Reading

Finished book #22 in 2026

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Book #22
Stiff: Dear Edward book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #21 in 2026

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Book #21
Stiff: Bridgerton: The Duke & I book cover		 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.
💭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!

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Finished book #20 in 2026

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Book #20
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers book cover		 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.
💭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 time, 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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #19 in 2026

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Book #19
Perfection book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #18 in 2026

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Book #18
Audition book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #17 in 2026

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Book #17
What Happened Next book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #16 in 2026

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Book #16
The Price of Honey book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #15 in 2026

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Book #15
Annette: Sierra Summer book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #14 in 2026

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Book #14
Do You Mind If I Cancel?: Things That Still Annoy Me book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #13 in 2026

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Book #13
Between Two Trailers book cover		 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: ★☆☆☆☆ 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.
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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #12 in 2026

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Book #12
The House of Mirth book cover		 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.
💭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. 😂

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #11 in 2026

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Book #11
Pocketbook of Quotes from Socrates to Lebowski book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #10 in 2026

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Book #10
Hello Beautiful book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #9 in 2026

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Book #9
Little Women book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #8 in 2026

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Book #8
The Celebrants book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #7 in 2026

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Book #7
The Queens of Crime book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #6 in 2026

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Book #6
Killing Floor book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #5 in 2026

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Book #5
Tell Me Everything book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #4 in 2026

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Book #4
The Nickel Loop book cover		 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.
💭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:

  1. I was wondering how Nicholas’ cabin became a museum. And in the very next chapter, that was answered.
  2. I was wondering which family members were currently (in 1938) living in what was Emmeline’s sister’s home in 2022 (because it was a “family home” handed down over the years), and then Nicholas & Emmeline went there to see who was living there now.
  3. I began wondering how Emmeline’s family (specifically her mother and sister) were reacting to her having gone missing in the future, and that eventually happened in chapter 18 with a jump back to 2022.
  4. I wondered why Emmeline didn’t take a photo of Nicholas on the cell phone she had with her in 1938, which couldn’t be used as a phone at all, but whose camera would have been functional, and later on, when it was too late, Emmeline wondered herself why she hadn’t done that.

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! 😍)

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #3 in 2026

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Book #3
Anything is Possible book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #2 in 2026

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Book #2
The Correspondent book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #1 in 2026

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Book #1
What Happened to the McCrays? book cover		 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.
💭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.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

2026 books read

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Book covers of the 23 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.

Row 1: Echoes of Her | Dear Edward | Bridgerton: The Duke & I | Stiff | Perfection | Audition Row 2: What Happened Next | The Price of Honey | Annette: Sierra Summer | Do You Mind If I Cancel? | Between Two Trailers | The House of Mirth Row 3: Pocketbook of Quotes from Socrates to Lebowski | Hello Beautiful | Little Women | The Celebrants | The Queens of Crime | Killing Floor Row 4: Tell Me Everything | The Nickel Loop | Anything is Possible | The Correspondent | What Happened to the McCrays?


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
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 Print 125 03/17/26 – 03/19/26 (3 days) ★★★★☆ fiction, Italian literature, existentialism
18 Audition
by Katie Kitamura		 Library loan Print 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 Print 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 Print 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 #23
Echoes of Her book cover		 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 worms snakes.
🖌6-word review: 4-hour read. Shocking revelations unravel quickly.
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
Stiff: Dear Edward book cover		 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.
💭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
Bridgerton: The Duke & I book cover		 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.
💭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
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers book cover		 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.
💭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
Perfection book cover		 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.
💭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
Audition book cover		 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.
💭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
What Happened Next book cover		 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.
💭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
The Price of Honey book cover		 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.
💭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
Annette: Sierra Summer book cover		 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.
💭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
Do You Mind If I Cancel?: Things That Still Annoy Me book cover		 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.
💭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
Between Two Trailers book cover		 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.
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
The House of Mirth book cover		 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.
💭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
Pocketbook of Quotes from Socrates to Lebowski book cover		 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.
💭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
Hello Beautiful book cover		 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.
💭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
Little Women book cover		 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.
💭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
The Celebrants book cover		 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.
💭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
The Queens of Crime book cover		 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.
💭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
Killing Floor book cover		 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.
💭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
Tell Me Everything book cover		 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.
💭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
The Nickel Loop book cover		 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.
💭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:

  1. I was wondering how Nicholas’ cabin became a museum. And in the very next chapter, that was answered.
  2. I was wondering which family members were currently (in 1938) living in what was Emmeline’s sister’s home in 2022 (because it was a “family home” handed down over the years), and then Nicholas & Emmeline went there to see who was living there now.
  3. I began wondering how Emmeline’s family (specifically her mother and sister) were reacting to her having gone missing in the future, and that eventually happened in chapter 18 with a jump back to 2022.
  4. I wondered why Emmeline didn’t take a photo of Nicholas on the cell phone she had with her in 1938, which couldn’t be used as a phone at all, but whose camera would have been functional, and later on, when it was too late, Emmeline wondered herself why she hadn’t done that.

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! 😍)

Book #3
Anything is Possible book cover		 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.
💭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
The Correspondent book cover		 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.
💭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
What Happened to the McCrays? book cover		 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.
💭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.

Go to my books-read list for: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019

Finished book #136 in 2025

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Book #136
My Name is Lucy Barton book cover		 Book: My Name is Lucy Barton Author: Elizabeth Strout
Source: Library loan
Format: Large print		 Pages: 193 Duration: 12/30/25 – 12/30/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, family, relationships
📕10-word summary: Heart-to-heart conversations between mother and hospitalized daughter with tenuous relationship.
🖌6-word review: Surprisingly less than I expected, wanted.
💭A memorable quote: “‘It’s not my job to make readers know what’s a narrative voice and not the private view of the author,’ and that alone made me glad I had come.”
Description:* Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’m reading the 5-book Amgash Series by this author, of which this is the first book in the series, but my third book in the series, as I’m reading them out of order. In 2023, I read the 4th book, Lucy by the Sea in my book club just after the pandemic, and which was actually centered around the pandemic, and I loved it. Just last week, I read the 3rd book in the series, Oh William!, and loved that, too, and which prompted me to read the remaining 3. So, imagine my surprise when I read this first book in the series and didn’t love it. I’m glad I didn’t read this one first, because I might not have gone on to read the others. I’m very curious to read the 2nd book, Anything is Possible, in 2026 to hopefully see how the writing improves to the level I loved in books #3 and #4.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #135 in 2025

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Book #135
Juror #3 book cover		 Book: Juror #3 Author: James Patterson
Source: Library loan
Format: Large print		 Pages: 352 Duration: 12/29/25 – 12/30/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, mystery, legal thriller, crime
📕10-word summary: Juror #3 plays a significant role in back-to-back murder trials.
🖌6-word review: Legal thriller unfolds at good pace.
💭A memorable quote: “Growing up poor in small Mississippi towns, I had learned at an early age to anticipate other people’s reactions. And when my gut failed me, I had my fists.”
Description:* The murder of a woman from one of the town’s oldest families has Rosedale’s upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby’s inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction. Ruby’s client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick. She finds help in unexpected quarters from Suzanne, a hard-charging attorney armed to the teeth, and Shorty, a diner cook who knows more than he lets on. Ruby never belonged to the country-club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby’s ex-fiancé, Lee Greene, shows up on her doorstep — a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: The is my second James Patterson book, having read his Merry Christmas, Alex Cross 13 years ago in 2012. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book centered around a trial, and I really enjoy them. I’ll have to look for more to read in 2026, perhaps starting with 1 or 2 from this list of 11 Best Legal Thrillers That Bring the Courtroom Drama, only a couple of which I’ve already read. As I have to believe that most readers of this book are, I was surprised when what seemed like the climax of the drama around juror #3 was reached in the middle of the book. It’s one of those times when you think, “Dang, there’s still half the book left. How can that be?” Read on.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #134 in 2025

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Book #134
The Mayfly book cover		 Book: The Mayfly Author: Ben Rogers
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 268 Duration: 12/28/25 – 12/28/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, short stories
📕10-word summary: 8 quite different short stories, albeit some with common themes.
🖌6-word review: Sometimes arcane writing; many unappealing-to-me plotlines.
💭A memorable quote: “But you’ve never heard me refer to my ‘Mr. Morning’ as a ‘beaver basher’ or a ‘cranny axe!’ Still, if it be necessary, do allow me to herein and henceforth renounce this most troublesome organ, which ‘serves as duct for the transfer of sperm but equally so the dissemination of so much poisonous masculinity.’ Lord. To think all my life I’ve been lugging such a weapon betwixt my legs! When last we shared a bed and you tugged me to tumescence, am I to understand you were actually trying to uproot the root of all evil? Do tell…”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Mephistos, Sikorsky, mayfly, riffle, absquatulating, helpmeet, escritoire, larder, memento mori, Sozodont, road agentry, invectives, pudenda, rusticate, manzanita
Description:* The life of a mayfly can be harrowing or hilarious, but it is always short. So, too, the short story.
Fans of the genre will love the inventive specimens on display in this rollicking debut collection. A group of aging engineering professors take the weekend off for some fun and felony. A pro cyclist learns the cost of greatness in a Pushcart-nominated ride. A member of the Manhattan Project sees the world’s first nuclear reaction through resentful eyes. A Hollywood editor discovers what belongs on his cutting room floor. And in 1869, an aspiring writer pens a series of letters during his doomed homecoming to Virginia City, Nevada.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I wanted to like this book more than I did. I really don’t like when I’m reading a story and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in it for an extended period of time. There were a few of those in this collection. The biggest problem, I think, was that I wasn’t interested in, or just didn’t like, the plotlines of most of the stories. Some examples include: a bunch of guys (implausibly) stealing a Reno landmark, an athlete pushing himself beyond safety, anthropomorphizing animals, and a bunch of privileged kids pulling pranks at an exclusive tennis camp. The story I liked the most appealed to me because it was epistolary in nature and it was about writing, but it was way too long for a short story in an anthology. If it wasn’t the last story in the collection, I probably would have abandoned it, but it was ultimately satisfying — the ending “saving it.” It would have been better as a novella, or perhaps as the first story instead of the last, at which time you already had an expectation of it being much shorter than it turned out to be.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #133 in 2025

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Book #133
Oh William! book cover		 Book: Oh William! Author: Elizabeth Strout
Source: Library loan
Format: Large print		 Pages: 240 Duration: 12/25/25 – 12/28/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, family, relationships
📕10-word summary: Writer and her ex-husband are still figuring each other out.
🖌6-word review: Beautiful writing. Protagonist’s “voice” is captivating.
💭A memorable quote: “Please try to understand this: I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Chagas disease, schistosomiasis
Description:* Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. William, she confesses, has always been a mystery to me. Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years. They just are. So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret — one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has called Elizabeth Strout’s “perfect attunement to the human condition.” There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together — even after we’ve grown apart.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I loved this book, as I loved the author’s Lucy by the Sea, which our book club read in 2023. I just love the way the protagonist narrator thinks and speaks. Lucy by the Sea is actually the 4th book in a 5-book series, and this book, Oh William!, is the 3rd in the series, and after reading it, I’ve decided to read the other 3 in the series: My Name is Lucy Barton (#1), Anything is Possible (#2), & Tell Me Everything (#5).

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #132 in 2025

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Book #132
Rich Dad, Poor Dad book cover		 Book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad Author: Robert T. Kiyosaki
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 288 Duration: 12/25/25 – 12/26/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: nonfiction, business, finance, money, personal finance, self-help, personal development
📕10-word summary: Important things about money that our schools don’t teach you.
🖌6-word review: Very educational, but heavy on hype.
💭A memorable quote: “Ray Kroc’s McDonald’s is not in the business of hamburgers; it’s in the business of real estate. Today, McDonald’s is the largest single owner of real estate in the world, owning even more than the Catholic Church.”
🎓A new-to-me word: chaologist
Description:* Rich Dad, Poor Dad is Robert’s story of growing up with two dads — his real father and the father of his best friend, his rich dad — and the ways in which both men shaped his thoughts about money and investing. The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This book made me glad we’re retired and (financially) comfortable in retirement. I completely agree that our education system does a disservice to people by not teaching basic finances, and I’m glad I took on learning it myself and early in my life. These type of hyped-up financial (inspirational?) books remind me of books about losing weight, the similarity being that to lose weight, you need to expend more calories than you take in and to grow wealth you need to spend less money than you take in. In the end, it really is that simple. But it’s not easy, and most people aren’t willing to do it. And I’m extremely grateful (and lucky) to have a life partner who was willing to do it in his life, too.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #131 in 2025

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Book #131
In the Margins book cover		 Book: In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing Author: Elena Ferrante
Source: Library loan
Format: Large print		 Pages: 160 Duration: 12/25/25 – 12/25/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: nonfiction, essays, writing, books about books, memoir, Italian Literature, feminism
📕10-word summary: Pandemic-aborted lectures about Ferrante’s writing process turned into a book.
🖌6-word review: Very academic and at times esoteric.
💭A memorable quote: “Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desperate power of the ugly. And characters? I feel they are false when they exhibit clear coherence and I become passionate about them when they say one thing and do another.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: camorrist, canticle, calque
Description:* In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors.” Here, in these 4 crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of “bad language” and suggests ways in which it has long excluded women’s truth; she proposes a choral fusion of feminine talent as she brilliantly discourses on the work of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Ingeborg Bachmann, and many others. Here is a subtle yet candid book by “one of the great novelists of our time” about adventures in literature, both in and out of the margins.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’ve read 2 books by Elena Ferrante — The Days of Abandonment in 2022 and The Lost Daughter in 2025 — and both books have brutally honest female protagonists whose first-person accounts “take you down” with them. It’s quite remarkable writing, which is what made me interested in reading about her writing process. I gave this book only 3 stars solely due to the “may or may not recommend” part of that rating. I doubt this book would be interesting to non-writers, and it’s quite an academic endeavor, which is also a turn-off for a lot of people.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #130 in 2025

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Book #130
The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire before Stonewall book cover		 Book: The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire before Stonewall Author: Cookie Woolner
Source: Library loan
Format: E-book		 Pages: 210 Duration: 12/23/25 – 12/25/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, queer, history, Lesbian, LGBT, race, education
📕10-word summary: Academic study of Black queer women in the Jazz Age.
🖌6-word review: Mostly fascinating. Sometimes infuriating. Text-book style.
💭A memorable quote: In 1926, the Black newspaper The New York Age published a front-page article with the graphic headline “Woman Rivals for Affection of Another Woman[,] Battles with Knives, and One Has Head Almost Severed from Body.” The lengthy opening sentence read: “Crazed with gin and a wild and unnatural infatuation for another woman, Reba Stobtoff, in whose Manhattan apartment her friends and acquaintances had gathered for a Saturday night rent party, grabbed a keen-edged bread knife and with one fell swoop, severed the jugular vein in the throat of Louise Wright after a fierce quarrel in which Reba had accused Louise of showing too much interest in a woman named Clara, known to underworld dwellers as “Big Ben,” the name coming from her unusual size and from her inclination to ape the masculine in dress and manner, and particularly in her attention to other women.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: deportment, liminal, dissemblance, interwar, extant, dirk, swains, rent parties, buffet flats, imbricated, specious, inveigling, nances, chorines
Description:* Black queer women have shaped American culture since long before the era of gay liberation. Decades prior to the Stonewall Uprising, in the 1920s and 1930s, Black “lady lovers”—as women who loved women were then called—crafted a queer world. In the cabarets, rent parties, speakeasies, literary salons, and universities of the Jazz Age and Great Depression, communities of Black lady lovers grew, and queer flirtations flourished. Cookie Woolner here uncovers the intimate lives of performers, writers, and educators such as Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Gladys Bentley, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Lucy Diggs Slowe, along with the many everyday women she encountered in the archives. Examining blues songs, Black newspapers, vice reports, memoirs, sexology case studies, and more, Woolner illuminates the unconventional lives Black lady lovers formed to suit their desires. In the urban North, as the Great Migration gave rise to increasingly racially mixed cities, Black lady lovers fashioned and participated in emerging sexual subcultures. During this time, Black queer women came to represent anxieties about the deterioration of the heteronormative family. Negotiating shifting notions of sexuality and respectability, Black lady lovers strategically established queer networks, built careers, created families, and were vital cultural contributors to the US interwar era.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’m going to count this as having taken a course in Queer Studies, Gender Studies, or African American Studies, because early on in this book, I thought, “This reads like a text book or somebody’s dissertation.” Turns out it was the author’s 2014 doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan, was adapted into a book published by the University of North Carolina Press, and has been used as a college text book in various courses. It’s extremely educational and a mostly fascinating, sometimes infuriating (i.e., discrimination, hate crimes, police brutality, etc.) look at the plight of queer, Black women in the 1920s and ’30s. The chapter names are:

  • Introduction: Have We a New Sex Problem Here?
  • One: Woman Slain in Queer Love Brawl: The Violent Emergence of Lady Lovers in the 1920s Northern Black Press
  • Two: The Famous Lady Lovers in the Early Twentieth-Century Black Popular Entertainment Industry
  • Three: A Freakish Party: Black Lady Lovers, Vice, and Space in the Prohibition Era Urban North
  • Four: Intimate Friends and Bosom Companions: Middle-Class Black Lady Lovers Crafting Queer Kinship Networks

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #129 in 2025

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Book #129
Run for the Hills book cover		 Book: Run for the Hills Author: Kevin Wilson
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 253 Duration: 12/21/25 – 12/21/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, humor, family, road trip
📕10-word summary: Half-siblings road trip to find/meet their father who abandoned them.
🖌6-word review: A sibling story like no other.
💭A favorite quote:
“I have no idea how you and I are connected,” Rube said to Mad’s mother.
“Oh, I don’t think we’re anything.”
“So I mean, I don’t know if it’s legal or anything, but maybe you would be, like, my stepmother once removed?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t think it works like that.”

“No, I know. But, we’re connected, obviously.”
“Sure, why not?” she offered.
Description:* Ever since her dad left them 20 years ago, it’s been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it’s a bit lonely, she sometimes admits, and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it’s mostly okay. Mostly. Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben — left behind by their dad thirty years ago — has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all. As Mad and Rube — and eventually the others — share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with every new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I absolutely loved this book, in fact it might be my “book of the year” for 2025. This is my second book by this author, having read The Family Fang earlier in the year, and the common denominator is “quirky” — both in terms of storyline and characters. From reviews I’ve read, this author seems to be known for that. I hope to read another of his books in 2026. This is a 2025 book (published May 13), and I’d be very, very surprised if it isn’t made into a movie. At this time, the author and the publisher still own the rights to the book.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #128 in 2025

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Book #128
Safe Enough book cover		 Book: Safe Enough Author: Lee Child
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 237 Duration: 12/18/25 – 12/19/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, short stories, crime, mystery, thriller, suspense, anthologies
📕10-word summary: 20 crime mystery short stories by the Jack Reacher author.
🖌6-word review: Diverse stories quickly pull you in.
💭A memorable quote: “My faith has no room for superstition.”
Description:* For the past 20 years, Lee Child has been one of the bestselling authors in the world, thanks to the popularity of his iconic and instantly recognizable hero Jack Reacher. But even at the height of Reacher’s fame, Child’s short story writing was not confined to the series; throughout the course of his career, he published tales about a range of characters on both sides of the law, including assassins, a body guard, CIA and FBI agents, gangsters, and more. Meticulously plotted and packed with Child’s trademark action and suspense, the stories show the author’s mastery of the short form, and they’ve never been collected before now.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’ve been dancing around this author’s Jack Reacher stories for about a year now. But after reading his short story, Eleven Numbers, earlier this year, and now this “non-Jack-Reacher” collection of short stories, I’m going to read Killing Floor, the first in the 30-book (to date) Jack Reacher series in 2026. The 20 short stories in this anthology comprise:

  1. The Bodyguard: A methodical professional bodyguard goes private to protect a wealthy 22-year-old Brazilian woman named Anna, whose family has many enemies.
  2. The Greatest Trick of All: A highly skilled hitman, mentored by a man named Ryland, must use everything he was taught to master one final trick to survive.
  3. Ten Keys: A drug-dealing hitman feels compelled to confess his guilt and fears to a complete stranger while waiting in a bar.
  4. Safe Enough: Wolfe, a man from the Bronx now living in the country, is hired by a woman to find her missing husband, but he must determine if she can be trusted.
  5. Normal in Every Way: Relegated to file clerk duty in 1950s San Francisco, a brilliant but awkward rookie cop uses his unique talent for connecting historic dates to solve crimes.
  6. The .50 Solution: An assassin is hired to kill a racehorse and clashes with his client over the high-caliber weapon requested for the job.
  7. Public Transportation: A journalist and a police officer have an unofficial conversation that reveals the truth behind a “conveniently” closed murder case.
  8. Me and Mr. Rafferty: A serial killer narrates his habit of leaving subtle, grisly clues for the detective hunting him, seeking a twisted form of connection.
  9. Section 7 (a) (Operational): An operative meticulously assembles a team for what appears to be a high-stakes military or covert mission.
  10. Addicted to Sweetness: A powerful criminal leader named Socrates interrogates a thief about stolen sugar, exploring the unexpected consequences of harsh punishments.
  11. The Bone-Headed League: An FBI agent stationed in London is challenged by a colleague to solve a murder case using clues inspired by a Sherlock Holmes story.
  12. I Heard a Romantic Story: While lying in wait for a target, an assassin overhears a romantic story that provides a backdrop to his mission.
  13. My First Drug Trial: Before a court appearance for drug possession, a defendant struggles with his internal monologue about whether or not to get high one last time.
  14. Wet with Rain: Two men traveling to Dublin to buy a house find themselves disrupted by a Special Branch officer who suspects the property hides something serious.
  15. The Truth About What Happened: Set in 1942, an African American man working on a top-secret national security project (the Manhattan Project) is interrogated about what he knows.
  16. Pierre, Lucien & Me: A tale centering on art fraud, past regrets, and the relationship between the narrator and two other men.
  17. New Blank Document: A freelance writer in Florida is hired to find and interview the secret, unacknowledged brother of a famous jazz pianist.
  18. Shorty and the Briefcase: An injured police officer uses his analytical skills and brainpower to assist his colleagues in a major bust.
  19. Dying for a Cigarette: A short, punchy tale involving a high-stakes situation where a cigarette plays a central role.
  20. The Snake-Eater by the Numbers: A rookie London police officer is mentored by a corrupt sergeant who prioritizes high arrest numbers over actual justice.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

A proud local library user

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I’m an avid user (and fan, obviously!) of libraries. Of the 127 books I’ve read to date in 2025, 78 (61%) of them have been library books.

I don’t buy books, so the other 49 free books were sourced as:

Chart notes:
– Library = Wake County Public Libraries
– Amazon First Reads = a choice of a free early-release ebook, once a month for Amazon Prime subscribers
– BookBub = a free service offering (some) free ebooks announced by email; I only download free ones

Meanwhile, back at my local library, the Wake County Public Library, shared this year’s usage statistics:

  • Over 11.9 million items borrowed across print, audio and digital collections
  • More than 10,000 programs hosted, with over 350,000 patrons joining us for enrichment and celebration
  • Over 178,000 hours of public computer usage and more than 1.1 million hours of Wi-Fi used in our libraries, supporting equitable access to technology
  • More than 11,000 hours of volunteer service were generously contributed to enhance services and programs

I’m proud to have been 78 of those 11.9M loaned books. See all the books I’ve read in 2025 to date and where they came from.

Finished book #127 in 2025

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Book #127
If Something Happens to Me book cover		 Book: If Something Happens to Me Author: Alex Finlay
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 336 Duration: 12/17/25 – 12/18/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, thriller, mystery, suspense, crime
📕10-word summary: Boy witnessing girlfriend’s abduction ignites a dangerous turn of events.
🖌6-word review: Several complicated plots wore me down.
💭A memorable quote: “Few things in this world can make you feel better than a dog.”
Description:* For the past 5 years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him. Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me…”*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: A 4-part structure and a multiple-POV narrative with no fewer than 3 name changes for a couple of characters (for example, Ali → Taylor → Sophia; think witness protection program for Ali/Taylor/Sophia and her father) — well it quickly gets exponentially complicated. We’ve got local law enforcement, state-level FBI (complete with a “dirty” agent), and the mob involved in various plots and sub-plots. It’s a lot. YMMV. I have no doubt that a lot of people would love this book.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #126 in 2025

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Book #126
What She Saw book cover		 Book: What She Saw Author: Mary Burton
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 347 Duration: 12/15/25 – 12/17/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, crime
📕10-word summary: Writer, daughter delves into 30-year-old murders to find the bodies.
🖌6-word review: Good murder mystery. Good unraveling pace.
💭A memorable quote: “Paxton’s gaze was locked on her breasts — or, as he said in court, the long line of her neck.”
Description:* Cold case reporter Sloane Grayson has come to a small mountain town in Virginia to solve a mystery. 30 years ago, her mother was one of 4 women who vanished during a music festival. The event’s promoter was eventually convicted of their murders, and Sheriff CJ Taggart closed the case. But for Sloane, it’s still open. Because the bodies were never found. With Taggart long dead, Sloane must make do with questioning the victims’ families and the few remaining witnesses once again. If they’re still willing to dredge up memories of a crime that made their town notorious. As for the incarcerated killer, he has always maintained his innocence. Sloane isn’t entirely convinced he’s lying. Somewhere nearby, unmarked graves conceal the bones and secrets of the dead. Sloane will do anything to find them and unearth the truth, even if that means playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with someone determined to stop her.
Thoughts: This was a good read. Strong female protagonist, and one significant twist.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #125 in 2025

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Book #125
A Santa Stabbing book cover		 Book: A Santa Stabbing Author: Geri Krotow
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 266 Duration: 12/13/25 – 12/14/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, cozy mystery, Christmas, crime, murder
📕10-word summary: Naval aviator turned amateur sleuth finds dead body in shop.
🖌6-word review: Strong female characters. Interesting, without schmaltz.
💭A humorous quote: “It’s part of being in retail.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: narthex, psittacines, weir
Description:* Retired Navy pilot Angel Warren’s new life awaits in Stonebridge, Pennsylvania, where she’s opening Shop ‘Round the World, her travel-inspired gift and novelty shop. A newly empty nester and longtime widow, she’s looking forward to leaving her flying career and its many life-or-death decisions behind and reconnecting with family and friends. Right now, Angel’s biggest challenge is getting the shop ready for its grand opening just weeks before Christmas. Until she finds a dead body in the shop murdered with one of her specialty Santa figurines. Even worse, Angel’s fingerprints are on the “weapon” and she’s a prime suspect. It doesn’t help that the deceased is an old friend who’s collected a long list of enemies as a cut-throat real estate agent. And then there’s the Stonebridge Chief of Police—and Angel’s high school BFF—who brings her in for questioning. If Angel wants to clear her name before the Christmas rush, she’s going to need to do some sleuthing on her own—and with the help of her stressed out parrot, Ralph.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I gave the storyline of this typical cozy mystery 4 stars, but I had to subtract a star for my overall rating due to a dozen “missed edits,” including wrong words (e.g., “What so you mean by ‘everything?'”), missing words, (e.g., “Got a good night’s in my own bed last night.”), or repeated words (e.g., “Knock off the bigger suspects off first.”) and for hyphenating the word “Stonebridge” (which is used a lot) sometimes as “Stoneb-ridge” and “Stonebri-dge,” WTF? Also, ditch the parrot! I don’t know why annoying pets are included in some stories. This story is one of them. On the plus side, there are two LGBT couples in the story. And interestingly enough, this is the 2nd book in a week that has had Matryoshka dolls as props in them. This is the final holiday-related book I’m going to read. I like to read at least one at this time of the year.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #124 in 2025

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Book #124
Peppermint Cookie Murder book cover		 Book: Peppermint Cookie Murder Author: Trixie Silvertale
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 238 Duration: 12/12/25 – 12/12/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Genres: fiction, cozy mystery, Christmas, holiday, fantasy, paranormal
📕10-word summary: Santa’s daughter leaves the North Pole to open a bakery.
🖌6-word review: Think of synonyms for preposterous. Apply.
💭A humorous quote: “Have you tried talking to the gals at the bingo club? That group drinks a lot during bingo. And there’s nothing like alcohol to pry the truth from someone’s lips.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: sluice, Dolomites in Carezza, Val d’Ega
Description:* Cindy Claus is excited to open her own bakery. She’s determined to pursue her passion and have her holiday treats prove she’s more than a Yuletide heir. But before she can whisk up a success, her roommate is murdered and Cindy is the prime suspect. With finding the real killer the only way to beat the rap, Cindy relies on the kindness of strangers and her father’s trusted arctic fox. But without a recipe for success in the unfamiliar human world, grilling the wrong suspects could put her behind bars. Can Cindy sift out the clues before she’s done and dusted?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’m glad I didn’t pay money for this book. So much to dislike. Santa’s daughter, Cindy Claus, who is 114 years old finally tells her father (Santa, who is a little over 1000 years old and Mrs. Claus is rumored to be nearly 2,000 years old) that she’s not interested in taking over “the business” when he retires. Her parents agree to let her go to a place called Silver Shoals to open a bakery. In “the human world,” she doesn’t know a lot of things, such as what money is, and she doesn’t understand metaphors, similes, aphorisms, exaggerations, or puns, which the author mostly uses as a device to show you how she responds to the people in this little town using them incessantly. But don’t worry, she has her family pet from the North Pole with her, who is an artic fox that passes as a dog in the human world, although he has to remember not to speak to her, or her to him, in front of other people. That’s the bad news, the good news being that he explains all of the townspeople’s figurative language to her, because of course, he understands them. 🙄 Three other things: 1) Considering the name of the book, neither a peppermint cookie nor a murder had appeared yet at 43% into the book, 2) Cindy used a lot of stoopid ejaculations, “Oh reindeer poop!” “Icicles!” and “Blizzards!” to name a few, and 3) just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the word conspiratorially showed up. Numbing frost! I can’t not recommend this book enough.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #123 in 2025

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Book #123
The Book Club for Troublesome Women book cover		 Book: The Book Club for Troublesome Women Author: Marie Bostwick
Source: Library loan
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 380 Duration: 12/08/25 – 12/10/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, books about books, feminism
📕10-word summary: Four friendships forged in a book club prevail in self-discovery.
🖌6-word review: Humorous, thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful, inspirational.
💭A favorite quote: “Apart from reservations, vodka stingers are the only thing I know how to make.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: décolletage, Shalimar, toile, bouclé, pavlova, clarion, shantung, zaftig, laminitis, pabulum, ordnance
Description:* By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman’s dream. She has a husband” target=”_blank”>, three children, a station wagon, and a home in Concordia — one of Northern Virginia’s most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman’s Place — a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn’t that feel like enough? Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia’s newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte’s orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women — Bitsy and Viv — to the inaugural meeting. Nicknaming themselves “the Bettys,” after The Feminine Mystique‘s author Betty Friedan, these 4 friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments — and what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: Not that I’ve ever seen Desperate Housewives, or read or watched The Stepford Wives, but after the first couple of chapters of this book, I thought it might be like what I imagine them to be about. Hoping it wouldn’t be the case, I forged ahead. Fortunately, the 4-women book club reads The Feminine Mystique, the classic by Betty Friedman, which lights a fire in these women and things become more interesting. This is yet another “books about books,” which I’m drawn to, and about which I recently blogged about. In addition to The Feminine Mystique, these books are mentioned in this book: Gift from the Sea (read in 2024), Coming of Age in Samoa, Mansfield Park, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Wuthering Heights (read in 2015), Joy in the Morning, The Girls of Slender Means, The Bell Jar, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, A Room of One’s Own, The Second Sex, The Group, Revolutionary Road, Babbit, A Town Like Alice, Herland, Dearly Beloved, The Old Man and the Sea (read in 1991). And finally, ugh, yet another book that used my overused, nemesis word, “conspiratorial.”

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #122 in 2025

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Book #122
The Heart of Everything book cover		 Book: The Heart of Everything Author: Marc Levy
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 205 Duration: 12/05/25 – 12/06/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, magical realism, suspense, family, love, romance
📕10-word summary: Son’s father’s ghost visits with a haunting, time-limited, compelling request.
🖌6-word review: Sweetly told tale with likable characters.
💭A memorable quote: “An adult is just a child with debt.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Škoda, vetiver, jute, Arsène Lupin
Description:* There’s nothing too unusual about a father asking his son for a favor — unless, of course, the father in question has been dead for five years. Thomas, a young virtuoso pianist living a quiet, carefully structured life in France, is stunned when his late father, Raymond, suddenly appears in his home. He’s not a ghost in the traditional sense — he’s real enough to ask for help. His request? That Thomas travel with him to San Francisco to find Camille, the long-lost love of his life. For Thomas, it’s as surreal as it sounds. And yet… it might be his last-in-a-lifetime chance to know his father as a man and to square the regrets of the past. Together they embark on a five-thousand-mile journey that questions the very nature of existence, proves that love never fades, and rekindles the curious, heart-tugging bond between a parent and child that somehow endures beyond death.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is a brand new book that isn’t scheduled to be published until January of 2026, but it was one of Amazon Prime’s December First Reads selections. I’m not a fan of the magical realism genre, but maybe because it was just one ghost, with not a lot of back story about how his appearance happened and “rules of engagement” with the entity, it didn’t bother me. I could have done without the word “conspiratorial” rearing its ugly head early in the book. I thought it was a sweet, little story.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #121 in 2025

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Book #121
Bring Me Back book cover		 Book: Bring Me Back Author: B.A. Paris
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 291 Duration: 12/03/25 – 12/04/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, psychological thriller, mystery, crime
📕10-word summary: Man imminently marrying sister of dead former girlfriend gets mind-fucked.
🖌6-word review: Twisted tale. Reader gets mind-fucked, too.
💭A memorable quote: “Time is an oddity when it comes to memories.”
Description:* Finn and Layla: young and in love, their whole lives ahead of them. Driving back from a holiday in France one night, Finn pulls in to a service station, leaving Layla alone in the car. When he returns, minutes later, Layla has vanished, never to be seen again. That’s the story Finn tells the police. It’s the truth – but not the whole truth. 12 years later, Finn has built a new life with Ellen, Layla’s sister, when he receives a phone call. Someone has seen Layla. But is it her – or someone pretending to be her? If it is her, what does she want? And what does she know about the night she disappeared?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This tale has more twists than Rapunzel’s braids. As the reader, I could see possible truth in every theory the protagonist considered — and there were a plethora of them throughout the book. What kept me from giving it 5 stars was: Enough of those goddamn Matryoshka dolls already! (And the fact that the author didn’t, at least once, use that proper name for those dolls.) This was one of those plots that made me think, “How do writers come up with these things?”

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #120 in 2025

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Book #120
Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology book cover		 Book: Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology Author: Cal Newport
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 290 Duration: 12/02/25 – 12/02/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, self help, productivity, psychology, technology
📕10-word summary: How to stop mindlessly sacrificing your time, productivity to clickbait.
🖌6-word review: Provides practical, albeit not easy, strategies.
💭An interesting quote: “Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools.”
Description:* In this timely and enlightening book, Cal Newport introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives. Digital minimalists are all around us. They’re the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can have fun with friends and family and eat out at restaurants without the obsessive urge to document the experience. Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement and makes a case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I found several nuggets in this book, a couple being: 1) the difference between conversations and connections, and 2) the concept of “high quality leisure.” I’ve already implemented one practical suggestion, which was to remove the Facebook app from my phone because it contains more of the “sticky” functionality, as well as provides location and activity data that the “attention economy” finds so valuable, which is to say is used to make money off us. It also confirmed my “intentional” use of Facebook, which I’ve been doing since the beginning of February 2025 — “using” Facebook instead of it using me. I do that by only going on it for 3 reasons: 1) as a very quick and efficient way to compress images to use in my writing, 2) to grab images I’ve posted there that I want to use in my writing, and 3) to check updates from groups I’m in that only use Facebook to communicate, all of which I can still do by logging in through the web interface. Not everything in the book resonated with me, but often that’s how self-help books are, and I’m happy to have been made to think deeply on this topic.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #119 in 2025

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Book #119
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland book cover		 Book: The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Author: Jim Defede
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 271 Duration: 12/01/25 – 12/02/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, history, Canada, inspirational
📕10-word summary: Small-town Canadians open their town and hearts to stranded strangers.
🖌6-word review: Poignant, inspirational, well-woven story affirms humanity.
💭An interesting quote: “They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed.”
Description:* When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, due to the closing of United States airspace, the citizens of this small community were called upon to come to the aid of more than 6,000 displaced travelers. “For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns stopped what they were doing so they could help. They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed.”*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is a great, uplifting story of incredibly generous people pouring out their hearts, opening their homes, and spending money (much of it their own) just because, they said, “It was the right thing to do.” I wasn’t familiar with this aspect of 9/11, and I certainly didn’t know that there was a musical, Come from Away, made based on the story. It’s confounding to me how musicals are made based on some books and movies that seem to be pure drama. Bob reminded me, “Look at the musical made about Carrie, based on both the novel and the film!” I have no desire whatsoever to see a play based on this book. If you, like Anne Murray, could use “a little good news,” I couldn’t recommend this book more.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #118 in 2025

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Book #118
The Woman in Me book cover		 Book: The Woman in Me Author: Britney Spears
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 288 Duration: 11/30/25 – 11/30/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, memoir, autobiography, music, mental health, family
📕10-word summary: Britney Spears details the stories behind her very public ordeals.
🖌6-word review: Fascinating, infuriating “rest of the story.”
💭An interesting quote: “In that moment, I made peace with my family — by which I mean that I realized I never wanted to see them again, and I was at peace with that.”
Description:* In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice — her truth — was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey — and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love — and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: Just wow.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #117 in 2025

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Book #117
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right book cover		 Book: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right Author: Atul Gawande
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 208 Duration: 11/30/25 – 11/30/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, business, productivity, medicine, science, psychology, self help
📕10-word summary: How checklists help multiple disciplines — with simple, complicated, complex tasks.
🖌6-word review: Orgasmic for checklist, to-do list nerds.
💭An interesting quote: “The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Many aviation, construction, and medical terms, procedure, and process names
Description:* In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I am a to-do list (which is a type of checklist) whore, right up there with being a spreadsheet whore. I loved this book because it shows how something as simple as a checklist can save time, money, and actual lives in various disciplines, such as medicine, aviation, skyscraper construction, & finance. Beyond explaining how, it talks about the research that has gone into devising effective checklists, and testing done to test and refine checklists once devised. The descriptions of how complex the tasks can be in all of those disciplines is both fascinating and mindboggling.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #116 in 2025

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Book #116
The Lane That Leads to Christmas book cover		 Book: The Lane That Leads to Christmas Author: Melanie Lageschulte
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 280 Duration: 11/27/25 – 11/29/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Genres: fiction, cozy mystery, Christmas
📕10-word summary: A “priceless” nativity set is stolen from a small-town church.
🖌6-word review: Uninteresting detail not advancing the plot.
💭An interesting quote: “The post office was one of the few organizations that had close contact with residents on a regular basis, and Kate’s boss took its secondary role as a social lifeline very seriously.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: twinset, haymow, archly
Description:* Kate is bracing herself for a blue Christmas. It’s the first since her divorce, most of her decorations are missing after too many moves, and her impulsive gesture of goodwill to one struggling family has spurred debate at the post office. But her troubles take a back seat when a mail stop at one of the area’s oldest churches presents a puzzling dilemma. The rural congregation’s antique nativity set, which was hard-carved by an early settler, has vanished from the altar. As Kate and her friends try to track the artwork’s whereabouts, they are met with a fascinating mix of folklore and facts — along with resistance to their efforts. And the case only gets more complicated as secrets are exposed and new leads are revealed. Can they recover the beloved nativity before the Christmas bells ring?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I like to read at least one holiday-themed book at this time of the year and unfortunately picked this one. First of all, I automatically assume a “cozy mystery” is going to have a murder in it, but not all of them do. And this one didn’t. So I was bedeviled and impatient waiting for a murder until I realized there wasn’t going to be one. Second of all, the protagonist lived alone with 3 barn cats (all with names), an indoor cat, and a dog, all of which she conversed with in full sentences and often, sometimes for an entire chapter. Annoying. My biggest issue with the book was the amount of detail about things that didn’t advance the plot — the cat chit-chat for example. Get to who stole the nativity already. And as if I wasn’t already cranky enough about the book, my nemesis word, conspiratorially, made an appearance.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #115 in 2025

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Book #115
Notes to John book cover		 Book: Notes to John Author: Joan Didion
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 250 Duration: 11/25/25 – 11/26/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: nonfiction, memoir, mental health, psychology, alcoholism, parenting
📕10-word summary: Detailed, intimate recollection of therapy sessions written to her husband.
🖌6-word review: Confusing pronoun antecedents. Psychologically fascinating, heartbreaking.
💭A compelling quote: “You don’t always have to look ahead for the bump in the road. Your anticipating the bump won’t make the bump disappear. It’ll still be there. You’re afraid you won’t be prepared to deal with it if you don’t anticipate it, but you will. Your adrenalin kicks in and you deal with it. And meanwhile, you’ve been happy, which gives you more strength to deal with it.”
Description:* For several months, Didion recorded conversations with [her] psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood—misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe—and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, “what it’s been worth.” The analysis would continue for more than a decade. Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: There is a healthy amount of debate about the ethics of sharing these notes written by Joan Didion to her husband John Dunne accounting her own therapy sessions with her psychiatrist from December 1999 to January 2002. The Guardian contends: Notes to John by Joan Didion review – an invasion of privacy. I’m of the opinion that it’s detailing things that happened to her, so it’s her story to tell. With that said, I do think it’s good that all of the principal players (i.e., Joan herself, her husband, daughter, and psychiatrist) are now dead. This is a fascinating look at what’s been called helicopter parenting (now also being called “lawnmower” or “snowplow” parents), specifically with regards to the inability to see how what seems like is helping a child really isn’t. I took off one star, because I struggled with following the pronoun antecedents used throughout. It takes some getting used to the fact that most times when she’s using “I,” she’s referring to herself, when using, “he,” she’s referring to her psychiatrist, and when using “you,” she’s referring to her husband.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #114 in 2025

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Book #114
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? book cover		 Book: Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Author: Julile Smith
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 368 Duration: 11/23/25 – 11/24/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: nonfiction, self help, psychology, mental health, personal development
📕10-word summary: Psychologist shares skills to maintain mental health, navigate life challenges.
🖌6-word review: Very pragmatic, therapeutic. Free workbook included!
💭A favorite quote: “Thoughts and feelings are not facts; they’re but one view of things.”
Description:* Filled with secrets from a therapist’s toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times. Dr Julie Smith’s expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. The book tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’ve read (and already do) a lot of the things talked about in this book, so I wasn’t fascinated or blown away by it. In general about self-help books, I think that one either resonates with you or not. If it resonates, and you’re motivated to change, it can be wildly helpful. (For me, it was 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which I read in the early 1990s.) The thing I liked most about this book is that there is a free, downloadable companion PDF to it, which can be used to actually do the work that this “self-help” book espouses. It’s 308 pages, almost as long as the 368-page book! I might recommend skipping the book and reading the explanations and doing the exercises in the companion piece. The thing about self-help books is that a lot of people think just reading them will “fix” things, when the reality is that you have to practice the ideas and techniques in them to help/improve/fix whatever it is that was the impetus to reading the book to begin with. This book is well written and very structured with recaps and “toolkits” at the end of each section about: Dark Places (about working on “low moods,” which are just this side of diagnosed depression), Motivation, Emotional Pain, Grief, Self-Doubt, Fear, Stress, & A Meaningful Life.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #113 in 2025

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Book #113
No Two Persons book cover		 Book: No Two Persons Author: Erica Bauermeister
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 314 Duration: 11/21/25 – 11/23/25 (4 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: literary fiction, books about books, interconnectedness
📕10-word summary: No two people experience Alice’s book in the same way.
🖌6-word review: Refreshing exploration of a book’s “life.”
💭A favorite quote: “She’d be OK, he told himself, and he needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere so completely else that the grief wouldn’t find him. Ignoring the fact that grief is not a stalker but a stowaway, always there and up for any journey.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: pill bug, blinkered, blowzily, selkie, hardtack
Description:* Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice’s novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective and presents new pathways forward for their lives.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s a refreshing look at how a book is experienced by different readers — still affecting different people in different ways 9 or 10 years after its publication. In addition to learning of each character’s discovery of the book and how it affects their life, an interconnectedness emerges between several of the characters and the book’s author — and then among the readers. This was a Mostly Social Book Club book, chosen by Mary.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #112 in 2025

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Book #112
The Lost Family book cover		 Book: The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Uncovering Secrets, Reuniting Relatives, and Upending Who We Are Author: Libby Copeland
Source: Library book
Format: Print		 Pages: 294 Duration: 11/18/25 – 11/21/25 (4 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, science, genetics, sociology, family, health
📕10-word summary: Personal stories, scientific facts, implications, and consequences of DNA testing
🖌6-word review: Important. More complex than you think.
💭A compelling quote: “I told my mom that the man she told me was my biological father wasn’t my biological father. And she had this look come over her face, and she had to tell me that her uncle had raped her.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: paucity, blithely, pogrom, dross, propinquity, enmities, panoply
Description:* In The Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. She explores the culture of genealogy buffs, the science of DNA, and the business of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe, all while tracing the story of one woman, her unusual results, and a relentless methodical drive for answers that becomes a thoroughly modern genetic detective story.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: One of the impetuses for reading this book was that within the last year or so, two people in our extended family found out they had children they didn’t know they had. There is so much to this topic! “At-home DNA testing is sometimes called ‘recreational,’ to distinguish it from genetic tests that are ordered by doctors. But its implications can be far more profound than the term ‘recreational’ implies.” Between and among stories of people on personal DNA-related quests, the book includes quite a detailed look at the complex biology of DNA as well as the explosive rate of change in DNA-related technology over relatively few years. I liked the personal stories much more than the biology and technology information (which was usually too much “in the weeds” for my interest; but if you like that kind of stuff, it’s fascinating). The main story, about “Alice” and her family’s search for information about her father’s life is absolutely mindboggling! I used to think that as long as I didn’t give a DNA sample, I would be “safe” from all of the consequences and implications of DNA testing, but this book unequivocally disabused me of that notion. No one’s “safe.”

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Books about books analysis

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At our most recent Mostly Social Book Club I mentioned how I’m drawn to books about books and that I thought the book club members were, too.

Then I said, “It would be interesting to look at the list of books we’ve read over the years and do a little analysis on that theory. I did that very thing, using ChatGPT for the analysis.

I created a table with the books we’ve read that are of the books about books genre, along with a very short description of how books were incorporated into those books:

# Book about books Chosen by How books are incorporated
1 The Memory Library John A library curated by a mother for her daughter; then one by the daughter for her mother
2 The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry Suzanne Curmudgeonly bookstore owner finds a baby on his store’s steps
3 The Little Paris Bookshop Mary Floating bookstore on a barge provides the exact books people need
4 The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club Mary Lady turns derelict building into enchanting bookshop where she starts a bookclub for needful Radcliffe co-eds
5 The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary John Imprisoned — and arguably mad — man helps devise entries for what becomes the OED
6 The Woman in the Library Mary Three interwoven narratives help unravel one woman’s murder in a library
7 The Midnight Library Mary Woman contemplating suicide experiences parallel-universe lives through library-shelf books
8 The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Sharon A “blue-skinned” traveling librarian encounters some grateful, some not, people
9 The Personal Librarian John J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian rises meteorically managing his books and papers
10 The Editor John A new writer’s autobiographical novel is picked up by editor Jackie O.
11 The Plot Sharon Previously published writer gets the break he so desperately wants for his next book
12 Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat Who Touched the World Sharon Arguably about books, but about a library, a library’s cat becomes famous around the world

Then I asked ChatGPT: “Please do an analysis of the content in the ‘Chosen by’ column and the ‘How books are incorporated’ column of this table.”

ChatGPT’s analysis of the “Chosen by” column

The books were selected by 4 individuals: John, Mary, Suzanne, and Sharon. The distribution of the 12 books selected is as follows:

  • John selected 4 books.
  • Mary selected 4 books.
  • Sharon selected 3 books.
  • Suzanne selected 1 book.

ChatGPT’s analysis of the “How books are incorporated” column

Based on the “How books are incorporated,” the commonalities in the content fall into 3 main themes:

  1. Libraries, Librarians, and Bookstores as Central Settings:
  2. Professional Roles Centered on Books:
  3. Books/Libraries as a Source of Transformation or Plot Device:

It’s pretty amazing that ChatGPT can glean all that just from those short descriptions I provided.

Intrigued, I did one more exercise. I’ve read a lot of books outside book club, so I repeated the exercise with a list of books about books that I read on my own:

# Book about books How books are incorporated
1 The Jane Austen Book Club 6 people meet monthly to discuss a Jane Austen novel whose plot mirrors relationships they are navigating
2 Hell of a Book An African American author writes a “hell of a book,” in order to get to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden cost exacted upon Black Americans, and America as a whole
3 Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone A writer who creates self-help books on writing uses this background to solve murders, treating the real-life mysteries like one of the fictional whodunits he writes about
4 The Book of Last Letters Nurse creates a book in which potentially dying soldiers can relate “last words” to loved ones
5 Yellowface White author steals and publishes dead Asian author’s next book
6 The Uncommon Reader A queen, who becomes a reader late in life, becomes so passionately obsessed that her public duties begin to suffer
7 The Christmas Book Hunt Woman wants to fulfill seriously ill great-aunt’s wish to be reunited with a long-lost hand-illustrated book from childhood
8 The Bookshop Sisterhood 4 long-time friends go through it (with each other) to open the bookstore of their dreams
9 A Very Bad Thing A bestselling author’s disastrous past comes back to hurt her
10 The Starless Sea A grad student discovers a mysterious book hidden in his college’s library stacks in a “frame narrative” that leads readers from a first story into one or more other stories within it
11 The Marriage Plot A dutiful English major is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels
12 The Bookclub on Waverly Lane A new neighborhood book club unmasks authentic lives of Stepford-wives-like women
13 The Bookstore Sisters Bookstore-owning sisters with bad blood between them reunite to fight
14 Murder in the First Edition Dead woman and missing $60,000 first-edition book instigate an investigation
15 The Sentence Deceased bookstore’s most annoying customer haunts it for a year
16 The Book Woman’s Daughter Daughter of the protagonist in the book “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” carries on her work despite a lingering ornery mule
17 The Liar’s Dictionary A lexicographer inserts fake words, as a form of rebellion and artistic expression, into the dictionary his team is working on
18 I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf How books are collected, used for decoration, inspire us, and treated as sacred objects
19 The Bookshop of Yesterdays Girl inherits bookshop that holds clues to her family’s past
20 The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (and Their Muses) Retirement-home literary legends spar, conjure up new stories, and almost magically change the lives of people around them
21 The End-of-Your-Life Book Club Son and dying mother read together bringing them close as her life comes to a close
22 Byrd A lover of books is living a cloistered life as a bookstore clerk

Then, I fed both tables into ChatGPT and asked it to do the same analysis on the combined set of books:

ChatGPT analysis of the “How books are incorporated” columns of both the MSBC books and John’s books read

Several common themes emerge that describe the central role books and the literary world play in the narratives:

  1. Libraries, Librarians, and Bookstores as Central Settings
     

    2. Both tables feature narratives where the physical locations and professions associated with books are the primary setting or focus of the story:

  2. Authorship, Publishing, and the Creative Process
     

    3. A significant number of books focus on the creation, production, and commerce of literature, involving authors, editors, and the publishing world:

    • The Author’s Life: The plot revolves around the lives and consequences faced by writers, whether they are working on a thesis or dealing with the repercussions of their work.
    • Industry Intrigue: Stories highlight the darker side of the publishing world, including theft and competition.
      • Examples: An author stealing a dead peer’s manuscript (Yellowface), and a new writer being mentored by a famous editor (The Editor).
    • Book Creation: Books are about the creation of specific literary works, such as dictionaries or novels.
  3. The Book as a Catalyst or Plot Device
     

    4. In many cases, a specific, unique book or the act of reading/discussing books is the catalyst for the main action, often involving a mystery or a quest:

    • Quest for an Object: The narrative centers on a search for a unique or sentimental physical book.
    • Metaphorical or Transformative Power: The books themselves have a transformative or symbolic effect on the protagonist.
    • Books for Communication/Connection: Books are created or used as a vessel for communication in times of need.
    • Book Clubs and Shared Reading: Literature is used as a foundation for examining relationships and building community within a group.

What a fun and interesting exercise!

Do you gravitate toward books about books in your reading?

Finished book #111 in 2025

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Book #111
No Conscience book cover		 Book: No Conscience Author: Phil M. Williams
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 333 Duration: 11/16/25 – 11/18/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Genres: fiction, thriller, mystery, drama
📕10-word summary: A sociopathic mother wreaks havoc on unlikeable, unsympathetic family characters.
🖌6-word review: Too much tell, not enough show.
💭A favorite quote: “The walls were barren, the decor jail-cell chic.”
Description:* Wes Shaw’s different than his siblings—darker, awkward, the perpetual ne’er-do-well. Mary Shaw’s the doting mother, showering her children with gifts from the heart and the pocketbook. The Shaws have survived divorce and death, but something sinister is in their midst. The truth threatens to tear them apart. The lies threaten to tear them apart. Which side will each choose?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I cared not one iota about the characters in this book, and it seemed like the author must have been “burned” by a sociopath in his life. At the end, one of the characters sends an email to his siblings with the definition of a sociopath in it, including 21 (yes, they’re numbered) signs of a sociopath, followed by 12 enumerated (yes, again, numbered) examples of what makes their mother a sociopath, followed by 7 enumerated things one should do if they encounter a sociopath. Wait, is this a textbook? I can’t roll my eyes far enough back into my head to do justice to this writing “device.” Don’t read this book if you’re not a masochist.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #110 in 2025

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Book #110
Homesick for Another World book cover		 Book: Homesick for Another World Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 294 Duration: 11/15/25 – 11/16/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: literary fiction, short stories, science fiction
📕10-word summary: 14 dark short stories featuring longing, isolated, and discontented characters.
🖌6-word review: Classic Moshfegh. Icky, yet realistic, revelations.
💭A few favorite quotes:

  • “The house smelled like garlic and laundry.”
  • “It wouldn’t be fair to call me a snob and my brother trash, but it wouldn’t be far from accurate.”
  • “My poor wife. I didn’t know how little I loved her until she was dead.”
  • “A few times we even tried to recapture whatever odd coincidence of lonesomeness and availability we’d found together that first summer in Alna, but inevitably one of our body parts would fail us — sometimes his, sometimes mine.”
  • “You know women. Stray, cats, all of them, either purring in your lap or pissing in your shoes.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: padded, mottled, cornichon, melasma
Description:* [A]s many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author’s short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel. And for good reason. There’s something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh’s stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is my third Ottessa Moshfegh book, following Eileen (read in 2018) and My Year of Rest and Relaxation (read in 2020), which is enough for me to say that this is “classic Moshfegh.” Moshfegh has cited the poet and novelist Charles Bukowski as an influence on her work. And like Bukowski, she creates characters who are considered socially deprived and isolated. This book comprises 14 short stories, and here are 6 of them with synopses for a flavor of her characters and topics: Bettering Myself: A teacher who despises her students becomes paralyzed by the fear of her own success when she is given a chance to leave her job. Malibu: A man manipulates his disabled uncle into making him his sole heir. Mr. Wu: A man sabotages a potential relationship before it can even begin. The Beach Boy: A widower seeks revenge at the resort where his wife may have cheated on him with a male prostitute. A Dark and Winding Road: A man goes to his parents’ cabin to spite his pregnant wife and ends up having an affair with his brother’s girlfriend. A Better Place: The collection’s final story, a dark fairy tale about two siblings who believe they don’t belong on Earth and decide they must kill someone to return to their true home.

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Finished book #109 in 2025

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Book #109
People Love Dead Jews book cover		 Book: People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present Author: Dara Horn
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 237 Duration: 11/11/25 – 11/14/25 (4 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, Jewish, history, Judaism, religion, essays, politics, Holocaust
📕10-word summary: Challenging contemplation of why there’s unremitting fascination with Jewish deaths.
🖌6-word review: Important. Requires vulnerability, rigorous intellectual investment.
💭A favorite quote: “When a young employee at the Anne Frank House tried to wear his yarmulke to work, his employers told him to hide it under a baseball cap. The museum’s goal was “neutrality,” one spokesperson explained to the British newspaper Daily Mail, and a live Jew in a yarmulke might “interfere” with the museum’s “independent position.” The museum finally relented after deliberating for 4 months, which seems like a rather long time for the Anne Frank House to ponder whether it was a good idea to force a Jew into hiding.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Many Jewish cultural and religious words
Description:* Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture — and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the “righteous Gentile” Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: A friend of mine (who, FWIW, is not Jewish) recommended this book to me, and boy am I glad she did. It’s incredibly educational and thought-provoking in terms of getting you to take a look at your own beliefs (and prejudices, many not obvious) about Judaism and the Holocaust. For one thing, I’ll stop telling the (not true) story that my Portuguese grandparents dropped the “s” off the end of our last name at Ellis Island when they emigrated here from The Azores. This book also helped me understand what it is about Holocaust novels that just doesn’t sit right with me — enough that I’m not interested in reading any more of them. I recommend this book highly and unequivocally. This is a comprehensive review of the book by Katherine E. Aron-Beller of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Finished book #108 in 2025

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Book #108
The Hush book cover		 Book: The Hush Author: John Hart
Source: Friend loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 432 Duration: 11/09/25 – 11/14/25 (6 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, horror, fantasy, supernatural
📕10-word summary: An enigmatic man on dangerously haunted land confronts its demons.
🖌6-word review: Sometimes confusing. Stephen King-ish at times.
💭A favorite quote: “The receptionist was as polished as the marble floor.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: scree, hardscrabble, keening, understory, pocosin, manumission
Description:* It’s been 10 years since the events that changed Johnny Merrimon’s life and rocked his hometown to the core. Since then, Johnny has fought to maintain his privacy, but books have been written of his exploits; the fascination remains. Living alone on 6,000 acres of once-sacred land, Johnny’s only connection to normal life is his old friend, Jack. They’re not boys anymore, but the bonds remain. What they shared. What they lost. But Jack sees danger in the wild places Johnny calls home; he senses darkness and hunger, an intractable intent. Johnny will discuss none of it, but there are the things he knows, the things he can do. A lesser friend might accept such abilities as a gift, but Jack has felt what moves in the swamp: the cold of it, the unspeakable fear.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’d never heard of this author, so when I saw this book at a friend’s house, I borrowed it. I’m not a big fan of the fantasy, supernatural, or horror genres, but I gave this a go anyway. Overall it was a compelling story, but it had a lot of characters (sometimes called by their first name, sometimes by their last, which confused me sometimes — with some “Now who is this character again?” noise in my head. And with so many characters, dialogue tags were essential but missing enough times that I thought, “Whose line is whose in this dialogue exchange right now?” a little too often. I definitely got some “Stephen King vibes” more than once while reading this — think It. This is the 2nd in a 2-book series, but it stood on its own, and I’m not interested in reading the first book in the series.

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Finished book #107 in 2025

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Book #107
Tattoos on the Heart book cover		 Book: Tattoos on the Heart Author: Gregory Boyle
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 217 Duration: 11/08/25 – 11/08/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: nonfiction, memoir, Christian, religion, spirituality, faith, gangs
📕10-word summary: What true compassion looks like — from a gang-intervention program’s perspective.
🖌6-word review: Educational, thought-provoking stories about compelling people.
💭A favorite quote: “Forget Kleenex. Forget handkerchief. Soledad is sobbing into a huge bath towel. And the few of us there found our arms too short to wrap around this kind of pain.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: pyrrhic, recalcitrant, braggadocio, tertianship, Garpian dread, salvific
Description:* For 20 years, Father Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles — also known as the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, he has distilled his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JC Penney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From 10-year-old Pipi, we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Lula, we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the dark — as Father Boyle phrases it, we can only shine a flashlight on a light switch in a darkened room.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This book was enthusiastically and highly recommended by a friend. The message in this book is unequivocally a “5-star” one — even to an atheist reader in spite of it being completely steeped in Christian values and beliefs. I wish my rating scale had ½ stars, so I could have given it 4½ stars instead of 4. The “½-star struggle” I had with it was that there are a lot of slang terms in it (many left to decipher by context), and there are a lot of (untranslated) Spanish words/phrases/sentences in it. (Full disclosure: I speak pretty much zero Spanish.) Complicating that, many of the slang terms were in Spanish. While reading this book, I thought a lot about my friend Hugh, who gave his heart to people experiencing homelessness in his Loves Wins Ministry work in the Raleigh, NC area. This seems like the kind of book he could write from the compelling stories and insights he used to share about that work when he was doing it. I’d only recommend this book with some caveats, the main one being with regards to non-religious people. They’d have to be someone who I believe would open their hearts to the message despite the deeply religious wrapper it’s in. With all that said, I’m glad I read it. I found the education about gang-intervention approaches alone worth the price of admission. I also think Gregory Boyle should be made a saint whenever “the rules” (which are quite rigorous) allow it.

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Finished book #106 in 2025

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Book #106
The Women of Arlington Hall book cover		 Book: The Women of Arlington Hall Author: Jane Healey
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 329 Duration: 11/06/25 – 11/06/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, romance, World War II
📕10-word summary: A female codebreaker gets herself in the thick of things.
🖌6-word review: Fast-paced, somewhat-educational, with intelligent female protagonist.
💭A favorite quote: “The choices a person makes in life are shaped and influenced by a complicated calculus of time and circumstances and chance.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: bandbox, bodhran, lothario, peplum, star-crossed
Description:* 1947: Adventurous Radcliffe graduate Catherine “Cat” Killeen cancels her wedding and upends a future that no longer suits her. At the behest of her professor and hungry for a challenge, Cat arrives in Virginia to work on a confidential military project. A student in cryptoanalysis, Cat is already ahead of the game—to assist in rooting out Soviet spies who have infiltrated the US. Joining the “government girls” of Arlington Hall, Cat gains the respect of her superiors and the friendship of her peers. Then, on a night out in DC, Cat runs into Jonathan Dardis, her arrogant and privileged Harvard rival and newly minted agent for the FBI. What Cat and Jonathan share is a competitive drive and an attraction that’s becoming just as spirited. They’re also united in the same critical goal for America. Together, they’re diving deep into the shadows of espionage.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This was a free download from the choice of July 2025 Amazon First Reads, and I was afraid this book was going to be nonfiction and similar to Hidden Figures, so I was pleased to find that it was not like that at all. (Not that that wasn’t a compelling story!) In this historical fiction story, I liked Catherine (Cat), the smart (Radcliffe graduate), the fact that she called off her wedding on her wedding day, made smart, likeable co-worker friends, and quickly became recognized as a significant, respected contributor to her codebreaking department and its mission. I also appreciated the Author’s Notes included at the end of the book, which explained that: “This is a work of fiction, but it is inspired by and incorporates true events and real people. Codebreaking and the early days of the Cold War are both complex and layered subjects, and to write a novel inspired by that era means honoring the historical facts.”

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Finished book #105 in 2025

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Book #105
Isola book cover		 Book: Isola Author: Allegra Goodman
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 346 Duration: 11/04/25 – 11/05/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, literary fiction, France, romance, survival, Canada
📕10-word summary: Epic saga of love, faith, and defiance in reimagined history.
🖌6-word review: Forceful writing with venerable female protagonist.
💭A favorite quote: “And that is when I saw his soul rising from his body.” “How could you tell it was his soul and not smoke from the tapers?” “The smoke was gray. His soul was white.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: virginal, bandolier, citrine, approbation, abnegation
Description:* Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue. Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I saw this in my daily BookBub email, and it sounded interesting. Since it wasn’t free, I got on my library‘s waiting list on August 13, 2025 at #132, and it became available 2 days ago on November 4, 2025. Inspired by the real life of a 16th-century heroine, Isola is a story of a woman fighting for survival. It covers her saga from 1431-1544, during which she suffers more loss in short enough time that it wouldn’t be surprising if she became a hoarder one day. The narrator sounded British, so there were a lot of “enna-things” and “evrah-things” throughout the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this story, albeit it was pretty intense at times, especially with regards to death and killing. This was my first book by this author, and I would consider reading another someday.

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Finished book #104 in 2025

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Book #104
The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie book cover		 Book: The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Lie Author: Freida McFadden
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 152 Duration: 11/04/25 – 11/04/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, humor, satire, novella
📕10-word summary: A woman has killed her husband. But has she really?
🖌6-word review: Satirical mind and word games entertain.
💭A favorite quote: “The director of the psychiatric ward is my father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former college roommate.”
Description:* My husband is dead. I attended his funeral. I watched his casket be lowered six feet into the ground. (Actually, it may have been only five feet, but that still seems like more than enough.) And then we ate an array of finger sandwiches and deviled eggs and miniature beef wellingtons that cost more than my first car. My point is, Grant is gone. And so are all his many, many deep, dark secrets which I never really ever bothered to ask him about. He is never coming back. So why do I still see his face everywhere I go?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This was a wild little ride with malapropisms, mondegreens, & memes. Make sure you firmly plant your tongue in your cheek as you start.

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Finished book #103 in 2025

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Book #103
The Life We Bury book cover		 Book: The Life We Bury Author: Allen Eskens
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 306 Duration: 11/03/25 – 11/03/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, crime, suspense
📕10-word summary: A wrongly convicted, terminally ill man makes a dying declaration.
🖌6-word review: Fast-paced, confounding crime mystery unravels compellingly.
💭A favorite quote: “Add to that cauldron an ever increasing measure of cheap vodka — a form of self-medication that quelled the inner scream but amplified the outer crazy — and you get a picture of the mother I left behind.”
🎓A new-to-me word: vacuous
Description:* College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe’s life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran–and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl’s life, especially Carl’s valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I loved this book, because it was one of those stories where you can’t figure out how something that seems so “black and white” or “open and shut” could have happened any other way. But then, like Paul Harvey’s radio program of yesteryear, The Rest of the Story, another perspective reveals how it did. I also liked how the climax didn’t happen until pretty much the very last page. I might very well make this a Mostly Social Book Club book in the future.

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Finished book #102 in 2025

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Book #102
Nobody Wants Your Sh*t book cover		 Book: Nobody Wants Your Sh*t Author: Messie Condo
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 194 Duration: 11/03/25 – 11/03/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, self help, humor, how to, personal development, reference health
📕10-word summary: Freeing yourself and family from f*cking clutter before you croak.
🖌6-word review: Laugh-out-loud funny, sarcastic, and wicked smart.
💭A favorite quote: “Hold onto the gratitude — that’s the important part — and let the thing go.”
Description:* Inspired by The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, Nobody Wants Your Sh*t will light a fire under your untidy ass with humor and helpful organizing tips that you’ll actually want to use. Like a delightfully foul-mouthed best friend, this book dishes out the funny, unpretentious advice you need to hear most. You’ll discover how to deal with your sh*t like there’s no tomorrow, live in the moment without the f*cking mess, and make your life and your eventual death a hell of a lot easier. With this witty guide, you’ll learn how to: ditch the d*mn indecision, get your sh*t together and feel fantastic, and give your busy family a f*cking break… and more! Whether you’re getting ready to move in, move on, or just move your ass, Nobody Wants Your Sh*t will help you take control of your f*cking life.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I have heard of both The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and Marie Kondo, but I didn’t know that 1) “after the birth of Marie Kondo’s third child, her rigorous attitude towards tidying her home relaxed in order to make room for more personal priorities at this stage of her life,” and 2) there’s an author who goes by the pseudonym of Messie Condo who has written 2 parodies — so far, and this being one of them — based on the ideas of the Swedish death cleaning concept and Marie Kondo’s writing. I loved this writer’s “voice” (copious curse words included), and I laughed out loud and cackled a lot while reading it. It came across as very real to me, particularly by nailing human nature and calling all of us on our bullshit. I highly recommend the audiobook version read by Hillary Huber.

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Finished book #101 in 2025

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Book #101
The First Witch of Boston book cover		 Book: The First Witch of Boston Author: Andrea Catalano
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 326 Duration: 10/30/25 – 11/01/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, witches, romance, witchcraft
📕10-word summary: An outspoken healer is accused, convicted of being a witch.
🖌6-word review: Fictional-but-believable account of the time’s hysteria.
💭A favorite quote: “He doubted that the Widow Hallett had ever lifted anything heavier than her skirts.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: poultice, pillories, mithridates, umbilicus, doublet, poppets, quim, physic, milksop, imperious, doxy, capotain, petitgrain, Beltane, maleficium, bodkin
Description:* Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1646. Thomas and Margaret Jones arrive from England to build a life in the New World. Though of differing temperaments, cautious Thomas and fiery Margaret, a healer, are bound by a love that has lasted decades. With a child on the way, their new beginning promises only blessings. But in this austere Puritan community, comely faces hide malicious intent. Wrong moves or words are met with suspicion, and Margaret’s bold and unguarded nature draws scorn. Soon, Margaret is mistrusted as more cunning woman than kind caregiver. And when personal tragedies, religious hysteria, and wariness of the unknown turn most against her, even the devotion Margaret and her husband share is at risk.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: Being from Massachusetts, I find its witch-hunting history an interesting topic, although I’m not fascinated or obsessed with it by any means. Many of the reviewers who didn’t like this book cited “gratuitous” and “explicit” sexual details as a reason, which I didn’t find to be the case. Others complained that it wasn’t “historically accurate,” which I didn’t mind — as it’s called historical fiction for a reason. And yet others complained that both its title and its prologue were “spoilers.” Well, there are plenty of books that start off with an incident, and then go back and tell you how it happened, which was the case here and wasn’t at all a deterrent to my reading. I liked how outspoken the protagonist was and thought the author did a good job showing how the word and actions of women during that time of hysteria were misinterpreted and misrepresented. Also, I’m a fan of epistolary elements in novels.

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Finished book #100 in 2025!

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Book #100
I Am Not Sidney Poitier book cover		 Book: I Am Not Sidney Poitier Author: Percival Everett
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 247 Duration: 10/29/25 – 10/29/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: literary fiction, humor, race, African American, satire
📕10-word summary: The wild adventures of a rich, shrewd Sidney Poitier doppelgänger.
🖌6-word review: Funny, clever, and highly entertaining writing.
💭A favorite quote: “My penis hung there, unimpressive and unimpressed. Beatrice dropped to her knees and took me in her mouth. Hormones got the better of me, and I began to swell, at least my penis did. But before I could get completely hard, she’d start in with her teeth, and my organ would retreat. It went like that for a bit — back-and-forth, pleasure and pain, arousal and repulsion, erection and reflation. She sucked away like a maniacal vacuum.”
🎓A new-to-me word: deleterious
Description:* Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age 11, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is a funny story about a serious subject: a social hierarchy that scrambles to balance a person’s skin color with their mind-numbing wealth. I thought of The Blind Side story at one point, but I liked how this author overtly commented on the trope of the “white savior narrative,” which critics of The Blind Side cited. I did a lot of chuckling, and a little laughing out loud, reading this book. The simple comedic device of the main character’s name being “Not Sidney Poitier” (i.e., his “first” name is “Not Sidney” and his surname is “Poitier”) lead to a lot of misunderstandings that “never got old,” at least to me. I also loved how the main character (“Not Sidney”) takes a class from a Professor Percival Everett, making the author of this book also a character in it. One thing I didn’t particularly care for was that there were 3 dream sequences, which I don’t like in books — because it’s usually not clear to me if they’re just supposed to show how absurd dreams can be, or if there’s something allegorical or metaphorical in them to advance the plot — and one of them in this story was super, super long. I still liked the book enough overall to not subtract a star from the rating because of it, though. This is my 3rd Percival Everett book, having read both James and The Trees in 2024, and he’s a writer a highly recommend.

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Finished book #99 in 2025

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Book #99
The Lost Husband book cover		 Book: The Lost Husband Author: Katherine Center
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 304 Duration: 10/28/25 – 10/29/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, romance, family
📕10-word summary: Widow moves from her mother’s house to her aunt’s house.
🖌6-word review: Family dysfunction abounds. Excellent dialogue tags.
💭A favorite quote: “And there it was, the chasm I came to over and over with my own kids, that separated the things I knew from what they could understand. The vast difference between what you could learn from experience and what you could teach.”
Description:* “Dear Libby, It occurs to me that you and your two children have been living with your mother for — Dear Lord! — 2 whole years, and I’m writing to see if you’d like to be rescued.” The letter comes out of the blue, and just in time for Libby Moran, who, after the sudden death of her husband, Danny, went to stay with her hypercritical mother. Now her crazy Aunt Jean has offered Libby an escape, a job and a place to live on her farm in the Texas Hill Country. Before she can talk herself out of it, Libby is packing the minivan, grabbing the kids, and hitting the road.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I very much enjoyed this book. It contains a lot of life lessons in terms of perspective, love, happiness, and family, and it does a good job of “showing” them instead of “telling” them. The best thing about the writing (which I actually listened to, since it was an audiobook) was the generous use of dialogue tags in it. I never once thought, “Wait a minute, who’s saying this?”

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Finished book #98 in 2025

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Book #98
Never Lie book cover		 Book: Never Lie Author: Freida McFadden
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 286 Duration: 10/27/25 – 10/27/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, suspense
📕10-word summary: The dream house of a young couple has bad juju.
🖌6-word review: Confusing-at-times, dual-timeline, story with many characters.
💭A favorite quote: “Apparently, asking him to commit murder was a deal breaker.”
Description:* Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams. But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace 4 years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate. In search of a book to keep her entertained, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels. And then Tricia reaches the final cassette. The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This book had a lot of characters, including one or two who turned out to be the same characters. (It’s a complicated mess.) It’s just not a very well-written book, including repetition of some things. For instance, she must have said that the main couple had been married for 6 months and known each other for 10 years three times too many. I also found a couple of editing misses in the book. If I had ½ stars in my rating scale, I’d’ve given this a 2½ instead of a 3.

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Finished book #97 in 2025

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Book #97
Ice on the Grapevine book cover		 Book: Ice on the Grapevine Author: R.E. Donald
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 304 Duration: 10/25/25 – 10/26/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, crime thriller, suspense
📕10-word summary: Detectives work to unravel the mystery behind a frozen corpse.
🖌6-word review: Lots of characters. Felt lost sometimes.
💭A favorite quote: “Lonesome had hit him like a Mack truck, and sleep was the best antidote for now.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: moldering, kokanee, puttanesca
Description:* A frozen corpse turns up at a highway brake check just south of the Grapevine Pass. Ex-homicide detective Hunter Rayne, who now drives an eighteen wheeler, is persuaded by his irascible dispatcher, Elspeth Watson, to help clear two fellow truck drivers who are arrested for the murder. The circumstantial evidence is strong, and a rookie detective from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is eager to score a win. The investigation crosses the Canada-U.S. border when the victim is identified as a second rate musician from Vancouver, and it turns out there were more than a few desperate people happy to see him dead, including the accused couple. Hunter has to use all his investigative skills to uncover the truth.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: There were a lot of characters in this book, and I lost track of who characters were at times. It might be because this was book #2 (in a 5-book series) even though series like these are usually touted as also working “standalone.” I also found it frustrating that the two main people suspected of the murder would not speak, even to their lawyers, for at least 75% of the book. Out with it already.

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Finished book #96 in 2025

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Book #96
The Restoration Garden book cover		 Book: The Restoration Garden Author: Sara Blaydes
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 296 Duration: 10/23/25 – 10/23/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, mystery, World War II, British literature
📕10-word summary: Landscape architect unearths the tangled history of a once-celebrated garden.
🖌6-word review: Compelling, fast-paced, dual-timeline mystery is solved.
💭A favorite quote: “It seems like everyone who sets foot on these grounds never truly leaves. It takes hold of you.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: wych, parterre, fen, bergamot, florilegium, laburnum
Description:* Julia Esdaile is hired to restore the now-abandoned historic gardens at Havenworth Manor. For the enigmatic lady of the manor, 92-year-old Margaret Clarke, the reason for the restoration is the deeply private story of a promise made a lifetime ago, and a vow to keep it before she dies. In 1940, Margaret’s older half sister, Irene, an aspiring artist, dreamed of an exciting world beyond Havenworth. Her only escapes are James Atherton, a handsome officer in the RAF, and her sketchbook of flower drawings. Irene follows James to London, where she is forced to make a choice she never imagined. With that, Irene vanishes from Margaret’s life forever. Now, Julia is determined to uncover both the long-buried secrets of the past and the truth behind a heartbreaking mystery that only restoring the gardens of Havenworth can solve.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This was another dual-timeline delve into family secrets, where both the past and the present storylines interested me, and where the storyline in the past is debunking all of the “theories” the people in the storyline in the present are devising while trying their best to figure out what actually happened. It was a quick-paced unraveling, and a book I’d consider as a future Mostly Social Book Club book.

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Finished book #95 in 2025

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Book #95
The Curious Secrets of Yesterday book cover		 Book: The Curious Secrets of Yesterday Author: Namrata Patel
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 281 Duration: 10/21/25 – 10/22/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, romance, India, family, culture
📕10-word summary: Woman rejects expectation to carry on her family’s generational business.
🖌6-word review: Well-told unraveling of consequential family secrets.
💭A favorite quote: “Tulsi had let it go. Stopped being persistent and began her slow walk over emotional eggshells.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: asafetida, Vedic, fenugreek, dupatta, salwar, ajwan, Ayurveda, gulab jamun, ashwagandha, rakshasi
Description:* Raised by her mother and grandmother and tutored in the healing wonders of spices, Tulsi Gupta is expected to carry on the ancestral tradition from her family’s Salem spice shop. Restless and reluctant, Tulsi yearns to follow her own path—destiny has other plans. When she finds a letter written by her grandmother, addressed and never sent, that speaks of a long-ago betrayal, she decides to unravel the mystery as a distraction. But Tulsi stumbles into much more than she bargained for. With each new discovery, she learns there’s much more to her mother and grandmother than their expertise in the remedial aromas of coriander and cloves. When an attractive neighbor begins renovating the shuttered deli next door, Tulsi finds the courage to break her routine and chase the unexpected. As she digs into the past and secrets come to light, she’s determined to heal old family wounds and find her true purpose — and maybe even love — every step of the way.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is my fourth book this year about Indian culture, and it was another good one. The others were The Direction of the Wind, Abscond: A Short Story, and The Storyteller’s Secret. Three of the four stories, including this one, were about mother-daughter relationships and generational secrets.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #94 in 2025

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Book #94
Bears Don't Care About Your Problems book cover		 Book: Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems: More Funny Shit in the Woods from SemiRad.com Author: Brendan Leonard
Source: Gift from a friend
Format: Print		 Pages: 224 Duration: 10/18/25 – 10/21/25 (4 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: nonfiction, humor, nature
📕10-word summary: Sometimes funny, sometimes sarcastic, thoughts and observations on outdoor activities.
🖌6-word review: Part Dave Barry, part Gary Larson.
💭A favorite quote: “This works the same way as having a baby, or buying a big house, can save a marriage.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: glissade, talus, boulderer, Elvis leg, belay, postholing, couloir, hantavirus, avy beacon
Description:* If you’ve ever considered the absurdity of sleeping on the ground in a place where bears live, pooping in a bag on a glacier, or trying to teach someone you love a sport that scares them to the point of loudly threatening to kill you in front of strangers, Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems will make you laugh. Author and creator of Semi-Rad, Brendan Leonard is part Dave Barry, part Gary Larson, and 100% twisted in his own fresh way. The Semi-Rad perspective has become the funny, introspective voice of outdoor Everyman and Everywoman adventurers.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: A friend we met on our fall 2025 New England & Canada BearCruise bought this book for my husband and me as a thank you for tagging along with us when we drove to the Anne Murray Centre, a 2-hour, one-way drive from our Halifax, Nova Scotia port call. It was a fun read even though I am the furthest from what you’d call “an outdoorsy person” as you can get. I particularly enjoyed the “Lose weight now with the 10,000-foot diet” chapter.

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Finished book #93 in 2025

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Book #93
Trust book cover		 Book: Trust Author: Pamela Kelley
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 273 Duration: 10/15/25 – 10/17/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, cozy mystery, romance, crime, suspense
📕10-word summary: Innocent teacher is accused of murdering one of her students.
🖌6-word review: Slow beginning. Rushed ending. Decently forgettable.
💭A favorite quote: “‘Why relive the past?’ Gramps was always a big believer in moving forward.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Tommy John surgery
Description:* In Trust, 36-year-old high school teacher, Lauren, is about to get married when one of her students goes missing and she becomes a person of interest. Her fiancé, David, is a former minor-league pitcher turned stockbroker who is surprised to discover that there are things he didn’t know about Lauren. With the help of his 91-year-old grandfather, and his friend Jack, the assistant sheriff, he searches for the truth.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This was an interesting enough book, but nothing great, and I’ll probably forget it even more quickly than I forget most books, and I’d be hard-pressed to recommend it. It was fine, just nothing great. It sort of dragged for the first two-thirds of the book, and then felt rushed through the final third. It’s one of those books I’m glad I got as a free download, where it’s been on my Kindle “shelf” for 8 years.

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Finished book #92 in 2025

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Book #92
Ocracoke: The Pearl of the Outer Banks book cover		 Book: Ocracoke: The Pearl of the Outer Banks Author: Ray McAllister
Source: Won in a raffle
Format: Print		 Pages: 256 Duration: 10/12/25 – 10/14/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: nonfiction, history, geography, Outer Banks, culture
📕10-word summary: Historical, geographical, and cultural look at what makes Ocracoke special.
🖌6-word review: A well-researched, informative, and well-told story.
💭A favorite quote: “Sand, of course, is not meant to be at rest. Neither are barrier islands. As their sands are shifted by wind and wave and storm, the islands move, often breaking apart and reforming.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: cognomen, unslaked, yaupon
Description:* “Ocracoke” tells the island’s story from the early days of Native Americans and European explorers to today’s artists, musicians, fishermen and bicycle-riding tourists. Along the way, it shares the stories of Blackbeard the Pirate’s bloody demise, German U-boat attacks off Ocracoke’s coast, and the role of the iconic 1823 Ocracoke Lighthouse. Here, too, are portraits of ferries full of visitors, a legendary herd of once-wild ponies, miles of nationally honored beaches, the charmingly unpaved Howard Street and the poignantly serene British Cemetery – along with the inside stories of what draws families back year after year, generation after generation.
*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is my 14th nonfiction book of 92 books read-to-date in 2025. My husband and I attended a fundraiser recently at which Ocracoke stories and music were featured, and I won a door prize there and he won a raffle. This book was in one of those prize baskets. I could count the number of times I’ve been to the Outer Banks of N.C. on one hand (at least twice to Kitty Hawk), but I’ve never been to Ocracoke. This book was a great introduction to the area with chapters such as Blackbeard; Shipwrecks & Life-Saving Stations; Hurricanes; The Ferries, The Highway, and The Seashore Park; The Ponies; and The Keepers of Ocracoke. I found it an informative, interesting, and well-written book. The only reason I didn’t give it a 5th star for its rating was because of the low quality of the illustrations and photos, of which there were a lot.

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Finished book #91 in 2025

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Book #91
Sign Off book cover		 Book: Sign Off Author: Patricia McLinn
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 234 Duration: 10/10/25 – 10/12/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, crime
📕10-word summary: Banished TV journalist flexes her muscles as a homicide detective.
🖌6-word review: Interesting enough story. Lots of characters.
💭A favorite quote: “Marty Beck was still fighting a dead woman for a dead man.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: basilisk, candy-ass, slued, strafed, remonstrations
Description:* TV journalist Elizabeth “E. M.” Danniher will tell you she committed two sins — she didn’t stay young, and she made an enemy of a powerful news executive — her ex. She used to break national news. Now her top story as the “Helping Out!” reporter at dinky KWMT-TV in Sherman,Wyoming is getting a refund for a defective toaster. Tough, funny and determined, Elizabeth wrestles with isolation, keeping a professional edge, and an evolving self-image. Is Wyoming — the land of cattle, cowboys, tumbleweeds, and fewer than 6 people per square mile — her new home or a road to permanent obscurity? Soon she’s in a battle of wills with ex-football player turned journalist Mike Paycik, who sees her as a handy rung on his career ladder. And there’s the matter of a deputy sheriff—missing or murdered? Elizabeth finds herself investigating at the insistence of a girl who’s set on proving her father’s innocence.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I was glad to finally read this free BookBub download from April 2024. As a lot of these free BookBub downloads are wont to be, this was the first in a series of — in this case — 15 books. It was just an average read, and I wouldn’t read another one in the series, unless it happened to turn up as a free download and had an exceptionally interesting title or premise.

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Finished book #90 in 2025

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Book #90
The Second Mrs. Astor book cover		 Book: The Second Mrs. Astor Author: Shana Abé
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 323 Duration: 10/07/25 – 10/09/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: historical fiction, romance, disaster, society
📕10-word summary: Step inside Madeleine Force’s scandalous courtship and catastrophic honeymoon voyage.
🖌6-word review: Realistically portrayed. Refreshing female protagonist perspective.
💭A favorite quote: “Marriage is work, enormous work, because it’s a living entity that needs everlasting attention. It will push you and bend you and test you, and if you’re not prepared for any of that, it will shatter you.”
Description:* Madeleine Talmage Force is just 17 when she attracts the attention of John Jacob “Jack” Astor. Madeleine is beautiful, intelligent, and solidly upper-class, but the Astors are in a league apart. Jack’s mother was the Mrs. Astor, American royalty and New York’s most formidable socialite. Jack is dashing and industrious—a hero of the Spanish-American war, an inventor, and a canny businessman. Despite their twenty-nine-year age difference, and the scandal of Jack’s recent divorce, Madeleine falls headlong into love—and becomes the press’s favorite target. On their extended honeymoon in Egypt, the newlyweds finally find a measure of peace from photographers and journalists. Madeleine feels truly alive for the first time—and is happily pregnant. The couple plans to return home in the spring of 1912, aboard an opulent new ocean liner…*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I chose this book several weeks ago, because it was “available immediately” from the library. Although, I knew it was about the Titanic, I had no idea that the settings of the story would include Newport, RI; Bar Harbor, ME; & Halifax, NS, which were three (of the 5) port calls on the New England & Canada cruise we just returned from, so that was cool! The actual Titanic disaster wasn’t the center of this book, and it didn’t provide any “new” information about it. Most of the book focused on Madeleine Force, whom Jack Astor married after he divorced his first wife — hence the title of the book. It covers how they met, how he pointedly pursued her, and the sometimes-high price of fame and fortune.

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Finished book #89 in 2025

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Book #89
And Then There Were None book cover		 Book: And Then There Were None Author: Agatha Christie
Source: Library loan
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 258 Duration: 09/25/25 – 10/07/25 (13 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, classics, Agatha Christie
📕10-word summary: All 10 people on an island die one by one.
🖌6-word review: Intricate plot seems implausible at times.
💭A favorite quote: “When a man’s neck’s in danger, he doesn’t stop to think too much about sentiment.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: contadini, cairngorm, iniquitous, pukka sahib, desultory, truncheon, cosh, sangfroid, quietus, wangle
Description:* First, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion. When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: It took me 13 days to read this book, because for 10 of them I was in New York City seeing plays for 3 days, and then on a New England & Canada cruise for 7 days. Agatha Christie said this was her most difficult book to write. I struggled with it a little, probably because I was usually distracted while reading it, and there were huge gaps in time (sometimes days) before I picked it up again. I liked that the deaths were centered around a nursery rhyme, but it was ambiguous enough that it didn’t really help you figure out how and who was going to be killed next, but after they were dead, it made sense in retrospect.

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Finished book #88 in 2025

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Book #88
What Does It Feel Like? book cover		 Book: What Does It Feel Like? Author: Sophie Kinsella
Source: Library loan
Format: e-book		 Pages: 128 Duration: 09/24/25 – 09/24/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, novella, family, cancer
📕10-word summary: A woman’s experience through a glioblastoma diagnosis and its prognosis.
🖌6-word review: Compelling, sometimes even humorous, honest observations.
💭A favorite quote: “It doesn’t matter if anyone knows the answer, it can be good to ask the question anyway.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: pratfall, clambered
Description:* Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband, never far from her side, explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumor growing in her brain. As Eve learns to walk, talk, and write again—and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children—she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights, and always buying that dress when she sees it. Recounted in brief anecdotes, each one is an attempt to answer the type of impossible questions recognizable to anyone navigating the labyrinth of grief.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I chose this book without knowing what it was about, which in retrospect, is probably a good thing. I probably wouldn’t have read it had I known, but it was a good read. This work is a fictionalized autobiography in which the narrator prevails as both positive and even humorous at times. As rare as glioblastoma is, I’ve known 3 people in my life with it — one a relative and 2 acquaintances.

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Finished book #87 in 2025

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Book #87
The Direction of the Wind book cover		 Book: The Direction of the Wind Author: Mansi Shah
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 318 Duration: 09/21/25 – 09/23/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, family, India, France, cultural
📕10-word summary: A daughter looks for her mother who left their family.
🖌6-word review: A well-done, dual-timeline story. Satisfying ending.
💭A favorite quote: “Nita spun around, quickly swallowing the bite of bread she had been chewing and hoping she didn’t have crumbs littering her clothes but did not look because she was too self-conscious to show how self-conscious she was.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: foi, hichko, fua, papad, ba, paan, arrondissement, namaskar, Bhagwan
Description:* Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For 22 years, she shouldered the burden of that loss. But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a cache of hidden letters revealing a shattering her mother didn’t die. She left. Now that Sophie knows the truth, she’s determined to find the mother who abandoned her. Sophie jets off to Paris, even though the impulsive trip may risk her impending arranged marriage. In the City of Light, she chases lead after lead that help her piece together a startling portrait of her mother. Though Sophie goes to Paris to find Nita, she may just also discover parts of herself she never knew.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I do love a good “finding some secret letters” and dual-timeline stories, both of which this book comprised. I saw many similarities between this book and one I read 7 months ago, The Storyteller’s Secret, in terms of being centered around an Indian family and a daughter that travels to another country in search of a better understanding her mother. I recommended that one to our Mostly Social Book Club, and I might very well put this one forth as one of my future selections. I am not a fan of “Hollywood endings” (i.e., sappy sweet), which this one was just (mercifully) shy of — an ending I’d characterize as bittersweet as opposed to sappy sweet.

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Finished book #86 in 2025

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Book #86
The Real Deal book cover		 Book: The Real Deal Author: Caitlin Devlin
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 359 Duration: 09/17/25 – 09/19/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, contemporary, young adult, LGBT, drama, mental health
📕10-word summary: 6 young girls become TV sensations with mostly disastrous results.
🖌6-word review: Reinforced my uninterest in realty TV.
💭A favorite quote: “Reading feels like achieving something. It’s the opposite of wasting time.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: spliff, rucksack, faff, bhaji, barbican, gabbled, scarpered, gormless, ketamine, Biro, twee
Description:* Belle Simon was just 12 years old when she was one of 6 girls plucked from obscurity to star in reality TV sensation, The Real Deal. Under the wing of dazzling star Donna Mayfair, she and the other 5 girls were meant to become world-famous actresses, singers and dancers. But at 26, Belle is trying to live anonymously, away from being loved or loathed. But when a producer offers Belle a big paycheck to join a reunion special, she can’t say no. If people are going to talk about that shocking final episode anyway, maybe this is an unexpected opportunity. Everyone watching thinks they know what happened, but only Belle knows what really occurred away from the cameras and outside the editing room. Is she ready to go back and confront her past? And will anyone believe her if she reveals the truth?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’ve never seen a realty TV show, and I’d never read a book about one — until now. This book validated my uninterest in them. With that said, the one thing I really liked about this story is how it contained situations and experiences that various characters interpreted in completely different ways, which actually precluded the reader from knowing what actually did happen. I came away with the feeling that at least half of the main characters were unreliable narrators. Normally that kind of ambiguity doesn’t sit well with me, but the pettiness, manipulation, and meanness that the producer and writers imposed on the characters and into the TV show storyline, all in the name of a bigger audience and higher ratings, kept me from caring about what did really happen. And regretfully, my overused-word nemesis, conspiratorially, made an appearance in this book.

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Finished book #85 in 2025

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Book #85
The Memory Collectors book cover		 Book: The Memory Collectors Author: Dete Meserve
Source: Library loan
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 320 Duration: 09/14/25 – 09/16/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: science fiction, time travel, mystery
📕10-word summary: Four strangers time travel to the same significant past day.
🖌6-word review: Thoughtful, clever, interestingly interconnected compelling storylines.
💭A favorite quote: “The first time I’d lived this life, I’d rushed through it, ignoring the details around me. I’d looked at the things in my life without really seeing them at all. Today, it’s the little things I latch on to.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: dun, kohl
Description:* What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out. Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstep landed him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake. Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travel invention of Mark Saunders—which allows some lucky clients the chance to spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients, including Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth, yearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever. *From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: Another book to support my notion that the only kind of science fiction I really like is time-travel stories. Other time-travel books I’ve enjoyed include 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. I like the notion in this story that while you can’t go back and do something differently in the past that changes an event in your future, you can learn something when you go back that changes how you “frame” what happened back then once you get back.

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Finished book #84 in 2025

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Book #84
The Upper Room book cover		 Book: The Upper Room Author: Mary Monroe
Source: Library loan
Format: e-book		 Pages: 384 Duration: 09/12/25 – 09/14/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, African American, drama, urban, family
📕10-word summary: Dysfunctional family of mythical proportions slogs its way through life.
🖌6-word review: Absolute train-wreck-esque — outrageous, confounding, and terrifying.
💭A favorite quote: “See—Fast Black told me to carry her to the bedroom on account of she had a notion between her legs that was hot as a stole car!”
🎓Some new-to-me words: vaingloriously, chifforobe, joogin
Description:* Maureen, a young black girl torn between her mother, the notorious Mama Ruby, whose healing powers and reputation cause people to fear her, and the harsh realities of life, comes of age, in a powerful, evocative tale set in a migrant labor camp in the bayous of the Florida Everglades.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I can’t think of another book with as much destruction — both physical and emotional — with regards to both the characters and the situations they bring about. Most of the characters are unlikeable and unlovable, and it’s hard to pinpoint why I didn’t abandon this book on that alone — I guess it was like the proverbial train wreck. The narrative voice of the story is almost exclusively AAVE.

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Finished book #83 in 2025

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Book #83
Persuasion book cover		 Book: Persuasion Author: Jane Austen
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 249 Duration: 09/10/25 – 09/11/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Genres: historical fiction, literature, classics, romance, 19th century
📕10-word summary: Second chance comes around after a previously persuaded broken engagement.
🖌6-word review: Not just a little torturous — disappointing.
💭A favorite quote: “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives”
Description:* In many respects, Persuasion marks a break with Austen’s previous works, both in the more biting, even irritable satire directed at some of the novel’s characters and in the regretful, resigned outlook of its otherwise admirable heroine, Anne Elliot, in the first part of the story. Against this is set the energy and appeal of the Royal Navy, which symbolises for Anne and the reader the possibility of a more outgoing, engaged, and fulfilling life, and it is this worldview which triumphs for the most part at the end of the novel.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: Both the preantepenultimate and the antepenultimate books I’ve read mentioned and lauded this last-completed novel of Jane Austen, which was the impetus for my reading it. I was not impressed. I preferred — probably by a thousand times — Jane Eyre. YMMV, of course.

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Finished book #82 in 2025

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Book #82
My Friends book cover		 Book: My Friends Author: Fredrik Backman
Source: Library loan
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 435 Duration: 09/07/25 – 09/09/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: literary fiction, coming of age, friendship, art, LGBT
📕10-word summary: Four teens’ friendship changes another teen’s life 25 years later.
🖌6-word review: Indescribably compelling book, incredibly beautifully written.
💭A favorite quote: “Death is public, but dying is private.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: prow, gawps, splutters, petrichor
Description:* Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into 18-year-old Louisa’s care.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is my 4th Fredrik Backman book, having read The Answer is No earlier in 2025, Anxious People in 2023, and A Man Called Ove in 2017. I actually abandoned A Man Called Ove (for distracting overuse of similes!); loved The Answer is No, which was a short story; and adored Anxious People, which I laughed my way through. This book, however, absolutely blew me away. The writing is just phenomenal, with so many turns of phrases that virtually stunned me and that make your heart either sink or leap. There were just under 1,000 people on the library’s waiting list when I joined it, and I waited months for it. I can see why it’s so popular, and the wait was totally worth it. I’d like to make this book a Mostly Social Book Club book one day, but we only read books that we can borrow (or get for free), and I’m sure it’ll be a long, long time before this one becomes “readily available.” If you’re the type who buys books, I can’t recommend this one enough.

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Finished book #81 in 2025

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Book #81
As Long as You're Mine book cover		 Book: As Long as You’re Mine Author: Nekesa Afia
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 265 Duration: 09/01/25 – 09/05/25 (5 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: historical fiction, romance, mystery, race
📕10-word summary: Two generations of women unravel dangerous secret connection between them.
🖌6-word review: Well-established characters in compelling dual-timeline story.
💭A favorite quote: “She was so tired of him thinking he knew better than her because he had been gifted with a penis. She was so tired of him thinking he knew better than her because he was white.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: douppioni
Description:* Professional ballerina Thea Ross’s world shatters when her screen-legend father commits suicide, leaving behind a shocking confession to a decades-old murder. Determined to uncover the truth, Thea teams up with a relentless journalist, following a trail of clues that leads her back to the glittering yet treacherous world of 1930s Hollywood. There, she discovers the story of Lorelei Davies, a struggling actress willing to endure anything for her family’s sake. As Thea peels back the layers of Lorelei’s life—her dreams, fears, and dangerous secrets—the connection between Lorelei’s past and Thea’s present challenges everything she believes about her family history. But as she untangles all the lies, she comes to know herself more truly than ever before.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I really like dual-timeline stories, especially when I like the storyline of both time periods. There is a lot of #MeToo — before #MeToo was a thing — in this story, which always infuriates me to read about. I thought of Marie Benedict’s The Personal Librarian several times while reading this book, with regards to Lorelei’s hiding her race (being light-skinned enough to “pass”) and all the fears associated with doing that — not unlike living life in the closet. There was a murder mystery at the heart of this story, and I liked how the people in the later storyline were surmising what happened, while the earlier storyline was relating what did happen.

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Finished book #80 in 2025

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Book #80
The Jane Austen Book Club book cover		 Book: The Jane Austen Book Club Author: Karen Joy Fowlery
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 288 Duration: 08/30/25 – 08/31/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, romance, books about books
📕10-word summary: A 5-women and 1-man book club discuss Jane Austen novels.
🖌6-word review: Clever premise; sometimes hard to follow.
💭A favorite quote: “If she’d worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have filed Austen under horror.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Ridgebacks, shirred
Description:* In California’s central valley, 5 women and 1 man join to discuss Jane Austen’s novels. Over the 6 months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships. Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I didn’t realize the structure of this novel, which was that 6 people meet monthly to discuss one Jane Austen novel and that the members use the novels they’re currently reading to understand and reflect on their own complicated relationships. I spent too much time while reading this thinking, “Now who is this speaking?” I don’t generally re-read books, but this is one I’d be interested in re-reading knowing what I now know about it. A coincidental thing about it is that the previous book I read, The Memory Library, had Jane Austen’s book, Persuasion (which I’d never heard of) as a germane element of it, as does this book! I guess that’s a sign that I should read it. On the disappointing side, my pet peeve, overused word, conspiratorially, was used three times in this hoity-toity book.

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Finished book #79 in 2025

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Book #79
The Memory Library book cover		 Book: The Memory Library Author: Kate Storey
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 335 Duration: 08/28/25 – 08/30/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, books about books, family, diversity, community
📕10-word summary: Family circumstances bring a mother and daughter together to heal.
🖌6-word review: Great character development. Poignant, heartwarming story.
💭A favorite quote: “Happiness comes in many forms. I once read that whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world, a door opens to let in more light. I’ve read a lot of good books, and my world has always been full of light.”
Description:* For 42 years, Sally Harrison has been building a library. Each year, on her daughter’s birthday, she adds a new book to her shelves – with a note in the front dedicated to her own greatest work. But Ella – Sally’s only child – fled to Australia 22 ago after a heated exchange, and never looked back. And though Sally still dutifully adds a new paperback to the shelves every time the clock strikes midnight on July 11th, her hopes of her daughter ever thumbing through the pages are starting to dwindle. Then disaster strikes and Ella is forced to return to the home she once knew.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’m a sucker for a book about books, so it was an easy decision to read this one. And fortunately, it didn’t disappoint. I loved the diverse characters in this story, and I always find the process of someone coming to realize that something isn’t — or many things aren’t — what they appear to be. There’s a very good possibility that I’ll make this one of my future Mostly Social Book Club books.

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Finished book #78 in 2025

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Book #78
The Lies You Wrote book cover		 Book: The Lies You Wrote Author: Brianna Labuskes
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 350 Duration: 08/26/25 – 08/27/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, psychological thriller, suspense, crime
📕10-word summary: Two murders — one a copycat — 25 years apart convolutedly converge.
🖌6-word review: Multiple, “duplicate” characters hard to follow.
💭A favorite quote: “If someone can’t fix something about themselves in five minutes, you shouldn’t mention the thing [to them].”
🎓Some new-to-me words: plink, unsub, idiolect, antanaclasis, tendre, skeeze, apex predator
Description:* The double murder of a married couple draws FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto into an investigation that mirrors a decades-old crime. 25 years ago — to the day — Alex Parker murdered his parents, then took his own life, leaving behind a note admitting everything. Raisa, paired with forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny, uses her skills to read between the lines. Especially now that paranoid postings on a conspiracy thread suggest that Alex was a victim himself — theories that have piqued the interest of a perceptive content moderator and a true-crime podcaster eager for a big break. Something more sinister than a copycat crime is at play, and plundering the darkest corners of a killer’s mind leaves Raisa vulnerable to a deadly twist even she never saw coming.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’d never heard of a forensic linguist before, and I loved everything about that aspect of this story. But I struggled with the setting at times, having a hard time keeping straight when we were talking about the murder that happened 25 years ago or the current-day “copycat” murder, especially while characters associated with each were still being introduced. I also struggled with a couple of the characters toward the end, and I supposed this is somewhat of a spoiler alert, it got very confusing once two of the characters were revealed to really be other characters, but from the point we find that out, one of them begins being referred to as their “real” character name while the other one continues to be referred to by their “fake” character name. (Why???) That aside, I will say that the final, final twist was pretty brilliant. I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this book, at least not without several caveats.

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Finished book #77 in 2025

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Book #77
Obitchuary: The Big Hot Book of Death book cover		 Book: Obitchuary: The Big Hot Book of Death Author: Spencer Henry and Madison Reyes
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 224 Duration: 08/24/25 – 08/25/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: nonfiction, humor, death, cultural, science, sociology
📕10-word summary: A mostly fun look at the myriad facets of death.
🖌6-word review: Funny, interesting, surprising, educational, well written.
💭A favorite quote: “Apparently, scientist and doctors alike are discovering our brains are thought to continue working for 10 minutes or so after we die, meaning our brains may in some way be aware of our death.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: lachrymatories, moirologists, senicide, Thalaikoothal, ubasute, accabadoras, sin-eater, paraphilia, spectrophilia, scaphism, takotsubo cardiomyopathy
Description:* It’s safe to say everyone thinks about death – whether they want to or not. But have you ever wondered about what sort of keepsakes you can make with your remains, or given any thought to the most scandalous deathbed confessions throughout history? Well Madison Reyes and Spencer Henry have, and they’ve spent countless hours scouring the darkest corners of the internet, digging through newspaper archives, devouring documents, and picking the brains of death industry experts to bring you Obitchuary, a darkly funny and deeply poignant exploration of all things death.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I saw this book back in February when my friend Jen and I took our after-lunch stroll through Barnes & Noble. I love a good obituary, so the title of this book had me at “bitch.” I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the title, “The Big Hot Book of Death,” which is what the book is mostly about — the many facets of death, not just the obituary. With chapters like “Coffin Confessions,” “Executions to Die For,” “The Last Word,” and “If These Dolls Could Speak,” the authors cover several of the colorful history, traditions, and contemporary practices surrounding death. The authors of this book have a podcast called Obitchuary, which presumably was why that was part of the title — to entice podcast subscribers to read their book. “The Last Word” chapter reminded me of Famous Last Words by Laura Ward, which I read back in 2015.

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Finished book #76 in 2025

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Book #76
My Father’s Wives book cover		 Book: My Father’s Wives Author: Mike Greenberg
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 223 Duration: 08/22/25 – 08/23/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, family, relationships, psychology
📕10-word summary: Man seeks insight from father’s 5 wives proceeding his mother.
🖌6-word review: Some plot points disjointed or missing.
💭A favorite quote: “Her hand on my knee meant she was doing exactly what she promised she would: lying with me, as opposed to me.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: lothario, scintilla
Description:* Jonathan Sweetwater has been blessed with money, a fulfilling career, great kids and Claire, his smart, gorgeous, sophisticated wife. But there is one thing Jonathan never had: a relationship with his father. Percival Sweetwater III has been absent from his son’s life since Jonathan was nine years old. A 5-term U.S. senator, now dead, Percy was beloved by presidents, his constituents, and women alike, especially the five women who married him after Jonathan’s mother. On a quest for understanding — about himself, about manhood, about marriage — Jonathan decides to track down his father’s five ex-wives. His journey will take him from cosmopolitan cities to the mile-high mountains to a tropical island—and ultimately back to confront the one thing Jonathan has that his father never did: home.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: The premise of this book interested me enough when I read about it in my BookBub.com email to check my library for its availability. There were two main story lines (i.e., wife’s possible infidelity and husband learning more about his dad to better understand himself) that I assumed would be intertwined or at least have some cause-and-effect with each other or something. I agree with these sentiments of another reader’s Goodreads review: “The writing is technically competent, but this is a very forgettable book that wavers somewhere between a mystery that isn’t, [a] Gary Stu having an angst-fest, and an attempt at a story about introspection in which the character never gets around to being introspective. In other words, it’s a lot of reasonably literate words that don’t seem to have much point behind them.”

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Finished book #75 in 2025

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Book #75
Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages book cover		 Book: Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages Author: Cate Doty
Source: Library loan
Format: Print		 Pages: 356 Duration: 08/19/25 – 08/20/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: nonfiction, memoir, humor, romance, journalism, sociology
📕10-word summary: The NYT’s wedding announcement publication process and author’s coming-of-age story.
🖌6-word review: Career more interesting than coming-of-age aspect.
💭A favorite quote: “As best we could, we copied Mrs. Shaw, who reeked of Virginia Slims and was as tanned as a leather handbag.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: rumaki, forfend, loucheness, vaunted
Description:* In New York City in pursuit of love — and to write for The New York Times — Cate Doty finds her natural home in the wedding section, a first step to her own happily-ever-after, surely. Soon she is thrown into the cutthroat world of the metropolitan society pages, experiencing the lengths couples go to have their announcements accepted and the lengths the writers go in fact-checking their stories; the surprising, status-signaling details that matter most to brides and grooms; and the politics of the paper at a time of vast cultural and industry changes. Reporting weekly on couples whose relationships seem enviable — or eye-roll worthy — and dealing with WASPy grandparents and last-minute snafus, Cate is surrounded by love, or what we’re told to believe is love. But when she starts to take the leap herself, she begins to ask her own questions about what it means to truly commit…*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I worked with Cate for a few months, which is what drew me to this book. I always wondered how someone went from working in NYC on the wedding/society pages of the NYT to being a marketing content strategist for an open source software company in Raleigh, NC, but I never had a conversation with her about it. I was most interested in this book from a professional editor perspective and really enjoyed those aspects of it. I’m really not interested in weddings, though, and I did skim over parts of the book where she wrote about movies about weddings (e.g., My Best Friend’s Wedding, Father of the Bride, The Wedding Singer, & Runaway Bride), since I hadn’t seen a single one of them. I made it 80% through the book before encountering my pet peeve, overused word, conspiratorially: “My grandmother leaned forward conspiratorially in her chair. ‘The Coast Guard took me on a submarine,’ she whispered.” I did appreciate that this book did a good job of acknowledging the role race, class, heteronormativity, and patriarchy played in the decisions made about which announcements — and what information and how many details were included in them — got into the society pages of the NYT.

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Finished book #74 in 2025

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Book #74
Family Reservations book cover		 Book: Family Reservations Author: Liza Palmer
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 303 Duration: 08/17/25 – 08/18/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, food, family, thriller
📕10-word summary: A fragile family empire teeters on the brink of disaster.
🖌6-word review: Ambitious women in a delicious trainwreck.
💭A favorite quote: “There’s something particularly irrefutable about finding actual evidence of how truly clueless you once were. The blind hope of it just breaks your heart.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: poissonier, patinaed, brassicas, kouign-amann, peloton, murmuration, izakaya, ayahuasca, cassava
Description:* Maren Winter is a world-renowned restaurateur who has built an empire. No one heeds the whispers of her retirement more closely than her three daughters, all in service to their mother’s legacy. On the night of Maren’s annual New Year’s Eve party, a line is crossed, and word of a humiliating family meltdown spreads like a Northern California wildfire through the culinary elite. It’s a golden opportunity for one of the daughters to step into power — and a trigger for a spiraling descent into paranoia and blind ambition. As the Winter family’s dissolution begins, so does a journey of competition, love, loyalty, self-preservation, and the need for three women to forge a path of their own.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: All 4 of the main characters are strongly drawn as 3 ambitious, headstrong daughters try desperately to get out of the shadow of their more ambitious, more headstrong mother. There are plenty of food-related adjectives that describe this tale: delicious, pungent, bitter, chewy, and satiating — to name a few. This is a strong candidate for a future Mostly Social Book Club choice for me. My only complaint about it is my pet peeve about the overuse of the word “conspiratorial,” which was used three times in this book. Ugh.

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Finished book #73 in 2025

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Book #73
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories book cover		 Book: One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories Author: B.J. Novak
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 288 Duration: 08/15/25 – 08/15/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, short stories, humor, essays
📕10-word summary: 64, mostly playful, stories on a wide range of topics.
🖌6-word review: A couple disappointing. Most cleverly imaginative.
💭A favorite quote: “I’m 3 away, across,” said Allie. “Three away up-down 2 different ways, and 2 away diagonal. And 4 away up-down 4 different ways,” said Lisa.
Description:* B.J. Novak’s One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut collection that signals the arrival of a welcome new voice in American fiction. Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, Novak’s assured prose and expansive imagination introduce readers to people, places, and premises that are hilarious, insightful, provocative, and moving-often at the same time.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: What an interesting book! It’s a collection of 64 stories, with the shortest one being 16 seconds and the longest one being 37 minutes in the audiobook. My favorite was called “A Good Problem to Have,” a 15-minute story about the man who purportedly devised the infamous math problem — A man leaves Chicago at 12 p.m. on a train heading for Cleveland at 60 m.p.h. Another man leaves Cleveland at 1 p.m. heading for Chicago on a train going 85 m.p.h. At what time will the two trains cross paths? — and relates its origin story. Another favorite of mine was the 2-minute story called “Bingo,” from which came the snippet in my favorite quote listed above. And, finally, I thought the penultimate story in the collection, the 34-minute “J.C. Audetat, Translator of Don Quixote,” was just brilliant.

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Finished book #72 in 2025

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Book #72
Martin Misunderstood book cover		 Book: Martin Misunderstood Author: Karin Slaughter
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 147 Duration: 08/14/25 – 08/14/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, short stories, humor
📕10-word summary: Buckle up for a ride through Martin Reed’s misunderstood life.
🖌6-word review: Kooky, outlandish characters and plot elements.
💭A favorite quote: “One of the downsides of being a pretend Lesbian was that men didn’t open doors for her anymore.”
Description:* Crime fiction obsessive Martin Reed is the proverbial butt of everyone’s jokes. Working as a glorified accountant at Southern Toilet Supply and still living with his cantankerous mother, he has become resigned to the world in which he lives — the school bullies now pick on him in the workplace, women still spurn him, and his arch enemy is now his supervisor. Martin arrives at work one morning to find the police on-site. A co-worker has been brutally murdered and her body abandoned in a ditch. And the overwhelming evidence points to Martin — especially when he can’t or won’t admit that he has an alibi. When a second victim is found in the company bathroom, things really conspire against Martin. The one bright star on his otherwise bleak horizon is the beautiful and sympathetic Detective Anther Albada, but even she’s beginning to have her doubts about his innocence. Could Martin be guilty? Or is he just misunderstood?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is the quirkiest book I’ve read in a long, long time. Before even looking at the reviews of it, I knew it was going to be one of those “you either love it or hate it” kind of books. I’m in the former camp. The characters are off-the-charts kooky and the situationships all of them get into are outlandish. The character named Unique, pronounced you-ni-kay with the accent on kay, had me rolling.

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Finished book #71 in 2025

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Book #71
The Marlow Murder Club book cover		 Book: The Marlow Murder Club Author: Robert Thorogood
Source: Library loan
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 352 Duration: 08/13/25 – 08/14/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, thriller
📕10-word summary: Three women help solve one murder that turns into three.
🖌6-word review: Entertaining read. Interesting characters. Improbable ending.
💭A favorite quote: “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: bulrushes, RNLI, aspidistra, punt, prow, weir, gilet, truncheon, peckish, cygnets, probity, moreish, Portakabin, dopatta, bathos, repechage, atavistic, subaltern, stentorian
Description:* Judith Potts is 77 years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper. One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself, and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local Vicar. Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This was a good story and one that made me wish I had ½-star ratings, as I would have given it a 4.5 instead of a 4. What kept me from giving it 5 stars was the ending, which was an over-the-top rescue scene whose one-word “feel” to me would be “swashbuckling.” There were just too many improbable things that the “murder club” members had to overcome to save their mate. One thing that I thought was weird was that the 3 women that helped solve this murder mystery never once referred to themselves (nor did anyone else refer to them) as a “club” like in The Thursday Murder Club. I checked the publication date of that book to see if it preceded this one, thinking perhaps this book put “club” in its title to ride the coattails of that one’s success if it was published subsequently. And it was. Interestingly, in my review of The Thursday Murder Club, I said the same thing about wishing I had ½-star ratings. All that aside, I’d definitely recommend this book and would consider making it a future Mostly Social Book Club book. OH! Lest I forget, this book used “conspiratorial” three times. Ugh.

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Finished book #70 in 2025

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Book #70
Small Things Like These book cover		 Book: Small Things Like These Author: Claire Keegan
Source: Library loan
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 128 Duration: 08/12/25 – 08/12/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, literary fiction, Irish literature, Christmas
📕10-word summary: Man with serious existential angst struggles to find his purpose.
🖌6-word review: Tightly written. Underlying darkness. Ultimately redemptive.
💭A favorite quote: “And blades of cold slid under doors and cut the knees off those who still knelt to say the rosary.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: Herefords (cattle), cheviot (ewes), Rayburn (stove)
Description:* It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I’m not sure if the writing was “that good” or if it’s something internal to me, but I really felt this protagonist’s angst. Overall, the story was pretty much a buzzkill, but it did redeem itself (I guess) in the end. Having recently read Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, I’d definitely categorize this story as bittersweet, and the protagonist certainly had enough sorrow and longing to make him [more than] whole.

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Finished book #69 in 2025

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Book #69
Bad Date: A Short Story book cover		 Book: Bad Date: A Short Story Author: Ellery Lloyd
Source: Free First Reads download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 58 Duration: 08/12/25 – 08/12/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Genres: fiction, short stories, mystery, thriller
📕10-word summary: A twisty short story about love, obsession, and deadly deceptions.
🖌6-word review: Needed more — even for short story.
🎓A new-to-me word: contravened
Description:* Fay Roper is a divorced single mom and a globally famous actress. She’s also unlucky in love. Maybe because the last thing Fay wants in a man is yet another superfan. But somehow, every time she has a boyfriend who isn’t a stalker, he abruptly disappears from her life. With the help of her best friend and right-hand woman, Poppy, Fay decides to change the game and join an exclusive new dating app under a false identity. A subscriber named Oliver takes the bait. But Oliver likes to play games too. And only one of them can win.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I wasn’t drawn to any of these characters, and I think the story needed more fleshing out in spite of being a short story. Sometimes I choose the bonus short story from a month’s Amazon’s First Reads selections as an introduction to an author I haven’t read, to see if I might want to read other books that they’ve written. That was the case with this one, and after reading it, I’m not particularly motived to read another.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #68 in 2025

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Book #68
The Road Towards Home book cover		 Book: The Road Towards Home Author: Corinne Demas
Source: Free BookBub download
Format: Kindle		 Pages: 283 Duration: 08/07/25 – 08/12/25 (6 days)
Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, romance, family, friendship
📕10-word summary: Two retirees reconnect late in life and fly the coop.
🖌6-word review: Interesting characters and aging realistically depicted.
💭An amusing quote: “I didn’t know bagpipes were out of favor around here,” said Noah. “Sound like dying whales,” said Artie.
🎓Some new-to-me words: scofflaw, outflanked, damselflies, odonates, pugnacious, exuvium, gigue, wrack, nap, peent, whelk, continuo, augury, Nemean lion, Augean stables, cormorants
Description:* Widower Noah Shilling considers Clarion Court to be less an independent living community and more a prison. But there may be hope for the place yet. The newest resident is bold, eccentric, rule-breaking Cassandra Joyce — whom, as it turns out, Noah met long ago in college. As Noah and Cassandra get reacquainted, major changes at Clarion Court force them both to reevaluate their living situation. When Noah invites Cassandra to rough it with him at his Cape Cod cottage, the old friends must decide whether they should risk embarking on the next stage of their journey together.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I liked that the older couple at the center of this story negotiated a budding romance realistically instead of romanticizing it. I also liked that Cassandra in particular appreciated each of them having their own interests and not wanting to be, or do things, together all the time. It reminded me of my husband’s and my shared feeling that: “You’re my everything, but you’re not my every minute.” I have a soft spot for Cape Cod, so the part of the story set there added to my overall enjoyment of the book. They shopped in a supermarket in Orleans, which wasn’t far from Eastham, where we rented a house for a month during the Covid pandemic.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #67 in 2025

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Book #67
The Guest List book cover		 Book: The Guest List Author: Lucy Foley
Source: Library book
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 319 Duration: 08/07/25 – 08/07/25 (1 day)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, crime
📕10-word summary: Idyllic couple and wedding venue ends in mayhem and murder.
🖌6-word review: A trifecta of twists seals it.
💭An amusing quote: “There’s nothing less sexy than a lack of ambition, is there?”
🎓Some new-to-me words: marquee, slapdash
Description:* Guests gather to celebrate a wedding. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The wedding is perfectly planned, but the people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The toasts are cringeworthy, and then someone turns up dead.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: This is another book that people either hated or loved. I’m in the latter group. Three revelations toward the end of the story completely justified murder, and I like the interconnectedness of the revelations. More than once while reading this book, I thought of one of my favorite books — Donna Tartt‘s The Secret History, which I read 29 years ago. This is my second Lucy Foley book, and I liked it much better than her The Paris Apartment, which I read two years ago.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #66 in 2025

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Book #66
One of Us is Dead book cover		 Book: One of Us is Dead Author: Jeneva Rose
Source: Library book
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 272 Duration: 08/05/25 – 08/06/25 (2 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, thriller, mystery, suspense
📕10-word summary: Vicious and deadly antics of — real and desperate — Atlanta housewives.
🖌6-word review: Interesting, sometimes over-the-top, characters and plots.
💭An amusing quote: “Buckhead was all about smiles. You smiled when you were pissed, and you smiled when you were pleased.”
Description:* Meet the women of Buckhead—a place of expensive cars, huge houses, and competitive friendships. Shannon was once the queen bee of Buckhead. But she’s been unceremoniously dumped by Bryce, her politician husband. When Bryce replaces her with a much younger woman, Shannon sets out to take revenge… Crystal has stepped into Shannon’s old shoes. A young, innocent Texan girl, she simply has no idea what she’s up against… Olivia has waited years to take Shannon’s crown as the unofficial queen of Buckhead. Finally, her moment has come. But to take her rightful place, she will need to use every backstabbing, manipulative, underhand trick in the book… Jenny owns Glow, the most exclusive salon in town. Jenny knows all her clients’ secrets and darkest desires. But will she ever tell? Who amongst these women will be clever enough to survive Buckhead—and who will wind up dead? They say that friendships can be complex, but no one said it could ever be this deadly.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: At times, this book reminded me of The Last Mrs. Parrish, which I read in 2023 and described as “a wild ride of deliciously conniving viciousness.” The Olivia character in this book rivaled the main character, Amber, in The Last Mrs. Parrish, whom I described as “putting the con in conniving and having a complete lack of conscience, compassion, or remorse, leaving her with zero redeeming qualities.” I listened to the audiobook of this one, and at times, the southern accents got on my nerves, but I did like the fact that they had enough narrators (5 of them!) to differentiate the voices of the 6 main female characters. This was a different plot structure than most murder-mysteries where someone gets killed fairly early in the book and then the plot unravels to reveal the killer, in that it starts off with one character talking to a detective about someone in this group of women’s lives who’s been murdered, but you don’t find out until the very end who was killed and how.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Finished book #65 in 2025

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Book #65
Finding Me book cover		 Book: Finding Me Author: Viola Davis
Source: Library book
Format: Audiobook		 Pages: 289 Duration: 08/03/25 – 08/05/25 (3 days)
Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, memoir, biography, feminism, African American
📕10-word summary: Viola Davis bares her soul in her rags-to-riches, hate-to-love story.
🖌6-word review: Good writing. Hard passages. Fascinating woman.
💭A favorite quote: “There are decades of suppressed secrets, trauma, lost dreams, and hopes. It was easier to live under that veil and put on a mask than to slay them.”
🎓Some new-to-me words: “the haints”
Description:* In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.
Thoughts: I love Viola Davis and remember being riveted by How to Get Away with Murder when I watched it — and her. She narrated this audiobook, which won her the 2023 Grammy for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording, and which earned her the coveted EGOT status, becoming the third Black woman in history to achieve the honor. It was a dramatic reading for sure, but as good as it was, I still had to listen to it at 1.5x the recorded speed, because I’m just that impatient. My favorite scene was when she went to her interviews to get into Julliard, which traditionally took 3 days, but she told the committee, “I have to work tonight, and I have a 4.5-hour train ride home, so I need your decision in 45 minutes.” You go, woman!

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.