We finished another book in this series this week. Now that Thorn has been defeated, Sky and Tag are on a mission to help Blaze find her family. They visit the Cloud Kingdom and are helped along by Fifi, a cute cloudling. But then, something goes wrong and someone kidnaps Blaze! The book ends with yet another cliffhanger, so to the library we will go!

I’ve said it before – but this a very fun series. It’s beautifully illustrated, which keeps everyone interested and engaged. And of course, these three characters have formed a wonderful little family and teach us how to care for each other.

“Because—and he still did not understand how people like his brothers could not see this—inside the pages of each and every book was a whole other world.”

This is another book lover’s book! Set just after WWII in England, it focuses around an unlikely group of people who work to create a museum in the house where Jane Austen wrote several of her books. The village is tiny and full of secrets. This book was a bit darker than Guernsey and had some difficult themes, such as drug use and the loss of a newborn, but there were also story lines that felt distinctly Austen-esque, which made it fun. And it reminded me that I need to reread some Jane Austen!

“I am starved for tenderness and that is what is the matter with me and has been the matter with me for months.”

This journal was written in 1979 when May was 66 years old. She was living in her home in York, Maine and recovering from the end of a long-term relationship and a diagnosis of breast cancer that required a mastectomy. And as always – depression lurks just in the background.

This one was interesting to read after Journal of a Solitude and Plant Dreaming Deep – she’s younger in those and relishes in a life of solitude. But here she shares some of the letters she’s written to readers in which she encouraged them to marry, have children, and live a life amongst others — saying this is how we learn the truths of life. It was an interesting shift.

I enjoyed that it was set in York – a town I love and typically visit at least once a year. She also spent time in Sandwich, New Hampshire several times in this journal – another town I love visiting. It’s strange that we sort of share a stomping ground!

I’d love to read more of her journals and think I will move backwards and pick up The House by the Sea, which is the journal she wrote when she left Nelson, NH and moved to York. I’m excited!

“The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life. In time, yesterday’s red light leads us to a greenlight. All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up. It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.”

Well, it has to be said: Alright, alright, alright. I wasn’t going to read this, but one of my friends enjoyed it so I decided to get on the waitlist for the audiobook. And I’m glad I did because this is a performance, friends. McConaughey and I both grew up in Texas and are Longhorns, so I feel a particular kinship with him. He’s also a teller of tales so I take his stories with a grain of salt, trusting there’s a nugget of truth in each one and just enjoyed the ride without actually believing everything he said.

This book was relaxed, funny, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you want to spend a few hours with Matthew McConaughey’s voice in your earbuds, then I say go for it. It’s a fun summer read and I’m pretty sure you’ll get a few laughs out of it — I definitely doubled over in laughter several times!

I was thrilled to see Claire Fuller shortlisted for the Women’s Prize this year. And I was very excited when this was finally released in the US and I could start reading! It is well written, vivid, and has an interesting plot: When their mother dies, 51 year old twins Julius and Jeanie find that their lives are not as they seemed. Despite believing they’d been living in their cottage rent-free since children, they learned that their mother had massive debts they’d known nothing about. As the story goes on, the truth untangles itself in heartbreaking ways.

It took me a while to sink into this story and I’m not sure why. I probably only finished it because I want to read all of the books shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, but I’m really glad that I pushed through. I felt much more compelled to pick it up each evening as I got further along in the story. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

“Father loved the fact that a lilac only blossoms after a harsh winter.”

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to read Lilac Girls! This was my second effort with it – the first was right after my third baby was born and some of the storylines were too emotional for me as my body raged with hormones, despite reading tons of WWII fiction over the years. This was a powerful story of survival, family, and friendship. It includes storylines about a woman living in New York at the French Consulate and working to get the French people out of the country, a Polish teenager working for the Resistance and who ends up in Ravenbrück, and a female doctor who works at Ravensbück and performed heinous experiments on the political prisoners.

In the last several years, I’ve started looking for novels with storylines from the German perspective. I’m endlessly fascinated with the German mind at that time – how everyday citizens were able to justify their country’s actions (or not) and how their own pain and fear made it easier for Hitler to carry out his mission. The author cleverly introduced us to the German doctor before she went to work at the camp, which gave us some insight on her ability to do that work: she desperately wanted to be a surgeon her entire life and working at Ravensbrück would be her only opportunity given her sex and the times. That time period was heartbreaking in so many ways.

“I didn’t know how many habits I had that centered on drinking take-out coffee until I wasn’t allowed to buy it. Each time I craved it, I had to stand in the moment, pay attention to what had triggered the craving, and change my reaction.”

“But something I had learned time and time again was that every small change you make pays compound interest. It helps you make another change, another mind-set shift, another decision to live a new way."

Every once in a while, I need to pick up a book about living with less, decluttering, and simplifying my life. It’s kind of like a booster shot for my constant decluttering efforts. This one is about a young woman who spends a year simplifying her life by living with less. It’s not a how-to manual or a checklist, but a memoir of her own experiences. She’s young and comes from a life of relative privilege, and I was worried that I’d be annoyed by her story and find her vapid and conceited. Surprisingly, I found her story to be refreshing, honest, and interesting. She had a year full of ups and downs, managed to stay sober, save a lot of money, and learn what she really needs in order to survive. In fact, she was able to leave her stressful job and make a living by being a freelance writer — something she’d always wanted yet worried that she wouldn’t be able to afford. This was an inspiring story in many ways and I’m excited to get my hands on her next book: Adventures in Opting Out.

Another 3.5 star book for me, given that I found it a little repetitive, that will round up to 4 on Goodreads.

“Sadly, today authority, not truth, makes law,” Father said.

This is the second book in the Lilac Girls series and centers on Eliza Ferriday, the mother of Caroline Ferriday in Lilac Girls. Set in 1914 in New York, Paris, and St. Petersburg, we get up close with the Romanovs before their assassinations and watch the Bolsheviks move in and drastically change life in Russia. Eliza, like her daughter Caroline, has a deep feeling of duty and a responsibility for helping others and does everything she can to help her innocent friends in St. Petersburg escape unharmed. I found the characters and storylines compelling and beautifully drawn and thought this was even better than the first in the series.

It was fun seeing how Lost Roses connected with Lilac Girls – the similar settings at different points in history, a closer look at characters only hinted at previously, a deeper understanding of the Ferriday family history. I’m on the waitlist for the next book in this series, Sunflower Sisters, which is set during the Civil War. I cannot wait!

“Not until people start seeing typos eating out of their garbage cans at night will they regret hunting proofreaders almost to extinction.”

“Wherever there’s organic matter, a water source, and darkness, reality will grow. Get after it with vinegar, baking soda, and dynamite.”

This book was not at all what I expected. Sure, it’s sprinkled with Duchess Goldblatt’s pithy and hilarious tweets like the two I shared above, but the meat of this story is about the woman behind Duchess Goldblatt (DG). DG is the best thing about Twitter and was the sole reason I waited so long to leave it behind. I used to hunt for her recent tweets, read them and dissolve into giggles, and seek out my husband to share with him, who would then look at me like I had twelve heads.

But the woman behind DG? I had no idea she was experiencing so much heartache and upheaval. She was going through a messy divorce and custody battle and it was affecting her in unexpected ways. DG was her way to spread goodness and light into the world, despite believing that she was the exact opposite of that. Luckily, Lyle Lovett knew how to set her straight. (I realize this is a crazy little blurb if you’re unfamiliar with DG – sorry!)

I could talk about DG for hours and hours, so I’ll stop here. But this is a great memoir about finding your footing after your world gets turned upside down, reckoning with old demons, and realizing that you are worthy and can love the world despite believing otherwise.

“She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.”

This is my first ever Edith Wharton novel! I picked it up because this is the book that the Novel Pairings podcast is discussing this week. I was nervous - classics always make me nervous - and had no reason to be. I listened on audio and was able to sit back and sink into the glamorous world of New York high society in the late 1800s. It almost felt like watching Gossip Girl - it was so full of petty plots and society climbers who were willing to hurt anyone if it helped their standing.

But Lily Bart, our protagonist, is in a precarious position. While still accepted by those in high society, her family lost their wealth and she is in tremendous debt and marriage is her only way out. The rumors about her morality are fierce but she still has several suitors, yet she can't bring herself to marry unless he is The One. Oh, Lily. She tries so hard to live a glamorous life, but with integrity. This book shows us just how impossible that is.