March 2025 Reading

My favorite books this month were The Lost Passenger, which is much more than a Titanic story, a reread of The Heart Speaks Many Ways, and Just for the Summer, a contemporary romance set in Minnesota. I appreciated Prophet Song, the 2023 Booker winner, and its depiction of an authoritarian state but it was hard to enjoy something so much like our daily life and worries.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch – Reading Ireland Month 2025

After Eilish Stack answers the door one night to find two policemen asking for her husband, she slowly begins to realize nothing will be the same for her family. Her husband’s job seems innocuous – he is an administrator for the Teachers’ Union of Ireland but these men are investigating an allegation against him:

WWW Wednesday – September 29, 2021

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

There are several books I have been in the middle of for years. If they were really riveting, I probably would not have put them down half-read.  But in Luvvy and the Girls, I read that not completing a book is a sign of weak character.  This belief conflicts with an occasional "life is too short" mantra so I finish most books unless they are dreadful.

Six Degrees of Separation — from Shuggie Bain to Down the Rabbit Hole

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up.   This month’s starting point is Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, which won the 2020 Booker Prize.

First Degree

Shuggie Bain is about a boy and his alcoholic mother, living in poverty in public housing in Scotland. 

Six Degrees of Separation: from Normal People to Over Sea, Under Stone (Modern Dublin to the Holy Grail)

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is Normal People by Sally Rooney (2018):

 

I read Rooney’s first book Conversations with Friends last year but found the lack of quotation marks pretentious and the characters unlikable.  I doubt I would have finished if it hadn’t been for my book group.  However, this one seems more interesting and the new miniseries is getting great reviews (except from the Bishop!) so I suspect I will try it some time. 

Can you think of instances where a movie or miniseries is significantly better than the book?