“Dates only make us aware of how numbered our days are, how much closer to death we are for each one we cross off. From now on, Punzel, we’re going to live by the sun and the seasons.’ He picked me up and spun me around, laughing.’Our days will be endless.”

This was Claire Fuller’s debut and deserves all the stars. The premise: In the late 70s, 8 year old Peggy and her father retreat into the forest to a remote hut with no outside contact. While there, her father tells her the rest of the world has been destroyed and they are the last living humans. They stay there for 9 years until mysterious circumstances bring Peggy back to her home in London with her mother (don’t worry – this isn’t a spoiler. It’s something we learn pretty early in the book).

Like all of her work, Fuller peels back the layers slowly to give you the full picture. We switch back and forth between the perspectives of 17 year old Peggy in London with her mother and Peggy’s life in the forest with her father. It’s deliciously told: there were times that I rushed forward in the story and then I’d force myself to tap back a few screens and start again. I didn’t want to miss a single thought of Peggy’s – I was so interested in her.

This is an excellent pick for a progressive book club that’s not squeamish about sensitive topics. It begs for discussion, perspective, and debate!

This was our read aloud last week and the kids really enjoyed it. I thought it was an inferior knockoff of The Borrowers, but sometimes you just want something adventurous and easy to digest. Once I let go of my snobbery about it, I ended up enjoying it. The artwork is really cute and there’s a knitting grandmother in it, which also helps!

I recently learned that there’s a whole series of these books and it looks like our library has them, so we might meander through the titles and read a few more when we’re inbetween other read alouds.

“Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you’re mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.”

I picked this one up because I was in the mood for a sweeping, epic audiobook. I attempted reading it about a decade ago but abandoned it because the violence was overwhelming for me. I thought maybe I’d gotten a little tougher and could handle it this time, but I was wrong.

There’s so much to like about this book: the sense of place, the adventure in the highlands, herbal medicine/witchiness, and the idea of walking through standing rocks and being swept into another time. BUT — I just can’t enjoy a book filled with so much graphic sexual violence. When I’m ready for my next epic romance on audio, I’m going back to the Clan of the Cave Bear series. Jondalar is less of a neanderthal than Jamie Fraser!

“I had my chance.’ He said it, retiring from a lifetime of wanting. ‘I had my chance, and sometimes in life, there are no second chances. You look at what you have, not what you miss, and you move forward.”

This was a lovely little escape about a sliver of life during WWII that I haven’t explored. Henry is a Chinese-American living in Seattle after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He meets a young Japanese-American girl, Keiko, at school and they become fast friends. Through Henry’s eyes, we see the treatment Japanese-Americans endured during the war and how it spilled over to all Asian Americans. Despite their different settings and time periods, this book reminded me a lot of The Stationery Shop, which I also loved!

This book rekindled my interest in several areas: Asian tea culture (which I realize is a vast topic), books about the Asian American experience during WWII, books set in the Pacific Northwest, and cooking Japanese and Chinese food. It set my imagination on fire!

“I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that’s sinful, then let me be damned for it!”

I listened to a production of this on Audible for the Novel Pairings podcast. Once the audio started, I was so happy I chose to listen to it rather than read it — clearly it was intended to be consumed in ways other than simple words on a page! But after listening to the podcast yesterday, I realized that I might have missed some important elements in the stage directions.

This was all new to me — I’m planning to watch the movie on Friday night. It’s a prevalent piece of culture so I’ve heard about it and assumed the story was about Stanley and Stella. But this story focuses a lot on Stella’s sister, Blanche (who reminded me of Blanche from The Golden Girls). Blanche is staying with Stella for a while because of some difficulty back home – she’s lost her job and their family home and is down on her luck. She is shocked by Stella’s life in New Orleans – how tiny and unkempt her home is, Stella’s brute of a husband – and all of her delicate sensibilities seem to be insulted.

As the play continues, we learn more about Blanche’s actual life, which is not at all as it seems. I was relieved to listen to the podcast, because the hosts mentioned things I hadn’t considered – such as the effects of toxic masculinity in the lives of Blanche and Stella. I enjoyed listening to the play, but had a hard time putting my finger on why this has had such staying power and the value it has for society. So I’m really thankful that Novel Pairings dove into that discussion; it made this experience richer and more valuable.

“Our generation still carry the old feelings. A part of us refuses to let go. The part that wants to keep believing there’s something unreachable inside each of us. Something that’s unique and won’t transfer. But there’s nothing like that, we know that now. You know that. For people our age it’s a hard one to let go.”

There was so much in this book and it feels impossible to write about without giving anything away. This is my fourth novel by this author and I always walk away awestruck. He has such a way of creating a world that keeps you coming back for more, despite storylines and plots that seem to move rather slowly. Every time I try to write about one of his books, the word “undercurrent” always pops up – there’s an undercurrent pulling me along, a need to understand what’s happening in his world.

In Klara and the Sun, the premise is simple. Klara is an AF, an artificial friend, chosen by Josie Arthur. Josie is a teenager and is suffering from an unexplained illness and Klara provides company and practical help around the house. In this world, some parents choose to have their children “lifted,” which we vaguely come to understand as the novel goes on. “Lifted” children are seen to have a distinct advantage over children who aren’t lifted and one of Josie’s best friends is unlifted, which causes a great amount of tension.

I finished this book with so many questions and so many thoughts – I’d be happy to share a snapshot from my new reading journal via email with anyone who is interested. But bottom line for me: there are so many ways to live a happy and fulfilling life. We go out of our way thinking we and our children should jump through so many hoops to take advantage of every opportunity for “success,” but we’re not thinking about how many paths there are to happiness. I’m already looking forward to Ishiguro’s next book!

“I don’t need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like… happens.”

This was a really fun book on audio! I picked it up because the Novel Pairings podcast paired it with Emma. It’s been years since I’ve read Emma, and I have to say that I didn’t get Emma-vibes from it. What I got was The House of Mirth!

In this book, Emira is in her mid-20s and has cobbled together a life she’s quite happy with, other than the fact that she’s about to age out of her parents’ health insurance plan and is always broke. She has two part-time jobs: transcription and baby-sitting. She enjoys and is really good at both of them. Late one night she gets a call from the mom of the child she watches during the week: they’ve had to call the police because of an incident at their home and they don’t want Briar to witness the chaos. Alix asks Emira to take Briar to the grocery store to keep her occupied for a while. At the store, another shopper suspects Emira of kidnapping Briar and alerts security at the store. The whole incident is recorded on cell phone and the story catapults from there.

Alix is horrified by what happened and is even more horrified of the thought that she might be considered a racist. She and her friends try to take Emira under their wings and make her their pet project (okay, maybe this part is a little Emma-like). They can’t imagine that Emira might not want to be made over. And like in The House of Mirth, Alix and her friends seem so conniving and use Emira to raise their own profiles. The images of them sitting around together and plotting were a bit nauseating.

This book is full of train wrecks. I spent a lot of time with my eyes wide open and my hand over my mouth, just waiting for the inevitable uncomfortable moment. The narrator is excellent. She made the story and the characters come alive and I couldn’t stop listening. I’m so glad I finally took the plunge with this one!

“With heightened awareness of cultural sensitivity comes great responsibility. If we’re not careful, ‘diversity’ might become an item people start checking off a list and nothing more—a shallow, shadowy thing with but one dimension.”

I kept coming up with reasons to clean the house because I wanted to return to this audio again and again. It was so engaging, compelling, and surprising! It’s difficult to put this into a single genre, but it’s equal parts contemporary fiction, thriller, mystery, and sci-fi. I love how the author put together this world without making it fit into a specific box.

This was mostly set in 2018 and told from Nella’s perspective, a young black woman working in the mostly white publishing world. She is thrilled when another black woman, Hazel, is hired and will work in the cubicle right across from her. But Nella becomes wary when she notices that Hazel has somehow managed to make more inroads in their company in three months than Nella has been able to make in two years. How? And then she starts getting scary notes telling her to leave the publishing house. NOW. Are they from Hazel? Or from Nella’s boss? Who would so fiercely want her to leave the company?

This is a searing looking at the publishing industry – the gatekeepers of literature and our cultural touchstones. I loved reading about working in a publishing house: the constant book talk, the stacks of manuscripts, the cups of coffee and tea, coddling sensitive writers. But it also showed how publishers can truly make a difference by considering the stereotypes and tropes they have perpetuated for centuries.

I also felt like it was a call to arms for everyone to believe and honor black stories and people. A major plotline of this novel is how exhausting it is for people of color to always be the one speaking up for diversity and fair representation. This novel is a reminder that we all need to be engaging in the world with a critical eye and it’s imperative that we listen honestly and carefully when confronted with our own unintentional biases.

“Grief is not an event, my dear, but a passage, a pilgrimage along a path that allows us to reflect upon the past from points of remembrance held in the soul. At times the way is filled with stones underfoot and we feel pained by our memories, yet on other days the shadows reflect our longing and those happinesses shared.”

This is the fourth Maisie Dobbs mystery. Set in England between the wars, Maisie works as a private investigator and psychologist, along with her assistant Billy. She is ahead of her time in so many ways and I’ve enjoyed watching Maisie grow more confident as the series goes on.

This book focuses on inequality: Maisie is hired to investigate the suspicious death of a wealthy artist while trying to help Billy with his extremely ill daughter. There’s a stark contrast between wealthy people spending fortunes on a single piece of art while the Beal family cannot afford to take Lizzie to the doctor despite her severe illness. As usual, Maisie’s humanity shines through, she solves the tragic case of the fallen artist, and she holds her friends and family close.

“I’ve had a lot of things to feel ashamed about and I’ve learned most of them are other people’s problems, not mine.”

This was an amazing book! Emoni is a teen mom in Philly living with her daughter and grandmother. She has a gift for cooking – she can look at a few ingredients in the fridge and start dreaming up a spice mix to make something unique and delicious. Emoni got pregnant her freshman year of high school but worked hard to stay caught up with her classmates and to graduate on time. Now it’s her senior year and she has a full school load, a toddler underfoot, a grandmother she constantly worries about, and a job at a fast food restaurant. She is feeling overloaded but an incredible elective is now being offered at her school: a cooking class that includes a trip to Spain.

Emoni is torn about even taking the class. Should she add the additional stress? Can she afford the trip to Spain? What about her grandmother and her baby — can she even leave them? And once in the class, she chafes at the rules and expectations set by the teacher. Why follow a recipe when she already knows how to make it better?

This was a beautiful coming of age story with a heroine we can all learn from. I love this author’s work – Emoni’s emotional tug of war leapt off the page and felt so real. I’m looking forward to more by Elizabeth Acevedo.