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broodings from the burrow

February 11, 2025


top ten romances i’d like to read from the library
posted by soe 1:41 am

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to come up with our own love-related topic for this week. I thought I’d share the top ten romantic books I have either out from or on hold at the library:

  1. Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello
  2. A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy & Sienna Simone
  3. The Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth
  4. Old Flames and New Fortunes by Sarah Hogle
  5. A Lady’s Guide to Marvels and Misadventure by Angela Bell
  6. The Second You’re Single by Cara Tanamachi
  7. Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi
  8. The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Anna Bright
  9. Empire of the Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson
  10. Back After This by Linda Holmes

The first two are Christmas-themed romances that are still lingering into 2025, which is more an indictment of my scattered reading habits thus far this year than of the books themselves.

After I’ve crossed those two off my in-progress list, has anyone read anything from the list they’d recommend I start with?

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February 4, 2025


top ten 2024 releases i really meant to read
posted by soe 1:23 am

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Arty Reader Girl asks us to share the books that came out last year that we were excited to read — but then didn’t get to. Here are some of mine, all of which I hope make it onto this year’s finished list:

  1. Rainbow Rowell’s Slow Dance
  2. T.J. Klune’s Somewhere Beyond the Sea
  3. Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde
  4. 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg (In fairness, I did start this one and decided I was going to want my own copy, which I now have.)
  5. A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
  6. How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
  7. Amor Towles’ Table for Two
  8. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (Currently reading and overdue back to the library)
  9. The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
  10. 50 Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

How about you? Were there books that came out during 2024 you fully intended to read and then … life?

Category: books. There is/are 5 Comments.

February 2, 2025


into the stacks: january 2025
posted by soe 1:45 am

January is often a high reading count for me, and this year is no exception, with six books already marked off in the done category.

Here are some reviews of what I read last month:

Aliya to the Infinite City by Laila Rifaat

A middle grade fantasy novel that I picked up at the Daunt Books mothership in London last year, Aliya to the Infinite City could reasonably be called an Egyptian Harry Potter — and, in fact, it’s impossible to avoid the comparison, which I suppose Rifaat knew, since she name-checks the series in the story. Aliya lives with her grandfather after her parents are killed in a fire when she was very young. They’ve always gotten along well, but he’s become increasingly erratic in his behavior of late. On her 11th birthday, Aliya learns first that her grandfather has been telling the world she was also dead — and then that she’s from a long line of time-travelers. She ends up in an alternate dimension of Egypt, where she must play catch-up on a lifetime of magical learning, overcome the trauma of her grandfather’s betrayal, and meet other wannabe time-traveling kids who’ve come from all eras of Egyptian history. Add to that, she must try to cope with the stress of poisonings of governmental officials (possibly linked to her roommate and/or house matron), cracks that keep appearing in the sky, and a necklace that once belonged to her mother and recently gifted to her by an anonymous benefactor, which seems to hold enormous — and likely forbidden — power.

Rifaat does have a knack for descriptions. The Infinite City and its residents come alive before your eyes, and you will constantly be hungry because of the feasting that goes on.

It was an okay story, and I would read another in the trilogy if it were to cross my path. But I don’t know if I’d seek it out. Recommended for someone who hasn’t read Harry Potter and might no longer choose to or to someone who wants another version of a magical orphan.

Personal print copy

(more…)

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January 28, 2025


top ten authors i discovered in 2024
posted by soe 2:40 am

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the best new-to-us authors we read last year. In 2024, I read 52 books, which had 51 distinct authors/editors. Of those, 30 were either debut authors or authors whose work I hadn’t yet read. Here are the ten whose works I liked best:

  1. Carsten Henn: The Door-to-Door Bookstore
  2. Katya Balen: October, October
  3. Simon Van Booy: Sipsworth
  4. Karen Hesse: Out of the Dust
  5. Emily Habeck: Shark Heart
  6. Rufi Thorpe: Margo’s Got Money Troubles
  7. Valérie Perrin: Fresh Water for Flowers
  8. Nadi Reed Perez: The Afterlife of Mal Caldera
  9. E. Alix Harrow: The Ten Thousand Doors of January
  10. Sarah Hogle: Just Like Magic

Half of those are realistic fiction and half are speculative fiction/fantasy.

How about you? Which authors did you discover last year whom you would recommend?

Category: books. There is/are 5 Comments.

January 21, 2025


ten most recent additions to my book collection
posted by soe 1:04 am

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the books that have most recently been added to our collections. I had an excellent Jólabókaflóð, or Christmas book flood, so all eleven titles (technically 14 individual books) below arrived at the Burrow in the past month, courtesy of Karen, Rudi, my mother, and Kathleen:

  1. Haikyu!! Vol. 1 and #4-6 by Haruichi Furudate (I read the first manga back in 2018, have since devoured the anime multiple times, and now am hoping to read all 45 books before the final movie comes out (next year maybe?).)
  2. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
  3. Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
  4. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
  5. Bake Club by Christina Tosi
  6. Death Comes at Christmas edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane
  7. Into the Uncut Grass by Trevor Noah
  8. Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge
  9. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
  10. Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
  11. Fangirl (graphic novel Vol. 1) by Rainbow Rowell adapted by Sam Maggs and illustrated by Gabi Nam

How about you? Have new books moved into your home recently?

Category: books,christmas/holiday season. There is/are 4 Comments.

January 16, 2025


favorite books i read in 2024
posted by soe 1:34 am

As promised, here are the books I read last year that I liked best. The top ten are arranged chronologically in the order I read them (first the six five-star reads and then the best of the four-star reads), because I don’t really think one stood out above the rest. And I share my other four-star reads at the end, since I didn’t do book reviews last year. Ultimately, this is about half the books I read last year, and I recommend them all:

Five-Star Reads

  • The Door-to-Door Bookseller by Carsten Henn
    An older, lonely man who delivers books for a shop finds himself joined on his rounds by a young girl. And suddenly, his life — and those of his customers — begin to change in unexpected ways.
  • Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
    A teen girl growing up in Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma sees no opportunities for her life to get better after her mother dies, she suffers tremendous injuries, and her father founders in grief. But, maybe, even in all the darkness, there is still light. Told in verse.
  • Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
    A heartbreaking parable about losing a loved one to a devastating illness.
  • Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
    A reread, this story is about a man who only discovers his humanity after he dies.
  • Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy
    When an elderly woman inadvertently brings a mouse into her home, she finds there is a ripple effect, and her solitary and regimented days are suddenly filled with chaos and characters.
  • October, October by Katya Balen
    On her 11th birthday, a young girl who lives alone in the woods with her father finds her life upended when he is suddenly hospitalized and she must stay in London with her mother, who moved away many years ago.

Rounding Out the Top Ten

  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
    A young woman must figure out how to respond when her oft-traveling father disappears, her guardian (her father’s well-off employer) curtails her freedom, and a book suddenly lands in her lap, inspiring a harrowing flight across space in pursuit of family and truth.
  • Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
    Translated from the French, this novel focuses on the caretaker of a graveyard. It alternates between flashbacks to how she arrived at her current profession, diary entries from a woman recently buried at the cemetery, and a more linear story about the caretaker and the woman’s son. Again, a novel about grief and awakening from it.
  • You Are Here by David Nicholls
    A post-COVID novel told in alternating points of view between a male teacher who loves hiking and is battling PTSD and a female editor who has trouble leaving her London apartment until a friend from her past won’t take no about a walking holiday with her godson and some other friends. Ultimately a story about breaking out of your comfort zone and taking chances, even when that feels like the last thing you should do.
  • Margo’s Got Money Problems by Rufi Thorpe
    A young community college student is impregnated by her English professor and then must find a way to stay afloat when she chooses to have the baby. After her ex-pro wrestler father moves in (fresh out of rehab for an addiction to pain meds) and she starts an OnlyFans account (where people will pay her for nude content), she must deal with the continued impact of people judging the decisions she makes for herself and her family.

Other Four-Star Reads 

Mystery

  • Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood
  • The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

Fantasy/Romantasy

  • A Power Unbound by Freya Marske
  • Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle
  • Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree
  • Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
  • A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen
  • The Afterlife of Mal Caldera by Nadi Reed Perez
  • The Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
  • Mamo by Sas Milledge

Romance

  • 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall
  • A Home for the Holidays by Taylor Hahn

The Rest

  • The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay (essays)
  • A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck (kidlit)
  • I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy: Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky (poetry)
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