann Napolitano | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 387 | Duration: 02/06/26 – 02/07/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, romance, family, mental health | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A modern, darker re-imagining of Louisa May Alcott‘s Little Women. 🖌6-word review: Great pacing — it moved right along. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “He was encouraging by nature; he attended college track events just to cheer on the slowest runners.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: caterwauled, physio | |||
| Description:* William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos. But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially reading it right after reading Little Women, regarding which the author says, “If this [story] sounds slightly ‘Little Women-esque’ to you, then that’s the point. The book is a subtle, modern-day homage to Little Women. When the four Padavano sisters stepped into the story — each of them strong-willed and loving but so different from one another — I realized they were the heartbeat that would shape the rest of the novel. They became my homage to the fictional sisters I loved so much growing up: the four March girls in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.” There certainly are “nods” to the 4 Little Women sisters in this story, but the parents are completely different from those in Little Women, especially the mother. And there wasn’t a “one-to-one correspondence” between the 4 (Hello Beautiful) Padavano sisters and the 4 (Little Women) March sisters. I also felt that this “re-imagining” was much darker than Little Woman, which actually appealed to me. This was a Mostly Social Book Club book, and the best thing about it was that, while I was on the library waitlist for it, I was inspired to read Little Women while I waited. | |||
Book #9 |
Book: Little Women | Author: Louisa May Alcott | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 504 | Duration: 02/01/26 – 02/05/26 (5 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, classics, romance, literature, young adult | ||
| 📕10-word summary: 4 sisters endure hardships and enjoy adventures in this classic. 🖌6-word review: There’s a reason it’s a classic. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “Mothers have needs of sharp eyes and discreet tongues when they have girls to manage.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: deportment, derogation, redoubtable, saleratus, assiduity, loquacity, wheedlesome, superannuated, propitious, salubrious | |||
| Description:* The charming story of the March sisters, Little Women has been adored for generations. Readers have rooted for Laurie in his pursuit of Jo’s hand, cried over little Beth’s untimely death, and dreamed of traveling through Europe with old Aunt March and Amy. Aspiring writers have found inspiration in Jo’s devotion to her writing. In this simple, enthralling tale, Louisa May Alcott has created four of American literature’s most beloved women.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I loved the writing in this book. It reminded me of Jane Eyre in that it’s “older” English, but not that Old English that’s unintelligible. And I thoroughly enjoyed the turns of phrases. My impetus for reading this classic now is because our next Mostly Social Book Club book is Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, and its story has parallels with Little Woman. And since I’m still waiting for the book from the library, and I’d never read Little Women, which was available immediately, I went ahead and slipped it in. ChatGPT has graciously summarized the parallels between the two stories, and now that Little Women is fresh in my mind, I look extra forward to reading Hello Beautiful as soon as it’s available. | |||
Book #8 |
Book: The Celebrants | Author: Steven Rowley | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Large print |
Pages: 320 | Duration: 01/27/26 – 01/29/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, LGBT, queer, friendship, chosen family | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Non-binary version of The Big Chill augmented by pre-deceased funerals. 🖌6-word review: An interesting, unique concept goes awry. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “We weren’t meant to see everything, we weren’t built to do everything, we aren’t capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we’ve made.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: Malinois, paean, trine, planchette, huipil | |||
| Description:* A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises — especially to ourselves — by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle. It’s been a minute — or five years — since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and 28 years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living — that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I wanted to like this book more. I really did. But I didn’t. This is my third Steven Rowley book, and I probably won’t read any more by him. I also wanted to love The Guncle more than I did, but I absolutely loved The Editor. (Full disclosure: Having been an editor for a living and loving Jackie Kennedy Onassis may have influenced that.) I guess we can call it progress that there was a time when I thought anything by a gay author or about gay people was fantastic but am now more discerning. There were 2 “scenes” in this book that really didn’t work for me, and they were long scenes — one about a skydiving outing the 5-person group did together, and the other was near the end that went on and on about kittens. Blech. | |||
Book #7 |
Book: The Queens of Crime | Author: Marie Benedict | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 310 | Duration: 01/23/26 – 01/25/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: historical fiction, mystery, crime, women, writers | ||
| 📕10-word summary: 5 famous female crime writers collaborate to solve a murder. 🖌6-word review: 5 powerful protagonists. Creative, fun story. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “Very few of us are what we seem.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: pantheon, ignominy, skullduggery, morass | |||
| Description:* London, 1930. The 5 greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is my third book by this author, having read in 2022 The Only Woman in the Room (about Hedy Lamarr) and The Personal Librarian (about Belle da Costa Greene — personal librarian to famous financier and investment banker J.P. Morgan), and it’s a departure from her regular kind of storytelling, which is typically a fictionalized version of a woman in history who’s been overlooked or under-appreciated. In this story, instead of 1 woman, she writes about 5 women — who are actual, famous crime writers: Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy — and she has them all collaborating to solve one unsolved, real-life murder. Benedict incorporates each writer’s strengths, both as writers and of their main characters, such as Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey who stars in 11 of her novels, and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, appearing in 33 of her novels and Miss Marple, who appears in 12. I found it to be an interesting, creative, and fun premise and would definitely recommend it, especially if you’re a fan of the mystery genre. Oh, bonus! There were at least 3 uses of one of Moira Rose’s vocabulary words: chin-wag. | |||
Book #6 |
Book: Killing Floor | Author: Lee Child | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 532 | Duration: 01/19/26 – 01/22/26 (4 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, thriller, mystery, crime, suspense, detective, action, adventure | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Ex-military policeman stumbles into corrupt town. Kicks ass. Takes names. 🖌6-word review: Excellent storytelling. On the violent side. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “I had to decide how to use that pressure. I had to decide whether it was going to crush me or turn me into a diamond.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: flight case, interdiction, shunted, jinked, Perspex, intaglio, lithography, letterpress, sap, camber | |||
| Description:* The first Jack Reacher novel. Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. Not in Margrave, Georgia. Not a chance in hell.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I’ve only read short-story books by Lee Child — Eleven Numbers and Safe Enough and Other Stories. I wanted to get a feel for his writing before diving into the Jack Reacher series. I was impressed with his writing, giving both those books 5 stars. I had no idea there were thirty Jack Reacher novels, and this is my first one. I’d originally planned to run through a couple (in order of publication, of course; because, that’s how I roll), but I’m rethinking that now. I’m torn, because I loved the writing and the plot, but I really abhor violence, and the worst (meaning most brutal) kind of violence takes place in this story. And I have no reason to think that’s going to abate in any way in future books. I’ll probably try at least the second book, Die Trying, which I’m in the queue for at my library. I hear there is a Reacher TV series, starring Alan Ritchson (a hunk!), and there are two Reacher movies, starring Tom Cruise. Bob’s the movie-watcher in our family, and he said, “Tom Cruise is too wimpy to play Reacher.” I’ve seen neither, as I don’t watch TV or movies, and with the violence in this book, I don’t have any desire to watch either. | |||
Book #5 |
Book: Tell Me Everything | Author: Elizabeth Strout | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Large print |
Pages: 326 | Duration: 01/16/26 – 01/18/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, friendship, family, love | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Lucy and Bob share an incredibly intimate, but nonsexual, relationship. 🖌6-word review: Elizabeth Strout at her absolute best. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “She had apparently not remembered the time — weeks ago — that she had asked him to write the letter B on the back of her underpants, and he did not remind her that she had one more pair — the pair she had been wearing — which needed a B; he did not want to embarrass her.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: schlumpy, snot-wot | |||
| Description:* It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, befriends one of Crosby’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is book #5 in a 5-book series, of which I first read book #4, Lucy by the Sea, then book #3, Oh William!, both of which I loved. Having enjoyed both of those so much, I decided to read the other 3 books in the series. So, next I read book #1, My Name is Lucy Barton, which I didn’t love at all, and which unfortunately, was the case with book #2, Anything is Possible! I know if I’d’ve read them in order, I would have stopped after books #1 & #2. I’m happy to say that this final book was on par, if not the best, of the 5-book series! I just love this author’s voice, and I loved the appearance in this book of Olive Kitteridge, who is the titular character in another of this author’s book, which I loved. So to recap about the series: I recommend skipping books #1 and #2 and reading books #3, #4, & #5. | |||
Book #4 |
Book: The Nickel Loop | Author: Nancy Houser-Bluhm | |
| Source: Friend loan Format: Print |
Pages: 340 | Duration: 01/12/26 – 01/15/26 (4 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, time travel, romance, LGBT, women’s rights, food safety | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Time travelers meet “part way” — help each other through it. 🖌6-word review: Different, interesting experience of time travel. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “There’s a bond that forms when people go through traumatic events together.” | |||
| Description:* Emmeline, a driven young woman, has withdrawn from friends and family since her adored father died suddenly. Traveling by train to visit her sister in a small Colorado town, she steps from 2022 into 1938. When she meets kind, well-educated Nicholas, she recognizes his panic and disbelief. He just arrived from 1898. The two struggle to grasp their shattered reality but blending into 1938 draws them close and love sparks. When a psychic offers hope for returning to their own times, will they forfeit what could be? Nicholas is astonished by the advances 1938 offers but Emmeline knows the 1930s hold little opportunity for her as a woman. A discovery intensifies the pull back to her own time. Can her heart exist on two timelines?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: In spite of not being a sci-fi, magical realism, or fantasy fan, I do like time-travel stories. Other time-travel books I’ve enjoyed include The memory Collectors, Remember Me Tomorrow, Oona Out of Order, The Midnight Library, Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Time Traveler’s Wife, In Five Years, and A Wrinkle in Time.
The refreshing part of this time-travel plot was: of the two people traveling, one lands in 1938 from the future (2022) and the other from the past (1898). One thing I especially liked about the way the story unraveled was that it was like it anticipated my questions and then answered them. Some examples:
And of course, I liked that there was a gay character in the book. A final comment about this book is that the author went to high school with Bob (my husband), and she’s my friend on Facebook, which fortunately didn’t influence my review of the book — thank goodness, as that could have been awkward. (Thanks for a great story, Nancy, and for anticipating my questions as a reader — and more importantly — answering them! 😍) |
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Book #3 |
Book: Anything is Possible | Author: Elizabeth Strout | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Large print |
Pages: 254 | Duration: 01/08/26 – 01/11/26 (4 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, family, dysfunction, class | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Woman returns to visit her siblings after 17 years away. 🖌6-word review: Had trouble keeping track of characters. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “Unease came into the room with the girl.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: lambert, kohl, cornetto, caseggiato, dappled | |||
| Description:* Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for a mother’s love even as she comes to accept her own mother’s happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author’s celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after 17 years of absence.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is book #2 in a 5-book series, of which I first read book #4, Lucy by the Sea, then book #3, Oh William!, both of which I loved. Having enjoyed both of those so much, I decided to read the other 3 books in the series. So, next I read book #1, My Name is Lucy Barton, which I didn’t love at all, and which unfortunately, was the case with this book #2! I know if I’d’ve read them in order, I would have stopped after this book (#2). Now I’m hesitant to read book #5, Tell Me Everything, but I’m hoping that they got better as they went along and that I will enjoy book #5 as much as I did numbers 3 & 4. I’m at least going to start it, and if it’s more like books 1 & 2 than books 3 & 4, then I’ll abandon it. | |||
Book #2 |
Book: The Correspondent | Author: Virginia Evans | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 291 | Duration: 01/06/26 – 01/07/26 (2 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, family, books about books, grief | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Woman finds solace in literature, connecting with people by letter. 🖌6-word review: Nonpareil narrator. Commendable characters. Laudable letters. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “I’ve now stood before my closet on three occasions and leafed through what I own, and the only black anything I have anymore is a dress I was probably wearing in the 1990s, which dips down to the uppermost part of what used to be my cleavage, but which now resembles the skin of a raw plucked chicken.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: dryads, lichen | |||
| Description:* Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has — a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This book is all the rage right now, and I waited several months for it on my library‘s waiting list. It was at — or near — the top of many “2025 best book of the year” lists. I certainly agree with its high ratings, as I enjoyed it tremendously. I love a good epistolary novel, probably because the idea of reading other people’s mail greatly appeals to me. I loved the variety of people she wrote to, including a couple of authors (Ann Patchett to name one that I love). I also love books about books, to which I recently devoted an entire blog entry, and there were several books mentioned in this book that I’ve read including, Hamnet, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Bel Canto, The Dutch House, 84 Charing Cross Road, The Uncommon Reader, Cutting for Stone, Rebecca, The Remains of the Day, Demon Copperhead, Crossing to Safety, and Wuthering Heights. Also book/author-related, there were a couple of Joan Didion books mentioned, whose Notes To John I recently read. And a final relevant-to-me thing in this book was a plotline in it about DNA testing, which reminded me of my recently read book: The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Uncovering Secrets, Reuniting Relatives, and Upending Who We Are. | |||
Book #1 |
Book: What Happened to the McCrays? | Author: Tracey Lange | |
| Source: Amazon Unlimited loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 352 | Duration: 01/01/26 – 01/05/26 (5 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: fiction, family, romance, grief | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Couple destroyed by loss of their son tries to recover. 🖌6-word review: Angst and sadness dominate the narrative. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “It was a curious thing being in that room again. He felt a little lost in time, like he was visiting the boy who used to inhabit this space and dream about his future.” | |||
| 🎓A new-to-me word: puffy | |||
| Description:* When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends—not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone. The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: A friend of mine recommended this book, which she loved. It was a good story, which I enjoyed, but for me, it took a little too long to get to the crux of what really happened the day the couple’s son died and why it was so hard for them to forgive themselves and each other. | |||
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