Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - Pearl is almost a spinster, when Beck, a traveling salesman meets and marries her. They have three children, Cody, Ezra and Jenny, before he leaves for a sales trip one day and doesn't come back. Each child views their childhood differently. Cody believes that his mother favored Ezra over him, and in fact, that most people did. He steals the woman that Ezra plans to marry, to prove to himself that he can do something better than him. He is successful and travels for his job as an efficiency expert, just like his father, but insists on bringing his father to each new town with him. Ezra, on the other hand, sticks close to home, working at a restaurant that he eventually inherits, and renames the Homesick Restaurant. His greatest dream, similar to his mother's, is to have family dinners there, but until the very end, it never seems to work out. Jenny, the youngest, grows up feeling like an ugly duckling, but does well in school and becomes a physician, and marries three times, eventually ending up with a blended family of eight.
Anne Tyler's books don't seem to have much action in them, they are more about examining what it means - to be alive, to be human, to have a family, or be married. This book was well received, receiving the following awards: Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Fiction (1983), PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (1983), Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Fiction (1982), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (1982), National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (Hardcover) (1983). They just take a different mindset to read, you must be willing to take time with them, read them closely and over time, reflect upon them.
Pop Sugar #14: A book set in a restaurant
Book 62 of 2021


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An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew by Annejet van der Zijl

An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew by Annejet van der Zijl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - I am surprised by the amount of non-fiction I have been reading this year, including this biography/memoir of Allene Tew. I was intrigued from the start to learn that Allene lived in Jamestown, NY during a time when my family lived in the area (1850s). She was a lovely young woman and even though she lacked social status, she captured the heart of a Pittsburgh heir, who would marry her and father her three children, all who died young (29, 2, and 21). She would go on to marry four more men, including Anson Burchard, the love of her life, and two European royalty - a prince and a count, and lived a very international life that began just after the American Civil War and ended in the 1950s. She saw multiple economic disasters, but always managed to come out on top, through careful money management, despite her generosity in helping others.
AtY #12: A book eligible for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
Book 61 of 2021


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A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes

A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - An interesting mix of memoir and research, this short book is a glimpse into the life of a thirty-something English woman who decides to keep bees, after learning about them from spending time with her beekeeping friend. Her work life is stressful and so this seems to be an answer that will relax and ground her. She divides the book into 7 sections - Doorway, Hive, Bee, Orientation, Losing Sight, Swarm and Honey, which act as a framework for the research, observation and lessons she learns. The sections are further divided into months, where she adds personal tidbits about her life, her friends and her personal growth. Have kept bees before, it is interesting to see the differences, the monthly examination of the hive, the dress in full beekeeping gear rather than smoking, among others. You don't have to be a beekeeper to enjoy this book, there's many life lessons in there, too.
AtY #3: A book related to the lyrics for the song "My Favorite Things" (when the bee stings)
Book 59 of 2021


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Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - An enjoyable story about a woman whose husband dies on the day she plans to leave him and a major league baseball pitcher who has lost his mojo, and their long journey towards each other. Evvie Drake hasn't loved her husband, the town doctor, for a long time. When she receives a phone call while packing her car to leave him, telling her he's been in a serious accident, she feels guilty, and more guilty because she doesn't miss him. What no one knows, because she has kept it hidden and continues to do so, is that he was abusive to her, primarily verbally with a few incidents where she is actually injured (though not because he's hit her). She's in denial about the abuse.
Meanwhile, her best friend Andy suggests that she might want to rent an apartment in the back of her home, to his friend Dean, who is looking to escape NYC, where his star baseball career has abruptly ended. Evvie and Dean have a lot of healing to do, and over many months, with many bumps in the road, they do that, eventually finding their way on a road that leads to each other.
Pop Sugar #31: A book by a blogger, vlogger, YouTube video creator, or other online personality (Holmes edits the Pop Culture Happy Hour blog on NPR)
Book 56 of 2021


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Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - I loved this book! Maybe it was a response to the heavy, hard Toni Morrison book Love that I just finished. Maybe it was the games, that Reid and Meg played, with numbers, words, and signs. Perhaps it was because I didn't see the plot twist, yet it was believable. Whatever the reason, I question why I didn't finish this book when I checked it out in October, reading only the first chapter. I'm glad I gave it another try.
Book 55 of 2021

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From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5.0 stars - A look at the way different cultures handle the death process and dispose of the remains. In some cultures, they are honored, visited frequently or even kept in the homes as corpses (Mexico) or skulls (Bolivia). There are celebrations, such as the Day of the Dead or the Fiesta de las Natitas. Often, there is the ability for families to actually sit with the bodies, such as in Spain or Japan. In Japan, there is a very special columbarian where the remains are represented by individual buddhas and families have smart cards so that their buddha lights up when they visit.
Here is the United States, death has become an industry, with laws to protect it. In some places, though, people are rebelling and trying to reclaim death as a natural process. Two such places are Crestone, Colorado and Cullowhee, North Carolina. In Colorado, cremation is out in the open, with family and friends gathered to celebrate the life. In North Carolina, experiments are being done with natural decomposition or recomposition as it is called. Both emphasis honoring the deceased.
This was an interesting book, just long enough to be enticing, and sprinkled with beautiful black and white illustrations that added so much to the enjoyment.
AtY #28: A book that might cause someone to react “You read what?!?"


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Neighbors by Danielle Steel

Neighbors by Danielle Steel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 stars - A good solid book by an author that sometimes I love, other times I don't. Meredith White, a former award winning movie star, lives in a gated house and has hidden herself away for 14 years following the death of her 14 year old son. Then one day, a big earthquake hits, and she opens her home to her neighbors whose homes have been badly damaged. The earthquake is a life changer for most of the neighborhood, and new relationships develop, old ones crumble apart. Meredith finds herself becoming friends with the people she welcomes into her home, much to the chagrin of the couple who she employs to run her home, who have been stealing from her for years. The story unfolds over about a year, and while it's not quite a happy ending for everyone, most of the characters grow and find happiness during that time. The one part that bothered me a bit is the few places where a woman is described as "belonging to" a man. Other than that, it was a nice, comfortable read.
Pop Sugar #1: A book that's published in 2021
Book 52 of 2021

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The Other Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

The Other Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - If you're going to read regency romance, and I can't believe I am, you have to be willing to accept some of the genre's plot devices, seduction, heros, women who need saving. And pirates? Well that was a departure I wasn't expecting. I enjoyed the clever repartee between Poppy (who names their child Poppy?) and Captain James (anka the younger Rokesby son), Poppy's attitude of making the best of things, always wanting to know more, and her general intrepidness. It was one of the better Bridgerton novels I have read, and although I don't plan on making a steady diet of them, during this pandemic when time weighs heavy, they make for some light reading.
Book 51 of 2021

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Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich

Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 rounded to 4.0 stars - This was one of the better Stephanie Plum novels. She wasn't overly simpering, the mystery of the treasure (introduced in the last book) is solved, but there is still no resolution in the Ranger/Morelli love interest. Will there ever be? And perhaps the best part is that she introduced a new character, Gabriela Rose, who it looks like will be starring soon in her own series.
Pop Sugar # 37: A book you think your best friend would like
Book 50 of 2021


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My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

I'm going to post an entry about this, not because it was a great book, but because it's so far afield from my normal reading choices. My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.0/5.0 - A departure from my normal reading choices, this British humor audiobook was just the right thing to fill a winter afternoon while I worked on COVID puzzle #12.
AtY #2: A book by an author whose name doesn't contain the letters A, T or Y
Book 48 of 2021


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One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel by Olivia Hawker

One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel by Olivia Hawker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5/5.0 - Set in Wyoming in 1870, this book tells the story of the Bemis and Webber families, the women and children who must stick together to survive the winter, after Clyde Bemis kills Substance Webber, when he finds him and his wife Cora together. As one might imagine, Substance's wife, Nettie Mae has no love for the Bemis family but is convinced by her son, Clyde to take the family in for the winter. Clyde and Beulah Bemis become close, working together in the fields and with the animals. Beulah is special, she understands nature and animals in an almost mystical way.
I listened to the audiobook, and the author gives such details as allows you to feel like you are there with the characters, seeing and feeling as they do. I think if there was one thing that took away, ever so slightly, from my enjoyment, it was the narrator's portrayal of Cora, whispery and childlike. This was a book in which the two teenagers, Clyde - 16 and Cora - 13(?), were really the strong members of their families, without whom none would survive.
AtY #36: A book with six or more words in the title
Book 47 of 2021

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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - This books started out as a 5.0 for the first half, the middle really dragged, the ending was good, so a 4 star all in all. This was a book that I had to stop and take notes on throughout. I am ashamed to say I knew nothing about apartheid before reading this, and just have the most basic understanding now. One way to describe it is institutionalized racism within a police state, where blacks are forced to live in ghettos, and language is used as a barrier. By that I mean, each tribe (Zula, Xhosa, and many others) are forced to speak only their dialect, in essence creating a Tower of Babel situation. In South Africa during Trevor's childhood, there were 3 or 4 races. There were blacks, whites, colored and mixed. I'm not sure of the distinction between the last two, though. Colored was when a black man or woman had a child with white man or woman. That was Trevor's case, his father was German/Swiss, his mother South African. But he calls himself colored as opposed to mixed.
Trevor's mother was a strong, religious woman who raised him "as a white kid" (p.73), which is to say to believe in and speak up for himself, and to know that his ideas, thoughts and decisions mattered. She drummed into him from the time he was a small boy how to treat women with respect.
A couple of notes of things that stayed with me. Page 110 - "Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give another human being." (Trevor speaking of meeting back up with his father when he is a young man).
There were a couple of places in this book that reminded me of other books I have recently read. For example, in the chapter "The Mulberry Tree," he talks about how races can be promoted or demoted - an Indian might be considered colored, a colored person could be "promoted" to white, depending on the whim of the government official. I kept thinking about the chapter in Hawaii where the Japanese unit is training in the United States during World War II, and in some ways they are treated as negroes, and in other ways as whites. Parable of the Sower also came to mind, when he described neighborhoods in Johannesburg where "virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, with electric wire on top (p. 151)."
I found his statement that Germany teaches about the holocaust and England teaches about colonialism apologetically, but South Africa teaches about apartheid the same way America teaches about racism - it happened, get over it.
This is a book that made we think and weep and I hope taught me something. One thing that I did not understand at all, though, is its classification as humor, and the fact that it won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. I didn't find anything humorous about this book.
AtY #24: A book about racism or race relations
Pop Sugar #20: A book found on a Black Lives Matter reading list
Book 45 of 2021


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The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs

The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - I was surprised this book, expecting from the title for it to be about domesticity and craftsmanship. And in a way, it was, but it was so much more. It was about a woman trying to make her way in the fashion industry in NYC, where she develops a friendship with a model named Angelique. When Angelique dies of a drug overdose, Caroline finds herself as guardian of her children. She takes them back to her childhood hometown, Oysterville, where her family still lives and offers to help in her with the children. In the course of time, she realizes that Angelique had been involved in domestic abuse, but from whom? And then she discovers others in her hometown, some people who she known all her life, also were victims. With her sisters, she decides to start a support group, to honor her friend's memory, and try to make life better for her daughter.
I loved the way the story followed Caroline from young girlhood to adulthood, from child to parent, from friend to lover. She had strong dreams, left to pursue them, and brought them back with her. And in the circle of life, in the end, love comes her way.
Pop Sugar #38: A book about art or an artist
Book 44 of 2021


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Super America (short stories) by Anne Panning

Super America by Anne Panning
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 rounded to 4.0 stars - I normally don't read or enjoy short stories, so this book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There were some common themes between the ten stories, two took place in Hawai'i - "Tidal Wave Wedding" and "What Happened" and two dealt with devastating bicycle accidents "What Happened" and the novella "Freeze." All were glimpses into what could have been my life or yours. And all had some academic connection - a college student or professor. I enjoyed many of them, but my favorites were "Five Reasons I Miss the Laundromat" and the novella. The laundromat story brought me back to a time in my life when I occasionally would find myself hauling a week's worth of clothing for a family of six, sometimes with one or more of the kids to help, but more often by myself. In a way, it was a respite from a busy family life. The novella, one of several set in a Monroe County college town (Brockport?) spoke to me of a time when I was the person putting on the brave face, managing people and things, while my husband was trying not to die. And like Peter, coming home on Thanksgiving, but not out of the woods yet.
Tomorrow, the college library's book club will meet virtually to discuss this book, written by one of our own faculty. It will be interesting to hear their take, and as Anne is facilitating this, to learn more about it from the author, herself.
AtY #33: A collection of short stories, essays, or poetry
Book 43 of 2021


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What Once Was True by Jean Grainger

What Once Was True by Jean Grainger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - This book put me in mind of season three of Downton Abbey. It takes place in the late 1930s, in Ireland. The Keneficks own Robinswood, a manor that deferred maintenance and lack of funds has taken it toll on. The lord of the manor, Austin, has recently passed away, and only his wife, Violet remains there. Their son, Samuel, and daughter, Lillian have gone to London, he to join the RAF, she to be a society girl. For years, the Murphy family, Dermot and Isabella, and their three daughters have run the estate, but now it is going to be closed. The interactions between the Murphy family and the Keneficks make up the story line, and it is interesting to see the world from the two different perspectives. Also of interest was the IRA storyline and the history of Ireland's fight for freedom. This was the first of a trilogy, we'll see if the rest are as interesting.
AtY #27: A book with a character who can be found in a deck of cards (Jack O'Neill)
Book 41 of 2021


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Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - This is going to be a two part review, one of the book and a second part of how it spoke to me. Katherine May is an English writer and former faculty who is writing about "wintering" which describes a period of retreat, rest, and healing. As a teenager, she is diagnosed with Asperger's and that, coupled with her husband's near fatal bout with appendicitis and her own serious stomach issues, led her to turn in her notice at university and search for new ways to live. One way she finds helpful is swimming in ice cold water. (End of part one).
The bookmark I used for this book has a quote: "Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know." - Alberto Manguel, and it totally described this book. Here are a number of quotes that spoke to me.
Describing wintering: "Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. (10) However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. (11)"
I think we can all relate to this, perhaps we are living this ourselves right now.
May talks about northern cultures, Finns, Danes, Scandinavians, who embrace winter and cold and darkness, the Finns having a word hygge to describe "cosiness as a mindful practice, a turning towards domesticated comfort to console us against the harshness of the world outside.(32)"
In a passage where she describes her grandmother dying in hospital, she says "In my naïve way, I expected her to get better and come home." I felt that way when my father entered the hospital, before the cruel ER doctor said to me "why are you worried about him getting into a room, he's just going to die."
On page 68: "Life meanders like a path through the woods, (w)e have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones."
About waking in the early hours, and she describes her books pulled beside her chair as "waiting to offer up fragments of learning, rather than cover-to-cover pursuits." This book to me is more of the former than the latter, but thoroughly enjoyable. Further, she tells about how night was divided into two periods (before the Industrial Revolution) first or dead sleep, and second or morning sleep, where you are coming back into the world, separated by a period of wakefulness known as "the watch." When we experience it now, we treat it as a problem, but back then it was a time to pee, visit, pray, or make love. (85)
May talks about the importance of communities and rituals to get us through tough times, and embracing the wisdom of those who have faced a problem before us. Sometimes that means not "fixing" a problem, but learning to live a life that you can cope with, especially when the challenge you are facing is a permanent condition. Keeping well can be a full time job.
She ends the book talking about robins. "In the deepest of winter, the robin begins to sing" and sometimes "we sing to show how strong we are, or in hopes of better times." (228)
Some people might find this too new age. But I believe for others, who are struggling to find their way through these tough times, there will be many things to relate to, and in which to find hope.

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Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5.0/5.0 - I'm always pleased when a book that I pick for a challenge, one that I would not normally have grabbed off a shelf, turns out to be so good. This author was not on my radar, the genre - dystopian science fiction, would never be a first choice for me, yet I was drawn in from the very beginning. The book takes place is the near future, 2025, when society has broken down due to extreme poverty, climate change, drugs, and the lack of education and well paying jobs. Communities survive behind walls, but are always subject to attack. Lauren is 15 when the story opens. She lives with her father, a Baptist minister and college professor, her stepmother, who also holds a PhD, but stays at home to care for her family and teach the local community, and four brothers. She can see where things are headed and decides to prepare herself for a future where she must survive and thrive on her own. For years, she has been thinking about what she wants her future to look like, and has written her thoughts in a book she calls Earthseed: The Books of the Living. She learns all she can, she packs a bug-out bag, and when the time comes, she escapes the night of madness. Slowly, she starts building the community of earthseed, along the road, with other survivors. Community and change, traveling to the stars - these are the principles in which she believes. How successful will her new community be? I guess you'll have to read Parable of the Talents to find out.
Pop Sugar #2: An Afrofuturist book
Book 37 of 2021


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Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich

Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - I have a love/don't love relationship with this author, but this was one of my favorite of the Stephanie Plum series. Stephanie is a klutz who isn't really cut out for fugitive apprehension, she's not quite driven enough to pursue her FTAs and even will look the other way at times. She can't decide between Joe Morelli, the NJ detective who's her off again/on again lover, and Ranger - the tall, dark, handsome security firm owner, who is constantly rescuing her from life or death situations. I got a kick out of the back of the book which had two oval stickers - one for team Morelli and one for team Ranger, suitable for your back windshield. Which team are you on? I'm team Ranger, myself.
Book 36 of 2021

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The Mountain Between Us by Cindy Myers

The Mountain Between Us by Cindy Myers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.0/5.0 - A simple little book set in Eureka, Colorado, a ghost town home to some hearty mountain folks. It's winter, a time when avalanches can and do, cut off their town from the rest of the world. But no matter, the town folks support each other and get through tough times together.
AtY #9: A book you associate with a specific season or time of year
Book 35 of 2021
I might or might not have starting reading this series because of the author's surname.

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The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - I quite enjoyed this novel by Jenny Colgan, having read her tangentially related earlier book The Bookshop on the Corner several years ago. Once again, this book starts out with a young woman who loves books and lives in London, finding herself needing to move with her 4 year old son, Hari. Nina's friend, Surinder, who is the sister to Hari's father, suggests that Zoe might work out as a cover for Nina while she is on maternity leave. At the same time, a nanny position opens in the town, for a family of three children, with a largely absent father and a mysteriously absent mother. Zoe, knowing she hasn't nothing to lose, takes the position, and falls in love with the Scottish town, its people, and the family she is gradually bringing back together. Hari thrives, as well. The ending is not yet necessarily happy ever after, but the makings are there.
AtY #38: "Book Chosen by Random Word Generator [retailer - book van, resign- Zoe to Jaz not taking care of his son, stick - Zoe's ability to "stick to it", condition - yes, but to say would be a spoiler"]
Book 34 of 2021


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A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - I did not expect to like this, paranormal and vampires not being my thing, so I was surprised at how quickly it pulled me in. It probably helped that it started out in the Bodleian Library (aka Oxford University Library), and that in my past life, as an Interlibrary Loan librarian, I used to occasionally get books from there. So immediately, I was drawn into the setting. The main characters, Diana, a witch who doesn't wish to use her powers, and Matthew, a very powerful vampire, who revels in his, are attracted to each other despite their desires not to be. Throughout the book, they grow, as creatures and lovers, Diana becoming much stronger, and Matthew, becoming less secretive and slowly opening little by little to Diana. Secrets are revealed, families are introduced and enlarged, and the book leaves both satisfied and set up for the next book in the series.
Pop Sugar #5: A dark academia book
Book 33 of 2021


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The Fairies of Sadieville by Alex Beldsoe

The Fairies of Sadieville by Alex Bledsoe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5/5.0 - This was the wrap up of Alex Bledsoe's Tufa series, that I started reading back in NY in the fall of 2017. I was surprised when I got to TN, which is the setting for this series that it was not available in my library or through the TN R.E.A.D.S. system, so I purchased it from Audible. I have loved the story of the Tufa, fairy folks that live in the mountains of East Tennessee. This book ties together many of the loose threads, told through the voices of Veronica and Justin, graduate students from West Tennessee University. Justin, who is pursuing a degree in folk music has discovered an old film in his advisor's office about a glamorous people who make the most beautiful music, and he decides to find them. They do some research and discover the town of Sadieville, a coal town which disappeared one day, both from the face of the earth and from people (and the Tufas') memories. The fairies were banished from their homes eons ago, and Sadieville holds the link to their past. The book does a good job of explaining why and how that happened, and taking them on a journey of discovery.
Pop Sugar #11: A book about forgetting
Book 32 of 2021


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Emma by Alexander McCall Smith

Emma by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - I'm not sure whether I've never read the classic upon which this is based, or just read it so many years ago that I remembered nothing about it. I guess I will read it soon, though. At first, I didn't understand what role Isabella (the older sister) played, as it almost felt like a filler character. I thought it might be a tie-in to another of his series, but the name, though similar is not exactly the same. So I Googled the original and it all became much clearer. Emma is not a very likeable person, but that is the point of the book, isn't it? She sees herself as the snob she is and grows up. And all live happily ever after?
PopSugar #A book that has the same title as a song
Book 31 of 2021


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