Book #13 of 2025 was Once a Queen, by Sarah Arthur. I heard someone on a podcast saying that this book was inspired by Queen Susan from the Narnia stories. It didn't fulfill all the expectations that raised in me, but I did enjoy it and I'd like to read the next book in the series. "What we thought was the final chapter is merely the prologue."
Book #14 was All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker. I read this with my book group, and while the conversations about it were great as always, I didn't love this one. I found it confusing and implausible.
Book #15 was The Lost Story, by Meg Shaffer. Like #13, I picked this book up because of its Narnia-adjacent promise. Again, I didn't find the promise fulfilled completely.
Book #16 was The Liturgy of the Ordinary, by Tish Harrison Warren, a reread. I picked this up to stop me from reading and rereading the news, and it really worked, calming my heart and mind. I'm already going through it again.
Book #17 was People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry. This was light and entertaining.
Book #18 was another reread, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. I read this before the pandemic, and loved it then. I think I liked it even more this time.
Book #19 was The Plan, by Kendra Adachi. I love Adachi's podcast, and this book has the same encouraging, friendly advice on time management. I was glad I had read it.
Book #20 was The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. While not as good as Braiding Sweetgrass, one of the best books I read in 2021, this was very interesting and encouraging. It's about gift economies and how not everything is about scarcity and money. Just what I needed to read in this moment.
Book #21 was another one I read with my book club, The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom. This was very atmospheric, even though the atmosphere was grim in the extreme. The sad story, about people with no choice trapped in the horrific system of slavery, kept me reading until the last page.
Book #22 was Circle of Grace, by Jan Richardson. I love Richardson's poems, and I was so glad to read this book. I will reread it many times, I'm sure.
Book #23 was A Place for Us, by Fatima Farheen Mirza, a well-written and absorbing novel about an Indian Muslim family.
Book #24 was The Wishing Game, by Meg Shaffer. kind of a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for grownups. I enjoyed it a lot.
Book #25 was Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, by Harrison Scott Key. It's a memoir about how he became a writer, writing his first book, and the book tour. It was interesting, but it didn't help that I'd already read his more recent book. The information I had about what was coming couldn't be un-known.
Book #26 was A Place at the Table, by Miranda Harris and Jo Swinney. After Harris' tragic death in 2019, Swinney, her daughter, found a folder of a book she'd been working on about hospitality. Swinney finished the book and included excerpts from her mother's journals and letters. Harris and her husband founded the Christian conservation organization A Rocha. I loved this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment