Category: Books

Books Read August 2026

August was such a good reading month! I don’t know what happened, but I read 11 books in August – that’s more books than I ever remember reading in one month, or even two months some times. I would chalk it up to lengthy commute (hence lots of audiobooks) and being on vacation/ under employed and also reading books that I just couldn’t put down.

So many of the books too were excellent reads. My two favorites were Dolly All The Time and Etna, but in any other month, there are easily three other books on this list that would have been a “top read of the month.”

And the Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graf, read by Edoardo Ballerini and a full cast (too many to name here…) – This book is made up of first person accounts surrounding the atomic bomb. I had a strange moment as I was listening to this book. It was July 16th and this being a history book, dates were pretty important. I realized that I was listening to the book on the 81st anniversary to the day that the first atomic bomb test (Trinity) took place – July 16th, 1945. There was something so immediate to know that wow – this is what the world felt like at the time Trinity happened – kids were out of school, the country was in the lazy, hazy days of summer. And most of America was going on with their lives (like I was), and this colossal thing was happening that would change the world. Also it was two months before my father was born. I mean that fact isn’t that important to the world, but somehow it grounded the events in the book. This book covers a huge range of things – from the very science of nuclear fission, through the formation of the Manhattan Project, to the stories from the Japanese people who were on the ground in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The science definitely went over my head, but what kept me listening was the human aspects of the story – the Jewish physicists who fled Nazi Germany to come to America; the hiring decisions; the people who up and moved to work on the atomic bomb project; the towns that were built in Los Alamos NM, Oak Ridge TN, and Hanford WA to support the project – the government built entire towns!!; the day of Trinity and who was there and who had to watch from afar; the pilots who flew the Enola Gay (also – very cool because I’ve seen that plane in the Air and Space Museum here); the doctors on the ground in Japan trying to save people. The survivors. The aftermath. There’s a whole section where people talked about how the decision was made as to which cities to bomb – the seeming disregard for human life in those decisions. I think aside from the science and the war room strategies, this book really sucked me in with the human emotions and thoughts behind the atomic bomb – the joys of scientific discovery and also the crushing grief of loss and destruction.

Dolly All The Time by Annabel Monaghan – This is a fake dating romance that is kicked off when single mom Dolly is persuaded by Stewart, the handsome scion of a Rhode Island family, to be his pretend girlfriend. I am so grateful for whomever stuck this book in a Little Free Library at the pool because I LOVED this book soooo much and I’m really glad to have my own copy to re-read whenever I want. Which has been something like three times already. I stayed up until 4am to finish this book because I really needed to know how everything worked out and this book now has a permanent place on my nightstand. I’ll just randomly pick it up and re-read passages of it because every scene is just so perfect. I don’t much like fake dating, so I was a little skeptical going in. I also don’t really like first person romance novels because the other side of the love equation never comes across as a complete person. Monaghan, however, managed to blow past all my reservations. She writes in such a way that Stewart comes across as a nuanced and vulnerable character, not just some fantasy of Dolly’s. There is a part of this book that is fantasy wish fulfillment – rich guy comes takes care of things for the over-worked, ever responsible and resourceful single mom – but also I really loved how Dolly has to work to figure out so many things for herself about life and family, (and so does Stewart). There’s something about this book that straddles the line between literary fiction and romance; yes, you get the Happily Ever After, but there is also sotry of growth and family- there is more going on than just two people falling in love. At the end, I felt like Dolly will be okay if Stewart never calls her back, even while I kept hoping that he figures his shit out too. Swoony, funny, and oh so satisfying.

Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess, read by Carlotta Brenton – What a fun premise – When Cath finds out that her estranged dead mother had booked a vacation for the two of them to a murder mystery week in a quaint English village. Stuck somewhat in a rut, she decides to use her mother’s trip to shake up her life a little bit. This is one of those books where I think I enjoyed it more on audio than I would have if I had just read it. The fake murder mystery plot and reveal were cute, but a lot of the characters and plot points seemed a little forced. It’s the kind of thing where the characters were quirky and entertaining to listen to, but they might have really annoyed me if I were reading it. But all in all, this was pretty entertaining, if not wholly memorable.

Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser– This is a Cinderella re-telling, told from the Stepmother’s point of view. I feel like Cinderella’s Stepmother falls in the category of cliched unredeemable villains – I couldn’t imagine the world where she comes off as reasonably likable. Well, this book proved me wrong. I really loved this book and how it is such a different look at everyone in the Cinderella story – not just the Stepmother, but also the sisters, the Prince, and Cinderella herself. At it’s core, this is a story about a mother – strong willed and imperfect – trying to raise three girls in a world where women don’t hold any power. The plot never lets up, with secret after secret slowly unspooling and about mid way through the book, it moves from feeling like a fairy tale re-telling to feeling like a fast-paced thriller. Very readable, but also I loved what a story of female empowerment this was.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell – Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize about Maggie O’Farrell after three books – maybe she just isn’t for me. I LOVED Hamnet, thought it was the most beautiful book I’d read in ages. I was meh about The Disappearing Act of Esme Lenox – I thought it was cliched plot wrapped in beautiful writing. And now The Marriage Portrait. Look – she writes beautifully precise prose. Her writing plunges you into a world where you can feel the velvets and breathe the air. BUT.. but but…. she leverages trauma in a way that makes me feel manipulated and gross. I don’t feel like she’s exploring traumatic events in her character’s lives for any great point; she’s just making her characters miserable. So much as I admire her writing, I don’t know that I’ll put her back on the top of my TBR any time soon. Maybe in the future when I’m able to read about horrific things with a sense of personal growth. That’s not something I can currently do.

Etna by Paul Yoon– This short novel is told through the eyes of Etna, a bomb sniffing dog who tries to find his (her?) way home after the war ends. I listened to this on audio with the 6 and 9 year olds. There were a couple of times when I almost turned it off because there are some violent things in this story, but the kids were so invested in Etna’s journey that they wanted to keep listening. I loved how Etna clung to the dream of going home even when things got tough. I loved the friends that Etna made along the way. This unnamed country is a pretty defeated place in the wake of war, but there is still kindness. I love how Etna never judges those around him, but does understand and recognize kindness and kinship. I loved how Etna defined home as a place where he had once known peace. He’s a remarkably clear eyed narrator. I asked the 6 year old what she liked about the book, and she said, “I liked that Etna made friends and even though there were some side times, in the end, Etna was happy.”

The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forrest – In this contemporary romance, Lily Greene, who dreams about being a children’s book editor, strikes up a correspondence with her favorite Fantasy author. He writes back then suddenly ghosts her. A year later, Lily asks her new neighbor Nick to help her find a date to her sister’s wedding. Well… you probably know what the plot twist is here. This book was fine – I didn’t love it. The writing’s a little workaday. I just felt like there wasn’t a lot of chemistry between the two main characters and you could tell that other characters and details were being dropped into the book so that they could be put into future books. (This book is first in a series.)

Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian– This contemporary M/M romance is about two actors on the same long running hit sci-fi tv series who have had an ongoing on set rivalry. But then life circumstances intervene and Simon and Charlie are forced to be there for each other. I thought this book was pretty great. It’s not an explosive romance novel, but rather a quiet slow burn where Simon (the story is from his POV), gradually comes to realize that Charlie is no the rash ball of chaos that he thought he was. In fact Charlie is more thoughtful and deep than Simon had ever given him credit for. I loved this book for the inside look into tv series, the way people end up caring for each other, and a super cute dog. Also, this book has a lot to say about being a creative and putting something out into the world that make people happy, and as a person in a creative field, I really need to hear that from time to time. (I had a quote from this book as a quote of the month in my August recap post.)

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan– of course after finishing Dolly All the Time, I wanted to read everything by Annabel Monaghan. This book also is a bit of fantasy wish fulfillment- divorced mom has a fling with hot movie star- but I Nora’s story is so much more than that- it’s about coming to terms with the life you have and hugging the people who are important and letting go of those who aren’t or can’t be. Like Dolly, this book was funny, felt real, and had so many beautiful moments and characters. I think the one thing that made this book not as perfect as Dolly is that I never got a sense of who movie star Leo was- he wasn’t a terribly complex or well defined character. His job was pretty much to be hot, caring, and a good listener. Which, as romance novels go, is totally fine by me.

The Carpool Detectives: A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case by Chuck Hogan, read by Gabra Zackman: This is the true story of a group of moms who solve a 15 year old cold case double homicide. I thought this story was fascinating, how the four women banded together and with little more than determination and gumption and their own brains, really dug into the case – the secrets come out, the clues are dissected, people are interviewed again, and memories revived. Also all this was during the first months of COVID – I found the undercurrent of parenting during COVID made me really identify with these women – they’re looking for purpose at a time when the world was on it’s head and it was hard to tell when really mattered. I did find the audiobook a little dry – some of the clues involve getting pretty in the weeds about fraud and finance, which made my eyes glaze over a little bit. There is a part of me that kind of wished this were a podcast rather than an audiobook – there’s something a little more engaging in the tone of podcast voices for this kind of thing. But overall a really gripping non-fiction read.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon, PhD and Michael Thomason, PhD – This book was my morning non-fiction book in August and it talks about how boys need to learn emotional literacy to deal with all the social and emotional changes that they face. The book talks about how we have to teach boys that life isn’t fair, but that this unfairness is not a threat to them. Daria left an interesting comment a few weeks ago about how this book seemed a little dated; the advice in the book is nothing revolutionary today. I think she is right – I don’t know that I came away from this book with more insights into my my son needs, but I do think reading this book made me think of the world that he is growing up into. I think it’s all very well and good for us to teach our boys that they need to be flexible, empathetic. and willing to express their emotions, but how much good does that do when he is living in a country where a man uses petty retaliation as a tactic for running the country? This is what I realized in reading this book – no matter how much I try to teach my son (actually all my children) how to be emotionally literate, the world he lives in is not sending him these same messages. And that’s one thing that makes me feel like raising a boy is so hard these days. (I mean raising a girl is hard too…. raising any child to be a responsible adult is hard…)

On my Proverbial Night Stand:

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope- the plot is thickening. I have thirty more chapters to go- hopefully I’ll finish before the end of the year.

Game of Rogues by Julie Anne Long – the latest in her Palace of Rogues Series. I’ve been waiting so long for this book!

Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Greene and David Levethin – I’ve had this book on my bookshelf for a while and was looking for something to take me out of my Dolly All The Time hangover so decided to start this one. Teenagers putting on a high school musical! That’s my catnip.

Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin Streeter –  I had read this twenty years ago, and I was inspired to revisit it by one of Engie’s posts about the book Clean Up on Aisle Five.

Fourteen Talks before Age Fourteen by Michell Icard- My morning non-fiction book.

This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay – on audio. I was snort laughing on the bus while listening to this.

Books Read July 2026

In book-ish news – the New York Times has released another “Best {blank} of the 21st Century”, this time “The 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century.” (gift link). Of 50 the books on the list, I’ve read eight. I can’t say that I really enjoyed any of them, though. One book I thought was completely bonkers. Two books of those eight were books that I hated. (They both featured unreliable narrators, which is the one narrative device/trope that makes me automatically want to throw a book against a wall and feel like I’ve wasted hours of my life in reading that book. Not telling you which ones because that would be a spoiler…) And you know, reading the book descriptions, I did put another fourteen on my “want to read” list, but there were many more that made me say, “Oh absolutely not for me.” All of which leads me to realize… maybe I just don’t like thrillers?

I sure hope the NY Times makes a “50 best Romances of the 20th Century” list soon. I’ll be here for that one.

Anyhow, on to books read in July! I read nine books this month, thanks largely to going on a reading retreat at the beginning of the month and also spending a lot of time in the car listening to audiobooks.

Sideways Stories at Wayside School by Louis Sacher, read by the author – We listened to this in the car on the way to Taiwan camp. I remember reading this book as a kid and it really stuck with me. The book is a series of stories about a school where instead of having the classrooms built next to each other, there was a mix up and the classrooms were built on top of each other, so that the school was 30 stories tall. Anyhow the school and students are wacky with their own logic. The stories were just as offbeat and perceptive as I remember.

Courting Miss Hattie by Pamela Morisi – I picked up this 1991 novel on my reading retreat because I’d never read a Pamela Morisi book, and a lot of romance authors I read recommend her books. The story is set in early 1900s Arkansas and centers around Hattie Colfax, a 29 year old who runs her family farm following the death of her parents. After spending her life working the farm and not having any marriage prospects, she finds herself being courted by a widower with many children. But once Hattie is being courted in earnest, Reed, her young farmhand/ friend (who happens to be engaged to the town beauty) starts to realize that maybe he also has feelings for Hattie. This was a really sweet and (for the time) unconventional romance novel. It didn’t knock my socks off or anything, and the sweeping vistas and character archetypes definitely feel dated, but it was a pleasant read.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward: I picked up this book when I saw it in a Little Free Library because it had won the 2017 National Book Award. This novel takes place in Mississippi and tells the story of 13 year old Jojo and his drug addict mother Leonie (who is Black) who embark together on a road trip to the State Penitentiary to pick up the newly released Michael, his father/ her boyfriend (who is white). A lot of this book was hard for me to read because I don’t really like reading about child neglect, but I thought Ward really was able to show a side to Leonie that wasn’t just that of an irresponsible mother, thought there was certainly a lot of that going on. I’m not sure I completely understood where the book was going – there are some elements of magical realism going on – but the exploration of trauma, both individual and collective, and to some extent the trauma to come in the future, made this book a really stay with me.

The Anti-Ableist Manifesto by Tiffany Yu – This was one of my non-fiction reads this month, suggested to me by my intern at work who is writing her Masters project about the intersection of neurodivergence and stage management. I thought this book had some great concrete ways that we can make the world easier for people with disabilities (differently abled people?) to navigate. What struck me was that there is no one way to engaged in anti-ableist behavior because everyone has their own preferences for how they want their disability to be acknowledged (or not). I think the biggest takeaway I had was that we all need to help elevate people with disabilities so that they are not ignored or patronized. Visibility and representation matters, and goes a long way to helping people feel included and like they can function without barriers. This was a really eye-opening book for me.

ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, adapted by Annabel Lee for Audible Studios: This is the second Christie mystery adapted by Audible after The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I really like these adaptations – the performances are top notch melodramatic, but also with heart, and I enjoy the post WWI framing that these stories are given – it lends them a bit of emotional depth. I read ABC murders years ago and I feel like it’s clever and a little over the top, making it a very entertaining novel. (I just saw that Audible is just released a similar adaptation of Murder at the Vicarage with Toni Collette as Miss Marple, and I’m putting that in my queue.)

For Better or For Worse: Home Sweat Home by Lynn Johnson – For Better of For Worse was one of my favorite comic strips growing up. I liked how it was about a family just trying to live their lives and I could related to all the characters. The strips don’t often have side splitting punchlines, rather the humour is rather quiet. Home Sweat Home is, I think, one of the later compilations – they kids have all grown and have been launched in the world. Maybe it’s a function of the new phase Johnson is writing about, but I noticed there is a lot more text in the book than I had seem previously. Sometimes the word bubbles cover half or more of each cartoon cell. At any rate, I enjoyed catching up with the Patterson family and seeing where their lives were going.

Dare to Love a Duke by Eva Leigh – I was in a historical romance phase and I’d never read any Eva Leigh, so I picked this one up. It’s an interesting premise – Lucia Marini manages a secret society (read: sex club), and Tom (newly the Duke of something or other) discovers that he has inherited the club following this father’s death. Tom is trying to succeed in politics so needs to divest himself of such a scandalous possession. Lucia needs the club to continue in order to keep her employees, well, employed and also to support some side aspirations. This book was fine as historical romances go. I thought Lucia was smart and independent and interesting. Tom was less so. The premise and plot was interesting, but the writing was a little banal to be honest.

The Dead Romantics by Ashely Poston – I loved Poston’s The Seven Year Slip, so I picked up this book from a used bookstore on my reading retreat. This novel tells the story of ghost writer Florence who returns home to attend her father’s funeral only to run into the ghost of her publisher Ben, the same man who just fired her for being unable to deliver on a book. This book wasn’t as magical for me as The Seven Year Slip. I really liked Florence and the quirky small town characters and details, but I thought Ben wasn’t very well defined. Other than being really good looking, I didn’t really understand why Florence would want to be with him. I didn’t feel a lot of chemistry there. Still, the book had plenty of charm and humour and how everything is resolved at the end did give me goosebumps.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed – This book – my second non-fiction read in July- is culled from Strayed’s Dear Sugar advice columns. I picked up this book from a used bookstore during our reading retreat because I had always seen it on lists of “Essential reads for new graduates” type lists. The writing is beautiful and heart-wrenching, but I found the advice a little narcissistic. Which is ironic because a lot of the letter writers are asking her how to deal with narcissistic people. I felt like Strayed’s advice is always about making boundaries and holding to them while recognizing that people won’t change. In fact she literally writes, “It’s a truism of transformation that if we want things to be different we have to change ourselves.” Boundaries and acceptance and self compassion are all very healthy things, but it all just made my heart ache for the lack of connection the letter writers had with other people. Maybe that’s just the nature of letters to an advice columnist. Each letter and response was full of wisdom and compassion for the letter writer’s suffering, but after a while the letters started running together for me. This book is probably better read in small doses, spaced out with a couple days in between to digest.

On my night stand:

Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian – I’m really enjoying this book. It’s gut wrenching and funny all at the same time.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson – still working through this book. It’s insightful, but no magical solutions yet.

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope – still plugging away at this. I don’t understand why people in this novel continue to get engaged to people they don’t want to marry. Trollope would probably say it’s about image and money.

Etna by Paul Yoon narrated by Shrader Thomas – Story told through the eyes of a dog trying to find his way home in the wake of war. It’s not a kid’s book, but on a whim I put it on for the kids and we are all now super invested in Etna’s return home.

The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson, read by Claire Danes- We were listening to this before Etna, but no one seems to like the narrator, so I might need to finish this one without the kids. What I don’t get, though… why doesn’t Odysseus just get on his boat and go home? He’s having too many adventures.

Have you read any of the thrillers on the NY Times list?

Books Read June 2026

I know it’s AUGUST. But I’m just now getting around to finishing my June Reading Recap:

My Work by Olga Ravn, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell – I read about this book in The Week; they have a feature where someone recommends five or six books and this by by Danish writer Olga Ravn was on a list of books that I already liked, so I thought I might like this one too. My Work is autofiction, about a Anna, a writer struggling with pregnancy, post-partem anxiety, early motherhood, and identity. The writing blends poetry, prose, transcripts from therapy sessions, medical information, journal entries. I found the premise intriguing, but also this book was so dense and tortured that at times I found it hard to parse. I’m finding reading about new motherhood is tricky for me – sometimes I feel seen, but sometimes it is just overwhelming to read about the emotional weight of it and live through it again. Anyhow, this book took me a long time to read, and I’m not sure I completely understood all of it, but there were definitely a lot of highlighted passages where I just went, “Yup.”
Here are a few of my highlights:

“I didn’t realize we would be parents forever”
“Maybe it was all a misunderstanding.”

Or this:, which seems like a useful exercise:
She tries to write something about the part of her life that has nothing to do with men or children.
Anna thinks for a while, then she writes:
Garden
Textiles
Tongue-and-groove pliers
Cooking
What is this? Anna thinks, looking at the list she has written. It seems incomplete.

Or this, for all of us who obsess about time management:
ANNA: Having to pick up the child at a specific time in the afternoon drives me crazy. It’s as though all time in the world shrinks, and by nine in the morning I’m already stressing about picking him up on time so I spend so much energy thinking about what time is.

or this sentiment:
It’s a nice thought to apply to people too, Anna thinks. That her mistakes, her anxiety and stupidity hold the key to her transformation into a greater and more beautiful human.

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield, read by Juliet Stevenson: This epic layered novel is set in a small village in Victorian England, and begins when a little girl is pulled half drowned out of the Thames and brought to a local pub to recover. From there three different people/families lay claim to the mysterious child and the novel is about the lives of those people intersect. This novel is very much imbued with the tradition of storytelling and fairy tales, the writing is descriptive, almost gothic in nature; plot elements are revealed slowly and sometimes mysteriously. You know when a book is describes as rich in character and details – that’s how I would describe this book. I really enjoyed this book on audio ; I think that format really suits the way the book was written and it’s sense of storytelling, and Juliet Stevenson narrates with a sense of omniscience and irony. It’s a bit of a long, winding book, and I really enjoyed it.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio – This book had a lot of buzz when it first came out, so when I found a copy of it in a Little Free Library, I snatched it up. The Husbands tell the story of Lauren who comes home one day to a husband coming out of her attic. Only she doesn’t have a husband. That Husband eventually goes back into the attic and another one comes down. And so on – an endless string of husbands, each one giving Lauren a different life. I really enjoyed this book and how it asks the question of “What might have been.” It actually reminded me a lot of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, a book that also deals with “What might have been”, but which I heartily dislike and can’t understand why so many people rave about that book. I find the Midnight Library kind of prescriptive and heavy handed, as if Matt Haig wants to write a book that hands people the meaning of life, so that people should read Midnight Library instead of really seeking support for their mental health. I will, say, though, I thought Haig’s How to Stop Time was an excellent book, much better than The Midnight Library. But… this isn’t a paragraph about Matt Haig (though clearly I needed to get that Midnight Library BS off my chest.) All to say, Gramazio handles the age old question of “How else could my life had turned out,” with a wry sense of humour that I still found quite perceptive. I thought that I might get tired of all the Husbands, but I didn’t – I eagerly looked forward to what each subsequent husband and life would bring Lauren and how she decided whether (or when) to send her current Husband packing in exchange for another life. Funny, thoughtful, and well written.

Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler-This was the book for my Lenten reading group and the first book I’ve read by Kate Bowler. I’m glad this was the pick because I’ve always loved listening to Bowler’s podcast or being interviewed on other podcasts. I have to say, though, I didn’t love this book. There are a lot of truths and good reminders in her writing, but the whole book seemed incohesive – like it jumped from thought to thought and didn’t quite gel. I’m not sure if it’s Bowler’s books in general or just this one specifically?

Murder at Gull’s Nest by Jess Kidd, read by Siobhán McSweeney – I 100% listened to this book because I’m a big fan of McSweeney, who plays Sister Michael in Derry Girls. This mystery novel features crusty Nora Breen, a former Nun, who comes to a en English coastal town in search of a friend who has mysteriously stopped writing her. I enjoyed Nora’s combination of determined curiosity and sly wit. The mystery itself was unclear until it suddenly wasn’t, which was fine – I listened to this on my commute and I didn’t always follow the plot; I just enjoyed following the characters around.

On my proverbial bed side table:
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graff – My current audio book. Some of the details about the science behind the atomic bomb goes over my heads, but the human involved are what keeps me listening to this book. Nagasaki has just been bombed.

Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan – Devouring this; perfect summer reading.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by By Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. and Dan Kindlon, Ph.D – my current non-fiction read.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell – my before bed book; bit of a slow burn.

Listening to: The Odyssey, Emily Wilson’s Translation, read by Clare Danes. Since I hear the movie is a little violent for the nine year old, we are listening to the book instead.

Reading Retreat 2026 – 36-ish hours in Harrisburg, PA.

When the Husband and I realized that all three children were going to Taiwan camp, we thought it would be a good chance to getaway ourselves. In our 14 years of being parents, we have never gone away, just the two of us. I know there are couples who often take trips without their kids. We are not one of those couples.

Thinking about where were to go, I was inspired by Stephany and told my Husband I wanted to have a reading retreat. So we decided that we wanted to go somewhere that was a short (no more than two hours) drive from Taiwan camp. We wanted to go somewhere quiet with bookstores and where we could get a nice dinner. Well Harrisburg and Philadelphia were the biggest cities close to Taiwan camp. We’ve been to Philadelphia and love it, but with it being the 4th of July weekend – especially being teh 250th – we thought that Philly might be a bit of a madhouse and too exciting for us to want to just stay inside and read. We just wanted to go somewhere quiet and comfortable. We’d never been to Harrisburg and AirBnBs were a little more affordable there. Looking on the internet, I saw there were a few bookstore there. So Harrisburg it was. We dropped the 14 year old at Taiwan camp and headed off the road, checking into our AirBnB around 9:30pm – just enough time to make sure the place was okay and collapse into bed.

Friday, July 3rd: Even though the primary goal of our time away was to read, I figured we should do a little bit of sight seeing, so, inspired by Birchie, I booked us on the 9:00am tour of the Pennsylvania State Capitol. I was surprised that it was open for tours on a holiday weekend, but there were at about 10 people gathered by the tour desk bright and early on a Friday morning. The Pennsylvania Capitol is a jaw droppingly ornate building, all mahogany and marble and gold leaf. It was very impressive to see:

The view of the dome from the inside.
The House. Imagine going to work here every day.

Having checked the box to do one toursity thing in Harrisburg, we went on to find other things we loved – namely coffee, farmers markets and books.

After our tour, we stopped across the street at Denim Coffee for a beverage and a snack. The Husband loves coffee so visiting an independent coffee shop is always on our travel agenda. In addition to being near the Capitol Building, I chose Denim Coffee because they make their own chai. The Husband had a pour over, I had a chai, and we split an apple crumble bar.

Next was the Farmer’s Market where we picked up some vegetables – green beans, corn (just picked that morning), sugar snap peas, lettuce, and blueberries. I have to admit, at first I thought $10 a quart was pricy for blueberries. But then I thought, that $10 is also about the price of two bags of chips and I would really rather have a quart of fresh picked blueberries than two bags of chips.

Our next stop was Cuboard Makers Bookstore, in the nearby town of Enola. Cupboard Makers Bookstore is named thus because the owner’s husband was a cabinet maker. This store had a wonderfully colourful exterior:

We were greeted at the door with so many signs:

“Especially Odin” the sign says. Well we carefully walked in and, there on the front counter was Odin:

Odin was fluffy and chill and very amenable to being petted. The owners said that he keeps trying to escape, however.

This bookstore was mostly used books with a few shelves of the new buzzy titles. To be honest, this bookstore had so many books I found it a little hard to navigate. For example, there were three different romance sections, each devoted to different types of romance novels. The big find here, though, were the comic section where I found two Pearls Before Swine Treasuries, one Get Fuzzy Treasury and two For Better or For Worse books. These are some of my favorite cartoon strips, but I never think to buy the books. I snatched these up – the 9 year old also loves reading comics so I was eager to share them with him.

Here’s a strip that made me laugh so hard (This one is for all you planner junkies out there….):

After we left Cupboard Maker Books, we went to West Shore Farmer’s Market in Lemoyne, about 10 minutes away. We were a little hungry and wanted to get a snack. West Shore Farmer’s Market did not disappoint. There were produce stalls, butchers, bakeries, fishmongers. The Husband and I split a delicious Ham and cheese pretzel from Zook’s. We picked up some carrots, onions, and garlic for dinner as well as two pork chops, sauerkraut, and three hand pies. Then we got smoothies from the Juice Place. I had a smoothie called The Fountain of Youth, which was grapes, strawberry, apple, lemon, and ginger. It was zingy and refreshing, more like a juice than smoothie. The Husband had a Blueberry Chill – Blueberry, pineapple, banana, and coconut – which was very good too.

I also really enjoyed watching the woman at the donut stall fry apple fritters:

Their donuts looked SO good, but we opted to spend our calories on other things that day.

On the second floor of the West Shore Farmer’s Market was Bookworm Books. It was a small, very well curated used bookstore, which, honestly, was a more manageable than the sprawling Cupboard Maker’s Books. Here, the books were more recent – they have a special section devoted to Pennsylvania history and a custom frame store in the back. At Bookworm books, I picked up a copy of Star-Shipped by Cat Sebastian and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell.

Our next stop after West Shore Farmer’s Market was just around the corner – literally. We originally thought we’d just walk there, but it was over 100 degrees outside and walking across a parking lot was not appealing. So we drove the three blocks to The Paperback Exchange.

Paperback Exchange.

The Paperback Exchange was stocked with a shelves and shelves of used books, mostly mass market paperbacks. I think of the three bookstores we visited that day, this was my favorite. It had more popular selections than Bookworm Books, but was more focused than Cupboard Maker Books. Also, since it was mostly fiction, it didn’t feel daunting to try to find something I wanted to read. Here I picked up two vintage romance books – one by Judith Ivory and one by Pamela Morisi. I’ve always wanted to read something by Pamela Morisi, but her books are pretty rare.

The Paperback Exchange made me think about how mass market paperbacks are being phased out and what that means to no longer have these affordable, compact books available to throw in one’s bag and carry around. I wonder if the waning popularity of mass market paperback is reader driven or supplier driven? Are readers who used to reach for popular fiction (vs. literary fiction) now reading other things? Or via e-readers? Anyhow, I do wonder about the fate of stores like Paperback Exchange as mass market paperbacks are phased out- I mean their shelves are built to fit those size books. Soon Paperback Exchange will be a vintage bookstore….

Here’s the day’s book haul from all three bookstores:

-The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell – I wanted to read another Maggie O’Farrell book, after having read Hamnet and The Secret Life of Esme Lenox.
-Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys – maybe it will give me insight into my son.
-Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed – Have always wanted to read this book and I needed a new non-fiction read for the mornings.
-The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston – I loved her Seven Year Slip, so have been looking to read more by this author.
-Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian – This book has been getting lots of good reviews and I can’t believe I found a copy at the used bookstore. When I was checking it out, the guy at checkout said he had just read it and loved it.
-Angel in a Red Dress by Judith Ivory – I loved reading Judith Ivory when I was in my 30s and honestly can’t remember if I’ve read this one before. But I don’t have it on my shelf at home so I figured I’d add it.
-Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya – Picked this 1954 novella up for my Classics reading challenge.
-Courting Miss. Hattie by Pamela Morisi – I’ve never read any Pamela Morisi, but a lot of romance writers that I’ve heard interview name her as a writer they really admire.
-Then on the right side is the stack of Comic strip treasuries – Pearls before Swine, Get Fuzzy, and For Better or For Worse.

After Paperback Exchange, we headed home where we relaxed on the couches and read until it was time to make dinner. I was super excited to make dinner from all the ingredients we got at the market that day.

Yes, the Husband brought his coffee grinder and MoccaMaster coffee maker with him. He never trusts AirBnBs to have decent coffee set ups.

For dinner, we had pork chops with fried sage leaves, boiled corn, steamed green beans, sauerkraut (home made, but we bought it), and salad of greens, cucumbers and tomatoes.

After dinner, we read some more before going to bed – I started and finished Pamela Morisi’s Courting Miss Hattie (I liked the story, but the prose didn’t sing for me), and one of the For Better or For Worse collections.

Saturday, July 4th.

After sleeping in, I woke up, had some tea and leftovers for breakfast and then – of course! – read some more. The weather was looking to be no cooler than the day before, but with potential rain coming, I hoped it would cool off. Around 11:30am, we headed out for our lunch reservation at The Millworks, a converted factory that now houses a restaurant/ brewpub and artists galleries. For lunch the Husband and I shared: salmon onigiri with beet rice, pork tacos, and a Greek grain bowl. The Greek grain bowl featured pickled grapes, which were mouth puckeringly tasty.

Salmon onigiri.

After lunch we wandered the artist galleries, talking to the artists that were there, some of whom we got to watch work. We ended up buying a couple pieces of art, including this pigeon for the kid’s room, because they love pigeons:

By Tina Berrier.
Gallery of Emily Zebel. I really wanted to take home the wolf picture, but we had already picked out two other pieces.

Down the block from Millworks was The Broad Street Market – I had been hoping to pick up more produce for dinner, but with it being the 4th of July, all the stalls had closed up early. I was a little disappointed because the barista at Denim coffee the day before had highly recommended the pretzel bun stall. Oh well, save something for next time, as Rick Steves likes to say.

One block further down from Broadstreet Market was Midtown Scholar’s Bookstore. This vast sprawling bookstore had three floors featuring a mix of new and used books in addition to having carts and carts of books outside. They had a deal where you could fill a bag with books from just $15. We didn’t end up buying any books here, though we spent about 45 minutes browsing. The store was stiflingly hot in the upper levels where the fiction was. As we went to the lower levels, the temperature got nice a cool. I spent a lot of time in the basement gardening and psychology section of this store.

Midtown Scholars – It used to be an old department store.

After the bookstore we headed back to our air bnb where we settled in for an afternoon of napping and reading. I finished Sing, Unburied, Sing and immediately started another book . The Air BnB had a shelf of books – mostly books by Frieda McFadden – whom I’ve never read, actually, but who seems really prolific. There was also a copy of Liane Moriarty’s latest book Here One Moment. I’ve only ever read Big Little Lies and I thought that was pretty gripping, so I thought I’d start Here One Moment and I was instantly sucked in.

Eventually, it was time for dinner, and as we hadn’t been able to buy more produce that day, we decided to go out for Indian Food. We chose Kathandu because it had a large selection of dosas. We ordered a masala dosa, a paneer dosa, a chili uppthatpam, and on other dish that was very spicy. While we were eating dinner, the storm that had been threatening finally unleashed itself with high winds. The power went out at the restaurant for a few minutes. We decided to eat slowly and wait out the storm.

After dinner, I wanted to go get ice cream, but the storm had downed a lot of trees, causing road closures. We couldn’t wrap our heads around trying to take detour upon detour just to get ice cream. We headed back to our Air BnB where we spent the rest of the evening reading, lounging, and watching comedy specials. I didn’t feel like I had the brain to watch a whole movie, but Sheng Wang’s one hour comedy special seemed just right.

That about wrapped up our reading retreat! The next day, we woke up, read some more, tidied up the Air BnB and then got on the road back to pick up the kids and my mother from Taiwan camp.

There was, however, one more delight waiting for us. We stopped at a hardward store on the way to pick up some poison ivy killer, and the store also had a store cat! It was sitting right at the front of the store on the patio furniture and was very amenable to pets and cuddles:

What a nice way to end the weekend.

All in all it was a relaxing few days and I enjoyed exploring Harrisburg. Our AirBnB was cozy, with plenty of places to lounge and read. It wasn’t the best stocked (no mixing bowls or tea kettle and the knives were crap) and it was on a busy road so there was no place to really walk. Next time I might look for a place with more within walking distance and perhaps even a pool – though maybe this latter was just my response to the weather being so record-breakingly hot. I’ve realized that when exploring new cities, the Husband and I like bookstores, coffee shops, gardens, and farmer’s markets. I would definitely love to take a reading retreat again and incorporate little side trips to those places.

My reading retreat reading tally:
Books finished: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward; Courting Miss Hattie by Pamela Morisi; Home, Sweat, Home: A For Better or For Worse collection by Lynn Johnson, Dare to Love a Duke by Eva Leigh
Books started/continued to read: The Eustace Diamonds by Antony Trollope: The Anti-Ableist Manifesto by Tiffany Yu; Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (I had to leave this at the AirBnB, but I’ve put it on my holds list.)

What would make a perfect reading retreat for you? Do you have a favorite used bookstore? Thoughts on the demise of mass market paperbacks? Do you know any stores wtih resident cats?

Book Read April and May 2026

I got a surprising amount of reading done the past two months despite being slammed at work. I think two things helped – 1) Audiobooks for my commute, and 2) getting a bedside lamp and reading first thing in the morning (non-fiction) and last thing at night (fiction). I didn’t get around to writing an April book recap, so here is April and May recap together….

The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh – This historical romance, first published in 1991 was a re-read for me – I picked it up to read one day in April when I was under the weather and looking for a comfort read. Mary Balogh was one of the first historical romance authors that I obsessed over – I would stalk ebay for her backlist. Her literary output now is gentler, almost sedate, but she used to write angsty romance novels with genre-busting plots that often seemed bonkers at first, but would (mostly) work. This one is no different – it’s about Fleur Bradshaw (even that name is kind of par for what’s to come) has resorted to prostitution to survive (a common theme for Balogh) and her first customer is the married Duke of Ridgeway. He immediately regrets his treatment of her and secretly engages him as a governess for his daughter. Of course they fall in love. There’s all sorts of red flags here, right??? It all sounds tawdry and sensationalist, and honestly I can’t tell if it still works or not because I loved this book so much when I first read it in my 20s so am coming with strongly nostalgic bias. The book now feel so overwrought and everyone suffers and is miserable for so much of the book, but the writing and craft of the book is still really good. I do love a good suffer and redemption and that’s here – I just don’t know if this book has aged well.

Rules for Ruin by Mimi Matthews, read by Will Watt and Elizabeth Knowelden: I had read a Mimi Matthews novella and liked it, so I thought I’d try this novel, especially since one of the narrators is my audiobook boyfriend Will Watt. This romance tells the story about Esme who is out to ruin an certain Viscount and Gabriel Royce who owns a betting shop and who has an interest in said Viscount maintaining a sterling reputation. Esme and Gabriel spar and quarrel and support and rescue each other numerous times throughout the book. This book was … fine. Enemies to lovers isn’t my favorite trope. I liked Esme and Gabriel individually – they are both smart, ruthless, competent, and kind – but they didn’t have a whole lot of chemistry as a couple.

So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ, translated by Modupé Bodé-Thomas. I read this book for my 2026 Classics Challenge. The prompt was to read a book set in Africa. Technically this book didn’t count because it was published in 1979, and the cut off for this challenge was 1975, but I really wanted to satisfy this prompt by reading a book by an African author as opposed to a white author in Africa, so I decided this book will count. Bâ was a Muslim Sengelese writer and activist. So Long a Letter is one of two books that she published and is semi-autobiographical. The book is told in the form of a letter from the recently widowed Ramatoulaye to her sister. Ramatoulaye writes about her attempts to reconcile her life as a modern women with the traditions and morals of a traditional society and her struggles with her Husband taking a second wife after they had been married for thirty years and had multiple children. Some of this book read like a soap opera and some of it read like feminist rant against polygamy and patriarchy and some of it read like a woman tired of the every day work of being a wife and mother. What I liked most about this book was seeing how Ramatoulaye decides to move forward independently after her Husband’s death. Near the end she says, “The word ‘happiness’ does indeed have meaning, doesn’t it? I shall go out in search of it.”

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan – This novella follows the final day, from opening to closing, of a Red Lobster. The Red Lobster next to a Connecticut strip mall has been marked for closing and some of the employees re-assigned to the Olive Garden the next town over. Manny, the manager of the Red Lobster manages surly employees, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, demanding customers and an oncoming blizzard. This is one of those “just a slice of life” books where people go to work and try to survive the mundane and the frustrating, the kind of thing where the parking lot has to be ploughed even while your heart is breaking and confused. I really liked this book.

Felicity Cabot Sells her Soul by Aydra Richards – Continuing on my historical romance kick. I was looking for something with a good grovel ending and Reddit told me Richards writes a good grovel. This book was fine – I felt like I was missing some major plot points because it’s the third in a series. The book starts off with the hero and heroine getting married because she needs money to keep her school open, and he has money and they were sweethearts years ago even though they hadn’t talked to each other in ten years or so, like this was literally the first or second chapter. There was some serious set up and back story missing for me. There was a nice arc for the male main character, but the heroine failed to impress me, and I usually like school teacher heroines – she just seemed like she wanted to stay mad at the hero for the sake of being mad, which was annoying because I thought he was doing everything right.

This American Woman by Zarna Garg, read by the author– Garg played the mother in the movie A Nice Indian Boy, which I had loved, so when I saw that she had also written a memoir, I looked it up on Libby and borrowed it. Garg’s book tells about her childhood in India, and how she comes to American to escape an arranged marriage and how she eventually became a stand up comedian – not something that a lot of Indian women do. She faces every challenge with a determination and focus that I found impressive. This memoir was funny but it was also grim in parts. I really liked listening to this one a lot. My favorite chapter was the one where she spent an entire chapter detailing how she decided what to wear for her stand up routines.

10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation—And Making Your Own Life Easier by David S. Yeager: This title is clearly is the book version of “clickbait” – I saw this book on a list of favorite parenting books and I thought, “Hmmm … maybe this will hold the key to getting the kids to pick up around the house….” Spoiler – it does not hold any such key. Despite that, and despite some of the chapters being a bit repetitive, I felt like I got a lot out of this book. Even more than shifting my mindset about how I motivate my kids, it’s really helped me think about how I work with my interns. I’m still making my way through all the passages I marked up (this book is the reason I can’t borrow any other library books right now because it is so massively overdue), but my main takeaways were:
a) it’s important to balance high expectations with encouragement
b) when giving feedback focus on process not results, and make sure the recipient of feedback knows that you’re giving feedback because you want them to grow.
c) Giving young people a sense of belonging and ownership is important to empowering them to take charge of a situation.
All in all, one of the better parenting books I’ve read in a while.

A Thousand Naked Strangers by Kevin Hazzard, narrated by George Newbern: So years ago, I heard an interview on Fresh Air with a paramedic who had written a memoir. What I remember the most is that he said the thing about having a woman in labor in the ambulance is that no one wants her to give birth in the ambulance, but the moment the baby arrives everyone is so happy. Anyhow, I wanted to read this memoir, but lost track of the title and author until Birchie mentioned this book on her blog and I realized this was that book I had heard about on Fresh Air so many years ago. I found this book grisly and fascinating – Hazzard has some really shocking stories from his work. But also, I think Hazzard really shows the importance of connecting with the people that he’s trying to treat; EMTs and Paramedics are often the first person someone deals with in a traumatic situation. Also, it is wild to me that he EMT course was actually quite short, and how minimal the training is to be a paramedic. I’m sure it’s a pretty thorough course, but to think that paramedics often have to treat life threatening injuries, it’s kind of amazing to me that they don’t have medical degrees. I really enjoyed this book.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell – I heard about this book on Modern Mrs. Darcy’s What Should I Read Next podcast. I had read O’Farrell’s Hamnet and loved loved loved that book so much that I was afraid to read any subsequent books by O’Farrell lest I be disappointed. I thought, though, that her back catalogue might be a good way to read more of her writing. This novel is a dual time-line novel where in the past we follow Esme Lennox as her family moves from India back to England, and in present day we have Iris who discovers that she has a heretofore unknown great aunt in an asylum. I found this book very readable – the prose was elegant and spare, the historical elements about how women’s mental health was often trampled on was interesting to me. However I found the plot a bit formulaic. I couldn’t tell if for me the elegant writing elevated the tired tropes or if the over-used tropes brought down the writing. So all in all a good read, but I found myself very annoyed by a lot of it.

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale, read by Kristen Atherton – This novel tells the story of Cassandra who one day, after getting dumped and losing her job, discovers that she has the ability to rewind her life and live it again from whatever specific point she wants. This book was not the novel I thought it would be when I first started reading it. The tone started off quite comic and wry, but the real story of Cassandra turns out to be very complex and sad. I thought the book was maybe two chapters too long and could have used a trim here or there, but Cassandra has many strands in her life to unravel and reset – family, work, friends… The one thing I kept thinking throughout this book, as I listened to Cassandra constantly re-setting her life to cover for mistakes she thinks she has made, was how imperfectly perfect life is. We might want to go back and have a second chance at many moments, but the flaws in these present moments are what make them perfect for the life we are in right now.

The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck – This is a collection of of interconnected short stories, mostly set in New England, the stories spanning three centuries. Often short story collections feel disjointed to me, but Shattuck cleverly wrote these stories in pairs where a question or minor moment or object in one story is resolved or shows up in the following story, often in surprising ways. Each story felt like a little bit of an Easter egg hunt. This book reminds me that what we experience is only one tiny sliver of what someone else might experience and there are whole worlds and truths that we don’t even know exist. Highly recommend – the stories are poignant, thoughtful, and smart. I read this collection once then immediately went back and read it all again.

The No-Show by Beth O’Leary read by Evanna Lynch, Hether Long, Kathryn Drysdale, and Luke Thompson – I’ve generally liked Beth O’Leary on audio – her novels are well paced and I usually find her characters flawed but not annoyingly so. Full disclosure, I might have wanted to listen to this book because Luke Thompson of Bridgerton was one of the narrators. This novel is told from the point of view of three different women, each of whom gets stood up on Valentine’s Day by a man called Joseph Carter. It turns out that they’ve all been stood up by the same man. I found this book really frustrating for the first two thirds; I kept thinking “I don’t know how O’Leary is going to redeem Joseph Carter.” But then the last third I found really beautiful. There is a bit of a twist in the story and once the twist is unraveled, I really liked how the rest of the story unfolded. But oh boy, it was a long time getting there, and Joseph Carter remains a little less than fully formed, even in the end.

Mindset by Carol Dweck – This book was on a lot of lists of influential behavioral psychology books to read. Dweck talks about the importance of a growth mindset over a fixed mindset – the idea that people who believe change and growth are possible will have more success than those who think their personality and skillset is innate. I found this book really repetitive. Maybe the idea was pretty revolutionary when the book was first published, but I feel like the idea of a growth mindset is pretty prevalent these days, so I didn’t gain any new insights.

Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez – I’ve never read a Jimenez book before so when I saw it at a Little Free Library, I brought it home with me. This novel is about Vanessa, a travel vlogger with an incurable genetic disease who is suddenly left in charge of her infant niece, and Adrian, the hot lawyer/landlord next door who befriends her. I thought the first few chapters were pretty funny, and I loved the meet cute, but ultimately I found Vanessa and Adrian had only lukewarm chemistry, the main conflict a little forced, and the resolution implausible – it was oddly melodramatic and tedious at the same time. And the ending made me want to scream. So I guess all in all, entertaining and pleasant enough, but the writing and the plotting never got off the ground for me. Tell me if I should give Jimenez another chance.

On My Proverbial Night Stand:

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd- my current audiobook for my commute

The Euatace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope- still plugging away at this serial novel. Lizzie Eustace still won’t give those diamonds back.

Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler- reading this for my Lenten Reading group.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward – I’ve been using my iPad a lot for work lately and I haven’t been wanting to use it for reading so I’ve been working through my TBR of books I’ve picked up at various Little Free Libraries. There are a couple of LFL in my area that have really solid literary novel collections. This was one of those books. It’s kind of sad but full of good people.

Any good re-reads lately? Do you have a lot of Little Free Libraries where you are? Recommend me more good behavioral psychology books – I’m looking for my next non-fiction read.

Books Read, March 2026

Bookish quote of the month, from the New York Times By the Book interview with Grant Grinder last February:

“Does a book help you feel less alone?” – I love that as a yardstick for books. I think there are so many ways books can help me feel less alone – they can show me people like me so that I know I’m not the only “Asian American failed potential Ivy League-educated daughter of immigrants and mother to young children” out there (or any one of those descriptors really). But also, a book can fill my world with people and adventures so that even though reading can be a solo activity, I still feel like my existence is very rich with humanity. I guess this is why when one is stuck on a desert island one would want books.

And on to last month’s books:

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? A Memoir by Saemus O’Reilly, read by the author – O’Reilley recounts his childhood in Ireland, growing up as one of 11 children being raised by his single dad after his mother passes away. I picked up this book after reading Say Nothing because I was interested in reading another perspective about what it was like living in Ireland during the Troubles. The Troubles aren’t a huge part of O’Reilly’s narrative, but rather is a constant shadow in the background. What I loved this book for, though, is O’Reilly’s loving and clear eyed portrait of his father, a man who raises 11 kids single handedly without fuss or sentimentality, but with lots of love. If you are interested in big families, I highly recommend this book. I laughed out loud so many times when reading this book. One of my favorite quotes I read this month came from this book. Whenever one of the kids asked his father how he managed to raise 11 children on his own, he would reply:

“Which of you was I supposed to give back?“

I love that as a combination of no nonsense wit and deep affection for his children.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K.J. Charles read by Marty Swain – I loved this romance novel about two men who have a fling at an inn, only to discover months later that one (Joss) is a smuggler, and the other (Gareth) is the baronet of Joss’ little corner of England. Both Joss and Gareth were characters that I could root for and I really liked how their relationship starts as one thing and kept evolving as they warily and carefully got to know each other. There is a lively cast of side characters which is always fun. At first I didn’t like the audiobook narrator – I thought he was a little uppity in tone, but then I realized that he sounded a little bit like Colin Firth and suddenly I liked him a lot more.

101 Dalmations by Dodie Smith – Read aloud with the kids. The lady who wrote I Capture the Castle also wrote a children’s novel! I didn’t know that. Anyhow, I originally got this to read out loud with the kids in December because a good portion of this book takes place in the lead up to Christmas. It’s a charming book with lots of fun animal characters.

House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City Book 1) by Sarah Maas – So one day last fall, I was making dinner and suddenly the 14 year old comes into the kitchen, earphones in, clutching her phone, bawling her eyes out, as if her heart were breaking. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“She died!!” the 14 year old cried, inconsolable. She cried for at least fifteen minutes.
Anyhow… this is that book. The 14 year old recommended it to me, and while fantasy is not my usual fare, I like to read something she’s read once in a while. It’s fun to ask her questions as I read and talk to her about the book. And, yes, the death in question was a real doozy. This book is one in a trilogy that features angels, mermaids/mermen, curses, magic, the underworld, immortal life, war, betrayal, intrigue, romance… so much packed in there. Will I read the other books? Probably not. This book was loooooong. And so much world building. I have a hard time with books where there is so much world building that I feel like I need a chart to keep track of everything. But I thought the twisty plot was certainly entertaining, and the relationship that develops between the two main characters was a very satisfying slow burn.

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams – continuing my efforts to read down my shelf of books I bring home from Little Free Libraries. This novel tells the story of Eva and Shane, two authors who had an intense connection over a couple days as teenagers and haven’t seen each other since, even though their writing is heavily influenced by their memories of those high school days. I enjoyed this book – it combines breezy humour and deeply felt trauma. Eva and Shane were by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching. I really enjoyed the writing, and the structure of the story unfolding in one week (with a few flashbacks). The ending felt a little forced/rushed to me, though – I felt like there were a lot of issues that didn’t get resolved – but maybe healing the trauma is not the story that is being told?

A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by K.J. Charles – The sequel to The Secret Lives of Country Gentleman. This book tells the story of Luke (a minor but important character in The Secret Lives…) who for mysterious reasons takes a job as the secretary to Rufus, the new Earl of Oxney. Of course love and intrigue ensue. I have to say, I didn’t like this one as much as the first book, but I still enjoyed it. While I really liked both Luke and Rufus, I thought the plot was not as tight as in The Secret Lives, and because these two books are intertwined, I found the weaker plot disappointing.

The Innocents by Francesca Segal – This is a retelling of The Age of Innocence, set in a tight knit wealthy Jewish community in modern day London. I always find retellings fascinating to read. I like seeing how an author molds one story to fit their own, seeing what works well transplanted and what feels like a stretch. I often wonder if a retelling would work for me if one didn’t know the original source material. Anyhow, I thought this novel was fine. Adam (the Archer Newland character) had a little bit more self awareness than Archer – I didn’t feel like he was deceiving himself as to his feelings towards Ellie (the Ellen counterpart). His fiancée Rachel was certainly not as interesting or complex as May in Wharton, though. I think what didn’t land for me was a) Adam and Ellie’s relationship felt very abrupt and lacked chemistry, and b) that I felt like Segal’s version was a little heavy-handed; some things that Wharton would talk about in an oblique, ironic fashion, Segal would hammer into the reader. And because of this lack of irony, I think in the end there isn’t anything tragic about Adam, not in the same way that Archer is kind of a pathetic figure at the end of The Age of Innocence.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans – I finally got this hugely buzzy book off hold. I love me an epistolatory novel, which is why I picked this book up in the first place. I tore through it and then went back to read it a little more slowly, to savor every nuance and all the things said and unsaid. I will say that I don’t love “death of a child” as a plot point, so those bits were hard for me, but I found much of the rest of the book stunning – the slow evolution and reveal of each character, and how the book shows the importance of connection and the value of kind patience and love. And the book was so funny and on point. I also really loved how Sybil wasn’t the protagonist of everyone else’s story – I think that’s a real sign of craft when you can write and epistolatory novel where all the characters feel fully developed, even the ones that have no or very few letters.

On My Proverbial Nightstand (I probably have too many books going on right now…) :

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope- Reading this for my Classics Reading Challenge. The prompt was for a novel originally written in serial form. I’ve never read any Trollope before and many lists say this is a good one to start with. Its is such a soap opera!

The Work by Olga Ravn – This is one of those books that came off my holds list and I couldn’t remember how it got there -I was probably doing some late night holding. (I mentioned in a comment on Engie’s blog that putting books on hold late at night is my middle-age lady’s version of getting drunk and waking up in an unfamiliar bed.) I think I put it on my holds because it talks about early motherhood, and I’m always up to read about someone’s experience of early motherhood. It’s been a little visceral and esoteric at the same time.

10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People by David Yeager – I had heard this book mentioned a couple times in the past month – maybe it’s Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? I’m constantly trying to figure out how to motivate young people, whether it’s my kids or my interns, so I picked this one up.

Felicity Cabot Sells her Soul by Aydra Richards – I’ve been on an historical romance kick (moreso than normal). Not sure if I love this book, but the male main character is doing some really satisfying groveling.

This American Woman written and read by Zarna Garg – Garg played the mother in A Nice Indian Boy and she was charming. This is her memoir about her life growing up in India and how she came to America at age 16 to escape an arranged marriage and eventually became a stand up comedian.

What good books have you read lately? How do books make you feel less alone?

Books Read January and February 2026

I haven’t done a book recap since the year started, so here is what I’ve read the first two months of 2026.

Automatic Noodle by Anna Lee Newitz – This science fiction novella tells about a group of deactivated robots in a post war future San Francisco who open a noodle shop in an abandoned kitchen. I mean how could I resist hand pulled noodles? This book was quirky and charming, exploring – as books about robots are wont to do – ideas of what it means to be human and challenging ideas of ownership. It’s a book about community and overcoming algorithms. It’s a pretty quick comfort read.

You’re the Problem, It’s You by Emma Alban, read by Chris Devon and Will Watt– This queer Victorian romance is an enemies to lovers story of two men who hate each other, but are constantly thrown in each other’s paths because of various society and family events. I thought it was very ordinary, and a touch longer than it needed to be. Plus enemies to lovers is one of my least favorite tropes in romance. On the other hand, it’s narrated by my audio book boyfriend Will Watt, and when the plot got over long, I just leaned into his mellifluous tones.

Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung – This historical fiction novel set in China in 1948, follows Hai Ang the daughter of a prominent family who, along with her mother and younger sisters, are left behind when the rest of their family flees when the Communists come to their village. After Hai is tortured in place of her prosperous family, her mother takes her and her sisters and they being a grueling journey to find the rest of their family. The story is based somewhat on Chung’s family history. I picked up this book to read when I was in Taiwan because the events in this story led to a massive influx of Chinese people into Taiwan – it’s a period of time that my parents lived through as well. I thought this book was gripping – I kept wanting to know what happened and what Hai and her mother would survive each of the challenges put before them. Once they reached Taiwan, though, I thought the story lost a a little momentum. The main heart of this story for me, was Hai’s mother and how she was inextricably tied to this deeply patriarchal society.

The Names by Florence Knapp– I really liked the speculative premise behind this novel- a child is born, his mother must decide what to name him. The story diverges into three paths, each based on which name is chosen. I thought this book was gripping; I stayed up til 4am reading because I needed to know how it ended and what happened to each character. I loved how the storylines intersects through the different realities. Warning, though, domestic violence is a pretty manor plot point, and that was hard for me and kept me from loving the book.

Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais. I picked up this book last summer because it’s set in South Africa and I was getting ready for our trip there. I didn’t actually get around to reading it until I got back, though. This book is set in 1976 where, in the aftermath of the Soweto uprisings, Beauty Mbali searches for her missing teenage daughter and 9 year old Robin is taken to live with her aunt after her parents are murdered. Circumstances bring Beauty and Robin together and in the shadow of Apartheid they grapple with grief, racism, and loss. I thought this book was really great up til the last quarter of it when it kind of became a slightly ridiculous adventure/espionage story. Overall, though, I found this book to be a real page turner.

Good Spirits by B.K. Borison, read by Karissa Vacker and Will Watt. Another audiobook read by my audiobook boyfriend Will Watt. But aside from Will Watt, this also has another thing that is catnip to me: it’s a spin on Christmas Carol. Ghost of Christmas Past Nolan has been assigned to haunt Harriet York, though neither can figure out why as Harriet is lovely, kind, nice (to the point of being a door mat) with no skeletons in her closet. I really enjoyed this story and how Nolan and Harriet’s relationship unfolded – I was really rooting for both of them and the “ghost loves human” romance had just the right amount of conflict and angst. The ending felt a little unresolved, but that didn’t bother me that much. It’s kind of like a cozy Hallmark Holiday movie with a bit more spice and plot.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. This narrative non-fiction read is about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, explored through the lens of the disappearance of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten. The “Memory” part of the subtitle is, I would argue, the focus of the story that Keefe is telling here – how the trauma of war affects those who live through it for the rest of their lives. This is one of those non-fiction books that I read and I can understand how people become radicals, even while asking myself if I would do the same if I were in their place. I really enjoyed the book – it was fascinating and heartbreaking all at once- the kind of book where I could marvel at the details and ingenuity of both sides of the conflict while at the same time being incredibly moved by the tragedy of the situation. Really excellent read.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, read by Michael Crouch and January LaVoy – I found this book on a list of Audie award winners (audiobook award) and was prompted to pick it up because it starts in Nova Scotia, and that is kind of cat nip for me. It is set during WWI – field nurse Laura Ivan has returned home to Halifax following an injury on the front. She finds out that her brother Freddie has gone missing, presumed dead, but she believes that he is still alive so she accepts a nursing job that will take her back to the front, Belgium to be specific, so that she can look for her brother. In a parallel storyline, the reader follows Freddie who has woken up after an explosion, trapped in a pillbox (I had to Google that) with a German Soldier. As Freddie and Laura’s storylines converge, we encounter wartime plots, people desperate for answers and connection, and a mysterious Innkeeper who plays the violin. There is a bit of a supernatural story here, but one that is so embedded in the minds of people traumatized by war that it doesn’t seem supernatural at all. I loved this book – it took me a little bit of time to really get into this book, but eventually, the story sucked me right in; there is emotional heft in the choices that each character has to make, the characters are brave but not stupid, and the mystery unspools at just the right pace, allowing the reader to piece things together. The writing is lyrical and precise- there were so many sentences where I was blown away by the way Arden strung words together. The author’s note at the end, I thought had a really interesting take on how WWI was a very steampunk era where the old and new collided. I loved this book so much that after I finished the audiobook, I got the physical book from the library. This was my first “heart” in my reading journal for 2026.

Big Bad Wool by Leonie Swann translated by Amy Bojang – This is a sequel to Three Bags Full, a mystery novel in which a flock of sheep hilariously solve mysteries. (Which – I’m am very excited to discover – is about to be a movie starring Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson – talk about catnip!) In Big Bad Wool, the sheep are at it again. I’ve got to be honest, the mystery part of this novel was completely over my head and at times tedious. I am here for the sheep – they are hilarious, witty, curious, and their observations about human foibles had me laughing out loud many times.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Read for Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club. This was a re-read for me; I had read it maybe twenty five years ago, around when the movie came out. I really loved this book – I loved how immersive the language is and how I felt like I just had to sink into Wharton’s prose world in order to have an idea of what was going on. It’s not a book that tries to hit you over the head right away. So much goes unsaid or is assumed that I think there is much room for interpretations as to what each character is really like or what motivates them. A friend told me that Wharton wrote books about interior design and that makes so much sense because I really felt like she was so precise about the physical world that her characters live in, and that was in stark contrast to how little she said about their true interior world. I mean the novel is from Archer’s POV, but he lacks self awareness and that precision that is present in his exterior world, and this makes his interior musing unreliable. Anyhow, I think this kind of open for interpretation nature of Archer made for some lively debate every week on Engie’s posts. This book checked off one box for my 2026 Classics Reading Challenge.

On my proverbial night stand:
House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City Trilogy) by Sarah J. Maas – still plugging away at this book. I just got to the part that had my 14 year old bawling inconsolably. (I’ve never bawled at a book myself, but this was a real doozy and I get why she was inconsolable.)

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K.J. Charles – on audio. Almost done – I have twenty minutes left. I’m really enjoying this one.

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams – also almost done this one. It’s really well written, sweet and sexy and also a great mother/daughter dynamic.

So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba – I was reading this as a book set in Africa for my Classics Reading Challenge, but then I realized it was first published in 1979 and the challenge is for books written before 1975. Oh well, I’m going to count it anyway.

How’s your 2026 Reading life so far?

2025 Reading + 2026 Reading Challenge

OMG – it’s February. Does anyone care about my 2025 reading life? Well, here are some thoughts on it anyhow…

In 2025, I read 67 books. (seems appropriate…). I don’t do extensive tracking of statistics; I keep a reading journal where I write down the name of each book and my thoughts on it. If I really liked a book, I put a little heart by it in my book journal. Sometimes I write down quotes, but I also record quotes in my Highlighted app because it automatically finds your book by scanning the ISBN number and then I can just use my camera to pull quotes. Highlighted also makes it easy to paste quotes into a blog post if I want.

Over all, 67 books is a lot for me – usually I average 50 or so. Not sure how I read so many books. Many of them were audio, which makes it easy to fit in a book when I had a long commute. But, out of the 67, only 12 books earned a little “heart” next to them in my journal – that’s about 18 percent. I would like to love more than 18% of the books that I read. It doesn’t mean that the other 82% were bad, just that only these 12 made me sigh with blissful satisfaction when I finished reading them, this feeling of wanting more, but also of having had a perfect reading (or listening) experience.

Anyhow, on to…

MY “HEART” READS 2026


My three top reads were memoirs, and each one gave me a quote that stuck with me all year. I listened to all of these on audio, and then loved them so much I re-visited them in print.
What the Dead Know: Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher. “When you leave here [autopsy work] each day, surround yourself with things of beauty. Enjoy nature and art and food and music and love. Just do it, and don’t skip a day. Seriously.”
The grisly yet human details about dealing with death every single day sucked me in.

-Shakespeare, or the Man who Pays the Rent by Judy Dench and Brenden O’Hea. “Everyone is nervous. It’s not your business to make more of it.” (said, regarding the first day of rehearsal.)
I loved this book, a series of interviews with Dame Judy Dench where she deep dives into the Shakespeare characters she has played while musing on her life in theatre. If you are interested in Shakespeare or life in the theatre, I highly recommend this book.

–Mailman: My Wild Life Delivering Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant “Don’t quit today. Finish your route, but don’t quite today.”, advice given him on a particularly bad day at work.
This book featured so many fascinating peeks at how the postal system works as well as Starring’s thoughts on how Americans live day to day.

Other Favorites:
-My Season of Scandal by Julie Anne Long – romance. I really loved how the two main characters develop first as friends and had a real rapport. The “sophisticated world weary hero brought down by the girl fresh from the country” is the trope, but this story feels like so much more.
-The Seven Year Slip by Ashely Potson – Time travel romance that just sucked me in even though I don’t usually like time travel. Novel that also explores grief and timing and pushing through life.
-The Finest Print by Erin Langston – Lovely romance, rich in detail about running a printing press and a main characters who are sensible and not stupid.
-Clear by Carys Davies – This book about the last man left on a Scottish island and the minister who is sent to evict him really drew me in and took me by surprise.
-Hail Mary by Andy Weir – Science Fiction, not usually my thing, but what a beautifully human story.
-The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso – novel set in Cape Town about two cantankerous old women who think they’ve settled into life but then are thrown a curve ball.
-Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela + Winnie and Nelson by -The former book was so inspirational and the latter book showed that even the most inspirational figures can be deeply flawed.
-The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, adapted into a stunning audioplay for Amazon Studios.

On to Next This Year: One of my Reading aspirations for 2026 was to read more classics – I felt like I read a lot of the same genre last year, namely memoir and romance. I wanted to read more books that were a little less in my vernacular, that might be a bit of a challenge. I found this Classics Reading Challenge from The Tea and Ink Society and I like the prompts. I like that “Classics” means anything written before 1975, so it’s not just dense Victorian tomes. Most of Agatha Christie was written before 1975! I’m looking forward to reading a few Golden Age mysteries. I’m not going to do the challenges in the month order listed, but I think I’ll get through them by the end of the year all the same – it’s only 12 books, surely I can fit that in.

Here are some of my thoughts of what to read:

January: A “serial novel” you read throughout the course of the year
-I think I’m going to read either Anthony Trollope or Elizabeth Gaskell for this. I just discovered the Serial app that will send you a novel in serial form, one chunk every day. I love that idea, though I don’t love the idea of reading on my phone.

February: A nonfiction journal or diary
– I have Ned Rorem’s New York Diaries in my TBR for about 20 years now, and I also have Martha Ballard’s A Midwife’s Tale on hold.

March: A book from the classics section of your local library
-Okay, so there is no “classics” section at my library – it’s all in the fiction. Also, the play section of the library is paltry, barely even a third of a shelf. Which is all to say… not quite sure what I’ll do for this one.

This is the shamefully paltry drama section at my library.

April: A classic Western novel or short story collection
No clue what to read for this one – I’ll take suggestions.

May: An Edith Wharton novel
The Age of Innocence – thanks to Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club for filling this slot.

June: A book set in Africa
Things Fall Apart if the obvious one. I also just put a hold on So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ, translated by Modupé Bodé-Thomas. I want to read a book by an African author for this one, not a colonizer.

July: A classic thriller
I’ve recently read about an Australian author named Mary Fortune who was one of the earliest female writers of detective fiction. Other ideas: Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Something by Ngaio Marsh? I want to read a female author for this.

August: A book written under a pseudonym
-James Herriott? George Orwell (I haven’t read 1984 yet)? Maya Angelou?

September: A short classic under 200 pages
I think for this, I might read a play. I picked up a copy of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour from the Library’s bookstore. Or maybe I should read/listen to a Shakespeare that I haven’t experienced before.

October: A classic novel featuring brothers
-This will be East of Eden; it’s been on my TBR for a very long time.

November: A classic novel featuring sisters
Well I’ve read the obvious ones (Little Women, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Howards End [one of my favorite books!], the Little House books), so I’m on the look out for other literary sisters. Edith Wharton wrote a novella called Bunner Sisters. The Penderwicks? Chekov’s The Three Sisters? We Have Always Lived in the Castle? Daughter’s and Wives?

December: A wintry mystery
No clue what to read for this one – I’ll take suggestions.

Are you doing a reading challenge this year? Any favorite Classics that you would recommend for any of these categories?

Books Read – October, November, and December 2025

Rounding out my 2025 reading, here are the books I read in the last quarter of 2025. Most of the reading for these three months were cozy, comfort reads – lots of romance and good people and happy ever afters. Life was busy and this was just what I needed in my reading life.

Whalefall by Elizabeth O’Connor, read by Dyfrig Morris, Gabrielle Glaister, Gwyneth Keyworth, Jot Davies, Nick Griffiths– This book is about the inhabitants of a remote Welsh island where a dead whale washes up on shore (hence the title), followed soon after by a pair of English researchers. Those two incidents are not related, but parallel each other throughout the story. The story is told through the eyes of Manfred, a teenager who lives on the island with her father and younger sister. Even as Manfred wants to leave the island there are many things holding her there, and the book talks a lot about that pull between life on the island and the world beyond. (Incidentally, this is the third “Island” book I’ve read this year, after Clear and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.) I thought this book was fascinating – I really liked the characters and learning about their life on the Island. I had to google some things, which I also like. I also liked that the parts of the book that were supposed to be from the researcher’s recordings, were engineered in the audiobook to sound like they were being played on an old gramophone, giving it a real sense of time and place. My one thing about this audiobook, though, is that the narrators’ voices and accents were so beautiful, that sometimes I would get lost in the lilting cadence of the narration and would lose track of the plot.

Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley – well written novel that follows Coralie, an Australian writer who moves to London, falls in love and marries a single father Adam, and the domestic path their life together takes, all set against the backdrop of Brexit then COVID. On the scale of plot vs. character, this book solidly falls into the character driven. It’s not about big exciting developments, but about how the actions of every day can erode one’s sense of self. So much of what Coralie felt really resonated with me, and I found myself highlighting so many passages. I have to be honest, though, ultimately this book felt a little flat – I liked the parts more than the whole. Maybe it felt too much like my life?

for example:
“She was like a sandcastle, and Adam and the kids were like the sea, eroding her and flattening her with their proximity and demands. If she went for a walk, or listened to a podcast, she could begin rebuilding her ramparts, only to get knocked down again by wave after wave of needs.” p. 278

“It appeared she had breached the anger/sadness barrier. She’d become sad enough for Adam to care about her more than he hated conflict.” p. 74
As a mildly conflict avoidant person, I think I’m Adam in this scenario.

or this one:
“On Saturday, when Adam texted “Ready”, she let herself into the house, hurried upstairs, and threw herself onto Florence’s bed. Her children jumped on her, comb marks in their wet hair, hair beautiful faces shining. She read to them and cuddled them. She put them in bed, then back into bad when they got out. She shushed them when they chatted. She sat in the corner until they slept. This was shat she’d thought being a mother would be like. Doing one thing at a time, and kindly.” p. 311
One thing at at time, and kindly – I think that’s what I aspire too, and so rarely achieve.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa- The Professor can’t remember anything for more than 80 minutes. The Housekeeper comes to work for him, bringing her ten year old son along. The professor the housekeeper, and the son for a bond. I thought the premise of this book was charming – and it initially was, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I find Japanese Fiction a little cold and distant for my tastes. The characters all come to have great affection for each other, but when they are pulled apart no one seems to fight for the relationship. The Japanese fiction that I’ve read this year (and I’ve read three or four novels by Japanese authors), all read very fable-like, and the characters never seem to grow on me – they all seem to be going through the motions of living, checking boxes, even when they have existential crises. I’m happy to be proven wrong if someone wants to suggest a Japanese novel where the character have a little bit of self awareness.

Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz, production by LA TheatreWorks – I realized that many of LA Theatreworks’ recordings of plays can be found on Libby, so I’ve decided to listen to as many Pulitzer Prize winners as I can. I love plays, but I think part of what makes them come alive is the different voices, something that I don’t get when I jsut read them. Anna and the Tropics is about a family that works/runs a cigar factory. They hire a Lector to come in to read to the workers while they roll cigars. The play centers around how the lives in the family shifts when a new charismatic lector comes and reads them Anna Karenina. I remember when this play came out – there was a lot of buzz surrounding it, and Nilo Cruz. The audio version is a little hard for me to keep all the characters and relationships straight in my head, but ultimately it was a pretty gripping drama. Made me want to read Anna Karenina. I had read it once in high school, but I don’t think it really stuck with me.

The First Time at Firelight Falls by Julie Anne Long – I really love Julie Anne Long’s historical romance novels, so I thought I’d read one of her contemporary romances. This small town romance tells the story of single mom Eden and ex-Navy SEAL now school principal Gabe who keep running into each other and having cute and witty banter. It’s pretty typical small town romance stuff with a resourceful independent business owner (Eden is a florist), the competence porn school principal, and lots of fun side characters, some of whom turn out to surprise me in a nice way. I did find the “getting involved with the school principal” bit a little… icky, but I guess it’s a small town and the hot single school principal deserves love too. The plot itself is kind of nothing too exciting, but I thought the writing was pretty good. I’m on the fence as to whether or not I want to read the other books in the series as I wait for Long to come out with another Palace of Rogue book; this book was absolutely a solid read, but I think there is something about Long’s historicals that just feel more exciting to me.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Read for Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club. This was a re-read for me, and I got behind and didn’t participate too much in the book club, though I had lots of thoughts. I think it was interesting for me to read this twenty years after I read it the first time. There are parts of it that seem a little dated, but also parts where I wondered if Tan (or her editors) felt the need to kind of dumb things down because a lot of Chinese culture wasn’t mainstream. For example, there is one part where one character talks about large grapefruits, and I knew instantly this was a pomelo. I feel that nowadays, you would just write “pomelo” and expect the reader to either know what that is or to look it up. Or an author would write something like, “grapefruit like pomelo.” It seemed like everything had to be written so that non-Chinese people could read it without feeling like the things were too foreign. Exotic okay, but not foreign.
The Book Riot podcast Zero to Well-Read just did a whole episode on this book. They gave a lot of context as to why this book has been so groundbreaking; the background on where the publishing industry was in the mid-late 80s was really fascinating for me. I don’t know that I agree with everything they say – I do think the book is more dated than they do, and also I think they see a bigger arc in the stories than I did – but it was interesting to hear thoughts about the book.

Charm City Rocks: A Love Story, by Matthew Norman, read by Kristen DiMercurio – This novel tells about single dad music teacher Billy Perkins who gets to meet his rock-star crush, drummer Margot Hammer. His teenage son, knowing of his dad’s crush, tricks Margo into coming to Baltimore to meet them, awkwardness and romance ensues. The book takes place in Baltimore, which was very much a character in the novel; I wanted to go visit all the areas that are mentioned in this book. I thought this book was really charming. I liked the super niche glimpses into the world of rock music; I liked how specific each detail in the book is; I liked how I was rooting for all the characters, even the oblivious cheating ex-husband. I also really liked that the two main characters are older – Billy’s son is a senior in high school – and there are so many layers in their lives that they have to balance. Billy’s a very nice person. Margot is also a very nice person. I like romance novels about very nice people where there is chemistry from the start and they are just trying to live life and figure out how to be together and get over their baggage. And the book is funny. I laughed out loud many times as I listened. This book had such affection for it’s characters, for Baltimore, for music, and for music educators.

Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant, read by the author – Back in 2020, Grant lost his corporate job at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. In order to get health insurance, he takes a job as a rural mail carrier in West Virginia, where he lives. I loved this book. I loved the fascinating minutia about being a mail carrier, the details he goes into about how mail is sorted so that it can be delivered efficiently and correctly, the chapter where he writes about what he carries with him on the route, the details like how Slim Jims become magical greasy goodness when left on the dashboard and how Frosted Cherry Gatorade is the flavor of choice of postal carriers. But also I loved how Grant writes about the things he learns, the wild stories of mail deliveries gone wrong, the people he meets, and the existential questions that he contemplates, about what divides us and what brings us together. Looking at America through the lens of the Postal Service offers a unique perspective on all the many layers of humanity in this country. Some of my favorite quotes that I read all year comes from this book, like when Grant has a truly awful day on his route and calls a co-worker to bail him out and his co-worker tells him (and I’m paraphrasing), “Don’t quit today. Go back, finish your route and you can quit tomorrow, but don’t quit today.” Don’t quit today. I want to engrave that on a pillow.

Also this observation about why he was never worried, during election season about people stealing the mail from him: “Why grab a few ballots when you can grab the whole US Capitol?”

The Finest Print by Erin Langston read by Mary Jane Wells and Will Watt – Will Watt! I didn’t love Langston’s previous novel, but then this one was narrated by Will Watt, so I had to give it a try. I ended up really loving this book. This novel, set in Victorian London, tells the story of Belle, an aspiring writer and Nathaniel an American journalist. Nathaniel inherits an printing press, but needs to make money fast in order to save it from being repossessed by creditors. He convinces Belle to write Penny Bloods (more commonly known as Penny Dreadfuls) which start selling like hotcakes. I really liked how the relationship between Belle and Nathaniel progressed, their easy banter, and their devotion to each other from the beginning. There was a mature kind of romantic tension between them which is refreshing in a romance novel – no coy will they or won’t they. They very much will, and do. I also loved all the details about the printing press and how Penny Bloods got printed – there was such a strong sense of place in this book – you could feel the effort it took to work the presses, smell the grease, see the ink smudges everywhere. Very much enjoyed this one. Also that cover is terrible. I get a back ache just looking at it.

Some Winter’s Evening by Erin Langston – I read this after finishing The Finest Print because I wanted to continue the warm fuzzy feeling of that book. This is a novella about Belle’s parents, Cora and Gavin. They meet one evening when snowbound at an Inn. Cora is on her way to start a new position as a governess; Gavin is on her way to her sister’s house. Surprise surprise, Cora’s new employer is Gavin’s sister. (That sister, also turns out to be the heroine of Langston’s first book Forever Your Rogue.) This book was .. fine. I mean I feel like shagging your employer’s brother in the conservatory isn’t a great thing to do, but hey, it’s a romance novel.

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston: This novel tells about Clementine who wakes up in her apartment one day to find there is a man in there. And not just any man, a man from seven years in the past. A cute, charming, man from seven years in the past. I really loved this book; I stayed up until 4am reading it because I just had to know how it ended. I didn’t used to think I liked time travel type books, but I think there is an element of angsty longing inherent in the plot device that I love sinking into. Aside from the romance, though, I just really enjoyed getting to know these characters and their friends and struggles with life, work, and the sadnesses with which they live. I want to read more by Poston now – I had previously found her supernatural elements in her novels unappealing, but her writing and her characters might have won me over.

Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman – A second Matthew Norman book for me. Grace and Henry are both mourning the loss of their respective spouses. Their family tries to set them up, and while neither are ready to move on yet, they fall into a sympathetic friendship, bonding over holiday movies and the awkward social reality of losing a spouse. Like Charm City Rocks, this book takes place in Baltimore and Norman’s love for the city really shines through. I really enjoyed this book – it’s funny, fully of good people, and a vibrant sense of place. There is a little less conflict/ drama than in Charm City Rocks, so the plot isn’t as taut, but I still felt invested in the characters. It’s a cozy read, like hanging out in your pajamas with your best friend. And all the Holiday movie references were a lot of fun. (After reading this book, I finally decided to watch The Family Stone, and I have to say, what an awful movie! I don’t know why it’s on so many Best Holiday Movies Lists.)

Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishoi – a slight novella about two sisters trying to survive the Christmas season (and life) despite their alcoholic father’s constant unemployment. This started off as one of those books narrated by a clear eyed and resourceful child surviving hard times and I was really rooting for good things to happen to them, then the ending went a little bizarre for me.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi, translated by Lin King – I picked up this National Book Award-winning book to read while in Taiwan because I like linking my reading to my travel. This book is a little bit of a trompe l’oeil effect – it is told in the form of non fiction travel writing- there is even a prologue where a professor tells a little about the history of the “Travelogue”. But the book is very much fiction. (I read that some people were so taken in by the framing device that they thought it was indeed a non-fiction book and were upset to find that it wasn’t, leading to a redesign of the cover.). Beneath the descriptions of food — and oh boy the food writing is excellent – and places in Taiwan, there is the story of the novelist Aoyama Chizuko and her relationship with her translator and guide Chizuru. I think I liked the concept of this book more than the actual substance of it. The framework of writing a travelogue of Taiwan was interesting and I felt like I learned a lot about Taiwanese food and history. However, much as I was interested in what happened to the two main characters, I ultimately found their relationship one dimensional, which made that part of the book a little unsatisfying. I did really enjoy the translator’s notes at the end- another meta twist that I thought was really thoughtful and interesting.

On my Proverbial Night Stand:

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe – almost done this book. It’s been gripping and sad. The stuff that goes down after the Good Friday Agreement is wild.

Good Spirits by B.K. Borison – such a lovely cozy romance. On audio.

House of Earth and Blood by Sara J. Maas – Not my usual fare, but reading it because the 14 year old loves this series.

Books Read September 2025

September was a solid reading month. One very “meh” book, but lots of entertaining reading otherwise. I’m looking ahead to my reading for the rest of the year and I think I would like to focus on fun reads since it’s going to be busy. Maybe some holiday reading. And also maybe something really fun/engrossing/immersive to read for the plane trip to Taiwan.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, read by Ray Porter. This very popular novel is about a scientist/ middle school science teacher, Ryland Grace, who gets involved in a plan to save the world from destruction and is sent with a team to the far reaches of the galaxy to carry out said plan. Along the way, his fellow travellers do not survive so he has to carry out the mission on his own. Or maybe not on his own. I didn’t know what the book was about when I first picked it up, only that it was getting a lot of raves. Science fiction/space travel really isn’t my thing, but I really loved this book. The science really went over my head, but there is such a human element to the story telling. I’ve read a few books the past few years – this is one, Ministry of Time is another – that have made me realize that I really like books that try to explain what it’s like to be human to an outsider, in all it’s contradictory, messy, fragility. I though Ray Porter did a really good job reading the audio version.
Funny story – the 13 year old noticed I was listening to the book and she got so excited because she had listened to it a few years ago and also loved the book and couldn’t wait for me to finish it so we could talk about it together. Also there’s a movie coming out next year… I’m so intrigued about how they make the story work!

Fat Ham by James Ijames, production by Audible Originals. I’ve recently discovered that Audible has a large selection of plays in their collection, many of which they produced themselves. I like listening to plays because they are shorter than books, but pack just as big of a wallop. Also – I don’t get to the theatre very often and this is like bringing the theatre to me. Fat Ham, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022, is a modern day re-telling of Hamlet, set against the backdrop of a Black family’s BBQ empire. I really liked seeing where the story paralleled Hamlet and where it offered a twist on the Shakespeare. It was kind of irreverent and fun but also thoughtful and emotional. Listening to Fat Ham has prompted me to try to read/ listen to all the Pultizer Prize winning plays of the 2000s. Maybe this will be my reading project for next year.

Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg. I read this after reading Nelson Mandela’s biography and this books was fascinating. All the infidelities and violence and family drama that gets glossed over in Long Walk to Freedom are detailed here. Winne Mandela’s life in particular was really fraught. While Nelson was in jail, she had to raise her two daughters, was constantly unemployed. She was banned to a rural part of South Africa, she assembled a group of bodyguards under the guise of being a football club that carried out some truly violent acts, all the while trying to advocate for the end of Apartheid. Reading this book made the Mandelas more human, framing their fight against apartheid with very human struggles that we all face- looking for love and friendship, making ill advised choices, financial difficulties, temptations, protecting the people you love, work life balance…. Of course, there is something extraordinary about the context of their struggles – I don’t imagine I’m going to have a spouse in jail for thirty years, or that I’m going to be under house arrest – extraordinary situations make for extraordinary choices.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett – This book is told in diary format, as Professor Emily Wilde records her experience researching fairies on a remote Scandinavian village. I have to be honest, this was not a book for me, even though I pushed on to the end. I thought the diary format was not really well executed, and the story stretched the limits of the diary device. At one point, another character starts writing in the journal, which just felt forced. The world building was really hard for me to follow and I still don’t really understand what all was happening. I did like the gruff village inhabitants and the dog, though.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige – This novel details the search for a lost hiker on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. It is told through three main perspectives – the lost hiker, the Maine Warden who is leading the search, and a 72 year woman living in a retirement home. This book has been billed as a “thriller”, so I wasn’t really sure if it would be for me because that’s not really my genre, but it’s been getting a lot of buzz and I kept reading about people loving this book, so I decided to pick it up when I saw it at the library. I will say, it didn’t come across as a thriller to me – rather I felt that the mystery of whether or not Valerie would be found, while gripping, took backseat to the characters’ personal stories. I was really sucked in by that character driven aspect of the novel, each character seemed to genuine and well drawn to me and I really liked that.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten read by the author- This cozy memoir is a perfect autumn read. Garten recounts her life from growing up in Brooklyn to working in DC government to buying The Barefoot Contessa in the attempt to escape her career in bureaucracy. Listening to Garten talk about food and friends and dinner parties made me want to invite a bunch of people over for an impromptu dinner party; the descriptions of food were mouth watering. Garten also talks about the challenges she faced personally, professionally, and financially as she builds her empire. I really liked hearing about how she made certain choices about Barefoot Contessa and projects she was willing or not willing to take on. I do always take memoirs of very successful people with a grain of salt, though, because I think even though it’s clear that Garten is super smart and driven and savvy, she clearly had a lot of support when crafting her career. Sometimes memoirs make it seem super easy to become wildly successful, like good things just happen, but it does seem to me that people who are successful entrepreneurs have a lot of personal and financial connections that they can leverage. I still really enjoyed this book, though.

On my proverbial night stand:
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Cool Blogger’s Book Club read.

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe- 2018 non-fiction book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s. I guess reading about civil conflict has been a theme of my non-fiction reading this year.

Say You’ll Be Mine by Naina Kumar – Romance novel featuring the fake engagement of two people who are introduced through the matchmaking efforts of their Indian parents.

Do you like reading memoirs? What are you looking forward to reading to round out the year? Have you ever listened to a play in audio?