20 Books of Summer

The 20 Books of Summer challenge completed its 10th year last summer and this summer it is back with new hosts -- Annabookbel and Words and Peace. 

I am taking on the challenge this year, but with a few changes from my normal plan. I am only making a list of 10 books this time (partly because I love the new graphic for 10 books!) I always end up swapping out a bunch from my original list and I expect that will happen again. However, and I am adding the additional rule for myself that at least 5 of the books I count toward this challenge must be ones I have on my shelves right now (including the ones in my audiobook.com account).

Here is my preliminary list, all of which are currently on my shelves:

1. Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge
2. Daughter of Ruins by Yvette Manessis Corporon
3. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
4. Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince
5. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
6. 3 Lives by Gertrude Stein
7. Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
8. The Sweet Life by Laura Stoddart
9. Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen
10. Interdiction by Michael Davidow (my most recent purchase)

The #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge runs from Sunday June 1st to Sunday August 31st. That means that if I can read 2 books from my shelves in June and 4 each in July and August I can complete the challenge. 

April Book Report

April 2025, Manchester, NH

I finished 9 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn’t live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it’s possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother’s milk made possible the life of privilege they led.” ― Alex Haley, Roots

Here are the books I finished in April 2025: 

1. The Author's Guide to Murder by Beatriz Williams (4-stars)
2. Curds of Prey by Korina Moss (3-stars)
3. LifeStyled: Your Guide to a More Organized and Intentional Life by Shira Gill (4-stars)
4. The Vineyard Victims by Ellen Crosby (3-stars)
5. The Happy Writer by Marissa Meyer (4-stars)
6. Case of the Bleus by Korina Moss (4-stars)
7. Yellowface by R. F. Kuang (audiobook, 3-stars)
8. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (5-stars)
9. Heart of Barkness by Spencer Quinn (3-stars)

I also read several essays and articles about Jane Austen last month, in preparation for hosting Mansfield Park as part of the Classics Club Austen 2025 project. 

Roots

Roots: The Saga of an American Family 

by Alex Haley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had a lot of trepidation about reading this book. I knew it would include a lot of really hard things and I am not good with that. However, it is an important book and I wanted to have read it for myself. Nick's chapter-a-day read-along pushed me to finally pull this off my shelf and read it. I am so glad I did!

The story starts in a Gambian village where we meet Kunta Kinte and learn about his life and his family through his own eyes. He is a very sympathetic and interesting person and incredibly resilient. A large portion of the novel follows him across the ocean on a slave ship and then through his life as a slave in the American south. Haley moves the story from generation to generation by changing the narrative point-of-view as various people leave one place for another (the reader follows the person leaving).

There were a LOT of really difficult things that happen in this book, but in the same way that Colson Whitehead is able to carry his reader through horrors by focusing tightly onto what is happening in the mind of the person things are happening to and how they are working to survive these events, Haley carried us through as well. 

The characters feel like real people -- they were based on Haley's actual ancestors-- and are people whose stories I am very glad to have learned. 

March Book Report

March 2025, Manchester, NH

I finished 5 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“Such journeys have convinced me that it is not always possible to restore one's boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by a relationship: try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as the autonomous beings we previously imagined ourselves to be. Something of us is now outside, and something of the outside is now within us.” ― Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Here are the books I finished in March 2025: 

1. Gone for Gouda by Katrina Moss (4-stars)
2. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (5-stars) 
3. The Champagne Conspiracy by Ellen Crosbie (4-stars)
4. Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home by Harry Kemelman (3-stars)
5. Poirot Loses a Client by Agatha Christie (4-stars)

I also DNF'd a book this month: my classics club spin title, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. My sister told me it was terrible, despite really liking other books by Dickens, and she was right. 

February Book Report

Feb. 2025, Manchester, NH

I finished 7 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“You don’t turn a river by abruptly trying to get it to change direction. You don’t have that much power. No matter how strong you are. The river will just overwhelm you and obstinately carry on pretty much as before. You can’t make it change direction overnight. No one can. On the contrary, you have to start by flowing with it. You have to capture its own force and then slowly but surely lead it in the desired direction. The river won’t notice it’s being led if the curve is gentle enough. On the contrary, it will think it’s flowing just the same as usual, seeing as nothing seems to have changed.” ― Jonas Karlsson, The Room

Here are the books I finished in February 2025: 

1. The Room by Jonas Karlsson, Neil Smith, Translator (3-stars)
2. The Perfectly Imperfect Home by Deborah Needleman, Virginia Johnson, illustrator (4-stars) 
3. Blood Rubies by Jane Cleland (4-stars)
4. Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten (audiobook, 4-stars)
5. The Sauvignon Secret by Ellen Crosbie (3-stars)
6. The Searcher by Tana French (4-stars)
7. Brie Careful What You Wish For by Linda Reilly (3-stars)

Spinning the Classics

I'm getting this Classics Club Spin list posted just under the wire, but the number hasn't turned up anywhere I have seen it yet so I'm in. 

1. Aesop's Fables
2. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck, 1931
3. Song of the Lark, Willa Cather, 1915
4. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 1859
5. Come and Get It, Edna Ferber, 1935
6. Howards End, E. M. Forster, 1910
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
8. Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey, 1912
9. Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
10. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein, 1961
11. Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965
12. Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy, 1955
13. Steamboat Gothic, Francis Parkinson Keyes, 1952
14. Russia House, John le Carre, 1989
15. The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham, 1944
16. True Grit, Charles Portis, 1968
17. 3 Lives, Gertrude Stein, 1909
18. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
19. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, 1945
20. Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty, 1946

Most of these are books I have on my shelves (or should be easily obtained at the library) so whatever number comes up I should be able to get it read by the April 11th deadline.

January 2025 Book Report

Feb. 2021, but it captures
the feel of Jan. 2025

I finished 10 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

I finished 10 books last month. 

“There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.” ― Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves

Here are the books I finished in January 2025: 

1. Find Your Why by Simon Sinek (3-stars)
2. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov  (4-stars) Classics Club
3. Eggs Benedict Arnold by Laura Childs (audiobook, 4-stars)
4. The Voignier Vendetta by Ellen Crosbie (4-stars)
5. Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke (4-stars)
6. Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+ by Suze Orman (3-stars)
7. Snow by John Banville (4-stars) - from my obnr shelves
8. Unsolicited by Julie Kaewert (3-stars)
9. Leave it to Cleaver by Victoria Hamilton (3-stars)
10. Living in a Nutshell by Janet Lee (4-stars)

I finished several mysteries this month from the various series I have been working my way through. I also finished a book each from my owned-but-not-read shelves and my Classics Club list. I feel like I am off to a good start with this year's reading.

My Best Books of 2024

These are the 5-star books that I read in 2024.

FICTION:

• The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
• The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie 
• Search by Michelle Huneven
• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
• Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe by Dawn Tripp
• Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs #6) by Jacqueline Winspear

NONFICTION:

• All It Takes Is a Goal: The 3-Step Plan to Ditch Regret and Tap Into Your Massive Potential by Jon Acuff
• Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962 by Blanche Wiesen Cook -- I enjoyed the first 2 volumes as well
• Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
• A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload by Cal Newport

The Gods Themselves

The Gods Themselves 

by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain." -- Friedrich Schiller

Told in three parts, this novel features a society where scientific findings are controlled by politics and human vanity. Each of the narrators, a different one in each part, is well drawn as an individual and a full picture of what is happening develops as the narratives build on each other. Overall an excellent novel!

This book is on my Classics Club list.