Tag: book recommendations

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The Silo Series

I can still remember the incredible feeling of reading the first story from Wool.  Howey is masterful at unfolding the details in a way that keeps you hanging on every word.  

This is what I posted on Goodreads after reading Wool back in December 2016:

Wow, wow, wow! This blew me away! I read good things about the first story and downloaded it on my new Kindle. Once I read it, I couldn’t get the whole collection fast enough, and I am so glad I did!!

If you are a fan of dystopian fiction, you will love this set of stories. Each one is as good as the one before it and will keep you turning the pages as fast as you can to see what happens next.

Absolute must read, in my opinion!!

There are three books in the Silo series – Wool, Shift, and Dust.  Both Wool and Shift were originally released as short stories/novellas and were later gathered into books.  There is also a thriving fanfiction community writing in the Silo world.

More recently, Silo has been made into a streaming series on Apple TV.  There are currently two seasons out and two more planned.  I have watched the first season and thought they did a really good job of adapting it to the screen, although I still recommend reading the books first if you can.

Have you read or watched any of the Silo series?

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What I’m Reading – February 2025

What I’m Reading Now

Right now, I am reading The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby. I am only a couple of chapters in and am already finding it intense.

What I Recently Finished

Fiction

  • The Seaside Sisters by Pamela Kelley – Another delightful read from this author. I enjoy her books a lot and only wish they were longer. 4 stars
  • The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee – Heartwarming story but sure has a lot of characters to keep track of. 3 stars
  • The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake – My first from her but won’t be my last! 4 stars. Full review here.
  • Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo – I have mixed feelings about this book. I appreciated the mystical aspect of the women having different gifts and the anthropological approach being applied to a family history, but I found it hard to keep everyone straight in my head. I also wasn’t a fan of the many mentions of bodily functions. I think it’s just a case of it not being the best fit for me. 3 stars
  • The Taste of Ginger by Mansi Shah – 5 stars. Full review coming soon.
  • Days at the Morisaki Bookshop – 4 stars. Full review coming soon.
  • Winter Stroll, Winter Storms, and Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand – I read the first book in this series several years ago and decided to read the rest this month. Pretty good, 3 stars.

Nonfiction

  • Followers Under 40: The journey away from church for Millenials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha by Rachel Gilmore and Kris Sledge – 5 stars. Full review coming soon.

What I Added to my TBR

I was shocked to realize when I looked at my Goodreads that I added over 40 books to my TBR last month! Most were fiction, but I did add one memoir and one other nonfiction book as well.

TBR Stats

  • I currently have 156 books on my TBR.
  • Of those, 20 are nonfiction and 136 are fiction.
  • I have not finished any of my 25 in 2025 challenge yet.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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8 “How To” Books

No, these aren’t recommendations for books on fixing your toilet or creating your own website. Check out these “how to” novels for your next great read.

  • How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O’Neal
  • How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
  • How to Get a (Love) Life by Rosie Blake
  • How to Hide in Plain Sight by Emma Noyes
  • How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
  • How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
  • How to Stuff Up Christmas by Rosie Blake
  • How to Walk Away by Katherine Center

Have you read any of these? If not, which one looks the most interesting?

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Ranking Jane Austen

This may be a controversial post, but this is how I would rank Jane Austen’s novels.

  1. Persuasion – While Pride and Prejudice is many readers’ favorite book and I do love it, I love Persuasion even more. Something about Anne Elliot’s relatable character and her second-chance romance with Frederick Wentworth just resonates with my soul.
  2. Pride and Prejudice – There is so much to love about this book. It is just a wonderful story all around; it is witty and timeless and has such amazing characters. I mean, who wouldn’t love Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy?
  3. Sense and Sensibility – I love the juxtaposition of Elinor and Marianne’s personalities, as well as the ups and downs of their romantic lives.
  4. Emma – I don’t relate as well to Emma as to the main characters in the top three books, but I do appreciate this novel and Emma’s journey to becoming more self-aware and grown-up.
  5. Mansfield Park – I don’t have any specific reasons for putting this in fifth place.  It just didn’t draw me in and make me care about the characters very much.
  6. Northanger Abbey – Perhaps I need to re-read this one, as I don’t remember much about it other than I didn’t enjoy it.

Do you agree or would you rank them differently?

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The Hygge Holiday

I love the concept of hygge, which is a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture). I was first introduced to it by a creator I used to follow on YouTube and loved the idea.  I incorporate touches of it into my life wherever I can.

In The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake, we meet Clara, a young Danish woman who has just arrived in the small village of Yulethorpe. She is intrigued by the town and arranges to house and pet sit for Louisa, who has decided to close her toy shop and jaunt off to warmer climes. As Clara wields her hygge magic on Louisa’s flat and shop, she slowly becomes a part of the local community. 

Not everyone is happy she is there, however.  Louisa’s son Joe is suspicious of her motives and starts coming down from the big city to check on her.  And Roz, a local who is contemptuous of both Louisa and Clara, makes her objections known very loudly.

I found this book charming.  I liked the dual POV with Clara and Joe, which is interspersed with the emails Louisa is sending to Gavin, the owner of the local pub.  I also appreciated how relatable all of the characters were (well, maybe except for Roz, who is completely unlikable). There is some humor (can you say unfiltered parrot), some romance, and a lot of the promised hygge.

This is the first novel I have read by Rosie Blake, but it certainly won’t be the last!

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The Reading List

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams is a debut novel that ticks a lot of boxes for me, most especially that it centers around the power of books to affect our lives. The two main characters are the Widower Mukesh and Aleisha Thomas.  Aleisha is a teenager working a summer job in the local library when Mukesh comes in to try to find something to read.  Neither of them is much of a reader at the start of the book, but then Aleisha finds a list of book recommendations and decides to start reading them and also to suggest the first book on the list to Mukesh.

As both of them embark on a reading journey, they also develop an improbable friendship which slowly deepens as time progresses.  Each of them has challenges in their families, as Mukesh navigates life after the death of his wife and Aleisha juggles her need to become her own individual with the needs of her mother and brother.  The lessons they learn from the books on the list help them find ways to handle their personal struggles and develop in new ways.

I loved how Adams weaves the books they are reading around the events happening in their lives in a compelling way. This story also shows us the power of community and how that can happen in a place like the library.

Highly recommended!

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Amazon First Reads – January 2025

This month, Amazon Prime members are able to pick two free books from a selection of ten from a variety of genres.

I picked these two:

There’s Something About Mira by Sonali Dev – a novel about Mira Salvi, whose perfect life is interrupted in an exciting way when she finds a lost ring and goes on an adventure to try to find the owner.

The Art of Starting Over by Heidi McLaughlin – a later in life romance between Devorah Campbell, whose marriage fell apart when her husband cheated on her, and Hayden McKenna, who lost his wife a year ago.

I’m not sure when I’ll get to them because I have so many books ahead of them on my TBR, but they both sound promising.

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Top 10 Books of 2024

2024 was a great year for reading for me.  I set a goal of 52 books and blew past it, finishing at a total of 99 books. Also, in the last few years I have not read much nonfiction, but in 2024 I finished 13, up from 4 the previous year. 

Without further ado, here are my top 10 reads from 2024:

  • No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
  • The Sister Effect by Susan Mallery
  • Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle
  • The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
  • Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookstore by Bo-Reum Hwang
  • Open House by Elizabeth Berg
  • The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
  • The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick
  • Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
  • The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers

What were your favorites this year?

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What I’m Reading – January 2025

A brand new year – so exciting! It’s fun to look back on the year that we have just finished as well as to look forward to the next twelve months.

What I’m Reading Now

I currently have three books out from the library, so I am listing them all under this section. Hopefully I will finish them all before the due dates!

  • The Taste of Ginger by Mansi Shah
  • Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
  • The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee

What I Recently Finished

Fiction:

  • The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg
  • The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick
  • Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
  • The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers
  • The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg
  • The Healer’s Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson
  • Return to Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth
  • Miss Amelia’s List by Mercedes Lackey

Nonfiction:

  • Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
  • UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality by Colby Martin

Short Stories:

  • When We Were Friends by Jane Green
  • The Answer Is No by Fredrick Backman
  • Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood
  • Merry After Ever by Tessa Bailey
  • All by My Elf by Olivia Dade
  • Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria Bellefleur
  • Only Santas in the Building by Alexis Daria

What I Added to my TBR

  • Happy After All by Maisey Yates
  • The Autumn of Ruth Winters by Marshall Fine
  • One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery
  • Wedding at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth
  • My Friends by Fredrik Backman
  • Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
  • We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes
  • Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry by Beth Allison Barr
  • Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table by Brandan Robertson
  • The Year of What If by Phaedra Patrick
  • The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance by Jemar Tisby
  • What Happened to the McCrays? by Tracey Lange
  • Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop: A Memoir by Alba Donati
  • Never Meant to Stay by Trisha Das
  • Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin
  • A Bookshop Christmas by Rachel Burton
  • The Second Chance Year by Melissa Wiesner
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  • Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory
  • The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
  • How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
  • Plymouth Undercover by Pamela M. Kelley

TBR Stats

  • I currently have 120 books on my TBR
  • Of those, 20 are nonfiction and 100 are fiction
  • All of the books were added in 2024

One of my goals for 2025 is to read 2 nonfiction books each month. I usually set an overall goal on the Goodreads Reading Challenge as well. Last year, I put down 52 and I ended up finishing 99 books. This year, I may be a bit more ambitious and put down 75.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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6 Memoirs to Check Out

I don’t read a lot of memoirs, so these go back quite a few years, but I highly recommend all of them.

House Lessons: Renovating a Life by Erica Bauermeister – I have greatly enjoyed her novels and equally loved this memoir of her time renovating a house and starting her writing career.  Both topics were equally fascinating.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb – I finished this in one day, it was so good!  She shares about her experiences with therapy, both as a therapist and as a client, and it was captivating.

I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag: A Memoir of a Life Through Events – the Ones You Plan and the Ones You Don’t by Jennifer Gilbert – While Jennifer’s story centers around a painful experience, her writing is filled with the determination and hopefulness that she has fought to recover in her life. In addition to her insights about her personal journey and close relationships, we also see how she brings the lessons she has learned to her professional life as an event planner.

Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber – A journey from agnosticism to Christianity. The story takes place over the course of a year and is set against the backdrop of time spent in graduate study at Oxford University in England, far from her home in Canada.  Highly recommend the book as well as the movie that followed.

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Riechl – So well written and such an intriguing account of how a food critic lives.  I loved hearing about the food she encountered but also the disguises she created in order to get regular treatment when she went out to eat for a review.

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of the Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure – I found this memoir to be extremely enjoyable and fascinating. I greatly appreciated the writing style as much as the content and laughed out loud at least a dozen times during the course of the book. I would definitely recommend this book to any and all Little House book fans.

Do you read memoirs? Are there any you recommend?