December 2025 Reading

You’ll have to wait a little longer for my Best of 2025 list (I'm having a hard time narrowing it to ten) but here is my December reading.  I think my favorite was the newest installment of the Thursday Murder Club.  Osman's gift for conveying what his characters are thinking is impressive.  That is why I think a voiceover would have made the Netflix adaptation even stronger (also it should have been a multi-part series).

Suspense

The Charity Shop Detective Agency by Peter Boland (2022). Several months ago, I started listening to this mystery about three friends who volunteer at a charity shop somewhere near Dorset. They are upset when a favorite client is murdered and decide to (somewhat ineptly) help the police with their investigation. When my library canceled its Hoopla subscription, I was left stranded mid-story and it took quite a while to find a print copy from ILL. Probably not worth the effort but I hate not finishing a book.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Title: The Giver of Stars
Author: Jojo Moyes
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 2019
Genre: Historical fiction
Setting: Depression-era Kentucky

Description: Alice Wright never fit in at her proper English home because she has a mind of her own and refuses to be silent, so everyone is relieved when handsome American visitor Bennett Van Cleave sweeps her off her feet and takes her away to Kentucky.

July 2021 Reads

July was full of a variety of books and yet I have barely made a dent in my library books or other TBR piles. How is your summer reading going?

Favorite Reads of 2013

In 2013, I read about 185 books of which two were rereads and 152 were from the library or otherwise borrowed.  I'd like to do better in 2014 reading books I already own, many of which are in piles on windowsills and on the floor, and thus need rescuing.

Top Picks

The Firebird                SusannaKearsley                     Fiction/Historical Fiction

(As many of you know, I have been an evangelist for Kearsley since I worked at Bantam in the early 90s.  I am delighted that Sourcebooks is publishing her in the US and doing so much to promote her work.  This book follows The Winter Sea, and also involves 18th century Jacobites, a weakness of mine)