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.

Readathon Wrap-up

Yesterday I participated in the April 2024 Dewey's 24-hour Readathon. I didn't stay awake for the entire 24-hours, but I did spend an entire day focused on reading my out-of-control pile of library books. Now on to the wrap-up survey!

1. I read from 5 different books yesterday. One was my current chapter-a-day book (War and Peace) and the others were from my current batch of books checked out from the library. One of them I started and decided to send back to the library unread because it was too much like another novel I have going right now. It may come back in the future. 
2. I finished 3 books during the readathon. I enjoyed them all, but The Postman Always Rings Twice (which I will post about later) was my favorite. The Divorce Colony and The Little Book of Dog Care were my other finishes. My partner also finished 3 books (and a bunch of magazines). He focused on books he had already started. 
3. My goals for readathon were to enjoy a leisurely day of reading with my partner and his dog and to make a dent in my library pile which had gotten out of hand. I accomplished those things.
4. My snacks and meals worked out very well. I planned ahead (which always helps!) and had everything prepped to go into the crock-pot for dinner (taco soup -- which was delicious). A trip to the market Friday after work set us up with plenty of snacks (including carrots cut into chips which were great to eat while reading). In the evening we opened a very nice vintage Zinfandel which was a lovely treat. I think I finally have my food/beverage plan for readathon dialed-in. Planning ahead is key.
5. I enjoyed this readathon a lot. It was relaxing, companionable, and I got a lot of reading done. I didn't push myself to do the 24-hours. I started at the appointed hour (8:30am in my timezone) and went to bed around 11pm when I was sleepy. I did a couple of the hourly photo challenges on instagram, but didn't stress about trying to do them all.  
6. I won't be continuing any of the books I started during readathon because I finished them all! My out-of-control library pile is now back down to a normal size. 

January 2024 Book Report

January 2024, Manchester, NH

I finished 11 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

"I still live by the Southern Lady code: If you don't have something nice to say, say something not so nice in a nice way. For example: 'Your Instagram is beautifully curated' is Southern Lady Code for 'Your real life must be a hotter mess than spaghetti and meatballs in a clothes dryer.' But I would never write such a message in your comments. My thoughts on your business are not the world's business." --Helen Ellis, Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 2 were from my owned-but-not-read shelf  (currently at 137 books)
• 0 counted toward the 17th Canadian Reading Challenge 
• 1 counted toward the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 
• 1 counted toward the 2024 What's in a Name Challenge
• 0 were from my Readers' Advisory Reading List 
• 3 were from my #NonFicNov TBR 
• 1 was from my Classics Club List 

 Here are the books I finished in January 2024: 

1. An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear (4-stars)
2. Death in Print by G. M. Malliet  (4-stars)
3. Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy (3-stars)
4. Congratulations, The Best is Over by R. Eric Thomas (audiobook, 4-stars)
5. Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge by Helen Ellis (4-stars)
6. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld (3-stars)
7. Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit (4-stars)
8. No Good Tea Goes Unpunished by Bree Baker (audiobook, 3-stars)
9. Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier (4-stars)
10. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel (3-stars)
11. Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (5-stars)

A good start to my reading year -- a nice mix of books and several 4-star reads!

Spinning the Classics

It's time for another Classics Club spin! I have listed 20 books from my Classics Club List below. On Sunday, 12/11/2022 a number will be posted on the Club site and the challenge is to read whichever book falls under that number on my list by 1/29/2023. I am getting close to the end of my list so I am listing several books more than once.

1. Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong, 2000
2. Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
3. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, 1957
4. The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers, 1946
5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick, 1968
6. The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith, 1952
7. My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier, 1951
8. The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant, 1926
9. Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
10. The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922
11. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
12. Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty, 1946
13. The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith, 1952
14. The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers, 1946
15. A House for Mr Biswas, V. S. Naipaul, 1961
16. The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O'Connor, 1960
17. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, 1957
18. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
19. Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty, 1946
20. Harriet Hume, Rebecca West, 1929

Spinning the Classics +

It's time for another Classics Club Spin. The number will be picked on Sunday, 6/12/2022 and the goal is to read the selected book by 8/7/2022.

Here is my list (with some duplicates to increase the odds for specific titles) of 20 not-yet-read titles from my Classics Club List:

1. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry, 1985
2. Walden, Henry David Thoreau, 1854
3. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1882
4. Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen, 1937
5. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1856 
6. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
7. The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith, 1952
8. The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant, 1926
9. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, 1957
10. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick, 1968
11. My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier, 1951
12. Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty, 1946
13. The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922
14. The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers, 1946
15. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1882
16. The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O'Connor, 1960
17. A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift, 1704
18. The Waves, Virginia Woolf, 1931
19. Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong, 2000
20. The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant, 1926

For the last Classics Club Spin I also posted a list of 20 titles from my owned-but-not-read list and pledged to start that book before the end of the spin. I am going to do that again, so here is my Unread-shelf list:

1. The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker
2. Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
3. What Would Audrey Do? by Pamela Keogh
4. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
5. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
6. Lost by Gregory Maguire
7. Michael Tolliver Lives by Amistead Maupin
8. The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham
9. Ninety-nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown
10. Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter
11. So We Read On by Maureen Corrigan
12. We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
13. The Secret Life of the American Musical by Jack Viertel
14. For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
15. Fluke by Christopher Moore
16. Three Lives by Gertrude Stein
17. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
18. The Russia House by John Le Carre
19. Come and Get It by Edna Ferber
20. On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks

April Book Report

April 2022, Concord, NH

I finished 13 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

"But Dickens was not a cool customer. He was, in fact, a ripsnorting, raging, egotistical cad, and if he had not also been a supremely great writer he would have been intolerable." --Roberson Davies, "Phantasmagoria and Dream Grotto," in One Half of Robertson Davies

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 4 were non-fiction (toward my goal of 25 non-fiction books this year) and 1 counted toward the NonFiction Reader Challenge 
• 2 were books I own but hadn't read before (inspired by The Unread Shelf project)
• none was poetry (my goal of reading 4 poetry books this year is not coming along too well so far)
•  4 counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge which I have now completed for the current year (this challenge begins and ends on Canada Day)
• 2 were from my Classics Club List and 1 counted toward Back to the Classics

• 3 counted toward the Cruisin' Through the Cozies challenge 
• 1 counted toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 
• none counted toward the Turtle Recall Challenge
• 1 counted toward the TBR Pile Challenge
• none were for my Century of Books project

 Here are the books I finished in April 2022: 

1. Death in Cornwall by G. M. Malliett (4-stars)
2. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield  (audiobook, 5-stars)
3. Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction by Neal Wyatt (4-stars)
4. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (4-stars)
5. The Art of Falling: A Novel by Danielle McLaughlin (3-stars)
6. One Half of Robertson Davies by Robertson Davies (3-stars)
7. Murder Your Darlings by J. J. Murphy (3-stars)
8. Women Writers at Work by The Paris Review (3-stars)
9. Lust for Life by Irving Stone (4-stars)
10. Blizzard of Glass by Sally M. Walker (4-stars)
11. Live and Let Chai by Bree Baker (audiobook, 3-stars)
12. The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel (4-stars)
13. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (5-stars)

This was a good reading month: I finished a challenge; read two 5-star books, and got to wrap up the month with a whole day of reading. 

March Book Report

March 2022

I finished 11 books last month.

I didn't make note of any particularly good quotes from this month's reading so I am sharing an all time favorite:

"But it is impossible, I find, to tidy books without ending by sitting on the floor in the middle of a great untidiness and reading." -- Elizabeth von Arnim, In the Mountains

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 4 books were non-fiction (toward my goal of 25 non-fiction books this year) and 1 counted toward the NonFiction Reader Challenge 
• None were books I own but hadn't read before (inspired by The Unread Shelf project)
• None were poetry (toward my goal of reading 4 poetry books this year)
• None counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge 
• None were from my Classics Club List and none counted toward Back to the Classics -- there is a Classics Club Spin in April for which I am planning to read Where Angels Fear to Tread. 

• 1 counted toward the Cruisin' Through the Cozies challenge 
• None counted toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge (though I started a book that will count toward this challenge when I finish it)
• None counted toward the Turtle Recall Challenge
• 1 counted toward the TBR Pile Challenge
• None were for my Century of Books project

 Here are the books I finished in March 2022: 

1. Dove in the Window by Earlene Fowler (3-stars)
2. Our Lady of Sorrows by Anne Zouroudi  (3-stars)
3. Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty (4-stars)
4. The Whispers of Nemesis by Anne Zouroudi (4-stars)
5. The Bull of Mithros by Anne Zouroudi (3-stars)
6. The Readers' Advisory Guide to Mystery by John Charles (4-stars)
7. The Feast of Artemis by Anne Zouroudi (4-stars)
8. Ikegai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia Puigcerver and Francesc Miralles (audio, 3-stars)
9. Three Men Out by Rex Stout (3-stars)
10. The Gifts of Poseidon by Anne Zouroudi (3-stars)
11. Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda (3-stars)

This month was the Can-You-Read-a-Series-in-a-Month? Challenge--hence all the Anne Zouroudi novels. Turns out I can, but it kept me from making progress on most of my challenges. 

February Book Report

Picture Books! Feb. 2022

I finished 14 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“I would like to be able to say that I threw myself into the spirit of it all, but the truth is, I still felt a bit dazed. A bit abstracted. It's going to take time, I guess. If you’ve thought in a certain way for many years, if you’ve had a picture in your mind of how things are and that picture is suddenly shown to be faulty, well, it stands to reason that it will take a while to adjust. And during that time, you’re bound to feel … disconnected”
― Mary Lawson, Crow Lake

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 4 were non-fiction (toward my goal of 25 non-fiction books this year) but none counted toward the NonFiction Reader Challenge 
• 3 were books I own but hadn't read before (inspired by The Unread Shelf project)
• none was poetry (toward my goal of reading 4 poetry books this year) -- I do have a poetry book in progress though
• 3 counted toward the Canadian Reading Challenge 
• 2 were from my Classics Club List and 3 counted toward Back to the Classics

• 2 counted toward the Cruisin' Through the Cozies challenge 
• none counted toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge -- I have a book in progress for this challenge
• 1 counted toward the Turtle Recall Challenge
• 2 counted toward the TBR Pile Challenge
• 3 were books for my Century of Books project

 Here are the books I finished in February 2022: 

1. Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (4-stars)
2. New Grub Street by George Gissing (4-stars)
3. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (4-stars)
4. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson (5-stars)
5. Esau and Jacob by Machado de Assis (3-stars)
6. How to Change by Katy Milkman (3-stars)
7. Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert (a "freebie" cozy, 3-stars)
8. Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber (4-stars)
9. Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill (3-stars)
10. The Hollow by Agatha Christie (4-stars)
11. Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction by Jennifer Baker (4-stars)
12. The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman (audio, 4-stars)
13. Soul Music by Terry Pratchett (3-stars)
14. The Body in Question by Jill Ciment (4-stars)

I did very well reading for challenges this month: I read 14 books and thanks to choosing books for multiple purposes I was able to count 23 books toward my various projects. 

In addition to the titles listed above I read a big stack of picture books this month (for a project at the library where I work). There were some really good ones. I especially liked This Very Tree  (which I expected to be sappy, but it wasn't at all) and The Alphabet's Alphabet.

January Book Report

January 2022

I finished 11 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading (3 actually):

“it’s grandma food, ‘bad for the arteries but good for the heart.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

“You can’t get over things you do to other people as easily as you get over things they do to you.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

“Things begin, things end. Just when we seem to arrive at a quiet place, we are swept up, suddenly, between the body's smoothe, functioning predictability, and the need for disruption. We do irrational things, outrageous things. Or else something will come along and intervene, an unimaginable foe.”
― Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 4 were non-fiction (toward my goal of 25 non-fiction books this year) and 1 counted toward the NonFiction Reader Challenge 
• 3 were books I own but hadn't read before (inspired by The Unread Shelf project)
• none was poetry (toward my goal of reading 4 poetry books this year)
• 4 counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge 
• none were from my Classics Club List or counted toward Back to the Classics

• 2 counted toward the Cruisin' Through the Cozies challenge 
• none counted toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 
• none counted toward the Turtle Recall Challenge
• none were for the TBR Pile Challenge -- I have one almost done for that though, so there should be progress next month
• 1 was a book for my Century of Books project

 Here are the books I finished in January 2022:

1. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (5-stars)
2. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (5-stars)
3. Corpse in a Gilded Cage by Robert Barnard (4-stars)
4. The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (4-stars)
5. Italy: A Short History by Harry Hearder (3-stars)
6. Blowing the Bloody Doors Off by Michael Caine (3-stars)
7. Canada by Mike Myers (audiobook, 4-stars)
8. Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse (published 1906, 3-stars)
9. On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle (3-stars)
10. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (3-stars)
11. A Voice from the Attic by Robertson Davies (2-stars)

My reading year has gotten off to an excellent start. Two 5-star books in a row is super unusual for me (I'm a tough grader). 

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! 

My Reading Year 2021

My 2021 5-star reads

I had an excellent reading year in 2021. I read a total of 169 books (100ish is typical for me). 

I enjoyed most of the books I read -- my average rating was 3.47

5% were 2-stars (It was ok)
47% were 3-stars (I liked it)
43% were 4-stars (I really liked it)
5% were 5-stars (It was amazing!)

The books were pretty evenly split between men (70) and women (99) authors. The bulk of the books were originally published in the 21st century (47%). The second half of the 20th century was also well represented (38%). I only read 3 books from the 1800s and nothing older. I read 13 titles published in 2021 which was more than I expected.

The shortest book I read was Blue Horses at 79 pages; the longest was The Three Musketeers at 761 pages. The average page count for this year's reading was 292.

Most of the books I read were borrowed from libraries (70%) but I managed to read 33 books that I owned. I joined audiobooks.com this year and 10% of the books I read were from there. I listened to a total of 26 audiobooks this year, including some from the public library. 

As far as the types of books I read the largest category was mystery novels (37%) followed closely by other fiction (32%). I read 47 works of nonfiction (including a few essay collections), 4 books of short stories, and 2 volumes of poetry.

I read books by 121 different authors in 2021 and read more than one book by 21 authors. The highest book count for one author was Terry Pratchett (10 books). I read 6 books each by Rex Stout, Martha Grimes, and Dick Francis. 

I completed all the reading goals that I set for myself at the start of 2021.

It was a good reading year and I hope that 2022 will be as enjoyable.

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen 

by Rumer Godden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this biography for #RumerGoddenReadingWeek2021 

I knew nothing about Andersen's life before reading this book so I have no idea how accurate a depiction it is. I decided to read it because the library I work at owns it. It was a very charmingly written book and read more like a fairy tale than a biography. As she did in Black Narcissis, Godden included details of the settings in her tale:

"The clouds often floated below the house; there was stillness and rest in the dark pine trees standing round it, in the big forests that led away; there was beauty in the bright green grass and the juicy violet-colored crocus; there was peace in which to write his poem, the poem that haunted him and that he had begun in Paris." (p. 130)

There are numerous sections of Andersen's work quoted throughout to illustrate various points which was helpful as I was not that familiar with his writings. There are a lot of places where we are told very specifically what Andersen was thinking about a person or an experience. I presume there must have been letters and diaries, but this isn't stated in the book and some of them are from periods of Andersen's life before he went to school which seems odd. Godden maintains a distinct authorial voice throughout the book, she is clearly telling us about this man rather than immersing her readers in the episodes to see things for themselves. This is helpful to the reader as the significance of events to Andersen's later development is explicit. 

 

Overall I enjoyed this book and plan to read some more of Andersen's tales. Godden does offer some helpful advice regarding translations and suggests that the ones by R. P. Keigwin are the closest in style to the original Danish and that the style is an important part of what makes these stories special.

Rumer Godden Reading Week

Brona at This Reading Life is hosting #RumerGoddenReadingWeek this week (12/4-12/12/2021). When she announced it back in October I jumped right in and started reading novels by this new-to-me author. 

I began with Pippa Passes which is a charming story about a young ballet dancer who is figuring out who she is and how to deal with the world around her. It is set in Venice and weaves the city, especially it's churches, into the story. 

I began reading An Episode of Sparrows but it didn't hold my attention and I set it aside.

I have four of her novels on hand at the moment (thanks to my public library) and plan to read at least one of them this week. I wanted extras in case I get through them quickly and have time to read more than one; or one doesn't appeal when I begin it. I am a heartless abandoner of books that aren't working for me so I try to take that into account when planning reading projects.

Here are my options:

• Black Narcissus (1939)
• The Greengage Summer (1957)
• The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1963)
• In This House of Brede (1969)

New to My TBR

Week 5: (November 29-December 3) — New to My TBR with Jaymi at The OC Book Girl: It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book! 

I didn't post for Week 4: (November 22-26) – Stranger Than Fiction with Christopher at Plucked from the Stacks which focused on all the great nonfiction books that *almost* don’t seem real. I couldn't think of any non-fiction that felt stranger than fiction to me. Maybe I'm just too cynical and prepared to believe outrageous things. 

Anyway, moving on to the 20 books I have added to my TBR during #nonficnov:

• The Art of the English Murder: From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock by Lucy Worsley (from Joy's Book Blog)
• Fridge Love: Organize Your Refrigerator for a Healthier, Happier Life by Kristen Hong (from Based on a True Story)
• The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (this has been on my list, as I mentioned in week 3, but I was reminded about it by Deb At Readerbuzz)
• The Power of Ritual by Casper Ter Kuile (from Silver Button Books)
• Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan (from Books Please)
• Vote First or Die by Scott Conroy (from Plucked from the Stacks)
• The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne (from Entering the Enchanted Castle) 
• The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson (from Gulfside Musing) 
• Enid by Robert Wainwright (from book'd out -- though it was on their TBR as well rather than a recommendation)
• Writing at the Kitchen Table: Elizabeth David, the Authorized Biography by Artemis Cooper (from Scones and Chaise Longues) -- I have already gotten this from the library and began reading it.
• The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker (from Doing Dewey)
• The Barbizon by Paulina Bren and The Girl in White Gloves by Kerri Maher (a pairing from The Paperback Princess)
• The Rose Code by Kate Quinn (from Reading, Writing, Working, Playing) -- this work of fiction was paired with The Code Girls which I already read.
• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (from The Thousand Book Project)
• Murder Your Darlings by Roy Peter Clark (from LisaNotes)
• The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made by Patricia O'Toole (recommended in a comment from Lory at Entering the Enchanted Castle)
• Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam (from The Book Stop)
• Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (from What's Nonfiction) -- essays from various people about eating/cooking for one
• A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (from What's Nonfiction and Plucked from the Stacks) -- both blogs featured it as stranger than fiction, but I've lived in NH long enough that I doubt I will find it that unlikely; I am interested in reading it.