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The Vaster Wilds
The Vaster Wilds ~ Lauren Groff Lauren Groff reread two classics to her kids, Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. Reading them as an adult gave her a new perspective, and instead of seeing them as adventure stories, she saw them as chilling stories of loneliness and danger. (Side note – Has anyone read the Hatchet YA books, by Gary Paulsen? I really liked those when I read them years ago. This book is 10x better.) The Vaster Wilds is a survival story placed during the Starving Time of the Jamestown colony in 1609. The unnamed protagonist is a teenaged servant girl…
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Someone Else’s Shoes
Someone Else’s Shoes ~ Jojo Moyes Two middle aged women accidentally swap gym bags, putting Nisha and Sam quite literally in each other’s shoes. Nisha is extremely wealthy, or more accurately, she is the wife of a very wealthy man. She keeps her body a certain way (very thin, expensive haircuts and so on), dresses a certain way (think Chanel suits and Louboutin heels), and lives in such a way as to make life extremely easy for her much older husband. Sam is struggling to keep her household afloat. She is in low level sales, and her husband is suffering a serious bout of depression and hasn’t worked in a…
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Mika in Real Life
Mika in Real Life ~ Emiko Jean 35 year old Mika feels like a failure. She’s recently been fired from a dead-end job, her most recent relationship ended badly, and she doesn’t know what to do with her life. When she receives a phone call from Penny, the daughter she gave up for adoption 16 years ago, she very much wants to have a relationship with her, but doesn’t want to admit her life has turned out this way. She wants to appear successful to Penny. So she makes up a more glamorous life, with a career as an artist and a hot boyfriend. All is well so long as…
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When We Believed in Mermaids
When We Believed in Mermaids ~ Barbara O’Neal Dr. Kit Bianchi, an emergency room physician living in Santa Cruz, California, happens to catch a news story on TV about a fire in New Zealand. In the background of the news story, she sees her sister, Josie. The same Josie who died in a terrorist attack 15 years ago in Paris. Kit’s mom also saw the story, and asks Kit to go to New Zealand and see what the hell is going on. In Auckland, Mari is a happily married mother of two who flips houses for a living. Her newest project is a house she wants to fix up and…
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No, I’m Not Feeling Better
I’m not feeling better today. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t laugh a little, and The Onion always does an amazing job when the shit hits the fan. Then there are memes, like this one, which would be funny if they didn’t feel so true. And this one. Here’s one, I think from the first Women’s March. We are tired and angry, but as Harris said yesterday, we cannot stop fighting for a better future. And lastly, here’s a meme of encouragement. Thanks you guys, for being that light for me.
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What the Even Fuck People
I’m sorry to swear like that, but I’m ragey this morning. I hate people. (Not YOU, friends, but everyone elese? YES.) Jenny is right, the sun will come up tomorrow. Ted said this morning that we must be resolute, and that is a good word. We must go on and fight and blah blah blah. You know what? I’ll get there. Today I’m just pissed and scared of what this is going to mean in the world. Affordable Care Act? Ukraine? Palestine? Our economy? Social Security? Our basic human rights? Our courts? I mean, really? THE POPULAR VOTE??? What the even hell. I hate people. I’ll be back tomorrow with…
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The Paris Novel
The Paris Novel ~ Ruth Reichl When Stella’s mother dies, she leaves her a strange inheritance – money and a command to buy a plane ticket to Paris. Stella and her mother had been estranged, so she ignores the command at first, but eventually she goes. In Paris, she continues to live her drab, frugal life for a while, until she happens upon an upscale consignment store with a vintage Dior gown that screams out to her. The gown sets her off on series of unlikely coincidences, and she discovers more about herself, about her mother, and about the person she wants to be. This book was full of so…
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My Oxford Year + Bonus Content
My Oxford Year ~ Julia Whelan (yes, that Julia Whelan) Ella is a young American woman who travels to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar to study for a year. At the same time, she is offered a career changing opportunity to work on a political campaign back in the states, a job she is assured she can do long distance. Oh, and she quickly falls for a sassy local, Jamie, who is teaching one of her classes. They really like each other, but she is only there for one year, so they decide to keep it light, keep it fun, keep it temporary. It’s going to be a busy year.…
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Table for Two
Table for Two ~ Amor Towles Table for Two is comprised of 6 short stories and a novella. Without going into too much detail, because I don’t want to ruin anything for you, below are the bare outlines of the stories. The Line – Irina is a fierce believer in the Bolshevik cause, and she and her husband Pushkin leave their farm to go to Moscow in 1916. Irina is able to find work, but Pushkin cannot, and spends his days standing in line for food and other items, making friends along the way. The Ballad of Timothy Touchett – Timothy works in a rare bookshop, and follows the work…
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Annie Bot and Kairos
Annie Bot ~ Sierra Greer Annie and Doug live in New York City. Her singular goal is to keep him happy, which is not always easy. She cooks and cleans, but not to his exacting specifications. She is always ready for sex, eager to please him in any possible way. Eventually he gets tired of the fact that she doesn’t keep the apartment clean enough, so he brings in a maid, with whom he also sometimes has sex. Annie isn’t jealous though. Annie is a robot. Doug has set her into auto-didactic mode, and she is learning about herself and the world in which she lives. She is starting to…
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The Life Impossible
The Life Impossible ~ Matt Haig Grace Winters is 72 years old, a retired maths teacher who is recently widowed. She has lived in a state of grief and guilt since the death of her young son decades earlier, a death she blames on herself. She is depressed and bored and full of self-hatred. One day, she learns that she has been left a house on the Spanish island of Ibiza, by a co-worker from over 30 years ago, Christina, a woman she didn’t know well, but whose life she impacted mightily. She decides to leave her home in England and go to Ibiza and check out the house, and…
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Day of the Dead
Sorry for the Bonus Post, but I thought I would share the little poster that I put together for Day of the Dead today. This year’s additions are my Great Aunt Flo, who died in early October at the age of 100, and my boy Mulder, who died last year. I didn’t do any sort of altar last year, so just adding him now. I did not grow up with Day of the Dead, I think the first time it occurred to me to do an altar was in 2017 after my Dad died. But I like it. I think of all of these loved ones many times a year,…
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Tell Me Everything
Tell Me Everything ~ Elizabeth Strout Lucy Barton is a writer who has moved from New York City to a small town in Maine. She and her ex-husband went there during the pandemic, and decided to stay (in Maine, and together). Lucy’s gift is that she really listens to people. She has an understanding heart, which helps her with her writing, and to be a good friend. Olive Kitterage is a gruff 90 year old, living in a care facility in this same town. She is a retired school teacher. Bob Burgess is a lawyer, long time friend of Olive, and newer friend of Lucy. Bob’s ex wife Pam had…
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NaBloPoMo 2024 – A Month of Books
I haven’t told you about the books I’m reading much this year. Why? Who knows. Perhaps this is not a lack that you are feeling in your life, but it is a lack in mine. I like being able to go to my blog and do a search for a book or an author years after reading it, and finding that yes, I read it, and maybe I even had an opinion about it. For this reason, I’ve decided that for NaBloPoMo, I’m going to write about the books that I read this year. A lot of them will be familiar to you, because I read about them on your…
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Soup Weather
Back in July, Tobia hosted the Cool Bloggers Summer Salad Challenge, in which she challenged herself (and us) to eat more salads. It was fun to see people sharing salad recipes on their blogs, and also fun to try some of them for myself. Now that we’re easing into soup weather, and it’s feeling like Fall in the northern hemisphere, I thought we could have a Cool Bloggers Autumn Soup Challenge, and share some favorite soup recipes. I think Winter Soup Challenge has a better ring to it somehow, but Winter is 2 months away. I don’t have any new soup recipes for you, but instead will share some of…
