The Cue Card

Hi all. We were busy watching the Olympic hockey game early this morning. It was crazy … but great action which required a lot of yelling and agony on my part, lol. All in all, we enjoyed streaming quite a bit of the Olympics, including much of the biathlon, figure skating, ice dancing, and hockey … as well as some of the other sports. It was a good distraction no doubt … from all the news crises going on, the latest being possible war in the Middle East. I’m sure the State of the Union address this week will be one big sham of untruths. But in the amidst this, we had a good family reunion trip to Vancouver, B.C. this past week. And for one sunny afternoon, we were even able to bike the Seawall and shoreline bike paths. That was quite a treat! You don’t get many sunny days in Vancouver in the winter, so we took full advantage of it … and it was beautiful … albeit a bit chilly.  

We arrived back home just in time for my fourth and final Zoom class on Edith Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth. Each class was two+ hours long and we were full on discussing passages as we went on. It was great. I must have read the full novel like two or three times over the past month as I prepared for each class, lol. It’s a bit of a long novel too … with various layers to it, but I was in its grip. See the review down below. 

Meanwhile another classic novel — Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights — is playing as an adapted movie at the theater in town now, and we might see it though this adaptation has received various up and down reviews, many quite terrible about how it’s not faithful to the novel etc. We will keep that in mind. Still it is spurring on new readers to the book. Maybe even I will be lured back to the days of Catherine and Heathcliff. It’s been a long while … and I find with classics you need to reread them after a decade or two goes by.

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished recently.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton / Scribner / 1905 

“She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.”

5 stars. This is the story of Lily Bart, a 29-year-old New York socialite at the turn of the century whose parents became financially ruined and died when she was 19/20 leaving her with very little, other than an aunt who took her in. The aunt gives her some allowances but it’s not enough for the dresses and luxuries Lily requires … or for the bridge gambling she dabbles in among her rich friends. Mostly what Lily has going for her is her incredible beauty and pretty face and she needs to marry to secure her status in high society and any future, but she’s let her early opportunities go, back when she debuted as a debutante.

Now she’s at the brink of turning 30 and sees only boring or distasteful prospects in her sights. Her friend, Selden, is a man she admires but he’s not wealthy enough for her.  So she gets a bit desperate and gives some money to her friend’s husband to make on the stock market, but this turns into an entanglement she comes to regret … along with another entanglement with the heiress Bertha Dorset, who invites her to stay on her yacht during a trip to Monte Carlo and the Mediterranean.  

Poor Lily. Her reputation takes a beating from schemes concocted by this nemesis. You hope upon hope Lily can restore herself and rise above her entanglements … as she has a good sense of honor about her. And there are a couple options and friends — Gerty Farish, Carry Fisher, and Selden who try to help her but somehow despite Lily’s beauty and capabilities, it’s a spiral she faces that you wouldn’t wish on anyone. 

I got caught up in this debut novel as there’s turns and nuances along the way and many good passages about Lily. It’s sort of like a soap opera at times but more since Wharton is such a talented writer who’s able to weave a tale so tellingly and satirically about the times and high society in Lily’s milieu. It’s not as streamlined as Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, but you come to feel for Lily, who’s a sympathetic protagonist even if born into a snobby existence. Near the end she comes to see those she gave charity to — like Nettie Struther — better. 

I continue to be a big Wharton fan (she even was a dog lover, see photo at left) and will read more of her in the future. Though my class’s instructor didn’t like The Custom of the Country (1913) as much as The House of Mirth since he found the protagonist less likable. Still as Lesley at the blog Coastal Horizons told me: The Custom of the Country is going to be adapted into a new movie with Sydney Sweeney and Leo Woodall — who were both in The White Lotus, lol. I will have to read it before then and see it … but first here is one more line below from near the end of The House of Mirth whose protagonist — Lily Bart — I shan’t forget anytime soon. 

“She felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her.”

Yikes. That’s all for now. What about you — have you read Wharton and if so, what did you think? 

Hi Bookworms. It’s mid-February already. I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day yesterday. We went out to dinner, which was nice. And lately we’ve been watching the Olympics. It’s been good streaming it without the commercials.

We’ve watched plenty of action, everything from the downhill skiing, to the biathlon, and hockey games, to the moguls skiing, and figure skating. I’m not sure which has stood out to me the most so far, but the ice dancing competition was quite alluring and close and the Canadian couple of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier skated so beautifully to a program using the song “Starry Starry Night” to take Bronze. So pleased for them! They’d been skating together apparently since 2011. I wonder a bit what made them choose the folksy, soupy Don McLean song from 1971, but wow they took it to another level, lol.

This coming week we’ll be going to Vancouver, B.C. for a family reunion, so I’m excited about that. We haven’t traveled in a long while. It’s a lovely city and we’ll walk around lots and maybe visit a couple bookstores too. Meanwhile our doggies will be home so I hope they’ll be good with the sitter. Here is Willow looking mellow now, lol.

I’ll be taking a couple books I have going including Edith Wharton’s 1905 classic The House of Mirth (for my Politics & Prose class) and a nonfiction book by Mark Braude titled The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII. Quite a title right? I had not known about its subjects before — Janet Flanner of the New Yorker and a man named Eugen Weidmann who was a con man and a killer apparently. We will see what happens. 

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately. 

Crux by Gabriel Tallent / Riverhead / 416 pages / 2026

4.0+ stars. This novel — about two high school best friends Dan and Tamma, who have family strife in their lives and share a love of rock climbing — was a buddy read with Tina over at the blog Turn the Page. It’s a bit jarring at first with its foul teenage language especially from the girl Tamma, but as it went on and I adjusted, I was drawn into their story more and more. 

Dan and Tamma have grown up in the desert, not far from Joshua Tree National Park, where they like to rock climb steep boulders and peaks. It’s their last year of high school and they’re dreaming up plans of taking off after school becoming dirtbaggers, living and climbing in Utah’s Canyonlands.

Dan is a smart honor student type, and Tamma is an outcast, gay and like a firecracker. Their families are poor and busted and they have a lot of baggage, so you don’t know what will happen to Dan and Tamma and their future. Dan’s parents are hoping he can win a scholarship to college. But Dan and Tamma spend most their time just trying to keep their families going and to be able to climb together. 

Climbing is their one happy place and they’re the only ones who have each other’s backs. Their families and mothers are particularly bad — one has a drug problem and the other severe depression and a heart defect without any insurance. By and by, you come to root for Dan and Tamma with no money to find a way to rise above their situations. Will they be able to live their dreams? This is a gritty novel that navigates lives on the line that lured me with its two main characters and their pact together, which you’re unsure of whether it’ll hold.

Others on Goodreads have warned that this novel has a lot of rock climbing and jargon to it. I actually liked these parts. Some is descriptive and beautiful and the rock climbing to me came to be compelling … even though I don’t know much about the sport. There are a couple boulder plateaus in the desert the two characters attempt to scale that are scary and make for good action. It’s all a part of their journey during that fateful last year of high school.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you seen this one and what do you think? Enjoy your week. And happy reading.

Hi Bookworms, it was another tough week in news so I hope you’re hanging in there. As you can see the snow here has melted away and the fields are brown now. It’s awfully mild out West for February.

But things are gearing up with the Olympics on and it being Super Bowl Sunday. Will you be going to a S.B. party? I’ll likely be home and will watch sporadically from the couch … along with reading and checking in on the skating and skiing from the Olympics. Neither NFL team is a favorite, but there’s always the spectacle of the halftime show. 

Meanwhile you might have heard this past week the terrible news about the major layoffs at The Washington Post. Three hundred+ people were let go and the Book and Sports sections were discontinued along with various foreign bureaus. I once worked at this reputable newspaper, which was then owned by the Graham family. It was an impressive place with many great journalists. I worked there as a copy editor and left in November 2010. 

Jeff Bezos bought The Post in 2013 and has now gutted it … while recently his Amazon company spent $75 million in the making and promoting of the “Melania” documentary … all to cozy up to the current regime. It’s quite a blow to those who worked good portions of their careers at the paper as well as to its loyal readers and to democracy in general. Disturbingly, a free press is the first thing to go under a tyranny. It’s made me think back to those days in the 1990s and early 2000s when I was at The Post … and to the late Mrs. Graham who gave so much to the newspaper that published many important stories. I loved her Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography, which came out in 1997. 

And now, here’s the books I completed in January. It seems my reading benefited from it being a long month in the middle of winter with a bum recovering knee so I was on the couch more than usual. I pretty much liked all of these so it’s hard to say which was my favorite but I was especially pleased to have finished Shannon Bowring’s trilogy (with Tina at Turn the Page) and Edith Wharton’s autobiography written in 1934. So here they are in the last order finished:

• Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen (debut, hardback)
• The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill (debut, audiobook)
• In a Distant Valley by Shannon Bowring (audiobook, #3 in trilogy)
• The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten (paperback, translated)
• A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton (ebook, nonfiction) 
• The Wedding People by Alison Espach (audiobook) 
• When the Cranes Fly South (paperback, debut, translated) 

Lastly, here are a couple reviews below of what I finished lately. 

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton / Pantheon / 285 pages / 2025

This is my first 5 star book in a while. It might not be that for every reader but I’m sensitive to good animal stories and this nonfiction memoir was one of them. Although other bloggers had mentioned positive things about the book (thanks Deb at Readerbuzz), I didn’t really have any assumptions going into it. 

It has a straightforward premise about a woman, living in the countryside outside of London during the pandemic days who finds a wild newborn hare — a leveret apparently abandoned near her home. She thinks it will die so she takes to caring and feeding it. She lets it be wild and run in and out of her house into a courtyard garden. In raising it, she learns much in the process, and her and the hare go through a journey of sorts together. It’s a rare connection she gets to have with the hare and something you don’t see everyday. 

At the book’s beginning it seems to offload a lot of descriptive information about the particulars of hares and all the dangers to them and I didn’t think too much about the book for a while. The author seems to have a high powered job as a political adviser and she thinks she doesn’t have the time or know one thing about such animals. She’s avid about her job and doesn’t know how or if caring for the leveret is going to work out. 

But as it goes on, her story sneaks up on you when after a couple cool things happen, you realize the trust and endearing magic of the cool connection she’s having to this wild animal. It pulls at the heartstrings a bit and I felt weepy in parts. Along the way, the author and hare go through a transformation of sorts — the author learning and becoming more keen to the natural world, and the hare becoming bigger and more sure of itself.

I very much enjoyed the audio version read superbly by British actress Louise Brealey. By the end, this lovely story had its hooks (or paws?) in me. In dark times, we need more people keen and observant and caring as this woman becomes towards the hare and the natural world. It’s quiet dynamite.

* This memoir is part of my Nonfiction Reader Challenge hosted by Book’d Out.

Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen / St. Martin’s / 288 pages / 2025

3.75 stars. This novel is an engaging coming-of-age kind of read about 26-year-old Cricket Campbell who leaves her life and job as an assistant at a Wellness company in NYC to return home and be her Dad’s caretaker in the Adirondacks. She hasn’t seen him in about nine years ever since she left at 16 when her boyfriend (Seth) was in an accident near their house and her parents divorced, which together left her reeling and later to drop out of college. 

Now she wants to reconcile with her 74-year-old father, but he has Alzheimer’s and it seems futile. Still moving back home to Catwalk Pond has its enjoyments amid nature and new friends, and she feels a purpose helping her father in his own rural environs. While there, she comes to believe that her father may be a bit clairvoyant about things that will happen and also able to see ghosts. How this plays out for Cricket and those who come to seek her father’s advice is engaging to follow through to the end. 

The novel spoke to me a bit in remembering the care with my own parents. It’s an endearing story and set in a beautiful Adirondack location. You root for the protagonist Cricket — who’s riddled with guilt over her parents divorce and her teenage boyfriend’s accident— to find herself and give her purpose and the confidence to find what’s she wants to do with her life. It paints a picture of her dad’s Alzheimer’s that rings true but isn’t overly too harsh to read. Still it’s a bit sad though the resolution is satisfying. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these and what did you think?  

Hi Bookworms. How is everyone? Are you caught up in the East Coast snowstorm? We are getting a few inches of snow here but nothing too major.

Earlier in the week we just had brown fields, which you can see from the photo. We like to walk up this hill that’s a street away from us and see the sunset. It’s peaceful and the dogs like to get out. It’s good for my knee rehab to go up and down stairs and hills. As long as it doesn’t swell up, I’ll keep at it.

Meanwhile last week I finished this puzzle with some contributions from my husband — large and small — along the way. It’s of a bookstore called The World’s Best Books where some books of children’s classics can be seen through the window. Books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Travels of Babar, Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver Travels, The Jungle Book, The Wizard of Oz, and many others guided me through piecing it together. It was fun and kept me away from doomscrolling the news too too much. I particularly like that there’s a bicycle outside the bookshop.

And now I will leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.

The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill / Holt / 288 pages / 2025

3.75 stars. I soon learned that this debut novel is not set in Ireland but on Long Island, N.Y. The title refers to the act of leaving a location or event without saying goodbye (duh on me). It’s about an Irish-American family (the Ryans) that is rocked by a boating accident that kills one of the son’s close friends, which happens when the kids are teens at the onset of the book. The victim’s family sues the Ryan parents since they think their son (Topher) was responsible.

Decades later — the story begins in earnest when the three sisters in the Ryan family are grown and headed to a big family gathering during Thanksgiving week at their childhood home on Long Island where their parents still live. The sisters are all in different situations: Maggie, a teacher, is gay and bringing home a new girlfriend; Cait, a lawyer who lives in London, is divorced with twins; and Alice, looking to pursue interior design, is married with two sons. Their brother Topher’s absence is felt and you soon find out what’s happened to him.

Once home it turns into a tumultuous Thanksgiving week with the siblings all affected by the past and secrets they keep in their lives in various ways. Then when Cait invites to Thanksgiving dinner an old high school boyfriend — who is the brother of the boy killed in the boating accident — things about the painful past come to the forefront and get dished out.

The Irish Goodbye is a family domestic tale in which the chapters alternate narration among the three sisters, whose relationships with each other, their parents, and their spouses are delved into. The sisters are a bit flawed but their tale is a winding tragic and redemptive one, and the audiobook narrated by Kristen Sieh kept me fairly engaged throughout. Just don’t send me on a dicey family Thanksgiving week like that, lol.

A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton / Scribner / 1934

4 stars. A fascinating, complex lady was author Edith Wharton … fluent in various languages, she was a truly gifted writer, a bookworm, an avid traveler, a dog lover, an adventurer, a gardener, and aide worker in WWI, and also very socially connected to her intellectual well-to-do friends … as well as much more.

She started her life in New York City in 1862 and was “born into a world in which telephones, motors, electric light, central heating (except by hot-air furnaces), X-rays, cinemas, radium, aeroplanes and wireless telegraphy were not only unknown but still mostly unforeseen.” Those changes all happened during her life — some of which she talks about.

I hoped to find out all about her in her autobiography … but much of it I found was lists of friends and acquaintances and little anecdotes about her travels, particularly adventurous was the four-month Mediterranean chartered cruise she took with her husband in 1888 at the cost of $10k. But at times I seemed to read more about her good many friends, especially her good friend author Henry James than I did about Edith herself.

Still there’s also small nuggets of info I gleaned about Edith along the way including her years up until WWI, where all she lived, and how she started her literary career. For years, her family lived in New York (or for months in Europe) and then would summer in Newport, Rhode Island, and then later she bought a house in Lenox, Mass., which she called The Mount. How she loved The Mount, which was her country home where she lived for 10 years from 1902 to 1911. Her and her friends would motor all about the countryside in their new motor cars. She was most happiest at home there amidst her garden, and it is where she wrote her acclaimed novels The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome.

Edith probably would’ve stayed at The Mount but her husband’s declining health (apparently from mental health issues) affected their lives together. She divorced him in 1913, which she doesn’t talk about in the book, and moved to France to start a new life. There she became involved in aide work during WWI and made a hefty contribution to helping war refugees.

She was an active lady. It’s amazing all what she did — half of which is not mentioned in her autobiography including that she went on to be the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921 for her novel The Age of Innocence. Still I was glad to read a bit about her life and her world back then in her own words. She died of a stroke at age 75 just three years after writing A Backward Glance in 1937.

I figured her autobiography would be good background for the online class I’m taking this Friday on her novel The House of Mirth, which I’m in the midst of reading. It also counts for the Nonfiction Reader Challenge I’m doing. And don’t you love the cover of this edition of A Backward Glance (above) with her dog. So sweet.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these authors and what did you think?

Hi Bookworms, how is everyone doing? It’s been another rocky week in news. And who knows what’ll happen next week, but I’ll continue my pink skies theme that I started last week as a salve of sorts. I also started a puzzle I received for Christmas and I recommend puzzling in troubled times and plenty of dog walks too. I advise keeping busy with work, reading, and all what you do. I’ve been caught up a bit in watching the NFL playoffs lately and this week the Australian Open tennis will be on. I’m a junkie for that too. Meanwhile it’s been mild and windy here and the snow is gone now. I took this photo, above, early last week looking down our dead-end street. I hope it gives you a peaceful easy feeling. 

In my library haul this week, I picked up these three books and they look good to me. The Atwood memoir is huge. It’s 624 pages long and I probably won’t get to it fully this time, but it’s easy to open up anywhere and start reading and enjoy an anecdote from her life. She has much to say that is wise and entertaining too. The other two pictured are recent novels, which I might start later, but this week I plan to begin the Edith Wharton novel The House of Mirth for my upcoming online class. I finished Edith’s autobiography recently and man she was an active lady. 

And now I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately.  All of them could be rounded up to 4 stars.

In a Distant Valley by Shannon Bowring / Europa / 336 pages / 2025

3.75 stars. I was glad to return to this series (a trilogy), which was a buddy read with Tina at the blog Turn the Page, about the inhabitants of small town Dalton, Maine. Bowring writes about the characters there so seamlessly that we know them quite well after the first two books … slightly similar to how Elizabeth Strout does in her novels about those in Cosby, Maine. 

This last novel in Bowring’s trilogy focuses on what happens when Tommy (Rose’s abusive ex-partner) returns to town saying he’s changed his bad drinking ways and wants to see their two sons. But then angry Tommy loses a job and proves to be a handful as usual … which isn’t good for Rose and her budding relationship with Nate Theroux, the cop who still grieves his late wife with his young daughter. Tommy has much beef with Nate … and the conflict between them later boils over into a showdown. 

Meanwhile a subplot sees college student Greg Fortin going on a date … a drive into the forest with Angela when a snowstorm hits and things get dicey. These two plotlines — with Tommy/Nate and Greg/Angela — keep things churning and the goodness of the characters — particularly those of Nate and Greg — shine through. 

The story at times seems to get a tad sentimental among its cast and how things turn out, but Bowring’s such an apt storyteller that she’s able to pull it off and make for quite a satisfying ending for her trilogy. She’s perhaps not as dark as Strout, but her characters have had their fair share of knocks. I will follow what Bowring writes next, though I will miss these well-known characters and the town of Dalton. It’s sad to see them go. 

I listened to the audiobook along with the two earlier books — all narrated superbly by Patricia Shade. 

The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten / Algonquin / 176 pages / 2025

3.75 stars. An older Norwegian man (Nils Vik) wakes on the last day of his life. He’s a ferryman — a man of the fjord — who transports passengers all about. It’s a meditative tale as Nils looks back on his life — how he started his job at age 14 — and those he ferried in all types of situations and to his two daughters, and wife who has pre-deceased him. 

On this last day he’s on his ferryboat and starts seeing the dead appear to him talking. People he once knew. He’s joined by his dead dog Luna on the boat and sees others he knew along the shore. He recalls those he ferried, their issues, and incidents that took place. He also fondly recalls his wife, their love, and what their lives were together and how she passed. It’s a bit sad but also atmospheric of his life on the fjord out on the water for decades in his boat. It’s beautiful in a way, he was made for it — and that’s how a life should be.

This short novel translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough is my second translated book of 2026, yay… and my second Scandinavian tale. My Norwegian cousins would be pleased.  

The Wedding People by Alison Espach / Holt / 384 pages / 2024

3.75 stars.I’m quite late to the party getting to this popular novel about a depressed woman who comes to stay at a fancy hotel in Newport, Rhode Island and gets mixed up with a large wedding party that’s there for six days. In the process it seems to change her thinking and turn her life around in ways. The protagonist Phoebe Stone, a professor of Lit, is upset after her divorce and a miscarriage that leaves her devastated.

Now she’s come to the hotel — not with good intentions. But then she meets a nice man in the hot tub and the bride Lila, who’s a bit of a piece of work. And before she knows it, she’s spending time with “the wedding people” at the hotel. 

I thought parts of the story were clever and funny and I laughed aloud a bit as I listened to the audiobook (narrated well by Helen Laser). You hope for the woman protagonist Phoebe that she won’t harm herself, and it seems to go from a serious drama to being a bit of an over the top farce in a short time. That was fine. My only quibble was that it seems to go on a bit too much in places (some of the sex gibberish). It felt a little overly long and stuffed and gets a tad wearisome. Still it has its bright spots and is a fun romp of sorts.

That’s all for now. I’ll save the Wharton autobiography review for next week. What about you — have you read these and what did you think?

Hi all. I hope you are well and hanging in there. It was a brutal past week in news and hard not to doomscroll. In that regard, it’s not been a good year’s start, but we will persevere and not give in or give up to any corrupt regime telling lies and making threats.

It’s just infuriating and worrisome to follow what’s happening, but I will post some pink skies here — photographed on Dec. 30 — as some kind of salve. This coming week we are forecasted to have a windy, wild switch in temps with highs in the 50s that will melt our snow. I’ve been walking the dogs with my new replaced knee, though I have a ways to go still with my recovery.

In book news, I signed up for a “class” on Edith Wharton’s 1905 classic The House of Mirth through the D.C. bookstore Politics and Prose. It includes four online lecture/discussion sessions and starts at the end of January, so I need to start reading the novel pretty soon.

I first became interested in Wharton after reading her 1911 novel Ethan Frome and from seeing the movie adaptation of her novel The Age of Innocence in 1993. And since I didn’t read any classics last year (with the exception of a Ferrante modern classic), I’m game to check out Wharton’s epic debut novel. If you’re interested in the variety of classes or book discussions from P & P, you can look here.

I’m also signing up for the 2026 Nonfiction Challenge hosted by Shellyrae at the blog Book’d Out, which you can sign up for here. My goal is to be a Nonfiction Grazer … reviewing and sharing any nonfiction books I read. I’m not going to set an amount to be read, but I’m sure it will entice me to read more than just 10 nonfiction books, which I completed last year. I’m usually a big fiction fan and reader, but I’d like to pick up a bit more nonfiction too.

And now I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately.

Flesh by David Szalay / Scribner / 368 pages / 2025

4.5 stars. This Booker Prize winning novel, which was my last read of 2025, was a buddy read with Tina over at the blog Turn the Page. We read it pretty quickly since the style is direct and concise with a lot of dialogue and you’re led to follow this young Hungarian man’s life to see where it’ll go after some harsh beginnings.

Istvan’s story starts out quite rough and lurid as a teenager, age 15, who has a secret liaison with an older next door neighbor, which takes his life in a hard direction. He’s not an easy character to fall into as his conversation is pretty terse and monosyllabic and he has no real friends. He and his mother live in a small apartment and are poor.

Still he perseveres and you get more into his story … as he endures prison time and joins the army … before moving to London to work as a lowly bouncer and getting into security and a job as a private driver. Along the way he has relations with women who seem drawn to his “primitive form of masculinity.”

And by a fluke, his life takes a turn when he starts a relationship with a well-off married woman … though you’re never too sure if it will last or how it will end. I don’t want to say too much … other than I felt the story and writing were strong. That it seemed to hit hard and leave an impression. I’m still thinking how Istvan’s life came around … and how those around him either let him down or held him up. The occurrences he faces are not for the light of heart.

I was surprised this Booker winner was not dense but a quick read. I find the cover pictured the better of the three since it depicts more of what’s involved, lol.

Heart the Lover by Lily King / Grove Press / 256 pages / 2025

3.75 stars. I almost forgot to review this novel, which I finished on Christmas Eve. It entails a friendship among three friends at college that becomes a bit of a love triangle. The boys are star students — Sam and Yash — who the female narrator they call “Jordan” meets in her 17-century Lit class. They begin spending a lot of time together at Sam and Yash’s off campus house, where they study, talk about classes and teachers, and Jordan begins dating one of them.

Then as graduation nears things happen and she starts secretly seeing the other and he visits her as she’s studying abroad in Paris. Things seem happy and close between them, but they are young and get separated starting their adult lives.

The novel’s second half finds them as a adults later in life living in different situations and places. But when one comes to visit Jordan, it starts a bittersweet collision of their prior lives and stuff they’ve long needed to discuss and revisit … about why things went down the way they did. The ending turns very sad and it’s not a book to finish on Christmas Eve, lol. But you will flip the pages quickly to find out what happens to the three close friends.

It’s a book I liked for being a college campus, young love kind of read and for looking back on one’s youth and the decisions made then and the heartbreaks not recovered from … but for whatever reason I wanted a bit more depth to it and didn’t love love the novel. Still by the end, it’ll leave you with a Kleenex box and some waterworks.

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzen /Vintage / 320 pages / 2024

3.7 stars. Told from 89-year-old Bo’s point of view, the novel’s about his life with in-and-out home care help. Bo has a beloved elkhound named Sixten who his son Hans, age 57, thinks should be placed with another home, but Bo is not happy about that idea. Still Bo’s trying to make good with his son, who’s much different from him, before he gets too far gone. And he doesn’t want to be like his own harsh father was to him.

While Bo lives in the present trying to get by with his health, his thoughts and dreams also slip back to the past growing up with his parents and the days with his wife who is now living in a dementia care facility. The story dips back and forth from present to past as his health oscillates.

It gives an insightful look into what it’s like at his late stage in life — being cared for and having no real power to make decisions about his own life. It also shows his various caregivers’ contributions, as well as the hard choices Bo’s son has to make about his care, and the moving effects his granddaughter and best friend Ture have on him. It’s a touching tale and a bit sad but also feels real. I could relate a bit since I recently went through similar issues with my own beloved parents.

This was my first read of 2026 and I was pleased it was a translated novel (from Swedish by Alice Menzies), which will count in my push to read more of these.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these and what did you think?

Hi Bookworms. How was your week? Did you have a New Year’s to remember? I hope you received some books for Christmas. I received a couple books off my list from Santa. And now it’s time to read, read, read, right? It’s sort of good weather for it as we’ve had several days of heavy fog here, which combined with cold temps makes hoar frost appear on the trees and bushes. It has an interesting snow-frost effect, which I tried to capture in the pictures. 

Meanwhile, it’s that time of year again to take a deep dive into my reading from 2025 and see what I liked. As usual, it was difficult to decide which books made my favorites list. I chose 12 novels (not all from 2025) and 10 nonfiction books since I only read 10 of those, uh-oh. I can always make some adjustments to my reading this year based on my stats … like reading more nonfiction or male authors or diverse ones or translated ones … which would make my numbers even out more. 

Though I don’t have big plans to change my reading in 2026. I like mixing new releases with backlist books and faster popular reads with more challenging ones. I like reading literary and contemporary fiction best and historical fiction too, but I’m a bit all over the place as well picking up whatever interests me. And I think my reading might be freer this coming year since I’ve decided to take a break from reviewing for Publishers Weekly. I’ve done that the past five years and it was a good gig but not always easy reading for both here and there. It was time-consuming, so now with the break I’ll have a bit more freedom perhaps with my reading and reviewing here, yay. So we’ll see how it goes. 

And now without further ado here are my stats and favorite books of 2025. 

Stats: 63 Books completed
33 Audiobooks
30 Print Books
50 Female Authors
13 Male Authors
53 Fiction
10 Nonfiction
48 White Authors
15 Non-White Authors
20 Debut novels
8 Memoirs
3 Translated novels
28 American authors
12 British authors
5 Canadian authors
4 Australian authors
2 Italian authors
2 Irish authors
2 Japanese authors
1 Dutch author
1 French author
1 German author
1 Hungarian author
1 Nigerian author
1 South African author
1 South Korean author
1 Ecuadorian author

Favorite Novels Completed in 2025:

1) Flesh by David Szalay (2025) — The 2025 Booker Prize winner was my last read of the year and proved to make a strong impact … about a man’s life that returns full circle.
2) Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (2025) — This slim novel on the Booker longlist was atmospheric set along the Irish Sea and a winner for me. I gave it 5 stars.
3) The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (2024) — This post-WWII novel won the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction and blew the lid off the early part of my reading year.
4) The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (2012) — Book 2 in the Neapolitan series is a modern classic that kept me glued to the two friends’ lives from ages 16 to 23.
5) Audition by Katie Kitamura (2025) — A bit odd and mysterious, this Booker shortlist novel unfolds like a puzzle. And where Kitamura goes, I continue to follow.
6) Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (2024) — An actress in London travels to  Israel and gets involved in a Palestinian production of Hamlet … and much ensues that hooked me.
7) Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell (2023) — The Bronte sisters lives unfold in this biographical tale from Emily’s perspective that immersed me completely.
8) Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell (2025) — A scary unsettling tale of an Irish woman trying to escape with her children an abusive situation … had me gripped till the end.
9) Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (2025) an intense love triangle in the English countryside set in 1968 and the past that had me twisted till the end.
10) Trust Her by Flynn Berry (2025) — A squirm-worthy sequel about two Irish sisters trying to get out of being caught up with the IRA — was riveting stuff.
11) The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (2023) — The real life midwife Martha Ballard’s story from 1789 Maine captured me thoroughly as she gets caught up in a murder trial.
12) The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025) — The surprise hit of the year moved me in the ways I came to see what writing meant to the elderly retired protagonist.

Honorable Mentions: The Scrapbook by Heather Clark; A Family Matter by Claire Lynch; Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid; Tilt by Emma Pattee; The Death of Us by Abigail Dean; The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali; A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman; Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh; Heartwood by Amity Gaige; Heart the Lover by Lily King; Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy.

Favorite Nonfiction Completed in 2025

1) A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst (2025) — an eye-opening survival tale of a couple lost at sea in the early 1970s.
2) Memorial Days: A Memoir by Geraldine Brooks (2025) — A moving and raw true story about the sudden loss of the author’s husband in the immediate days and years after.
3) The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne (2024) — An actor looks back at his life … and the trial over his sister’s murder comes on strong near the end.
4) The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War by Giles Milton (2024) — An incredible look at how three very dissimilar leaders came together and won WWII.
5) H Is for Hawk: A Memoir by Helen Macdonald (2015) — A moving story about how the taming of a wild goshawk helped the grieving author after the loss of her father.
6) Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir by Beth Nguyen (2023) — An eye-opening and moving account of a Vietnam refugee’s story growing up in Michigan.
7) The Last Secret Agent: My Life as a Spy Behind Nazi Lines by Pippa LaTour (2025) — Pippa’s scary mission that parachuted her into France during WWII was an eye-opener.
8) A Country Year: Living the Questions by Sue Hubbell (1986) — The informative chronicles of a beekeeper in the Ozarks in the 1980s – gave me much to think about.
9) Shepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life by Barbara McLean (2024) — I learned much as well from the story of a sheep farmer’s life in Canada of over 50 years.
10) The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession (2023) — A crazy true story of how a couple went on an art stealing rampage in Europe from 1995 to 2001.

My 2025 Reading in Categories (in no particular order)

Translated Lit
Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes (1952)
Swallows by Natsuo Kirino (2025)
Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (2023)

Debut Novels
The Leavers by Lisa Ko (2017)
Good Girl by Aria Aber (2025)
The Boy From the Sea by Garrett Carr (2025)
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (2024)
The Riveter by Jack Wang (2025)
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham (2024)
The Scrapbook by Heather Clark (2025)
A Family Matter by Claire Lynch (2025)
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (2024)
Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell (2025)
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (2025)
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight (2025)
Tilt by Emma Pattee (2025)
The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski (2025)
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (2024)
Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler (2025)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025)
The Fact Checker by Austin Kelley (2025)
I am Agatha by Nancy Foley (2025)
Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa (2025)

Historical Fiction
Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell (2023)
Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin (2023)
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (2024)
Crow Mary by Kathleen Grissom (2023)
The Riveter by Jack Wang (2025)
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (2023)
We Do Not Part by Han Kang (2025)
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (2023)
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2025)
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (2025)

Memoirs and Biographies
Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen (2023)
The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne (2024)
The Last Secret Agent: My Life as a Spy Behind Nazi Lines by Pippa LaTour (2025)
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst (2025)
H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014)
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (2025)
A Country Year: Living the Questions by Sue Hubbell (1986)
Shepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life by Barbara McLean (2024)

Crime / Mystery / Action Tales
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware (2016)
Beartooth by Callan Wink (2025)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (2025)
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (2024)
Trust Her by Flynn Berry (2024)
So Far Gone by Jess Walter (2025)
Heartwood by Amity Gaige (2025)
Tilt by Emma Pattee
The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (2025)
Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (2025)

Family / Friends / Relationship / Community Sagas
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
The Boy From the Sea by Garrett Carr (2025)
Good Material by Dolly Alderton (2023)
A Family Matter by Claire Lynch (2025)
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (2023)
Where the Forest Meets the River by Shannon Bowring (2024)
Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell (2025)
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (2025)
Wreck by Catherine Newman (2025)
Audition by Katie Kitamura (2025)
The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski (2025)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025)
More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen (2026)
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2025)
A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman (2026)
Heart the Lover by Lily King (2025)

Coming of Age Tales
Good Girl by Aria Aber (2025)
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham (2024)
The Scrapbook by Heather Clark (2025)
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight (2025)
Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh (2025)
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (2024)
Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler (2025)
The Fact Checker by Austin Kelley (2025)
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (2025)
Flesh by David Szalay
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (2012)

History
The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War by Giles Milton (2024)

Short Stories
Something to Look Forward to: Stories by Fannie Flagg (2025)

True Crime
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and Dangerous Obsession (2023)

So there you have it. I finished a lot more debut novels (20!) than I realized I was picking up. Did you have any of these on your favorites list? What trends did you notice in your reading? And do you plan to make any changes to your reading in 2026? Wishing you all a great year ahead.

Hi all. It looks like we’re winding down the year … so I wanted to I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah or whatever holidays you observe for the week ahead. May your time with family and friends and loved ones be special and dear. Or should I say deer … like this one who showed up yesterday evening to eat from our bird feeder, lol.

Anyways, thanks for taking time this year to stop by here, whether occasionally or regularly. It’s been a fun journey to discuss books and reading with you in particular … as well as shows and movies and music. Your thoughts and insights always make things more enjoyable and richer.

My husband and I will be having a quiet Christmas at home this year with our two Labrador dogs and some gifts. He always goes a bit overboard even when three gifts is the proposed limit.   

Usually I get all my books from the library … but around this time of year I’ll make an exception and ask Santa for a few. Here is my Santa list this year (above). I have asked for three nonfiction books and two big novels to read. Have you read any of these or have them on your TBR?  They look good.

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately. 

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood / Scribner / 176 pages / 2025

5 stars. This transfixing novel, which I read as a buddy read with Tina at Turn the Page, came at just the right time in my year-end reading and packs a lot in for a short book.

Set in the early 1960s, Thomas Flett, 20, is the young man who carries on his family’s business of shrimping with nets aided by a horse and a cart when the tides go out in his seashore town in northwest England. It’s cold and dreary hard work amid the Irish Sea, and Thomas does it almost by rote but not with much joy. He’d rather be practicing songs on his guitar, which he hides from his mother (since he bought it by selling his grandfather’s timepiece). But it’s just Thomas and his mother now in their meager home and he must provide. 

Then comes a stranger to their door — an American film director named Edgar Acheson — who wants to hire Thomas to help on location. It’s just the grim shoreline and place Edgar wants for his next film. And Thomas can help by showing him the best spots and pointing out the dangerous “sinkpits” to avoid. 

Edgar is quite the character and the plot takes a couple mysterious twists and turns … during which Thomas goes through an awakening of sorts. The writing wonderfully conjures up the frigid conditions amid the rain and stormy sea … with the steadfast horse by Thomas’s side while lugging the nets. It’s sort of a dark small gem of a tale, but it also has a shred of light too. It made a strong impression on me and I will look for whatever British author Benjamin Wood writes next. He’s one to watch.

That’s all for now. What about you — what books do you want for Christmas? Happy holidays.