May Book Report

May 2026, Hog Back Mountain, Vt.

I finished 9 books last month.

Two quotes from this month's reading:

“Because love is vast. Abundant. Infinite, in fact. And the secret is this: love begets love. The more you love, the more love you have to give.” ― Molly Roden Winter, More

“Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from." ― Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck 

Here are the books I finished in May 2026: 

1. More: A Memoir of an Open Marriage by Molly Roden Winter (4-stars)

2. The Power in the Middle by Elizabeth O'Brien (4-stars)

3. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (4-stars)

4. The Operator by Gretchen Berg (4-stars)

5. Tumbling Blocks by Earlean Fowler (3-stars)

6. Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire (3-stars)

7. Patterns in the Sand by Sally Goldenbaum (4-stars)

8. False Scent by Ngaio Marsh (4-stars)

9. My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley (3-stars)

I have also been browsing my way through 1000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich. I haven't read as many of them as I would have expected, but have found several so far that I want to read. My Dog Tulip was a suggestion from there. 

April Book Report

April 2026, Concord, NH

I finished 11 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“Within three years, Anglo-American troops had almost emptied the region of Acadian inhabitants, seemingly annihilating a colonial society whose origins predated those of Plymouth and Jamestown. It was an “upheaval” that struck even some of its perpetrators as 'sumthing shocking.'" ― Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora

 

Here are the books I finished in April 2026: 

1. Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh (3-stars)

2. Hand in Glove by Ngaio Marsh (3-stars)

3. Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America by Francois Weil (3-stars)

4. The Quiche and the Dead by Kirsten Weiss (3-stars)

5. Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovich (audio, 4-stars)

6. The Stargazey by Martha Grimes (4-stars)

7. The Acadian Diaspora by Christopher Hodson (4-stars)

8. Miss Julia Paints the Town by Ann B. Ross (3-stars)

9. Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year by Christine Valters Paintner (4-stars)

10. Once Upon a Spine by Kate Carlisle (3-stars)

11. Mistletoe Man by Susan Albert Wittig (3-stars)

26 Questions in 2026 (#10)

To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

#10 -Favourite movie or TV adaption of a classic?

The adaptation that immediately comes to mind as a favorite is the Hitchcock film based on Rebecca.

Released in 1940 the movie start Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. It is gothic, and creepy, and dream-like, as is the novel, and the twists and turns of the plot are brilliantly depicted in the cinematography. The film got eleven academy award nominations, the most of any film that year, and won both Best Picture and Best Cinematography. 

26 Questions in 2026 (#9)

To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

 #9 - Least favorite classic? Why?

Hands down, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. 

The 'why' is in the post from when I read it. 

26 Questions in 2026 (#8)

To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

 #8 Which classic is your most memorable classic to date? Why?

Considering only the classics that I read specifically for classics club, two titles stand out as most memorable: Lonesome Dove and The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Both novels were books I had known about for a long time and thought I knew what they would be. They both turned out to be quite different, and much more fabulous, than I expected. 

March Book Report

Birthday flowers, 2026

I finished 12 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“It is fruitless to search for the characteristics of an “American” identity, because each nation has its own notion of what being American should mean.”
           ― Colin Woodard, American Nations

Here are the books I finished in March 2026: 

1. Suede to Rest by Diane Vallere (3-stars)
2. No Grater Danger by Victoria Hamilton (3-stars)
3. Delectable Mountains by Earlene Fowler (4-stars)
4. The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller (4-stars)
5. How to Calm Your Mind by Chris Bailey (3-stars)
6. Oranges by John McPhee (audiobook, 3-stars)
7. American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard (5-stars)
8. The Family Tree Problem Solver by Marsha Hoffman Rising (4-stars)
9. The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear (4-stars)
10. Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh (4-stars)
11. Death by Cashmere by Sally Goldenbaum (4-stars)
12. Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh (3-stars)

I got an e-reader for my birthday which has led to a Ngaio March binge which I am thoroughly enjoying.

26 Questions in 2026 (#6 and #7)

 To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

#6 - First classic you ever read?
#7 - Favorite children's classic?

The first classic I read for Classics Club was the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I participated in a read-along for this book, which was probably a good thing because I didn't love this book and that might have been the end of my club activity if I hadn't had the read-along to keep me going. 

The first classic I ever read was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I wrote about my experience with it in 2013 in a meme about re-reading. 

Little Women is also my favorite children's classic. I am also fond of Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Eloise by Kay Thompson.

When I was a kid I loved the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, the Pippi Longstocking books by Astrid Lindgren, and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald.  I haven't read any of these since I was actually a kid, however, so I don't know if they hold up. 

February Book Report

My partner's new hobby ❤

I finished 7 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“Both described at the same time how it was always March there and always Monday, and then they understood that José Arcadio Buendía was not as crazy as the family said, but that he was the only one who had enough lucidity to sense the truth of the fact that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Here are the books I finished in February 2026: 

1. Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon by Donna Andrews (3-stars)
2. Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie (4-stars)
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  (audiobook, 4-stars)
4. The Case has Altered by Martha Grimes (4-stars)
5. Scrap Quilts from Crumbs, Strips, and Strings by Emily Bailey (3-stars)
6. Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer by Ragnar Jonasson (3-stars)
7. Lavender Lies by Susan Whittig Albert (3-stars)
   

This looks like a mystery-heavy month, but I am also reading a history book and a book about genealogical research which has provided a nice balance for my reading.  I do need to focus more on the mystery series that I identified for making progress on. I put in a bunch of library requests for those titles spread out over the next several months so that should help. 

26 Questions in 2026 (#5)

To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

 #5 - If you could explore one author’s literary career from first publication to last — meaning you have never read this author and want to explore him or her by reading what s/he wrote in order of publication — who would you explore? Obviously this should be an author you haven’t yet read, since you can’t do this experiment on an author you’re already familiar with. 🙂 Or, which author’s work you are familiar with might it have been fun to approach this way?

I love this idea but I have not been able to come up with an author that I want to do this with whose work I haven't already read most of. I am definitely a completist, when I find an author I like I keep reading their work until I am out of books. I have finished (or very nearly finished) the works of Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Robertson Davies, Colson Whitehead, and Margaret Atwood. Until I read one of their books though, I don't know if I am interested enough to read the whole oeuvre. 

I did do this once with a poet -- Jane Kenyon and I enjoyed the experience. I read a biography of her along with the poetry and essays in order of publication. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude 

by Gabriel García Márquez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to this narrated by John Lee which was an excellent choice because there were a lot of Spanish words that I would have stumbled over, including many very similar names. Lee did an excellent job of making the different names clear. He also has a beautiful voice. 

I read this book when I was in college and did not like it at all. Since then I listened to Love in the Time of Cholera which I did enjoy. That inspired me to give this another try and I am glad I did. 

The story is set in the mythical town of Macondo and tells the story of the Buendia family which is intricately intertwined with the history of the town. It starts with this memorable line: 

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice...”

Then weaves through time and various versions of reality to spin a tale of beauty and suffering and love. 

“Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end." 

This book is on my Classics Club list.

26 Questions in 2026 (#4)

To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

 #4 - Classic author who has the most works on your club list? Or, classic author you’ve read the most works by?

Charles Dickens definitely has the most spots on my list -- I have read 4 of his novels for the Club and there are 4 more of his books on my current list.

Classics Club Spin

It is time for another Classics Club Spin. The last two e resulted in DNFs for me, but I am trying again! 

On Sunday 8th February 2026 the spin number will be posted and the challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by the 29th March, 2026.

1. Howards End, E. M. Forster, 1910
2. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
3. Song of the Lark, Willa Cather, 1915 
4. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, 1945 
5. Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
6. Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965
7. The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham, 1944
8. Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy, 1955
9. The Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer, 1968
10. Russia House, John le Carre, 1989
11. Steamboat Gothic, Francis Parkinson Keyes, 1952
12. True Grit, Charles Portis, 1968
13. The Years, Virginia Woolf, 1937
14. The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch, 1973
15. Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty, 1946
16. Aesop's Fables
17. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
18. Come and Get It, Edna Ferber, 1935
19. The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922
20. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847