Books Read, March 2025

I read more books on audio than in print last month. I guess that meant I did a lot of walking and driving and tedious house chores in March.

The Door to Door Bookstore by Carsten Sebastian Henn, translated by Melody Shaw, read by Raphael Corkhill -Karl Kollhoff works at a bookstore, delivering books to book lovers who can’t make it to the bookstore. Along the way he is befriended by a 9 year old girl. When the owner of the bookstore dies and his daughter takes over, Karl’s job is in danger. This book was such a bookish comfort read. Slight and predictable, but charming nonetheless, it’s one of those books clearly written by someone who loves to read. Karl gives all of his customers literary nick names and spends time choosing just the right book for them to read. I loved all the literary references sprinkled throughout -it always makes me feel smart to get literary references in books.

My Name is Phillipa by Phillipa Ryder, read by Jackie Meloche– Memoir of a trans woman who grew up as a boy in 1960s Ireland, got married, became a father, and then in her 30s discovered a community of LGBTQ+ people who helped her embrace who she really was. Ryder writes of her journey to transition, including how her wife and daughter handled her transition. Remarkably drama free, which I think is the point. At the core, Phillipa Ryder’s story isn’t any different from anyone else’s story of falling in love with someone and then wondering how to make life work when things change. My one big complaint was that the audiobook narrator did not have an Irish accent. I did feel kind of cheated on that score.

The Worst Duke Ever by Lisa Berne – This book tells about penniless Jane Kent, who discovers that she is the long lost illegitimate granddaughter of the high born Penhallow family (the family is the basis of this romance series). She is taken in by the Penhallows and soon meets the neighboring Duke of Radcliffe and his precocious son. I picked up this book because the blurb described the Duke of Radcliffe as just wanting to stay home and tend to his pigs. I was kind of ready for a non-alpha male romantic hero, and a Duke who wanted to stay home and tend to his pigs seemed to fit that bill. But, friends, this book was so dull. The pigs and pugs and kids were cute, but there was no real conflict or romantic tension to the story. Jane and the Duke liked each other from the start – I do like when the main character like each other, but there was no real reason they couldn’t be together. The whole thing was just… pleasant. Which is fine, but I want a bit of angst in my romance novels. Oh well. If you like cute animal antic, though, you might like this book more than I did.

Shakespeare: the Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendon O’Hea, read by Barbara Flynn, Brendon O’Hea and Judi Dench – I loved this book. Love, love, loved it. It’s basically Dench and O’Hea sitting around talking about theatre life and Shakespeare. Listening to them chatter is like being invited over for tea and stories – it’s like a combination of juicy memoir and English seminar. Dench herself doesn’t narrate, but she does read Shakespeare passages that begin each chapter, and Barbara Flynn sounds so much like Judi Dench. As an audiobook bonus, though, there is a recording of a conversation between O’Hea and Dench and they squabble like two crotchety old geese and it’s delightful. Dench has so many fascinating things to say about Shakespeare, about how to say a line, about how she develops characters, about how Shakespeare crafted a story, crafted people onstage, crafted language. There were moments when I gasped at an insight she had about a play that I thought I knew very well. So many good quotes in the book. At one point, she says that she prefers theatre over film because in theatre, you have a chance every night to do better. Oh another of my favorite quotes was about being a professional even when you’re young and nervous. “Everyone’s nervous,” she says, “It’s not your business to make more of it.” Man I wish someone would embroider that on a pillow and hand it to every singer I know. Highly recommend if you like Shakespeare. I listened to this book, but I would also have loved to have a hard copy so I could highlight passages.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois by  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers– if you are looking for a 600+ page book by a female person of colour, this might fit the bill. This novel tells the story of Ailey Garfield, growing up in Brooklyn, but spending summers in the small town in Georgia where her ancestors were cheated out of their land and kept as slaves. Concurrently, the story of those ancestors unfold, telling about how Indigenous, White, and Black people were irrevocably intertwined. The generational aspect of the story reminded me a little of Homegoing, with more in depth story lines. I will say two thirds of the book was a well written, but kind of a meandering plot as Ailey tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life. But once she goes to college and decides to study history, I thought the story really took off, with Ailey becoming quite a page turner. Interestingly, I don’t read a lot of long books, but three of the 600+ page reads I’ve read have been set in academia with parallel past and present story lines. – this one, The Weight of Ink, and Possession. They were all very good books – academic research is more exciting that I would have thought.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix read by Bahni Turpin – This novel tells the story of Patricia Campbell, mother of two, husband to a prominent physiatrist, true-crime bookclub member. When a handsome neighbor moves to their small town, eyebrows and questions are raised. I thought this book was quite fun for the first half, gory and frustrating for the second half, and then it went off the rails at the end. But then again, I guess one would be hard put to find a vampire novel that doesn’t go off the rails at some point if you want the vampire dead. Horror novels are not at all my usual fare, so I can’t say if this was a good horror novel. I’m not sure where I got the suggestion from – perhaps it was 85% the fact that I enjoy Bahni Turpin as an audiobook narrator. The blurb calls it: “Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula“. Hmmmm… I guess there’s a lot of truth in that. There is a satirical twist to it, and I laughed out loud a lot. But I also got grossed out a lot, though I’m pretty sensitive to squicky things in books.

Okay, here is where I check my biases, though. Because Bahni Turpin reads this book, I was convinced that the book was about a group of black women. It is not. Also because of the way Hendrix writes about the experience of being a stay at home mom with such weary humour, I assumed Hendrix was a female. He is not. I kind of felt a little cheated that I was reading a book by a White male. Not sure how to unpack that one. Women don’t hold a monopoly at writing astute portraits of suburban moms, of course, but I do feel a little duped. This is why I shouldn’t google author’s until after I’ve read their book.

On my Proverbial Night Stand:
Master, Slave, Husband, Wife by Ilyon Woo – sshhhhh… don’t tell, this book was due back at the library two weeks ago, but I’m need to finish it, so I’m just ignoring those emails from the library.

Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur – the memoirs of a death doula.

The Earl Who Isn’t by Courtney Milan – Wedgeford Trails, book 3. I’m a sucker for historical romances featuring Asian characters. And Milan writes such smart books.

What was your favorite read in March? Have you ever googled an author and been disappointed? Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?