December Book Report

December 2021, NYC

I finished 16 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

"The pain does grow less acute, but the insidious palace lie that we will get over crushing losses means that our emotional GPS can never find true north, as it is based on maps that no longer mention the most important places we have been to."                   --Stitches by Anne Lamott (p. 40)

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 6 were non-fiction and none were poetry (toward my goal of 10 non-fiction books and some poetry this year) 
• 2 were books I own but hadn't read before (#unreadshelfproject2021) 
• 1 counts toward the Turtle Recall Challenge which I successfully completed with a total of 10 books read
• 0 counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge -- I really need to get moving on this challenge!
• 2 were from my Classics Club List and none counted toward the Back to the Classics Challenge which I successfully completed with a total of 7 books read (6 was the goal)
• 3 counted toward the Literary Christmas 2021 Challenge

Here are the books I finished in December 2021: 

1. Maisie Dobbs  by Jacqueline Winspear (4-stars)
2. Unholy Dying by Robert Barnard (4-stars)
3. Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair by Anne Lamott  (re-read, 4-stars)
4. Black Narcissis by Rumer Godden (4-stars)
   
5. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict (4-stars)
6. Hans Christian Andersen by Rumer Godden (3-stars)
7. Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie (4-stars)
8. The Making of Home by Judith Flanders (4-stars)
9. Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott (5-stars)
10. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (3-stars)
11. A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz (3-stars)
12. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (2-stars)
13. The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore (4-stars)
14. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (audiobook, 4-stars)
    
15. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (5-stars)
16. Happy Starts at Home by Rebecca West (4-stars)

At the beginning of December I participated in #RumerGoddenReadingWeek2021. Among the posts for the event was a collection of quotes from Godden which included this one, which spoke to me:

"Nothing is harder to recapture than the good parts of a failed marriage."

Overall 2021 was a very good reading year for me!