If I’m not going to finish reading any more books this year (and I’m not saying I won’t, but … ), I should at least finish sharing some of the books I did finish earlier. Here’s what I crossed off in July and August:

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala: The first book in a series focusing on a Filipina-American baker, who with her aunts and grandmother, run a restaurant. When her ex, a local food critic and the stepson of her aunts’ landlord, dies there, she and her aunts are the main suspects, meaning that she and her BFF, need to investigate. As with many debut cozies, there are a lot of characters, each of whom need to be introduced, which slows down the pacing, but Manansala seems to have some good instincts, so I could see reading the second book in the series now that we’ve met everyone.

Trouble Makes a Comeback by Stephanie Tromly: This is such a ridiculous, fun YA series that I devoured the second book in one sitting. It’s been months since Zoe heard from Digby, who hopped on a bus right after they kissed, off in pursuit of a clue to his kidnapped sister’s whereabouts. But now he’s back — and needing Zoe’s help, even though she’s tried to move on to some sense of normalcy, making some friends, dating the football quarterback, and holding down a part-time job. Her life is about to get decided un-normal once again.

No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality by Michael J. Fox: My parents both recommended this memoir from Fox, an actor and philanthropist, who talks about his Parkinson’s Disease and his generally upbeat approach to life — and how he’s worked hard to maintain the latter as the former progresses. Recommended.

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Anonymous: A middle-aged writer, in the wake of a divorce and joint custody of her beloved son, copes by doing what we all aspire to do — inventing an alternate persona. I mean, sure, hers is an octogenarian with a lovingly ascerbic wit who lives in a physically impossible fictional town and who attracts Twitter followers by the gazillions. But still. But in the midst of creating this alternate self, she also finds peace with her own life. (Bonus note for the audiobook: Lyle Lovett (who shares a birthplace with the Duchess) reads his own parts of the story.)

Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev: In the third of Dev’s The Rajes series, a modern quartet of novels that reimagine some of her favorite Austen novels, but featuring six Indian-American cousins, we focus on the eldest cousin, Yash, who is running for governor of California. After an assassination attempt which lands his bodyguard in a coma, Yash begins to have panic attacks. His sisters convince him to go and see their dear friend, India, who with her mother and sister, runs a yoga studio and is an expert at helping clients deal with mental health issues. Little do they know that he once long ago fell deeply in love with India, only to end up fake engaged to his own childhood friend. Way less soapy than I make it out to be.

Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff: In the second book of this trilogy, we find our ragtag group of space force teens fleeing their own galactic police force, as well as the most feared alien in the galaxy, responsible for collapsing a sun against his own people — oh and the zombie aliens who took one of their own in the first installment. They’re captured by — and escape (except for Josh) — Kai’s sister. There’s romance and some odd time-space continuum questions and lots of melodrama — an I’m looking forward to seeing how it wraps up in the final book.

The Runaway Princess by Johan Troïanowski: In this translated graphic novel, Princess Robin decides she’s not especially interested in deportment or the royal goings-on and decides instead to set off on a trio of adventures, which bring her into contact with a quintet of brothers, kidnappers, pirates, and a witch, among others. But Robin is bright and funny and will win out in the end. A charmingly old-fashioned story for a modern audience.

For the past few years, I’ve taken part in The Broke and the Bookish Secret Santa (#TBTBSanta for shorthand), now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This year, my package came early and I put it aside as incentive to get through the hard days that were coming in December. Just before heading north, I opened it up:

Very exciting so far! We have a sparkly unicorn, stickers, fun socks, and two types of tea! Plus a bunch of packages to unwrap! And at least one of them will be a book!

Two of the packages were books — and one of those contained a trio of reads! That’s Casey McQuiston’s second novel, One Last Stop, and the first three novels in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series about what the Napoleonic Wars might have been like had there been a squadron of dragons involved. I’ve adored books by both these authors, so I’m so excited to read these in the new year! There’s also some stationery, more candy (mmm! Reese’s!), and a trio of eos lip balms.

Thank you, Bookish Momma! I love it all!

Category: books,christmas/holiday season. There is/are Comments Off on #tbtbsanta 2021.

Let’s see if I can get quick blurbs in about what I read this year before the year itself runs out:

In May and June, I finished five books:

A Deadly Inside Scoop by Abby Collette: This should have been a dream cozy, featuring Bronwyn, the new proprietor of her family’s small-town Ohio ice cream shop, who discovers a dead body late one night. It’s a man she met earlier in the day, who, it turns out also once nearly swindled her family, which makes her Black father the lead suspect. One of her BFF’s is a British mystery fan and insists they should investigate, so they do. The book had a good premise, but needed tightening up, and it could be that the next book in the series improves upon some of the thin spots here. Perfectly fine if you just want a cozy.

Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli: Set in D.C., this is a sweet contemporary novel about a young woman who’s trying to find her way in the world and succeeding on the face of it, with a kick-ass new position at her dream job. But as a first-generation American, she’s struggling with issues with her parents. She’s also having a hard time making friends — and goes on a couple of hilarious friend-dates during the course of the story. And then there’s her love life — there’s the cute photographer from her sister’s wedding, but there’s also the guy she used to be in love with, who’s subsequent marriage has broken up, but with whom she swears she just wants to rekindle a friendship. Multi-layered and well-thought out. Recommended.

The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser: Thea, an English woman whose marriage recently ended and who’s just been laid off, learns she’s inherited a Scottish house from a distant relative. She heads up there and discovers her great-uncle was a book collector. In trying to discover the worth of the collection, she meets (and becomes an employee of) a gruff bookstore owner, who happens to be the brother of the charming lord who owns the adjoining property to her family cottage. If you liked Jenny Colgan’s Bookshop on the Corner series, you’d probably enjoy this one too.

Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz: Little Women (the first half of what we’ve come to think of as a single novel) has just been published and Jo March’s life has been turned around a little bit. Her readers are clamoring for more of the same, but she wants to send her heroines off on radical adventures — could her namesake become a pirate? The fictionalized version of her and her sisters’ story is somewhat true, but what came next in real life is too painful. Beth is still alive in the pages of her novel, after all. When an opportunity arises for her to get away to New York City to see Charles Dickens read, she takes it, but Laurie has other plans for what this trip could mean. If you love Little Women, but found some aspects dissatisfying, I’d recommend reading this novel.

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert: Eve is the baby of the Brown sisters and has a reputation of being irresponsible and flighty. When her parents try to have a conversation with her about this, telling her that they’re going to cut her off for the next six months to encourage her to stick with some kind of job, she drives off, ends up in a tiny village, and, on a whim, interviews for the job of chef for a B&B (before backing over the up-tight proprietor, which guarantees Jacob can’t interview any more candidates). Eve and Jacob are both more than meets the eye and their friendship — and maybe something more — blooms over the course of the next few months. But will Eve stay on once things get challenging? If you like your romance novels a little more adult (these definitely have some non-PG-rated scenes), the Brown Sisters series are great reads.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post from That Artsy Reader Girl is a seasonal favorite. Which ten books do I hope to read this winter, now that it’s nearly arrived?

1. What If It’s Us? by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera (The sequel is out.)
2. Serendipity, edited by Marissa Meyer (a collection of YA romance stories just in time for Valentine’s Day)
3. An Impossible Imposter by Deanna Raybourn (the next book in the Veronica Speedwell series)
4. The Great Troll War by Jasper Fforde (the final book in the Last Dragonslayer series isn’t available in the U.S., so I’ll have to track down a copy from the U.K.)
5. Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
6. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
7. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders (I waited to start the copy I’d checked out from the library until it was due, but I liked the first essay that I read.)
8. The Unsinkable Greta James by Jennifer E. Smith
9. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
10. The Maid by Nita Prose

How about you? Are there any books you’re particularly looking forward to reading this winter?

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is bookish memories. I don’t know if these are my top ten or just the first ten that came to me, but either way…

1. My grandmother took The Secret Garden out of the library to see if it was the sort of book I might like if she gave it to me. The only problem is that I discovered it at her house, started reading, and then took it out of the library to finish. Luckily, it was a great gift, and I have reread it a number of times.
2. My first grade teacher gave each of us a book for Christmas that year. Mine was The Littlest Angel.
3. When I was very small, my dad left me in the basement of the library to run upstairs and pick out some items for himself. By the time he’d returned, I’d pulled about 100 picture books from the shelves for us to take home, including some that we owned.
4. When the new town library was ready to reopen, a children’s librarian came to our school and read the first chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to us to tempt us into getting our own cards.
5. In high school, I got the opportunity to be part of a group interview of Beverly Donofrio about her book Riding in Cars with Boys at our local library.
6. Nearly a decade ago, I was a Cybils Award judge. It remains one of the coolest things I’ve done, but was such hard work.
7. My parents used to periodically drag us to Whitlock’s Book Barn, a used bookshop, when we were kids. Rudi and I would return willingly many times as young adults.
8. Eliot Schrefer recognized me when I attended his book signing a few years ago. I loved his first y.a. book, Endangered, and had talked it up on the blog. I was carrying a knitting bag with my blog name on it and he noticed it.
9. We attended midnight release parties for the final three Harry Potter novels. The first was at Kramerbooks, which was really less of a party and more of a line since they used to be open pretty much 24 hours a day on weekends back then. We walked home and immediately started reading. The second was at Olsen’s in Bethesda, and we read on the train home. The final was at Politics and Prose, and I dressed up as Professor McGonagall. There were hundreds of attendees, and eventually they had us line up out in the parking lot for our copies.
10. At the very first ALA Convention that I worked, my table was in the very last aisle. It soon became very clear to those of us shunted out to this territory that this was a ridiculously low-traffic area. The guy across the aisle from me was selling the first collection of his web comic set in a public library (Unshelved), and I was trying to give away health books, but we were both working every person who came down the row. After a couple hours, we could give each other’s spiel and were sending anyone we managed to snag across the way to the other’s booth. I don’t remember if we went out after that meeting or if we just caught up at future meetings, but Bill (and his co-author, “Gene”) was often kind enough to invite me to join in the cool graphic novels group at the library conventions. (Writers and editors of health books do not travel in cool packs.)

Hey, bookish readers, would you be interested in taking part in the Virtual Advent Tour that I run? Holiday book reviews are welcome, as are other topics! Details and signups are here.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share fictional characters we’d like to check in on. Here are some of mine:

1. Isola Pribby from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
2. Felicity from A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd
3. The teen protagonists of The Illuminae Files series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristof
4. Will from Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
5. Starr from The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
6. Ruth from Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
7. Claudia from The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
8. Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
9. Mary from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgsen Burnett
10. Miranda from When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

How about you? Are there characters whose lives you’d like to peek into even after the happily ever after takes place?