The 5th and last book in The Cazalet Chronicles. At the end of the vol 4 it was 1947, and when we meet them again it‘s 1956. A lot has happened in 9 yrs. I enjoyed being back with the family, but in this one there‘s a lot of endings. Some of these I anticipated others I didn‘t. We celebrate several Christmas‘ with the family which was why I read it now, I just wish we had left the family on a more uplifting note.

#12Booksof2024 June

You don‘t need to want to be a mother or have children, to be the target audience for this. This is for everyone and is so eye opening

This story is growing on me. When I first read it a few years ago, I didn‘t understand the fuss. Last year a Norwegian translation was out with illustrations by Lisa Aisato, and since I love her illustrations, I decided to give it another chance. I liked it, and so I ended up reading it again this year.

#WhatTheDickens

This is an absolute treat. It‘s the 3rd Christmas in a row that I‘m reading this and it‘s not even very Christmasy.

Inspired by the Cinderella story, I just love the humor in this one. It‘s not laugh out loud fun, but more the tone it‘s written in. This is written by Julia Quinn‘s sister, but if you read anything by Quinn you know what I mean.

The 3rd book in the Dream Harbor series and it‘s another winner.

Just the right amount of Christmas and I liked our main characters. Bennett visiting his sister Jeanie and Kira who is the new Christmas tree farm owner.

I like how previous couple reappear and the book club. The book club members are amazing

Another short story collection winner from Enriquez.

These stories focuses on the horrific in the everyday, in relationships and how generational trauma effects us. I think that is what makes these stories so scary. Like in the first story where a young boy dies in a troubled neighborhood because no one dares open their door and he comes back to hunt them.

Nancy Drew and her friends George and Bess, are following Nancy‘s father across the country on a business trip. Before they get so far they encounter a dog that follows Nancy everywhere, hear about a statue that looks just like Nancy.

There‘s also all the other Nancy Drew plot lines.

But along the way I did wonder if Ned had gotten some competition?

#NancyDrewBR

#12Booksof2024 May

Honorable mentions:
Xiania 1 by Lotta Elstad
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

#WeeklyForecast

I‘m about to start Gifts

This week doesn‘t only mark the beginning of a new month, but also a new year, so I‘ll be starting some new books.

So I‘ll start Lark Rise to Candleford #hashtagbrigade and The Position of Spoons

Two yearlong reads:
A reread/ relistening of Year of Wonder
The Book Lovers Almanac

#BookReport

I finished A Christmas Carol

Read Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron

I‘ve almost finish reading All Change

#12Booksof2024 April

I‘ve read too many great books this year and it‘s so hard to chose one from every month. But this has stuck with me

Honorable mentions:
Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
Forgotten on a Sunday by Valerie Perrin

I‘m going to an event with Nnedi Okorafor in early February. I‘ve never read anything by this author, but I‘ve tagged the book I‘m most familiar with. But I have an issue with books under 200 pages, so is this a good place to start or should I read something else?

#12Booksof2024 March

A nonfiction book so good that when I found it was already translated, I wanted to read the translation too. I haven‘t gotten to that yet, but will do sometime during 2025

Honorable mentions:
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell‘s Invisible Life by Anna Funder

#12Booksof2024 February

Choosing a book didn‘t get any easier for February, but since I highlighted a fiction book in January I thought I should highlight a nonfiction in February

Other honorable mentions are: Christmas at the Beach Hut by Veronica Henry, The Swifts by Beth Lincoln and The Strangeworld Travel Agency by L. D. Lapinski

From an article in “Oh Reader” issue 017 essay titled “The Sanctity of Buying a Book”.

I remember being swept up in the story when I read it years ago

#12Booksof2024 January

This was hard, but I love Heartstopper too much not to pick it, both the comics and the TV series

Rilla is back at Applemore, the place she spent her childhood summers, to clear out her father‘s place after his death. At Applemore she meets childhood friends and Lachlan, her childhood crush. Lachlan had also returned to find out what he want to do with Applemore House after his father‘s death.

Can old love be as new? And will some secrets be uncovered along the way?

I quite enjoyed this romcom.

5th book for #Adventathon

In 1693 2 young Frenchmen, Rene Sel & Charles Duquet travel to New France, & get employed by the same ‘seigneur‘. One escapes & the other stays. For the next 400 yrs we learn how their decision effects their family line

A story about the conquering of land by the Europeans & the destruction of the greats threes that had been standing there for hundreds of yrs. A story about what humans do with things that are in plentiful & will never disappear

#WeeklyForecast

Finish A Christmas Carol

Read Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron. This will be the 3rd Christmas in a row that I read it. It‘s just so warm and cozy

And then I‘ll start the 5th and last of The Cazalet Chronicles, All Change, which if I understand correctly starts at Christmas

#BookReport

I‘ve had quite the reading week.

I finished The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches., this month‘s chapters of Revelation #ShardlakeBR, and A Sunny Place for Shady People

I read The Wispering Statue

I‘ve continued The Christmas Bookshop on audio

I‘m currently reading both The Christmas Tree Farm and A Christmas Carol.

I love that I‘m finally getting to my Christmasy reads just in time for Christmas 🎄

This book is so cozy and warm. About what makes a home and family.

Set in the lead up to Christmas so even though there‘s witches, it‘s a perfect read for December as well.

And though there‘s romance here, that‘s not the main focus of the book.

#WeeklyForecast

I want to finish The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and A Sunny Place for Shady People

I want to continue listening to The Christmas Bookstore and continue buddy reading Revelation #ShardlakrBR

I want to read 14th Nancy Drew: The Wispering Statue #NancyDrewBR and maybe get a start on The Christmas Tree Farm

#BookReport

I read The Ministry of Time

I finished The Winter Cottage on audio and started The Christmas Bookshop

I continued my reading of Revelation #ShardlakeBR and A Sunny Place for Shady People

I‘ve started The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

A time travel-romance, a spy thriller and a look into workplace dynamic.

I was really enjoying this novel until the last 60-50p and then she lost me. Still a pick, but not as strong as it could have been.

#WeeklyForecast

Continue Revelation #ShardlakeBR and A Sunny Place for Shady People

I might finish The Winter Cottage on audio

I‘m about to start The Ministry of Time and hope to get to The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches as well

#BookReport

I finished both Missing Persons. Or: My grandmother‘s secrets and Xiania 2: Ada

I read Night Before Christmas

I kept listening to The Winter Cottage

I continued Barkskins, and started both A Sunny Place for Shady People and Revelation #ShardlakeBR

It‘s the night before Christmas and Santa comes in a visit

3rd book for #Adventathon
#BookSpin for December

The 2nd book isn‘t in the database, so tagging the 1st in this series

In this 2nd book we follow Ada and follow her story from the 1880s until 1922. She was gambled away by her father, escaped the following marriage, ended up in Christiana at a brothel, but was never a prostitute. How she met madam Josephine, Nastinka, Freddie and Mateo. And she tells about how she got into the business of helping women with illegal abortions. The book ends,

It‘s doesn‘t seem like Litsy have the entire title: “Missing Persons. Or: My grandmother‘s secrets”. It‘s also interesting that the Norwegian title has switched the sentences.

So what is this about?
In her 20s Wills is told about a cousin she never knew about. Apparently her uncle Jack fathered a child in the 50s. Since he and the mother didn‘t want to get married, the mother was sent off to a home to give birth.

How could her family accept

My #BookSpinBingo card for December is ready.

My #BookSpin is the children‘s picture book “The Night Before Christmas”

My #DoubleSpin is the 3rd in the Dream Harbor series

The numbers are definitely telling me to read Christmas books this season

The 3rd in the Shardlake series.

In this, Shardlake is summoned to Cranmer who wants Shardlake to follow along the King‘s travel to York in his capacity as a barrister. And by the way can he make sure that a rebel is kept alive until they reach London and The Tower?

And before Shardlake knows, he‘s entangled in so much more.

#ShardlakeBR

My #BookSpin, #DoubleSpin and #BookSpinBingo list for December is ready.

A list of buddy reads, Christmas reads and everything else

I can‘t believe 2024 is almost over. Where did the year go?

Can you love art by a person who has done despicable things? This is what Dederer is looking into focusing on among others the movies by Polanski and Woody Alan, the novels by Hemingway and the art by Picasso. This also leads to a discussion on the genius. Who is defined as a genius? And what comes first the genius or the great art? And also looking into the biggest sin a female artist can make, abandoning her children even if male artists to it

#WeeklyForecast

Finish Missing Persons. Or: My grandmother‘s secrets
Throughout the year I‘ve always had a nonfiction book on the go, but during advent I thought I should try something new. So after the Willis book, I‘ll start A Sunny Place for Shady People

I‘ll continue The Winter Cottage on audio

I‘ll read Revelation with #ShardlakeBR

I‘ll continue Barkskins, but also have some books due back at the library soon that I want to get to. 🔽

This is a short story and a short one of that ad well.

About a young woman and her love of animals

#BookReport

I‘ve finished Monsters

I continued listening to The Winter Cottage

I‘m currently reading Barkskins which I‘ve made less progress in than I expected, and Missing Persons. Or: My Grandmother‘s Secrets

2 months before Hazel turns 30. She thinks her life is too dull & decides to do all the crazy things you do in your 20s over the next 2 months. When Hazel discovers a clue hidden in a book in the bookstore she works, Noah is there, happy to help. This turns into a scavenger hunt and them spending some time together

I‘ve never read a romance with this much focus on consent and communication during steamy scenes. This is more steamy than the 1st

Not that many books on this week‘s #WeeklyForcast

I‘ve almost finished reading Monsters and when I do I‘ll start on Missing Persons. Or: My Grandmother‘s secrets

I‘m about to start Barkskins

And hopefully I‘ll listen to my audio The Winter Cottage

“It is in the everyday/ the magic lives.”

Another one of my favorites

“But if you try,/ and does not give in,/ that little spark,/ can bring to farther.”

One of my favorite illustrations

I saw this book in a bookstore window where you also where showing some of its illustrations. So I had to borrow it from the library.

A stories about love, dreams and courage.
But it‘s the illustrations that tell these stories and they are amazing

I‘m just gonna leave that as it is

#BookReport

I continued reading Sovereign #ShardlakeBR and Monsters

I listened some more to my audio The Winter Cottage

I finished Playground

I read I Hate Fairyland 5: Gert‘s Inferno and Untold Tales of I Hate Fairyland

I‘ve started The Cinnamon Bun Book Store

Why does all this matter? Because genius informs our idea of who gets to do what. Who gets to have license. Who gets to give in to their impulses. Whom we choose to aid and abet when they do indulge in those impulses. When genius is tied to masculinity - a masculinity that continually reasserts itself - then someone is being left out.
All of which is to say, the genius is not you. Not me. The genius, as we understand it, is not the person who

I‘m the same, Hazel. I have a feeling we‘re not alone in this feeling on Litsy

Hazel Kelly loved a good story.

#FirstLineFridays

A book about love. Love between friends, love between partners, parental love and the love children have towards their parents. Most importantly it‘s a book about the love of nature and the sea and all the creatures that live in the sea.

I always love being back in the I Hate Fairyland world, but in this volume Young has gotten help from his friends. So I preferred some drawing styles to other. Gert was still the star of the show, though

Love this part of the introduction

I loved being back with Gertrude. She hasn‘t changed at all. This volume was sparkling with writer‘s joy.

I also loved chapter 5 where you can download a song and have it playing while you‘re “reading” the fight game.