That Month That Was August In 2025

 Sometimes, you just run out of ideas for blog post titles.

Here's what I read in August:

1. Original Sin -- Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Nonfiction. Apparently, President Joe Biden had been struggling with cognitive issues for some time, and his inner circle worked diligently to conceal this so Biden could be a two-term president. Nobody -- family, friends, colleagues, media --  comes off very well in this report. I felt like I needed a shower after I read this book.

2. The Magicians - Lev Grossman. Novel. Audiobook. Sometimes a book will surprise you, and you'll be smitten. It's like Hogworts and Narnia, except with young adults, so that layer of wonder and sanitizing is stripped away, and it's hilarious. Sometimes it feels like a piss-take, but I don't mind at all. Recognizing all the tropes and seeing how the students react is all part of the fun. Don't know if I'll get to all the books in the trilogy, but it's a pleasant goal to contemplate.

3. What Do We Know About The Lost Colony of Roanoke? - Emma Carlson Berne. Nonfiction. History's mysteries.

4. The Lioness - Chris Bohjalian. Novel. Audiobook. In this historical fiction novel, Hollywood superstar Katie Barstow decides to spend part of her honeymoon on a safari in Africa. It's 1964, and not a great time to vacation there. Katie has brought along an entourage of friends and family, and they get kidnapped by Russians. The chapters are framed by blurbs and sappy excerpts from The Hollywood Reporter or Screen Confidential about the character whose POV is about to be presented, then the current dilemma, the kidnapping, seen from the point of view of different characters. Then a backstory that leads up to the trip is presented. Speaking of frames, an older woman narrates about her role in this long-ago disaster adventure, but we don't know her identity until much later. I was drawn in by the story, but there were so many anachronisms of speech that I would become distracted. Bohjalian must have the same editor, (or not-editor) as Kristin Hannah. It's a small criticism, though, and it won't stop me from seeking out more Chris Bohjalian novels.

5. Shoes Off, Please - Helena Ku Rhee. Juvenile picture book. Very flat affect. It feels as if it was written by AI.

6. Becoming Real: The True Story of The Velveteen Rabbit - Molly Golden. Juvenile picture book. I love how this biography of the author of The Velveteen Rabbit was presented! Margery Williams' life story, full of sorrow and struggle and travel is interspersed with quotes from her most famous work. At the end of the book, the author gives suggestions on activities that parents and children can do with their own favorite stuffed animals or toys. I found myself pulled back into childhood and memories of my beloved stuffed pink dog, Karen Ann.

7. Walking Toward Peace: The True Story of a Brave Woman Called Peace Pilgrim - Kathleen Krull. Juvenile picture book.  An inspiring portrait of a well-to-do woman who decided one day that the material world was lacking, and she went on to devote her life to crossing the country on foot to promote peace. This was well before Instagram and other social media, so she was truly a pioneer.

2024 Fiction

* = Favorites

  

1.  The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg (audiobook)

2. The Witches of Worm - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

3. Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld (audiobook)

4. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

5. Lilac Girls - Martha Hall Kelly * (audiobook)

6. Akin - Emma Donoghue

7. The Vaster Wilds - Lauren Groff

8. The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, age 83 1/4 - "Hendrik Groen" * (audiobook)

9. The Guest - Emma Cline *

10. Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan * (audiobook)

11. Emma - Jane Austen * (audiobook)

12 The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman *

13. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (audiobook)

14. Come and Get It - Kiley Reid (audiobook)

15. When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman *

16. Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid * (audiobook)

17. The Overstory - Richard Powers * (audiobook)

18. Miss Kopp Investigates - Amy Stewart * (audiobook)

19. Kopp Sisters on the March - Amy Stewart

20. Dear Miss Kopp - Amy Stewart

21. Dear Hanna - Zoje Stage *

22. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos (audiobook)

23. Lady Oracle - Margaret Atwood * (audiobook)

24. Time and Chance - Sharon Kay Penman *

25. A King's Ransom - Sharon Kay Penman * (audiobook)

26. Leave Her to Heaven - Ben Ames Williams

27. The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain *

Putting 2024 to Bed: December Reading

What about that December, eh? I have a confession: I didn't think that I would make my goal (63 books), so I sneaked in a short favorite, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. I'm  so unashamed for manipulating the results. Gasp. Next thing you know, I'll be wearing an ankle bracelet like the femme fatale in Double Indemnity.

Here's my brief December list of reads:

1. The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain. Novel. I never get tired of this book. Noir at its best. From the title to the last line, it's a delicious, dark treat.

2. Cher: The Memoir, Part One - Cher. Memoir. This first volume follows Cher from her origins up to her 30s, as she is trying to break into acting, and finding some resistance. I love her conversational style. Can't wait for Part Two!

3. Fire Lover - Joseph Wambaugh. Nonfiction. True Crime. John Orr was a brilliant and respected arson investigator in Glendale, California. But guess what? He was simultaneously a serial arsonist, committing crimes all over the state. I was interested in this book because of the stark duality of John Orr, and also because true crime is so satisfying. Law enforcement starts with merely jigsaw pieces of clues, and they slowly and methodically put the puzzle together then build their case, hoping that a jury will concur with their finding and serve up justice. All of that was present in Fire Lover, but I do not care for Wambaugh's style, which gets in the way of the story he is trying to tell. His asides are not edgy, nor incisive, nor funny. They're just static. He's most effective when he stops his verbal swaggering and merely reports the facts of a case.

4. Animals Make Us Human: Creating The Best Life for Animals - Temple Grandin. Nonfiction. Grandin, who has worked with animals in one way or another during her long career, structures this informative and entertaining book around the emotions of animals, particularly the "blue-ribbon" emotions as identified by neuroscientist Dr. Jaak Panksepp: SEEKING (throughout the book, the emotions are written in all caps, in the style of Panksepp) RAGE, FEAR, PANIC, LUST, CARE, and PLAY. Grandin focuses mainly on the first four, using examples from her own experience and research. SEEKING is a pleasurable emotion, and needs to be satisfied or animals will suffer abnormal brain development, which is exhibited by continuous repetitive behaviors usually seen in animals in captivity but not in their wildlife counterparts. Grandin is adamant that their environment can be modified to benefit their mental health. She discusses dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals. Grandin is insightful, intelligent, and caring. This was one of my favorite reads of 2024.

By now, we're a couple of days into the new year, and I'm more than ready to get nerdy with my bookworm stats in the next post.

 

2022 Reading: The Fiction

For some reason, this wasn't a big fiction reading year for me. Perhaps my tastes are changing.

Checkmarks below indicate a hearty recommendation. 

I want to recommend The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, but fairly or unfairly, I keep comparing it to his first novel Rules of Civility, which I *really* loved. I'd also recommend The Thorn Birds, but the Justine section, which is the last 100+ pages of the novel is Such. A. Slog.

January

Billy Summers - Stephen King

Matrix - Lauren Groff ✅

Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff

February

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple

March

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles

Mrs. March - Virginia Feito

The Dressmaker - Kate Alcott

April

The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock ✅

French Braid - Anne Tyler ✅

Ocean State - Stewart O'Nan ✅

May

The Leavers - Lisa Ko ✅

June

Pretty Baby - Mary Kubica

Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler ✅

The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough

July

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver ✅

August

A View of the Harbour - Elizabeth Taylor ✅

Lady Cop Makes Trouble - Amy Stewart ✅

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

Bluebird, Bluebird - Attica Locke

Girl Waits With Gun - Amy Stewart ✅

September

Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions - Amy Stewart ✅

True Biz - Sara Novic ✅

Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit - Amy Stewart ✅

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven - Nathaniel Ian Miller

October

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak ✅

Daisy Jones and The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid ✅

Little Man, What Now? - Hans Fallada

November

The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck ✅

December

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Overall favorite: The Kopp Sisters series

DNF: Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver (but I plan to take it up again in 2023. Just ran out of time with my library checkout and there was/is a waitlist. And my name is back upon it.)

July, 2022: Reading. Seriously.

 Another Val story before we begin. This was one of her favorites. Every time it popped up in her Facebook memories, she'd repost it.

Val was moving yet again during her time in Korea. I was not particularly pleased because she would be moving out of my apartment building and over to a university way the hell out in the country and about 30 minutes away by train. Although I was dreading the day, I got caught up in the hustle and bustle of her packing.

About 9:30 pm, she decided that she would load some boxes into the boot of her little red Matiz automobile. Of course the boxes were terribly heavy, so she decided that we must get a trolley.

A what? I said.

A trolley.

I decided that she meant a dolly, but didn't say so. 

We looked around in the dark stairwell on the first floor for a trolley/dolly, but didn't see anything. Finally, we ran into a security guard. He didn't want to speak to us because of the language barrier, but Val neatly cornered him at the door of his guardhouse. She pulled out her phone and started typing into the translator.

She showed the guard the word on her phone and then said in Korean, "Please give me."

He looked at her like she was crazy. She nodded. I nodded, too. Finally, he sighed and got his flashlight and looked around in the hallways of our building. We followed. Then after a decent interval, he shook his head and started back to the guardhouse.

"Wait!" Val showed him her phone again. "I KNOW they have trolleys in Korea. I've seen them."

Dolly was trembling on the tip of my tongue, but I confess: Even though English is my native language, I've always had an inferiority complex about speaking American English around English English speakers. I usually throw in the linguistic towel and give Brits the win right away.

The guard sighed, mumbled something and repeated the walk, shining his flashlight up and down the corridors. Then he headed back to the guardhouse and settled in with his K-Drama. He offered up a final word in English: "Impossible."

We retreated to Val's apartment. "Maybe there's another word," she said, looking at her phone. "Oh, hold on. Uh-oh. Look." She showed me the phone. Turned out that her finger had landed on the wrong word, and we'd had the guard looking around in the gloomy stairwells for a troll.

I was really really glad then that I'd restrained myself from saying dolly.

"I'll try again tomorrow," Val decided. "If he'll even speak to me. The poor man."

***

1. What Are Castles and Knights? - Sarah Fabiny. Nonfiction.

2. The Witches - Stacy Schiff. Nonfiction. Schiff takes the reader into the world of Salem Village, 1692 to make us understand the time and place that created a toxic atmosphere where nearly everyone lost their damn minds and sent 19 innocent people to their deaths for witchcraft based on the word of a few shrieking teenagers. By the end, I felt claustrophobic and a little crazy, but mightily enjoyed counting up the many references to The Wizard of Oz that Schiff cleverly inserted.

3. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver. Novel. I shied away from this book for decades, and now I'm a little mad at myself, but not too much because I think maybe I just wasn't ready for this story of religion, culture clashes, and revolution (of all kinds) in the Congo (now Zaire) in 1959. It's a searing and illuminating book and Kingsolver's masterpiece. I am adding it to my favorite reads of 2022.

4. Who Was E.B. White? - Gail Herman. Nonfiction.

5. What Is the AIDS Crisis? - Nico Medina. Nonfiction. A careful, comprehensive look at the AIDS crisis from its very beginnings. The government's indifference was chilling, and Nico Medina pulls no punches. No bullshit. Well-executed.

6. Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela. Nonfiction. I audiobooked this one. Danny Glover's narration was interspersed with African national songs, crowd reactions in real time to events unfolding in apartheid South Africa, and speeches read in Mandela's own voice, which made for a moving listening experience. Since this was significantly abridged, I don't feel as if I got all the nuances or even the whole story, but the crux is there and it left me in a thoughtful mood, eager to learn more about Mandela and the ANC and the struggle for a more democratic South Africa.

7. Who Was Ponce de Leon? - Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso. Nonfiction. MAD RESPECT for how this book was written! It starts out like a conventional biography of Ponce de Leon, conquistador in the making, then it makes a wicked left turn that nearly had me scrambling for the Dramamine, and it essentially says: You know what?! This guy, none of these guys were heroes. None of them were admirable. They ruthlessly rode roughshod over native lands and territories and ruined millions of lives. They disrupted cultures. They enslaved and murdered people with weapons and disease! Then the authors take a tiny step back and allow that maybe Ponce de Leon couldn't help it; he was conditioned at an early age to believe that as an agent of Catholic Spain, he was on the side of right. Then they gather themselves again and they're like, nah, he's still awful. And that cute Fountain of Youth story? What a bunch of hooey cooked up to make him look deluded at worst and whimsical at best. 

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dI read 7 books in July. When I wasn't Who-Was-ing, I felt as if my reading had unexpected depth. Am I being and becoming? Is it just a stage I'm going through? Actually, two of the Who Was...? books I read went way beyond my expectations (What is the AIDS Crisis and Who Was Ponce de Leon) and handled the material in a manner that would create new levels of understanding in mature readers while introducing it to newer, younger reader1. What Are Castles and Knights? - Sarah Fabiny. Nonf

August Reading: Bump Up The Intensity

My August reading seemed intense. Just before I sat down to write this post, I found this quote on my Twitter feed by the absolutely fabulous Nancy Pearl, quoting Angela Carter:

"Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel...all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms."

As true with nonfiction as with fiction.

Anyway, this month I brought to my reading all the emotions that keep my nerve endings crackling nonstop. Somehow, the books answered me in kind:

1. Swimming in a Death Sea - David Rieff.
This short but powerful memoir of Susan Sontag's final illness by her son, her only child, was intense. I'm glad it was short. Almost too much to take. I was reading with an odd sort of triple vision. One, I was reading about an author who I've come to admire in just a short time who was fighting to cheat death from cancer a third time in her life, as well as her son, who was put in the unenviable position of not being able to discuss his mother's illness with her candidly, nor was he allowed to lie to her or sugarcoat anything.  Two, I read this with the full weight and grief of what I'd just been through with my own mother. Not cancer, but a steady. sharp decline with stalled conversations as a sense of unreality covered us like a shroud. Three, I read it with an eye to a possible, no, probable future: Myself (Susan) as elderly, ill patient-parent, and my own son, my only child by my side, and wanting to spare him that sort of experience, but also knowing that I probably cannot.

2. The Escape Artists - Neal Bascomb. 
Take The Great Escape, back it up to a WWI setting, and double the efforts and intensity of pilots trying to escape a "perfect" POW camp with a sadistic Kommandant in the German wilderness that was more than a hundred miles from the Dutch border. Fun fact: James Whale, the director of the 1931 version of Frankenstein was a prisoner there.

3. Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid.
So much to love about this "oral history" of a fictional 1970s rock band. Reads enjoyably like an episode of VH1's Behind the Music. I plan to revisit this novel in audiobook form; the cast list is a Who's Who of my favorite audiobook performers. I'm starting to feel quite attached to Taylor Jenkins Reid. I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in July and absolutely gobbled it down. Now I want to read all of her books.

4. Incoming Assets - Stephanie Williams and Celestian Rince.
Young, thirtysomething Canadians Steph and Cel live in Vancouver, B.C. which is, by all accounts, expensive. They are also planning to retire around the age of 35. They also want to keep their favorite hobby of globetrotting twice a year. Achieving all of this with regular-paying incomes takes intensity and focus, especially since they just started this endeavor less than 10 years ago, but there's nothing grim about these two. I was happy to discover them and I enjoy reading their blog of the same name.

There were 8 books altogether in the month of August. I need to make this a two-parter. Next time, the remaining 4, which I'm still trying to process as we climb farther into September.

Fourteen So Far In Nineteen

What did you read in January, Bybee?

1. Elevation (novel) - Stephen King. Uncle Stevie was phoning it in with this short novel, but I appreciate him always.

2. Nomadland (nonfiction) - Jessica Bruder. Journalist Bruder, in sympathy and solidarity, follows a group of people, mostly senior citizens who have taken to the road to avoid homelessness. Depending on where you are in life, you will either read this book as horrifying, heartbreaking, or hopeful. I found it hopeful.

3. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (novel) - Gail Honeyman. This one was a surprise. I thought it was going to be chick-lit, but it was so much more.

4. The Nightingale (novel) Kristin Hannah. Two sisters work for the Resistance during World War II in Nazi-occupied France. Quelle cinematic! I couldn't put it down. Kristin Hannah is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors.

5. If Beale Street Could Talk (novel) - James Baldwin. Gritty, sad, and wise. James Baldwin's 1974 novel about Tish and Fonny, in love and in jail (Fonny) and expecting a baby, has been made into a movie, and I can't wait to see it. The trailers look like both cast and crew internalized the book and captured the very soul of it on film. I read it back when I was a teenager, but of course it was infinitely more beautiful and devastating this time around.

6. My Life in Middlemarch (nonfiction) - Rebecca Mead. The author has been reading and rereading Middlemarch since she was in high school. I admire her triangulation in this work: She examines George Eliot's life, especially the writing Middlemarch part.  She breaks down the book into its various sections and looks at the characters. She also compares her life to the characters' and Eliot's. It's so rich and satisfying, and put me in the mood for my every-ten-years reread of Middlemarch.


And February???

7. Clock Dance (novel) - Anne Tyler. In the midst of bad news, it was comforting to sit down with a new Anne Tyler novel. I can't explain it, but it's like being home sick from school with all the creature comforts such as Lipton chicken noodle soup, the living room couch and a soft old afghan. Clock Dance feels like vintage Tyler. She makes it look so easy, but there's some careful, masterful writing going on here.

8. Becoming (nonfiction) - Michelle Obama. I audiobooked this one, and so glad I did! Becoming is great, but even more so with Michelle Obama's voice in my ears. I love and respect her even more than I did before, which was considerable.

9. Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why it Still Matters (nonfiction) - Anne Boyd Rioux. A scholarly and ardent fangirl examination of Louisa May Alcott's enduring classic. Rioux looks at the novel (is it really one, or two?) and the movie and TV versions. She also examines how and where the book is still being read and the history of its readership. Surprise! Males as well as females read and enjoyed the novel in its earlier days of publication. There's something for everyone in Little Women, as well as this enjoyable tribute.

10. The Library Book (nonfiction) -Susan Orlean. In 1986, the downtown Los Angeles Public Library caught fire. Susan Orlean follows the search for a possible arsonist, and also goes back more than one hundred years to its roots and some of the more colorful characters who influenced its growth, then flashes-forward to what it's like to work within such a large system. She also muses on the future of libraries and their place in communities. I am eager for my son, who works for a large library system, to read this one so we can discuss it.

11. The Dwelling Place (novel) - Catherine Cookson. I don't think I'm going to read any more Catherine Cookson. I hate that she writes with great depth and knowledge about a particular time and station in England and creates complex, compelling characters, then seemingly tosses it all away and throws characters under the bus (or carriage wheels, in this case) because she must have her creaky, cringe-y, old romance novel plot. Boo.



What about March? In like a lion...???

12. An American Marriage (novel) - Tayari Jones. I couldn't help comparing this novel to If Beale Street Could Talk, and I mean that as highest praise. Both books feature men of color mistakenly and unfairly for the same crime. Both have the same level of searing honesty. Both broke my heart. I hope An American Marriage wins the Pulitzer for fiction this year.

13. Dopesick (nonfiction) - Beth Macy. An examination of how the opioid epidemic began in Appalachia and spread throughout the country. It's sickening to read about the greed of the pharma reps and salespeople, the mostly-guileless medical professionals, the cluelessness of the government concerning recovery, and the overwhelming hardship of addicts and their families left to pick up the pieces after the disaster perpetrated by these insidious drugs.

14. Rin Tin Tin: The Life and The Legend (nonfiction) - Susan Orlean. I was always a little afraid of German Shepherds, so as a child, I was more of a Lassie person than a Rin Tin Tin one. I really enjoyed this look at the canine legend who was born on a French battlefield near the end of World War I, and his rise to Hollywood stardom, then his resurgence as a television icon. Orlean also surveys the humans devoted to Rin Tin Tin in all his incarnations who never doubted that they were part of an everlasting mystique.


What are you working on now?

Unsheltered (novel) - Barbara Kingsolver.   Two lives, one house, 130 years apart. I love the storylines and the structure. It may because I'm reading Middlemarch right now, but I'm getting enjoyable whiffs of the novel in the 19th century sections.

Middlemarch (novel) - George Eliot. I've been working on the book since early February, but in this reread, it's slow going. I still love it, but I'm not as engaged as I was the previous two times. Hoping this will change. I'm only 20% in, so there's time.

The Story of a Marriage (novel) - Andrew Sean Greer. This short novel is surprising, with all its layers. Greer won the Pulitzer for Less, which felt very slight to me. The Story of a Marriage is dreamlike, ruminative and complex.

Readjoice: 2018 Is In The Books

Here are the 77 books I read in 2018.

Not a bad number; I only pledged 57 on Goodreads!

Fiction, nonfiction, picture books, graphic novel, a book of essays, a play, poetry, letters. Lots of audiobooks. A couple of DNFs.

Reading trends: True crime, Sylvia Plath, Ottessa Moshfegh, Movies, Intermittent Fasting, Memoirs, Pulitzer fiction

1. Caroline - Sarah Miller. (novel)

2. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House - Michael Wolff. (nonfiction)

3. Rotten Ralph - Jack Gantos (picture book)

4. The Great Influenza - John M. Barry (nonfiction)

5. The Cooler King - Patrick Bishop (nonfiction)

6. The Girls in the Picture - Melanie Benjamin (novel)

7. Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge - Becky Aikman (nonfiction)

DNF
Reckless Daughter - David Yaffe (biography of Joni Mitchell)

8. Our Souls at Night - Kent Haruf (novel)

9. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee (novel)

10. Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language - Emma Byrne (nonfiction)

11. Ten Days in a Mad-House - Nellie Bly (nonfiction)

12. Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi (nonfiction)

13. The Six: The Lives of The Mitford Girls - Laura Thompson (nonfiction)

14. The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson (nonfiction)

15. The Getting of Wisdom - Henry Handel Richardson (novel)

16. The Stranger in the Woods - Michael Finkel (nonfiction)

17. Turtles All the Way Down - John Green (novel)

18. Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren (novel)

19. World Enough and Time - Robert Penn Warren (novel)

DNF
Traveling Sprinkler - Nicholson Baker (novel) so bad. not writing but typing.

20. In This Our Life - Ellen Glasgow (novel) omg, hated. this. book.

21. Not My Father's Son - Alan Cumming (memoir)

DNF
Vein of Iron - Ellen Glasgow (novel) Totally breaking up with Glasgow.

22. October, 1964 - David Halberstam (nonfiction)

23. Life Plus 99 Years - Nathan F. Leopold (memoir) what a self-serving piece of crap.

24. Compulsion - Meyer Levin (novel)

25. The Crime of the Century: The Leopold & Loeb Case - Hal Higdon (nonfiction)

26. The Teammates - David Halberstam (nonfiction)

27. Less - Andrew Sean Greer (novel)

28. Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher (memoir)

29. Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest - Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. (nonfiction)

30. Woe To Live On - Daniel Woodrell (novel)

31. Destiny of the Republic -Candice Millard (nonfiction)

32. The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty (novel)

33. Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer, 1953 - Elizabeth Winder (nonfiction)

34. Calypso - David Sedaris (essays)

35. Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes (poetry)

36. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (novel)

37. No Ordinary Time - Doris Kearns Goodwin (nonfiction)

38. The Good Daughter - Karin Slaughter (fiction) so disliked this book. I want my time back!

39. A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry (play)

40. Kitchens of the Great Midwest - J. Ryan Stradal (novel)

41. Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol I 1940-1956 - Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil, eds. (nonfiction)

42. Killing and Dying - Adrian Tomine (graphic novel)

43. Lover of Unreason - Yehuda Koren, Eilat Negev (nonfiction)

44. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah (memoir)

45. The Bell Jar: A Novel of the Fifties - Linda Wagner-Martin (literary criticism)

46. Dad is Fat - Jim Gaffigan (memoir)

47. Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood (memoir)

48. Heartbreak Hotel - Anne Rivers Siddons (novel)

49. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh (novel)

50. Conviction - Juan Martinez (nonfiction)

51. 90s Bitch - Allison Yarrow (nonfiction)

52. The Road to Little Dribbling - Bill Bryson (nonfiction)

53. Fast Diets for Dummies - Kellyann Petrucci, Patrick Flynn (nonfiction)

54. Amy Falls Down - Jincy Willett (novel)

55. Homesick for Another World - Ottessa Moshfegh (short stories)

56. Girl [Maladjusted] - Molly Jong-Fast (memoir)

57. Eat Stop Eat - Brad Pilon (nonfiction)

58. Educated - Tara Westover (memoir)

59. Giant: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber and the Making of a Legendary American Film -Don Graham (nonfiction)

60. Humans of New York - Brandon Stanton (nonfiction)

61. Unbecoming - Rebecca Scherm (novel)

62. Heroes of the Frontier - Dave Eggers (novel)

63. Can You Ever Forgive Me? - Lee Israel (memoir)

64. The Obesity Code - Jason Fung, M.D. (nonfiction)

65. Dead Wake - Erik Larson (nonfiction)

66. The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting - Kayla Cox (nonfiction)

67. The Camerons - Robert Crichton (novel)

68. The Nix - Nathan Hill (novel)

69-77 are December's reads. Except for one, I haven't posted about these yet:

69. You Can Sleep in Your Car, But You Can't Drive Your House to Work - Sutton Parks (memoir) Sutton loses everything because of drinking and immature behavior. He joins AA and moves into his car and attempts to get perspective. An interesting account, but it could have used one last stern rewrite. I looked for Parks on social media and he hasn't updated in a year. I hope he's OK.

70. The Wonky Donkey - Craig Smith, Katz Cowley (picture book) Thank you, Scottish Granny for introducing me to the Wonky Donkey. I hope with all the hits your video got that you were able to bring out an extra figgy pudding at the holidays.

71. In Such Good Company - Carol Burnett (memoir) Audiobook, read by the author. So much fun to listen to Burnett reminisce about her show. I felt as if I were sitting at her feet, basking in the warmth of her voice.

72. Montana, 1948 - Larry Watson (novel) A stripped-down but brilliant novel that reminded me of Richard Ford's work.

73. Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol 2, 1956-1963 - Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil, eds. (nonfiction) The last six months of letters will rip your heart right out of your chest. I never wanted a time machine so badly.

74. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (novel) I've read this before, but this time I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal. There were lines I was so familiar with, but never realized the humor until I heard them read aloud. Great performance by Maggie G.

75. Year of No Clutter - Eve O. Schaub (memoir) I like books about clearing out clutter and I love memoirs, but this was a hard go. It felt as difficult as Schaub's dogged efforts to tame her "Hell Room". There is a video on YouTube of her process.

76. The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah (novel) I was so looking forward to reading this book all year and I was not disappointed. On the contrary, I was swept up in the story of a family attempting to homestead in Alaska during the 1970s. Kristin Hannah paints a picture of an Alaska that is both terrible and beautiful. The women were magnificent in the novel. I can't say too much; I'm still processing it and I don't want to blurt out any spoilers! One more thing: I was strongly reminded of Educated, the memoir by Tara Westover. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has made this observation.

77. Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook - Alice Waters (memoir) A difficult read. Alice Waters is a sensory person. She seems to have 'talked' this book, but words aren't her strong suit.  She is charming but flitting and fleeting and maddeningly vague at times. I really felt her ghostwriters' struggle to get the essence of Alice down on the page; I bet it was like herding cats.

A Four-Book February

Four books again this month, and I even had an extra day in February this year! Not horrible, but not my standard. Packing and moving and driving...oh my!

This is what I read:

1. Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier. After reading The French Lieutenant's Woman, I didn't want to leave Lyme, where most of the novel takes place, so I decided to stay there with Remarkable Creatures, a historical novel (early 1800s) about amateur paleontologist Mary Anning and her fossil-hunting friend, Elizabeth Philpot. They were confederates in a world of men greedily eager to take credit for their accomplishments while harrumphing about how unladylike it is for women to take an interest in fossils. I loved Mary and Elizabeth, and hated that they had a catfight of sorts over one of these stupid asses that couldn't have found a T. Rex if he'd had it served to him on a platter for Sunday dinner. I remember enjoying Girl with a Pearl Earring, but I was really impressed with this novel by Chevalier. Can't decide which of hers to read next.

2. The Revenant - Michael Punke.  I liked the novel, but it was a bit stiff and starchy. It read like nonfiction, but not in a good way. Didactic is the word I think I am looking for. The only part where it seemed truly lively was when Hugh Glass was travelling with a group of French-Canadians down the river. Otherwise, it was a slog. Bit of a disappointment; but I'd gladly see the movie again.

3. Relish: My Life in the Kitchen - Lucy Knisley.  Wow. I typed this title and got hungry all over again. Graphic novelist Knisley grew up with a chef for a mother and a foodie for a father, so from the very beginning, she was exposed to the very best of culinary delights. She recounts these delights in gorgeous illustrations and recipes. So good. So satisfying. How many ways can you say Yum?

4. Think Small - House Beautiful. I was enjoying reading about how people make the most of their small living spaces and devouring the color-soaked photos as I turned the glossy pages, but then it started getting a little book-unfriendly. Draperies to conceal your books?  NO. Hang artwork over the  books on your bookshelves? NO.  No, no, no. There just aren't enough noes.

Mom has been sprung from the nursing home and we are getting settled into the new place, so my reading should pick up again. I'm reading The Boys in the Boat. Great stuff.