The Cue Card

Hi Bookworms, I hope you had a good week and a Happy 4th. We had a nice Canada Day last week and now have some hot weather in store for us after a deluge of rain in June. Luckily we didn’t get the sweltering heat wave that the East Coast did.

As you can see, I’m not posting my July Preview this week as things have been busy the past weeks — with new kitchen countertops, a bathroom renovation, yard work, golf, activities, dog care, etc. — and I haven’t been on the ball about gathering all the info on new releases lately. Maybe next week? The summer days are going by quickly and there’s much to do. Yesterday we participated in a bike ride “Gran Fondo” event with 1,500 other cyclists in the Canadian Badlands area a couple hours away. I biked the 32-mile route and my husband pedaled 62 miles. It went well and it seems my new knee is holding up. It doesn’t bend as much as it should but at least I can still pedal a bike, yay. 

On the way home we passed various yellow canola fields, which are common to see this time of year. Meanwhile it’s time to look back and see what I read in May and June (see photo below). My reading took a plunge and I only got to three novels in each month. It’s a bit strange but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I got tied up with a PW project and went down a rabbit hole, but I feel I’m back now that it’s July, yay. It’s hard to pick my favorite among these — there’s good things about each — but Whistler and Kin seem neck and neck for top honors. 

• The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff — A broken family saga that deals with the father’s alcoholism (a 2025 debut novel). 
• Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke — One of the most talked about novels of the year. It’s a doozy … with some bedeviling twists (a 2026 debut novel).
• Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su —A twenty-something girl is going through a rough patch until she finds a blob organism that offers her something new (a 2025 debut novel). 
• American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee — A long epic having to do with the obsession of Koreans with education, and one family’s fate after having to start over from scratch (an upcoming September novel by the acclaimed author of Pachinko). 
• Kin by Tayari Jones — Two life-long childhood friends in the 1950s go off on different life paths … until their journeys cross once again. 
• Whistler by Ann Patchett — a 53-year-old woman reunites with her stepfather after many decades and recalls an accident they went through in 1980.  

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

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout /Random House /207 pgs /2026

4.35 stars. I’m glad that Elizabeth Strout is back with a new standalone novel after her popular series with Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge. Over the years, I have read all of her novels except two — Abide With Me  from 2006 and Anything Is Possible from 2017 and she has never disappointed. Seemingly she can get into the heads and hearts of everyday people — perhaps like no other and can put you in their shoes lickety-split. Often her characters face grim realities: deaths, suicides, accidents, abuse, trauma, neglect, pandemics … whatever it is, her characters have lived it. Her novels can be dark and they can be heart-rending. And this latest one was no exception.

High school history teacher Artie Dam, age 57, is her latest protagonist. He has a kind sense about him and an empathetic moral compass. He lives with his wife Evie in a nice house along the Massachusetts coast and has a grown-up son Rob who is very dear to him, along with his colorful students who like Mr. Dam a lot. But lately Artie hasn’t felt the spark for living. He sees things around him that take the wind out of his sails so to speak … and one day he has an accident in his beloved sailboat that jolts him and his family. 

Then later Artie learns of a family secret … which he isn’t sure he’ll make it known that he knows it. Poor Artie, he lives with the secret but struggles a bit with what to do with it. In the backdrop, the recent presidential election has happened … the political divides are apparent as are the spoils of what is happening under the current administration. Artie is happy that his son Rob and daughter-in-law Francesca leave it all behind to move overseas though he also misses them a great deal.   

The novel is set during current times and tells it like it is, which is brave. We’re not living in a vacuum here. Strout puts it out there … and shows how the political turmoil envelops us these days. It’s a bit like Strout’s novel Olive by the Sea did about the pandemic. I found it enriched the plot and that her characters’ concerns felt right on to me. I was immersed in Artie’s world for a while and felt for his predicament. I could relate in ways. Even without her well-known characters Lucy or Olive, Strout is still a master of interior details.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these books above and if so, what did you think? 

Hi All. How did your week go? We’re having a very rainy Sunday here, so I plan to cuddle up on the couch and watch Canada’s game against South Africa in the World Cup. Eeeek. It’s the elimination round, so the losing team will be sent home. I’m sure I’ll be on pins and needles while watching.

Meanwhile this past week I’ve been working on organizing my bookshelves pictured here (there’s also a smaller bookcase on the opposite wall). It all started when I wanted to see how many books by Kazuo Ishiguro I had, and I found out they were in different places on my shelves, which made no sense. So I started to gather books by author, putting them together and placing them into categories.

Fiction is on the left shelves in the photo above, then in the middle shelves are books by Canadian authors (many good ones!). And lower down in the middle are adventure books of polar exploration in Antartica and the Arctic, and then books set in Africa or about Africa. On the right-hand shelves are all nonfiction books. First memoir books, then a few shelves of history and journalism books, then a shelf of rock music memoirs and biographies, before the last shelf of art books and some dog and animal books. The other wall is a bit of a mixture with more natural history, history, and some sports books.

So now I feel I’ve organized them a bit better. And here is a photo of a first edition of Isak Dinesen’s (Karen Blixen’s) book Out of Africa from 1937, which my husband gave me as a gift years ago and which sits on top of the bookcase as a beloved book. Many of the books on my shelves date back to when I worked in bookstores in the 1980s and ’90s, before I switched over to journalism. I rarely buy books anymore because the libraries here have all what I need in print or ebook formats. What about you — do you still have many print books on your shelves? 

In book news this week, much is being made about the first trailer release for the upcoming new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic Sense and Sensibility. It’s been made for the screen many times before, most notably in the BBC miniseries in 2008, and in the 1995 film with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. The new film, releasing in North America on Oct. 16, appears to be a British production that stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood and Esme Creed-Miles as sister Marianne. If you want to re-familiarize yourself with the Dashwoods and Austen’s debut novel, there’s still plenty of time to read it before it hits the big screen this fall. 

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

Whistler by Ann Patchett / Harper / 304 pages / 2026

4+ stars. Book 2 on my Summer List turned out to be another good and popular novel by Ann Patchett, which I read as a buddy read with Tina at the blog Turn the Page. It seemed a tighter and less scattered novel than her last one Tom Lake from 2023. But like that novel there’s a present and past timeline that weave throughout the story and give it momentum. 

In the present, Daphne Fuller, age 53, and her husband Jonathan by chance run into Daphne’s one-time stepfather (age 76) in NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie Triplett in more than 40 years but he had once been married to her mother for a couple years when she was a kid. Back then when she was 9, Daphne and Eddie experienced a traumatic accident that tied them closer together. This episode from 1980 is explored in the past timeline, while the present timeline is consumed by the reacquaintance of Daphne with her stepfather and why his marriage long ago to her mother ended so abruptly. 

I found myself pleasantly curious and invested in both the past and present storylines. Daphne seemed much like Ann Patchett herself, who also had two stepfathers, and her older husband Jonathan is a caring character. Though it’s the character of Eddie Triplett, a long-time editor at Random House, who seems to steal the show. He’s an especially genuine and endearing person … and he and Daphne have quite the warm connection (as stepfather and daughter). You won’t soon forget Eddie Triplett after this. Apparently his character was inspired by a real friend (Jim Fox) of Ann Patchett’s who worked at HarperCollins and battled cancer. She has said that the novel is not about her or Jim but is about all the love she had for him. 

Both Tina and I also admired the story Eddie tells Daphne in 1980 when the situation they get caught in turns dicey. It’s about a horse named Whistler and his owner Mary Carter, who’s left for dead far out on the range. It’s a story within the story that has much to offer for Eddie and Daphne at the time. You’ll have to get the book to see what all the fuss is about with this novel, which is genuine and moving and is proving popular with a lot of readers. It seems one of Ann’s stronger novels and I liked it a bit better than Tom Lake (2023), The Dutch House (2019), and Run (2007) … with State of Wonder (2011) being another I liked. Her nonfiction is good too.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read and liked any of Patchett’s books? Have a great week.

Hi Bookworms. How was your week?  We’ve hit the official start of summer  and I’m sure it’ll be cooking soon. Wherever you are — break out the sunscreen and take a dip in the water. We’ll probably take the dogs for a swim at the river later this week when it hits 80. They love to swim. And Stella has her 14th birthday coming up on July 3rd, so we’re doing everything we can for her as she ages. When we got her as a puppy this blog had been going for a few years, so it spans her life and I’ve posted many photos of her over the years. She is very special and has been a joy to our lives. Here is a photo of Stella from December 2012 just after we had her for a few months. She was sweet then and is bossy now, lol … but still a love.

Meanwhile I’ve been invited to a Western art auction today by a local artist named Jan Roenisch. I have not been before so I’ll check it out and report back on the various artists and their work. I like Jan’s paintings of wildlife and rural landscapes and I hope to buy one if I can. I plan to meet Jan there. I saw her art in a museum and contacted her. She told me about the auction where some of her paintings will be for sale. Do you like her grizzly bear? She also has paintings of dogs, horses, cattle, deer, and much more. See her art is here.

In book news, I’m off to a slow start on my 2026 Summer List — only on Book #2 — but I got waylaid by reading a long fall novel for PW. At nearly 700 pages, this undisclosed novel took too many weeks (from May to June) to finish and review, and it wasn’t nearly as good as I had hoped. After that, my reading took a hiatus. So I need to get back on the wagon. What about you — have you ever hit a reading slump and what did you do to get it back?

In good news, I saw the announcement on Kirkus Reviews that Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro will be releasing a new novel in March 2027 titled: Miss Lambert Steps Aboard Danger. Whoa, this is major news. I repeat: Ishiguro will release a new novel in 2027! Apparently the new novel is “part caper, part spy novel, and part Wodehousean comedy of manners.” Ishiguro is one of my very favorite authors of all time. He’s a master who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. I loved his novels Remains of the Day (1989), Never Let Me Go (2005), and Klara and the Sun (2021). But there’s others to read. Which is your favorite? 

And now I’ll leave you with the first book I finished on my summer list. 

Kin by Tayari Jones / Knopf / 368 pages / 2026

4.5 stars. While I liked Tayari’s last acclaimed novel American Marriage in 2018, I think I like her new novel even better. She’s a great storyteller and this one is told very conversationally and lyrically with many notable lines and descriptions in it. Set in the 1940s and ’50s, it’s about two “cradle friends” — both motherless African American girls raised in rural Louisiana — whose paths diverge and later come back together. 

Vernice, whose mother was violently killed when she was a baby, is raised by her colorful Aunt Irene, and goes off to Spelman College in Atlanta, while Annie, raised by her grandmother, heads out on a road trip with friends to Memphis to try to find her long-lost mother. 

Both Niecy and Annie come of age away from home … though are tied together by their childhood and their experience of being motherless. Later they find themselves in relationships that play out in defining ways. They write letters to each other about their partners and days in Atlanta and Memphis … and each comes to life as they narrate alternating chapters. Niecy has a strong group of friends at Spelman and a wealthy roommate Joette who becomes close … before she meets Franklin, and Annie works in a bar and dates Bo.

You want to see these close friends through … as Niecy goes through much soul searching about whether to marry her affluent, crippled beau; and Annie is poor and struggles with love while becoming obsessed with finding the mother who abandoned her. Later their paths cross. I can’t say too much more or I’ll give too much away … but I recommend reading it.  

Tayari Jones is an impressive writer and you can see she was influenced by the late great Toni Morrison. I hope it doesn’t take her another eight years to write her next book. Oprah picked Kin for her book club in February – as well as American Marriage back in 2018. Both are good.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read her and what did you think? Have a great week.

Hi Bookworms. I’ve decided to take a short break this week and I’ll be back next Sunday to blather about books and reading. You can see from these storm clouds that we had a big dousing of rain this past week, which is good for the yard. We’ve planted quite a few vegetables now in the garden and some geraniums in pots on the back deck. Unfortunately one deer took the tops off of three tomato plants close to the house, which I’m not too pleased about. Usually they don’t mess with the tomatoes, so it took me a bit by surprise. Still we have plenty left that have cages around them.

Meanwhile in book news you might have seen that the debut novel The Correspondent by Virginia Evans won the coveted Women’s Prize for Fiction last week. I guess I sort of thought it would … as over the past year since its publication in April 2025 it’s been quite the Cinderella story for the novel, climbing the bestseller lists and becoming a big hit. In addition to the Women’s Prize The Correspondent also won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novels. And Jane Fonda has signed on for the movie adaptation to play the persnickety Sybil Van Antwerp, who’s the novel’s protagonist.

It is a happy day for author Virginia Evans who apparently spent 20 years writing and failing to sell seven different novels. (!!) I watched the announcement of the Women’s Prize live and you can see it here. Scroll to minute 31 of the video to watch Evans accept the award and give her speech. It was quite touching. She beat out a strong short list of contenders whose books you can see here. Also my review of Evans’ novel from last year is here.

Also Canadian journalist Lyse Doucet won the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction for her debut book The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan. Apparently she is currently the BBC’s chief international correspondent. I need to get with the program and put my name on the library hold list for her book, which apparently reads like a tender love letter to Afghanistan and its people.

That’s all for now. I’ll chat more next Sunday, when I’ll likely have a review of Tayari Jones’s novel Kin, which Amazon says is #1 on their Best Books of 2026 So Far list. I’ve been liking its storytelling and plan to finish it soon. Have a great week … and let me know what you’re reading these days. Anything good?

Hi Bookworms. You might have noticed that yesterday was the 82nd  anniversary of D-Day when Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of France from Nazi occupation. Also known as Operation Overlord, D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in military history with nearly 7,000 ships and 160,000 Allied troops landing on the beaches. Sometimes we forget these things or take them for granted since it was 82 years ago, but it’s good to pay one’s respects and take heed.

I remember the history tour my husband and I went on back in 2018 with my parents visiting battle sites in Northern France, where we walked the Normandy beaches. It was quite a trip, which I talked about here. So many years ago the Allies saved freedom and liberty. I really hope we will step up to preserve it … along with the relations to our Allies and NATO.  

I don’t have much new this week. I have started my summer bike rides and my Summer Book List, lol. Kin by Tayari Jones is the first book I received and so far it’s full of good storytelling. I also picked up John of John by Douglas Stuart from the library so I need to step it up and get reading. Things have been busy with projects, upcoming house renovations, sporting activities, and yard work, so you do what you can. This photo of my bike was taken next to a rural mailbox – the kind we use out here. We were out biking on a windy day. 

In book news, I see that writer Julia Elliott has won the 2026 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction this past week for her short story collection Hellions. I don’t know of this author (who takes home $150,000 USD for the prize) but apparently she’s an English professor at the University of South Carolina and her book beat out a couple favored on the prize’s shortlist including: A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar and The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes.

The prize’s jury said of Elliott’s collection:  “There’s folklore in these stories, and Southern gothic horror, and surrealism, and fantasy, and, at their center, a thread of uneasy, bodily realism. … But for all its wildness, there is tremendous control; Elliott is a gifted and thrilling writer.” So you might want to try it out; it’s said to consist of 11 “feral, Southern Gothic stories” in its 272 pages.

Also don’t forget the Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced this coming Thursday. The shortlist can be seen here. It’s a big prize!

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

Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su / Harper / 256 pages / 2025 

3.7 stars. I thought this would be a somewhat light funny novel that I needed after some weighty reads, but I guess I was surprised that it was a bit deeper story and more troubled than I expected. Still it is funny in places — about a mixed Taiwanese girl Vi, a recent college dropout, who out with her co-worker one night finds a jelly-ish blob near the garbage bins of a bar’s back alley. 

Drunk and curious, Vi takes it home and notices later it’s alive and begins to grow. She can mold it … and it eventually morphs into“Blob Bob” as she calls it and grows into a handsome human-like guy, who seems like her ideal boyfriend. But he’s not really human he’s just learned quickly from TV how to be and act. Soon Bob wants to be out and about and not stuck inside Vi’s apartment yet that could prove complicated for her. 

Interspersed with this, you learn about Vi’s life before — how she’s had a hard time: her boyfriend broke up with her, she dropped out of school, her family is not attuned to her … and she works at an unexciting job at the front desk of a hotel … where her co-worker Rachel is her bubbly opposite. Friendless and awkward, Vi’s going through a breakdown of sorts in her life. At times she’s not too likable a person to root for, but her friendship and experiences with Blob Bob make things gradually come around. You have to wait to see what happens.

It’s a girl’s coming-of-age story about her 20s. The young author Maggie Su (now age 33) who wrote it, after she finished her PhD in fiction from the University of Cincinnati, said in an interview: “I imagine this book as a love letter to my younger self, the mess I made of my 20s, and the perfect blob who I imagined might come along and solve my problems.”

I look forward to seeing what she writes next. Ti at Book Chatter read and reviewed this novel before me and her good review is here. It reminded me very slightly of the 2024 novel Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, about an otherworldly person who grows up in Philadelphia, lol.  

That’s all for now what about you — do you know these books and what are you reading these early June days? Have a great week.

Hi all, happy last day of May! We’re having some major rain event going on here through Wednesday, which I guess is good since the land around here was dry as a bone this month, but getting two to four inches of rain all at once might get a bit crazy. I hope this horse will be all right. I met this Black Beauty while walking our dog down our street yesterday. We have cows and horses along here, so I guess I’ll start taking their pictures and maybe interviewing them, lol. They like to be fed.

This past week we saw the movie Devil Wears Prada 2 at the old theater in the small town to our south. When we arrived there, a film crew was setting up on the sidewalk out front, which I think was for Heartland, which is a long-running Canadian show that often films around here. After investigating that, we got into see Prada 2, which I thought was fun and entertaining while my husband thought was a total chick flick, lol. Regardless it was great that the main cast was back for the sequel after 20 years with Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt … along with cameos by various fashion designers and Lady Gaga.

The original movie came out in 2006 and I remember seeing it with my mother-in-law who loved seeing movies at the theater. We laughed, and it was special with her. You might have heard that Anne Hathaway has secured the screen rights to the adaptation of the novel Yesteryear, (reviewed last week). I sort of see Hathaway as the goody Andy Sachs from the Prada movies, so I wonder if she can she pull off the calculating, narcissistic Natalie of Yesteryear? She’s not really the actress I envisioned for Natalie, but then I’m not sure who is … perhaps Lena Headey who was Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, lol. Then again Natalie is in her early 30s and has had six kids. So we might need another actress pick.

I seem to have skipped my June preview post in lieu of my Summer Book list, which took a while to compile. I had about 25 possible choices — involving mostly recent and new books — and then I cut those back to 15. Some stayed, while others fell off the list. AnnaBookBel is hosting the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, which I like to do for fun, and you can also choose 15 or 10 Books of Summer depending on what you think you can get to. I plan to extend the challenge from June 1st to Sept. 15 in order to help me get to more of these. So without further adieu here is my Summer Book List of 15 below.

(The brief synopses below were cobbled together from Kirkus Reviews, the NYT, publishers’ files, and Publishers Weekly.)

• Whistler by Ann Patchett. After a chance encounter, Daphne and her former stepfather re-establish their relationship and reflect on the choices that separated them.
• Land by Maggie O’Farrell. In 1865, while documenting Ireland’s Great Hunger, a father and son stumble on an ancient sacred site, with lasting consequences.
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: A chance incident sparks a powerful realization in a beloved teacher’s life.
• Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage by Belle Burden: The story of a woman’s surprising divorce and her attempt to build anew.
• Under Water by Tara Menon: A woman navigates the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami as Hurricane Sandy bears down on New York City.
• Kin by Tayari Jones: About two lifelong friends from Louisiana whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of tragedy.
• John of John by Douglas Stuart: In Scotland’s Hebrides islands, a closeted gay man returns home to an insular community, where complications and secrets await.
• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens: A Southern drama of secrets and sin, revolving around a Baptist preacher, his family, and the shocking violence that erupts around them in their Mississippi town.
• Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See: The story of three Chinese women whose unexpected friendship helps them survive despite the odds in the turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles.
• Good People by Patmeena Sabit: A kaleidoscope of perspectives weigh in on a young Afghan American’s suspicious death.
• Brawler: Stories by Lauren Groff: Nine stories that range from the 1950s to the present day and move across age, class, and region … that speak to the human predicament.
• Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall: The true adventure tale of the 1970 summit of North America’s highest peak.
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan: A pair of scholars look back on the present day from a future Britain radically transformed by climate change.
• True Crime: A Memoir by Patricia Cornwell: The surprising tale of the crime writer’s rise to literary fame.
• Five by Ilona Bannister: The story of five lives randomly waiting for a train to London but one will die in minutes. But first their stories. Who will it be?

What do you think? Have you read any of these, or are any on your list?

That’s all for now. I need to get started on one of these ASAP, quite a stack to manage. Have a great week and happy reading.

Hi. Happy Memorial Day weekend … for those in the States. Are you at the beach or a lake? How are you honoring it? We had Canadian long weekend last weekend, which essentially means we are safe now from frost and can plant the garden, yay. The temps went from 30s to 80s in a week’s time (quite a whiplash), and I have been doing much lawn mowing, weeding, and planting. I’m trying to get this place into shape after a lengthy winter.

Also this week I might get in a bit of tennis, golf, and a bike ride … if my new knee permits. Such is retired life when the weather warms up. Above is a photo taken on my way to the golf course, which is about 20 minutes away. Among other things, I need to practice getting my ball out of sand traps, which looks easy on TV but never seems to be in reality, lol. 

In book news, I see that Taiwan Travelogue written by Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King won the 2026 International Booker Prize this past week. Apparently it is the first work translated from Mandarin Chinese to win the award, which celebrates translated works of fiction into English that are published in the UK and Ireland. Set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Taiwan, Taiwan Travelogue is said to follow “the relationship between a well-meaning Japanese novelist touring Taiwan and her secretive Taiwanese interpreter that navigates issues of power, identity, colonialism, and desire through a culinary tour.” It sounds good and I’ve put my name on the library wait list for it.

Among the award’s other short-listed nominees, I tried Daniel Kehlmann’s novel The Director but didn’t get too far before becoming distracted and putting it aside. It sounds like a good premise though and I might return to it … about a filmmaker who in the 1930s returns to Europe from Hollywood and finds himself forced into directing propaganda films under the Nazi regime. Have you read this one or any of the other short-listed nominees? I hope to check out Taiwan Travelogue sometime later this year. 

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

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke / Knopf / 400 pages / 2026

4.3 stars. This novel only came out in April but has sprung up everywhere since. It’s safe to say it’s taken off like gang-busters and seems to be the most popular novel this spring … which will likely continue into summer. The author has been fielding many interviews and appeared on Seth Meyers’ Late Show on May 7 where the host said as of then the book had 742 holds at the N.Y. Public Library with a wait time of 10,402 days, Whoa!

I feel lucky to have gotten a copy of both the audiobook and ebook from the L.A. Public Library. I think I put in my hold for them in early April and got them by May. Tina at Turn the Page was kind enough to do a read-along with me of this topical read. 

Make no mistake: Yesteryear is a doozy … provocative and scathing in a darkly satirical way. It’s something like a train wreck that I had trouble turning away from. At the heart of it is Natalie, in her early 30s, with five kids and a sixth on the way with her handsome husband Caleb. She’s a tradwife “influencer” on social media espousing her rustic large family life on a farm near the mountains in Idaho. At one point she reaches millions of followers with her posts … about the joys of baking bread and raising kids the wholesome Christian way. Online Natalie is a wonder (and a success at making money from Instagram), but offline Natalie has secret help from two live-in nannies raising the kids and a producer named Shannon who gets the best shots to post of the images Natalie’s trying to project. But her followers – Natalie thinks – don’t need to know about that. 

This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself, Natalie says at the beginning. 

Then one day Natalie wakes up and it’s 1855 … and her family and husband don’t seem the same. They’re different and her farmhouse has changed too. What’s going on?  Is this some time travel event or Natalie’s new reality? One thing is for certain … real pioneer life in 1855 is way more than what Natalie bargained for. It’s not some acting performance for Instagram in today’s world. Natalie soon finds being a pioneer woman is very hard, boring, and at times scary for a woman too, and she’s unsure of the people around her. And “For what it’s worth: I do not recommend giving birth in the pioneer days,” Natalie says. Oh my, is this the life she’s been touting on Insta?

The reader is left toggling between two timelines: the present with Natalie and her family’s farm life on Instagram and how she came to live that idyllic life after her student days at Harvard and her early wedding … and the other time in 1855 with her doing chores and submitting to how pioneer life is like back then. The perspective in both is from Natalie and she is one unlikable protagonist! Be forewarned to spend time with her. She’s portrays herself as a good Christian woman but she’s all about herself and her morals are mean and skewed. She’s not nice to her kids, her husband (“a nice dumb rich guy”), her sister, parents, in-laws, or those who work for her. She’s a piece of work, and is so negative that she’s also a bit funny in a darkly comical, cynical way. I found myself laughing at times about her thoughts and dialogue. 

Of course I can’t say too much more … because the story takes some turns especially at the end. I liked the whole topsy-turvy-ness of it, but it won’t be for everyone since the characters are quite unlikable and the plot includes one negative bombshell after another … but I admired how the novel’s put together — its cleverness — and the issues it raises about today’s online culture, consumerism, and fundamentalism. It’s sort of a page-turner which I had to see through. Now done, I can try to put Natalie, her biting voice, and her family behind me and take a breather, but it might be a bit hard to forget her anytime soon.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read Yesteryear — and if so, what did you think? Next post I’ll be looking at June releases and hopefully post my summer reading list.

Hi all, how’s everyone doing? Did your April showers bring May flowers? We were having a very dry month here until yesterday when we had a slushy snowstorm hit. I kid you not. I was at a friend’s house and took this photo out the window of their pretty back yard.

Good thing we hadn’t planted the vegetable garden yet … other than a few rows of potatoes and onions, but they’re safe … despite the overnight frost warning, which has confused me. What month are we in? Is this a time travel thing? I guess the novel Yesteryear is on my mind lately as Tina and I are continuing our buddy read of it. And there is an element of some hocus pocus going on. It seems the main character Natalie has bit off a bit more than she can chew.

Meanwhile, we still plan to plant the vegetable plants later this week when it heats back up (you can see from the photo it was nicer earlier last week). And I’m starting to think about which books will go on my summer reading list this year. I’ll likely post my list on Sunday May 31. Usually it includes mostly new releases — from the present to the past eight months or so — that I hope will be captivating. New books by such popular authors as Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Maggie O’Farrell will likely “make” my summer list but then I’ll be looking for others I want to include. Do you have any books — old or new — that you’re looking forward to reading this summer?

Also you might have seen that recently the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper put out its list of the 100 greatest literary novels ever published in English, as voted on by authors, critics and academics worldwide. Many classics dominate the list but a few contemporary authors have made it on as well. Though it’s George Eliot’s long novel Middlemarch from 1871 that has the #1 spot and I never have read it, but there’s still time to get to it and some others.

I’ve read about 25 books from their list but others were so long ago that I couldn’t recall if I had read them or not. So this list is a good reminder of what to revisit or pick up for the first time. I like lists. And it might remind you of the list the New York Times put out in 2024 titled “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” Perhaps if you cross-reference both lists it’d be interesting which books made both and at what number. Though many of the considered best books came long before the 21st century.

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

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff / Simon & Schuster / 288 pages / 2025

3.6 stars. This debut novel is cut into three parts each told by a member of the Bright family … first the mother Lillian narrates telling of her up and down marriage and life — starting in 1979 Texas — with Ryan, an artist, who after she divulges a secret to him, carries on with his father’s alcoholic tendencies; then their daughter Georgette narrates detailing tragic circumstances of what happens next as she’s growing up; and finally the father Ryan narrates the last part in a letter to his granddaughter.

I’ve tried purposefully to be vague so you can read and find out the ins and outs of this strained family drama. Alcoholism plays a part and missed years and opportunities and how that affects each of them. The story of the family kept me engaged as it went along, though the characters come to annoy at certain points. The last part with the father Ryan’s narration and character seems the weakest developed part .. and at that point you want a bit more from the story and him. Still I’m glad to have found out what the commotion over this novel was about. It reminded me slightly of Patrick Ryan’s novel Buckeye since I finished that recently and it also involves a broken family and its various members.

That’s all for now. What about you — are you making summer reading list plans and what’s on it? Enjoy your week.

Hi all. Happy Mother’s Day. I hope you’re having fun celebrating somewhere. I am thinking of my Mom and plan to enjoy some gardening on a partly sunny spring day.

Last week was pretty good — it included my first round of golf for the season with my ladies league, yay. Of course I was sort of rusty but that’s to be expected since I haven’t played since last September. It was good fun nonetheless, and on the way home I stopped off to visit a farm that has seven miniature donkeys … the sole boy of the group is a sweet runt named Holger. I befriended the owners a couple months ago and now they sometimes let me come and brush the donkeys and feed them. They are very cute and I’m learning about how to care for them. Apparently the donkeys always need straw in addition to hay but can’t over-graze. They must watch how much they eat, which is key … and for us all, lol. I will try to get some better photos when I visit them next time. 

Meanwhile last night we watched the movie adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix based on the novel by Shelby Van Pelt and it was quite heartwarming and better than I thought it’d be. The filmmakers did a good job making the octopus Marcellus look real and captivating, even though he’s mostly computer generated. They were able to do that by using interchangeable footage of a real-life Pacific octopus named Agnetha, who lives at the Vancouver Aquarium. And the actors did well, with Sally Field giving a good performance as Tova, the cleaning lady at the aquarium who befriends Marcellus. The movie brings the story to life in almost a better way than I thought the novel did … but see what you think. 

We also finished watching Season 1 of the Netflix comedy series A Man on the Inside starring Ted Danson as a man who is hired to go undercover at a retirement home in San Francisco to solve a theft. It’s enjoyable and we liked how it’s light and funny and also manages to touch on real themes of aging, loneliness, and connection at the retirement place.

Apparently the show is based on a true 2020 documentary about an 83-year-old man who went undercover at a Chilean nursing home to investigate potential elder abuse. In the U.S. series, Ted Danson is his usual charming, suave self and has gained attention in the role. The show has been a success apparently and has already been renewed for Season 3.

And now in book news you might have heard last week that author Daniel Kraus, a writer of the horror genre, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Angel Down, which was a New York Times Best Book of 2025. According to the Times, it’s a World War I novel, told in one sprawling, 285-page-long sentence, about a failed draft dodger who finds an angel on the battlefield.

The novel seems rather unusual with its structure and is said to be very graphic of its depiction of the war in the trenches. And apparently it marks the first time a horror-tinged novel has won the award since Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road in 2007. I’m curious enough to want to investigate after listening to Daniel Kraus be interviewed about it on the New York Times podcast and seeing Carmen’s favorable review of it too on Goodreads. 

Now here (above) is a photo recap of the books I finished in April. I enjoyed most — if not all of these — so it’s hard to pick a favorite, but Tina and I had a good discussion while reading Buckeye, so I’ll go ahead and choose that one. Meanwhile, the outlook for May reading is looking much slower as I’ve taken on a very long fall novel to review for Publishers Weekly. This undisclosed novel will likely consume me this entire month, alas. But in the meantime I will try the audio of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, which will be a buddy read again with Tina at Turn the Page, who has the print version. We will see what all the fuss is about with this bestselling new novel.

• A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (audiobook, dystopian novel) — 2025
• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan (hardback, a buddy read with Tina at Turn the Page) — 2025 
• Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (audiobook, novel) — 2025
• 107 Days by Kamala Harris (hardback, ghostwritten by Geraldine Brooks!) — 2025
• Cape Fever by Nadia Davids (audiobook, novel) — 2025
• A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford (paperback, crime debut novel) — 2026

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished while I was away in California.

Cape Fever by Nadia Davids / Simon & Schuster / 240 pages / 2025

4.3+ stars. I was quite impressed by this Gothic tale set in a colonial town in 1920 about a young girl, Soraya Matas, who lives in the Muslim quarters part of town and comes to work as a maid for Alice Hattingh, a British widowed settler. Alice is a snooty lady, who is quick to set Soraya straight about what she wants done about the house and tells Soraya that she’s required as a live-in maid and can only go home once a fortnight to visit her family, much to Soraya’s disappointment. 

Soraya finds the cleaning work pretty dull and repetitive but is happy at first and is able to commune with a couple ghosts in the house. Then Mrs. Hattingh starts putting more demands on her and longer stays as she is expecting her son’s return from London, who was injured in the war. To appease Soraya, Mrs. Hattingh offers to write letters for her to Soraya’s betrothed young man since she’s led to believe Soraya can’t read or write. It’s during these letter writing engagements between maid and employer that things take a turn. 

It’s a good cat and mouse kind of Gothic tale, with subtly tense chess moves between the two — maid and employer — to figure out what the other is doing and how to subvert them. The publisher notes that the novel is “reminiscent of works by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Daphne du Maurier” and I think that’s a good comparison. This book has put author Nadia Davids on the map for me in a good way, so I will look for whatever she writes next. She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and is a notable playwright in addition to writing fiction. She is now said to live in California.

A Bad Bad Place by Frances Crawford / Soho Crime / 353 pages / 2026

3.75 stars. This is a coming-of-age, crime debut novel set in 1979 Glasgow, Scotland. It alternates chapters between 12-year-old Janey Devine, who finds a dead body while out walking her dog, which turns her young life upside down … and her 66-year-old grandma Maggie, who is trying to raise and protect her. It turns out the victim was the 22-year-old daughter of a local crime boss, who now wants to know more from Janey (since she found her) as do the police. 

Meanwhile Janey is full of bad dreams about the dead girl and is anxious about the killer trying to get her. She’s a mess, and her grandma, who’s raising her, is doing her best to keep a waitress job and ease Janey’s fears and get her life back to normal. But Janey is keeping something from the police and her grandma that she knows about the murder that is keeping her on edge. As  the viewpoints of Janey and her Grandma alternate, the case unfolds and the hunt for the murderer ratchets up in their tight-knit community. 

I found the first half of the novel pretty strong amid the characters in their working-class, gritty neighborhood — I liked young Janey and sympathized with what she’s going through — and her loss of innocence in this coming-of-age crime tale. There are a number of shady types who could have committed the murder. The second half dithers around a bit – with some repetition – and loses some pacing, but still I was patient to find justice as Janey wanted. Written in a bit of a Glasgow dialect, it’s a debut with plenty of atmosphere of the neighborhood and crime. You can pretty much feel its tough circumstances through your fingertips. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these novels mentioned — and if so, what did you think?  Have a great week.