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Dual timeline 1936/1978 - NY MET, Cairo and Luxor

All the stars 🌟 for Fiona Davis. I do enjoy her author notes and research, and a “See Also” list.

#Read2025 @DieAReader

I‘m not sure if it‘s the book or me that‘s getting a bit jaded, but this 4th instalment of Dunbar‘s Borrow-a-Bookshop series didn‘t seem to have the charm of the first three.

Book 53/60 #Read2025 @DieAReader
#SeriesLove2025 @Andrew65 @TheSpineView

Setting: LosAngeles/Hollywood postwar McCarthy era. Three women of different backgrounds navigate challenges: one is a DP from WW2, one a screenwriter, one an actor suspected of communist activity. Includes the 1956 devastating wildfire in Malibu. HF

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“It is these moments that bring an ordinary life into the realm of the extraordinary. It is these moments that are doorways from a life lived to eat and drink and sleep, into a life lived to do monumental things.”

Another winner from Dave Eggers! MG story also for grownups, in which a family named Flowerpetal with 2 kids moves to a town called Carousel 🎠, where strange things are afoot…

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“How extraordinary it is that so much before our eyes is upside down. Flower seeds buried in the ground rise up to grace the branches of a thousand trees. The moon hangs high in the heavens, but its light sinks to the bottom of countless waters.”

Unusual book, but important!

#Read2025 @DieAReader

Read/listened to these free-from-Prime novellas in the last few weeks: creepy, creatureey, horrifying, (and a couple of bizarre) unique stories. Most memorable was The Indigo Room.

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Short Novella in the Kate Burkholder Series by Linda Castillo. Two boys, an Amish and Englisher, go missing during a snow storm. Burkholder, Tomasetti, and her team look for them. Can they find them before the weather gets worse? Quick good read.

#Audiobook #bookspinbingo #Serieslove2025 #Read2025

Shamed is the 11th book in the Kate Burkholder Series by Linda Castillo. The small town of Planters Mill, Ohio, is shocked when an Amish grandmother is brutally murdered. Kate Burkholder is the Chief of Police and comes upon the scene. Not only is the grandmother killed, but her special needs granddaughter is missing. Burkholder is not being told the truth by the Bishop or family. Will Burkholder get to the truth before it's too late?⬇️

“Well, we are the stars", Joan said. "And the stars are us. Every atom in our bodies was once out there. Was once a part of them. To look at the night sky is to look at part of who you once were, who you may one day be.”

A PICK. But not sure if it was of the same caliber that I usually expect from TJR…the relationships were good though. And I found myself rooting for Joan, Vanessa, and Frances-truly great humans.

#Read2025 @DieAReader

Shapiro is a common-sense writer who relies on scientific research. I was hoping for more recently published essays (this was written 2019) but many of the ideologies and inconsistencies of which he speaks are still relevant. He sees “America as the story of a nation founded on eternally good and true principles, principles only fully realized for many Americans at the cost of blood and sweat and death.”
#read2025 @DieAReader