Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My mother’s older brother died last weekend after a fall, a week short of his 78th birthday. When I was born, he drew up a complete astrological chart for me. He aspired to be a good uncle, giving me all sorts of fun gifts when I was a kid, including my first dictionary, my only football swag (a balaclava for the Miami Dolphins, the team he supported when he lived in Florida) a microscope, and a magic kit. He had a black dog named Telly, whom we all loved only slightly less than our own dog, Obe. He took my grandmother and me to New York City to see the ballet at Lincoln Center and my brother and me for ice cream when we spent the night with him and my aunt when I was in middle school.

Uncle David was having a challenging battle with Alzheimer’s, so ultimately this may have been the kindest death we could have hoped for, with my aunt and my cousins and my mom all getting to say goodbye.

2. After having to postpone multiple times because one or all three of us were sick, Sarah finally got to come over to meet the kittens. They took to her right away and were happy to be picked up and cuddled, which isn’t always the case, so it felt like the delay gave us the perfect moment in time.

3. Rudi and I went to see The Art of the Brick, a Lego exhibition by Nathan Sawaya. The pieces ranged from scale replicas of wild animals, sculptures, and interpretations of great art from around the world, including one of the heads from Easter Island, which required more than 75,000 Legos to complete.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

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?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The team lost last week, so didn’t have a game, but we gathered for dinner and drinks tonight to celebrate Sergio’s impending second baby and, it turns out, Katie’s new job and new house.

2. Our new season of volunteering began this week and, for the winter, I’m coaching basketball with Aroush and some other folks. We had about 25 kids (ages 5–13) show up, which ran us a bit ragged for the hour, but it felt good to be back on the court with them.

3. Rudi and I caught Better Man before it left local theaters this week. I really like Robbie Williams’ music so was happy to spend a couple hours listening to it, the cgi monkey was an interesting symbolic move, and the script did a very good job of depicting imposter syndrome and depression.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

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?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi returned home after spending a week of caregiving. The cats and I are very glad to have him back.

2. Chris and I manage back-to-back weeks of multiple nights of pickup volleyball. Tonight was the last day this week, with most of our team being able to join us.

3. Aroush is able to join the team this upcoming season. I love when I’m able to bring together the people I like playing with best. (Rebecca is my next recruit when her class schedule allows.)

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

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)